Dear Editor,
We live on a ball. It rotates on its axis at 1,000 miles an hour and hurtles through space at 67,000 miles an hour, on its trajectory around the sun. Yet, that glass of water on your table remains perfectly still. Day and night it spins. Day and night it brings. No turbine turns it. No turbine could. It is, as songwriter Paul Simon succinctly observes, “the automatic earth”. Is life random and meaningless? Physical laws have been established. Might there also be unseen realities? What happens when we die? Is there an afterlife? Reli-gions are premised on the concept of the eternal soul. The moral injunctions given by the faiths are for better living on earth and a reward in the afterlife. They teach that what you do in the here and now affects you – not only on this earthly plane, but in the hereafter. Without the belief in the effect of actions and survival of consciousness, morality becomes meaningless – except as a matter of con-science. What is conscience? And what is the nature of consciousness? At root, all of Guyana’s problems are spiritual. In fact – consciousness being the prime mover – all of the world’s problems are, at root, spiritual.
Light came from the East, in the form of the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Quran and other sacred texts. Throughout the centuries, scriptures have given guidance and comfort to mankind. In recent times, books which are critical of religious belief have gained prominence. Salient among these are “The end of faith” by Sam Harris, “The God delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “God is not great” by Christopher Hitchens. These writers adhere to the materialist paradigm and they point out the irrationalities and harm done in the name of religion. Powerful intellects all three – and there is truth in much of what they say – but are they throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Is it possible that what they see is only one side of the coin, perhaps a tiny fraction of the coin?
There has been a countervailing development; again, in recent times. A burgeoning literature has sprung up, pertaining to Near Death Experiences (NDE), the life review process, survival of consciousness, the afterlife, spontaneous After Death Communication (ADC), nonlocal reality and related topics. This exploration of Shakespeare’s “undiscovered country” is progressing at such a rate that it may fairly be described as a revolution – a peaceful but exciting revolution. In this, the West has taken the lead. In many instances, the writers’ backgrounds are in science and medicine, and they are better qualified – academically, professionally and experientially – than the cynics, skeptics and critics. There are some surprises, and the findings do not always comport with all aspects of everyone’s beliefs. How could they? Still, they lend validity to the view that there is more to reality than meets the eye.
Sincerely,
Sieyf Shahabuddeen
