What are your thoughts on life after death? Where do you think we go when we die? Perhaps you think you’ll live eternally in a heavenly paradise surrounded by your loved ones. Maybe you don’t believe any of that stuff and think that when we die, we die. 

Whatever your beliefs, certain facts are inescapable. Once you are dead, your earthly body will perish along with you. This implies that, if there is an afterlife, it will have certain conditions attached to it. Like, for one, you won’t be able to see anything because you won’t have any eyes to see anything with. That goes for hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. So, there will be no Mozart symphonies in heaven, no slap-up feasts, and no listening to the dawn chorus either. Nor will you have any primal instincts. No physical longings, no hunger pangs, cravings, or urges. There will be no emotional states, no euphoric pleasure, no intense ecstasy. Well now, if you can’t indulge yourself and experience the finer things in life, you’d be forgiven for thinking this isn’t much of a heaven. I mean, what’s left if you take all of the good stuff away? 

Answer? Pure awareness. 

Pure awareness is a fundamental state of peace and tranquillity. This is what the afterlife will be like. You will feel completely at ease, totally consumed by a blissful serenity that will completely envelop you. Free from pain, free from hunger, free from thirst, free from suffering, free from the struggle of living. None of those hardships will matter. All of these troubles will wash over you unaffected. It sounds harmonious, because it is. 

But what if I told you you could have this experience in the here and now? What if I told you that many people all over the world live in this enlightened state every day? Swamis and Buddhist monks practice such deep meditation that they regularly reach states of pure awareness like this. 

The swami Sri Ramana Maharshi, who lived in India up until around 1950, lived in a state of deep meditation most of his life. So intense were his meditative trances that ants would be swarming all over him, biting him, and he wouldn’t notice. He wouldn’t eat, drink, or sleep. All day he would sit in the same deep state, meditating. It took the kind acts of others to carry him to the safety of a temple and get him the help and support he needed. His body may have been in an impoverished state, but his mind was anything but. In his mind, he was in heaven.

In his very brief book, Who Am I? He instructs us to think deeply about the question, ‘Who Am I?’ The following is my interpretation of his words:

“Peel away all the outer layers of self to get to the core, inner self.

This inner self is the pure you. It is pure awareness. The pure self has no worldly needs or superfluous desires. It makes no demands on you or the world at large. 

The pure self is at peace; it is free of fears, anxieties, and dark thoughts.

Thoughts are like the current of a river, sometimes flowing quickly, other times slowly, sometimes deep, often shallow. No thoughts matter. None are important enough to hold onto. Visualise your pure self on the banks of the river, sitting calmly, watching your thoughts go by. Let them drift in and out of your mind without attention. 

Meditate on a mantra, a sound, or God. This will help your mind become focussed. Meditating by controlling the breath will help, but this will only control your mind if your breath is calm. 

You are not your senses that help you engage with everything you interact with in the world. 

You are not your organs or the body parts that help you function. 

You are not your breath or the beating of your heart.  

Thoughts are the nature of the mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no mind. 

Therefore, thoughts are the mind. The external world comes to us through thoughts. Thoughts are how we create the world. Without thoughts, there is no world. Therefore, controlling thoughts is the path to the pure self. 

You are your pure self, you are pure awareness, devoid of thoughts, fears, anxieties, hopes and dreams. This inner self is calm, serene, and tranquil. It makes no demands and has no needs. 

The pure self is supreme, and in this state it finds true happiness, true contentment.   

Summary: The afterlife will be pure awareness. Not gardens, or feasts, or playing rock guitar with Ozzie Osbourne until the sun comes up. It’s incredible to think that we do not have to wait until we die to experience it. You don’t need to neglect yourself to the point of fatigue and exhaustion to reach it, but it does take focus, concentration and dedication. Strip away your ego, dig deep into the layers of life, and reach your subconscious, your inner self. The 1.0 version of you, devoid of trials and tribulations, free from the hustle and bustle, clear of the detritus of everyday living. Reach in and take that pure state of bliss that is within each and every one of us. Don’t wait until you’re dead to find it.