POLARITY
If
you chop a magnet into smaller and smaller pieces, even down to the level of an
atom, it maintains its polarity, north on one end and south on the other. Other opposites in the world such as night
and day, hot and cold, up and down, right and left, are just as persistent. We accept this.
When it comes to the opposites of life and death, however, we make an exception. We don’t really die, we say, but go to heaven, or something equivalent, or if we’ve lived “unwholesomely,” in the opposites of “wholesome”/“unwholesome,” we go to hell, or something similar.
But the fact remains, if we chop life/death into ever smaller pieces, down to the atomic level, there is no changing that life is on one end and death is on the other.
We are not, though, we argue, only our bodies. Our bodies die sure enough, obviously, but we have souls and those live on. All Western Religions teach this, after all, as do, for that matter, most all Eastern Religions.
Vedanta, for instance, says that the body does indeed die, but that the Atman in the body survives. Buddhism, which insists that nothing, at least nothing spiritual, lives on, admits that some something carries on, leading to reincarnation. Taoism, which is primarily oriented toward the living, still speaks of transformation and immortality.
Of course, we will all find out firsthand soon enough, we admit, well aware that if we make it past death we will know it. If we do not make it past, though, we will not know it; we will be dead. Polarity.
When it comes to the opposites of life and death, however, we make an exception. We don’t really die, we say, but go to heaven, or something equivalent, or if we’ve lived “unwholesomely,” in the opposites of “wholesome”/“unwholesome,” we go to hell, or something similar.
But the fact remains, if we chop life/death into ever smaller pieces, down to the atomic level, there is no changing that life is on one end and death is on the other.
We are not, though, we argue, only our bodies. Our bodies die sure enough, obviously, but we have souls and those live on. All Western Religions teach this, after all, as do, for that matter, most all Eastern Religions.
Vedanta, for instance, says that the body does indeed die, but that the Atman in the body survives. Buddhism, which insists that nothing, at least nothing spiritual, lives on, admits that some something carries on, leading to reincarnation. Taoism, which is primarily oriented toward the living, still speaks of transformation and immortality.
Of course, we will all find out firsthand soon enough, we admit, well aware that if we make it past death we will know it. If we do not make it past, though, we will not know it; we will be dead. Polarity.
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