One philosophy that permeates the modern way of thinking is that, after the death of the body, everything is finished. There is no continuation of consciousness, rather everything ends, and not even the energies manifest somewhere else in a different form. Such athiestic speculations are ruining society and this article aims to rectify the misconception.
If I told you that your wallet and all your money in it miraculously disappeared, you would not be pleased. In this hypothetical scenario, the moment your wallet had disappeared, the question: "Where did it disappear?" would have automatically appeared. Similarly, there is a theory proposed in the world which claims that our consciousness miraculously disappears when the body dies and a sane person naturally inquires: "Where would it disappear?" To say that your wallet just isn't anymore would provoke a suspicion in me. I would be naturally suspecting that my wallet disappeared from my pocket into your pocket. Things just do not magically appear and disappear. Only persons of child-like nature could be bewildered by tricks of a magician who miraculously make things disappear in his magical hat. A sane person can immediately spot a rascal who steals wallets from people's pockets. Similarly a sober person can understand that the "magical disappearance of consciousness" story is a mere crafty excuse to steal our identity from ourselves in order to plug our bodies into a soul-less mechanistic matrix-like system of exploitation of small animals by big animals that we call a modern materialistic society. If the consciousness arises simply by some favorable combination of chemicals in the body, it does not really matter that much. It is a mere illusory projection that the chemicals give rise to for the time being and as soon as the favorable condition changes into unfavorable, the projection of consciousness disappears from the screen of the already unconscious body. There are so many chemicals wasted in the modern welfare, but no one in the world laments for such a loss. Similarly, the natural conclusion of the accidental magical disappearance of the consciousness story is that life itself should not be lamented for since it has no real value. Thus exploitation, killing and abuse of other living entities can be fully justified.
We, the followers of the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, tormented by the regretful state of affairs in the world are always very adapt at pointing out the logical fallacy in such a proposed theory of magical disappearance. Suppose the consciousness is a mere temporary projection of the chemical composition of the body, we must ask as to who is the observer of such a projection? We have the experience of watching a movie on tv or in a cinema, which is nothing but a projection of still photographs in high speed on the screen. But when the movie ends and the projection is finished, me, the viewer of the movie is not finished. I continue existing and perhaps I go for a walk, take a bath or watch another movie. There is hardly any connection between the disappearance of the cinematographic projection and my existence as a viewer. Analogy necessitates the highest number of similarities between two different phenomena. Therefore the analogy of projection cannot be applied in this case. Although the movie shown is a projection, my act of viewing is not a projection. In fact every movie is created for the pleasure of the viewers. The higher the pleasure of the viewer, the higher is the success of the respective movie.
The proper and logical understanding of the phenomena of consciousness is that it is always there, while the material body is a mere projection created by the modes of material nature to facilitate the pleasure of the soul. Lord Krsna, the supreme conscious authority explains:
"As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change."
(Bg 2.13)
This statement is not dogmatic, but it deals with an experience that can be directly perceived by everyone. Our body has changed so many times, but we, the viewer of those changes, remain watching a movie called "life". Since my childhood body has been replaced cell by cell by my present grown-up body and I cannot perceive its existence anymore, it is as good as a dead body laying in a cemetery completely dispersed over a long period of time into nothingness. Its constituents are ever present by the law of preservation of energy. In other words, the energy that the material elements consists of does not disappear into nothingness. It simply changes its form. For example, the dead body becomes a fertilizer for the soil, from the soil a plants grows, the plant is eaten by an animal etc. But the form of that particular body is no more. This can be compared to the individual frames that the movie consists of. As soon as the frame is projected on the screen, it disappears forever from our sight. Similarly, all the various bodily "frames" are projected into the time and space of the material dimension by the modes of material nature, but the viewer, which is the atma, the spirit soul is always present as the viewer and thus the enjoyer of such a bodily form. When the old body is finished, it is a logical conclusion that the viewer, namely the spirit soul continues its existence in some other bodily form according to the karmic law of material nature. To say that the consciousness, which is the symptom of the soul in the body, disappears with the old body lacks scientific and logical basis and should be therefore delegated into the sphere of mere sentimental beliefs. A soul frustrated with the nature of material existence and unaware of his responsibilities in the human form takes shelter of such beliefs in order to hide the fact that he or she is living in this world simply to exploit other living entities in the name of "love". These non-sensical beliefs and their propagation give justification to violence both spiritual and material. Genuine lovers of mankind must vehemently wipe out such theories or at least expose them to a sane section of the society for the healthy progress of souls back to their spiritual nature. This is one of the purposes of the Krsna consciousness movement.
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