Life After Life?

I continue to be amazed today, by perception and reality. What is real and what is not? Is our belief in something enough to make it real, at least for us? Is our belief in an afterlife just wishful thinking? Is our faith in something beyond this world enough to make it so?

I recall a movie, The Matrix, that really made me think about what is real and what isn't. Everything this man thought was real really wasn't. He was in a pod, in a suspended animation sort of state, and he had wires and all sorts of gadgets hooked up to him and his "reality" was really being transmitted to his brain through these machines. What he thought was real was just an elaborate scheme, a dream. His life was created by a being who, for a reason I can't recall, wanted him in this suspended state and wanted him to believe his life was actually real. Everything he held dear, everyone he loved....just a dream. Once the wires were disconnected, it was over. Is that how it will be for us? Will our "wire" be disconnected and it will all just disappear? Will we wake up on the "other side" disoriented and wondering where we are? Will there be something there for us once our current reality is over? Will it be anything like anyone has ever imagined? That much...I have to doubt. I don't think we can conceptualize that sort of thing, as humans. Our human condition limits our ability to think in that way. We see the "other side" as an extension of this one, but really, it is probably something we could never conceive of, not even under the influence of the most mind altering drugs.

As a child I used to have a fanciful thought....that we are all just dreaming. That this world was a shared, collective dream and as each of us awaken, we would sit up and see our sleeping friends around us and just enjoy the view and wait for each of them to wake up. I have never really subscribed to the traditional view of Heaven and the after life, and my thoughts of a collective dream was my youthful attempt to understand just what might be out there.

I firmly believe in the energy in each of us, and that our soul is endless and boundless, however, I don't think we will even remotely resemble what we are today, here and now on earth. I don't pretend to know what it will be like, unlike some other folks who insist they have the road map to the afterlife.

I think I have raised more questions than answers here, and that's rather what I expected. I don't have any answers, just really annoying, thought provoking questions! Do I feel that belief in something makes it so? In many ways, yes, I do. I know that my belief in something can't make it so for EVERYONE, but certainly for ME. Is that enough to make it so? Is my desire enough fuel to start a fire? Again....more questions...

I just know there is something, and that we are all a part of it, connected to each other...eternally.