Many Communities

Yesterday I talked about "should." I want to continue the topic and pull in the afterlife. Part of what makes our society challenging is we seem to hold values in differing levels of importance. Some place freedom of speech at the pinnacle while others hold to, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Some value meritocracy while others value equity. Who's right? Why do we have these differences?

So, as Americans who grew up under orthodox Christianity, we're familiar with the idea of heaven and hell. Depending on how you lived your life or what dogma you believed, you get sorted into one of two places. But that's not the only narrative available. Other sources paint a different picture.

Books like Echoes of the Soul by Echo Bodine, Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, and Secrets of Heaven by Emanuel Swedenborg talk about not two places, but various communities. They state that after we die, we get placed into communities that share the same values. So if you value equity, after you die, you will find yourself around people that all believe everyone should have the same living standard. If you believe in meritocracy, you will be placed in a community that values being rewarded for effort.

I'm not saying which idea of the afterlife is correct, or if there's an afterlife at all (though I have a very strong intuition that consciousness persists beyond death). All we have to go on is the experience of ourselves and others, and since no one has permantly died and come back (save near-death experiencers), we don't know for sure.

With a little imaginative thinking, the many communities idea has a certain consistency to it. Let's say we enter this world as blank slates. As we get shaped by parents, teachers and peers, we begin to figure out what we like and don't like. When we reach the end, we make a decision and go where we feel most comfortable. Swedenborg talks about heavenly and hellish communities, where heavenly communities are rooted in love and hellish communities are rooted in selfishness. The Law of One writings would call this being polarized into "service to others", or "service to self."

So maybe instead of trying to change people to become like what we want them to be, we can look at others and choose what traits we want to emulate or distance ourselves from. What desires we want to encourage or suppress. This world is a mix of likes and dislikes. Let's think about the differences between the two and figure out why ideas attract or repel us so we can make the best decision if we end up choosing our final community.