I think there’s a chance that after we die, a seemingly infinite amount of time passes before we are reborn as someone or something else, with no recollection of our previous life, and that this process continues forever. Our new life could be anywhere, from our planet to another universe, or even another realm of existence. In this view, everyone who has ever existed and ever will exist is ultimately the same consciousness, but only one lifetime can be experienced at a time, with no memory of the others.
I wrote a long dissertation about this idea when I was in high school after having a sudden “eureka” moment where it all clicked for me. I shared it on several philosophy boards about a decade ago. The title of the dissertation was “Could Separateness and Death Be Illusions?”
It started with me wondering why I see out of my own eyes and not someone else’s. Then I thought: I could just as easily have been born as someone else instead of myself. From there, the idea followed that maybe I am everyone else, just experiencing one life at a time. It all made sense: I am everyone.
My main argument for this hypothesis is simple: if there is enough time for something to happen, it will eventually happen. The idea that there could be something and then nothing, or living followed by permanent nonexistence requires two steps to justify. The idea that there is always something, or simply continued being, requires only one.
But I don’t think this would necessarily be a good thing, because suffering would never truly end. It would mean we could all actually be in hell and not even know it. Imagine experiencing the suffering of every Holocaust victim over and over again forever, again and again without end.
In the meme, the large figure resembles ‘the Universe,’ while the small Digletts connected to its hand represent individual humans who go underground after they die and come back up when the are reborn. The caption ‘The universe pretending to be individuals’ illustrates the philosophical idea that all conscious beings may actually be the same underlying consciousness experiencing itself from different perspectives.
Does anyone else ever think about this and find it frightening? How do you deal with knowing you’re going to suffer forever? 😟