That my 9 year-old son John will be baptized today on Easter of this year bears meaning I can’t yet comprehend.
Christina’s death is leading me to revisit questions about the afterlife. In fact, during our last phone conversation, Christina spoke about her perspective of life and afterlife, the soul lessons she was struggling to learn, and how when you die, you cross a river to cleanse yourself. The river is like the amniotic waters that bring you into this world, a baptism. It reminded me of the stream my grandmother saw just weeks before she died. Christina and I talked like this often, so this conversation wasn’t out of the ordinary, but because she died by suicide six days later, I now know she was preparing for her afterlife.
Naturally, I’ve since pondered “what happens when we die.” Who knows what happens, but these days I can’t quite detach from the mystery about a life’s energy after it is no longer materially available for the human five senses to perceive.
The afterlife is commonly depicted across literature, art, theology, and colloquial belief systems in binary terms of heaven or hell, as I once believed. But my perspective shifted at some point in my twenties, and it continues to evolve, especially as I experience Christina now. In this post I provide my musings about the afterlife. In some ways I draw upon ancient texts and current scholarship to support my ideas. But mostly, I dream.
A few years ago, I began to think of heaven and hell as concepts that represent the extents of human consciousness. To me, the opposing poles of heaven and hell are not fixed eternal realms to which we go when we die, but rather are mutable eternal realms of existence while we’re alive. The opposing poles are conscious awareness and hidden subconsciousness, but neither is fixed. Humans have the opportunity during our material existence to integrate the two. We get to explore the watery depths of our subconscious selves and bring hidden parts of us up above the surface into our consciousness, like fishermen do. We can be fishers of men, of us.
I think of heaven as the eternal state of all truth: The Revelation. And I think of so-called hell as the eternal state of every denial. The Veiled.
The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus helped me reach this view of heaven as the truths of us, and hell as our denials. In Luke 16:19-31 the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus goes like this:
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
I interpret the rich man and the beggar Lazarus as the same person.
After several years of working with my subconscious self: my denials, repressions, gestations, and other unknown truths, the rich man’s rejection of the beggar Lazarus was all too familiar. I know what it’s like to reject the part of me sitting at the gate of my awareness. For nearly 40 years of my life, I would say, “That’s not me!” about the parts of me that weren’t supposed to be me, but very much were me. I know what it’s like to close the gate on myself. I also know what it’s like to open the gate and integrate difficult truths about myself and others.
This parable shows what happens when people do not integrate the poor, sick, wounded, socially rejected side of themselves. We all have this side of ourselves, parts of ourselves that are hard to face. Perhaps we hurt someone. Perhaps we don’t feel competent or are threatened by others’ success. Perhaps we want to be strong and in control, or we think we can’t be angry, or we feel we must believe a certain way, or we’re too embarrassed to admit a mistake. Perhaps we think we are supposed to be hard-working, sacrificial, accommodating, successful, productive, knowledgeable, liked, helpful, good, and nice to everyone.
But then what about all the times that we’re not? Some people will just call those times sin, so they don’t have to deal with it beyond a simple, “don't do that,” or “that’s not me,” while rejecting the parts of themselves that verily, truly, absolutely exist. Like the beggar Lazarus.
The rich man likely told himself that he wasn’t ever deficient or in need. After all, he lived in luxury and dressed in fine linens. I presume that those in his proximity noticed his riches, a symbol for security and comfort. This gave him a sense of social acceptability, worthiness.
On the other hand, the part of him that sat at the gate every day begging to be seen was the part of himself he rejected. “I’m not sick. I’m not vulnerable. I’m not someone others reject.” But despite the rich man’s efforts to shut out his undesirable beggar self, that part of him persisted, waiting to be allowed in.
Lazarus the beggar sat at the gate, just like the truth of us sits at the threshold of our conscious awareness, pleading to be allowed into our state of knowingness, our state of acceptance, our state of truth. The truth of us wants admission into our revelation, The Revelation.
Because the rich man rejected the vulnerable truth of himself, he created illusions of himself, making sure everyone saw him as secure, desirable, and comfortable. He created illusions of himself to make sure he felt secure, desirable, and comfortable, even though he wasn’t. The Veiled.
This is why he experienced the fire.
Lizzo knows, truth hurts. Repressing it only fans the flames, resulting in tremendous agony after being thrust into a state in which you have no other choice but to accept the truth. It’s a difficult process of facing, accepting, loving, expressing, creating, and birthing the truth of you. I’ve experienced the burning ring of fire when realizing the truth I had previously repressed. And I’ve also experienced the comfort of finally accepting and loving my shameful self after bringing it into my awareness. These are states we experience while living.
The rich man experienced the pain of torment because of his own lies about himself. When the really hard truths are not expressed, they don’t simply go away. They stay at the gate, making themselves known every day. They lodge themselves into the crevices of our bodies and minds, tormenting us as they continue to alert us to their existence.
Using self-deception, the rich man created the chasm between The Revelation and The Veiled by never opening the gate to integrate his beggar self while he was alive. I suppose the process of integration can’t happen after one has died because the energy realm is only energy, but the material realm is both. Therefore, when you experience a separative opposite, like the human existence does, you can integrate them. It seems that the more parts of ourselves we bring into our awareness while we’re living, the more of us exists in The Revelation.
But it’s not that our soul gets split up after death, fragments going to a life of comfort and other fragments going to the fire. The split is during our lifetime, and it is between conscious awareness and unconsciousness. These are the mutable realms of eternal existence. But what about after physical death? When we’re no longer integrating the binaries of this world and of us? I like to imagine that our soul goes to a state of only consciousness, The Everything. Oneness. The place of all existence, Divine Fullness.
Truth Resurrects
The beggar Lazarus is the namesake of the actual Lazarus of Bethany, the man Jesus raised from the dead, suggesting a deeper meaning about what lives after death and why.
As a reminder, in the parable the rich man begs for beggar Lazarus’ resurrection to earthly life, so that “someone from the dead” may go warn his brothers about the torment. Abraham denies him, saying, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Like Lazarus did. Lazarus rose from the dead. As the story goes in John 11:
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days,7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”
Notice the symbolism in the verses 9 and 10. Light. Darkness. Light symbolizes that which has been revealed. Darkness symbolizes that which is hidden. So I interpret Jesus’ symbolic speech as this: Seeing by “this world’s light” so that one “will not stumble” refers to the truths right in front of us and right within us, guiding us. Truth lights the way, even when people want to stone you for it. Those who walk in darkness are living in self-deception, like the rich man.
Before moving forward I must note that current scholarship questions the veracity of Martha as a sister to Lazarus of Bethany. In early manuscripts, it appears that scribes changed the name Mary to Martha, and they made other strange edits, like making the word sister plural. In other words, Martha was added to this story.
I must also note that scholars believe this Mary to be Mary Magdalene. Therefore, Mary Magdalene is likely the one who gave the christological confession in following passage, not Martha, saying, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who has to come into the world.” This would mean that Mary Magdalene fed Christ, anointed Christ, confessed Christ, witnessed his death and resurrection, and was the first one to tell about it. In other words, Mary Magdalene was a primary authority of the gospel, if not THE authority. Her name means tower-ess like a priest, a title not only reserved for Peter.
In the following verses, the current Bible text portrays Jesus talking to Martha, when again, there is evidence that original manuscripts say he is actually talking to Mary Magdalene here:
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” …
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
Believe is repeated seven times in this passage. Clearly, the reason Jesus resurrected Lazarus was so that people would “believe” that the “Father” sent him. So why would Jesus resurrect Lazarus to help people believe when parabolical Father Abraham wouldn’t?
Jesus’ version of Abraham refuses to bring Lazarus back to life because he doubts that it will make any difference to his brothers. But why? Didn’t his character believe that the rich man’s brothers could change? No, he didn’t, apparently. There was enough evidence that the rich man was firmly committed to self-delusion during his lifetime. Thus, his “brothers” - perhaps referring to men like him, not necessarily men connected through blood - would also be committed to their self-delusion regardless of how much they are confronted with the truth, even if they were confronted with Lazarus.
Truth resurrects, but not everyone believes in truth, even when it’s presented right in front of them. Even when it’s the truth of themselves.
If Jesus embodies full, whole truth, then of course he would correct Mary by saying, “I am the resurrection,” in response to her after she presumes her brother Lazarus will rise on the last day. Jesus is saying I am the resurrection because I am the truth.
Jesus wanted Mary and the onlookers to believe that life is truth and truth is life. He goes on to say: “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” By substituting “truth” for “me” the sentence reads: The one who believes in truth will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in truth will never die. In other words, the truth of us never dies.
Jesus integrated every opposing truth of himself, most notably, his human and his divine selves. His descent into “hell” in Ephesians 4:9 was his journey to his underworld, his subconscious, The Veiled. To live in full truth, you must go into your underworld in order to integrate and bring the whole truth of you into The Revealed. We can do this too. Full integration into wholeness is what makes Jesus the way to follow. It shows that he is the truth. It makes him the life that never dies.
The more we can live in truth, reality, in that which exists, then the more we live in eternity. Not what someone else says is true. Not truth as institutionalized dictates. Not a universal dogma as truth. This kind of truth is the reality right in front of your face. The truth within your body. The truth in your underworld. The truth that says, “Yes, that is me. And that is you.” This kind of truth simply exists.
The John 14:6 verse, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” has been perverted in disgusting ways to gatekeep and exclude people of religions other than Christianity from divine legitimacy. This verse is not about being a Christian to get into heaven. For crying out loud. It’s about living in truth. It means: No one comes to revelation personified (The Father) except through full, whole truth (Jesus).
Coming to The Father means moving toward that which can be exposed. Revealed. In the light. Father is just a personified representation of one who reveals. (Think reproductive organs, not as determinants of gender but as material symbols of our bodies’ divinity to integrate life). So of course the Father lives in The Revelation. And of course so does the Son, the personified representation of that which has been birthed into the light, borne from the wholeness of integration.
But you can’t be born again without the dark gestation of The Mother, transformation personified. The Mother’s energy is the reason we’re all here. She’s the reason we can create, too. Whatever you birth, express, or create is what enters into the light, into Revelation. Even when you express a lie, that lie has now been revealed as such - the truth of your denial. But lies disrupt our own processes of integration and lead to separation, like the rich man and beggar Lazarus. The denials will feel the agony of The Veiled while the truth remains in The Revelation.
The born-again power of The Mother is a process. Like conception and birth, there will always be the darkness of the not-yet-revealed, just as there will always be the light of the revealed because the fundamental nature of life is movement. Light is where truths are exposed, whether the truths are uncovered or born. Darkness is where truths are hidden, whether buried or in gestation. Just as often as the earth rotates, we regularly face, integrate, and birth the truths of ourselves into wholeness, dark into light. Doing so is the essence of the human experience. People of all faiths, even atheists, integrate truth, and it’s how we commune with the divine in this life and the next.