What happens after you die? Do you feel that your spirit rise above your body? Are you going to hear people talking about you? (Hopefully, you're going to hear nice words, although that might be wishful thinking..) Or are you just "not anywhere"? "Nothing"? Or are you going to see white light, and heavenly things surround you?
I've been mulling over this issue for some time. This is not the first time. When I was in my twenties, I spent some time thinking about it. It made me realized that really, life is special. Life is precious. And if you think about it, a lifetime is very short (compared to the age of this universe).
But it also got me scared. What really happens after you die? Regardless of what your belief, you wonder about the details. I don't know, maybe it's the human side of us, always curious, always wonder. Even though, when you're dead, can you really do anything about it? I mean, before you die you can always try to be good and do good to other human being. Not that it's easy. But you just have to try. Once you're dead though, you can't really do anything about yourself.
Well, at the first time I give this some thought, I got scared. Then I asked my younger sister. (You probably think why the heck I ask a younger person!) Yeah, I should've known better. Should've asked an older, wiser person. Because my sister said that she also thought about it once. She also got scared, so she just tried not to think about it. Huh??!
So, a couple of months ago, my family and I were looking around at a bookstore in Jakarta. Suddenly, right in front of my eyes, there was a book called "90 Minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper. In his book, Don wrote about his experience of death for 90 minutes and returning to life. He also wrote about why he needed to write this book, and his life after death.
The book is not boring at all, I mean, considering that Don IS a priest. And his life after premature death IS NOT easy. It was filled with excruciating pain while he was struggling to get better. He had to endure countless operations. He got depressed. He asked God why he had to go through so much pain when he already got a taste of what heaven was like.
Now, this is the interesting part. He described in vivid detail of what heaven was like. He got to meet dear old friends, loving relatives (of course, they all died already). It was very friendly, very loving. There was great warmth. And, there was music! Great music!
Of course, the book doesn't instantly make you go lalala towards death. I think you need to dig deeper in your belief to have calmness about death. But it gives you a glimpse of life after death. That it's very real, no more real than life on earth itself. I guess, it's an ongoing process.
