Examining the possibility of our ‘before’ and ‘after’ lives

July 23, 2025 · 0 Comments

MARK PAVILONS

“Whether you reach a lot of people or have a profound impact on a few people, their memories of you are your afterlife.”
Greg Graffin

We live our lives in the present, sometimes dwelling on the past, but mostly looking ahead to the future.
We don’t want to think about “what’s next,” but that very question will face each and every one of us.
I’ve been thinking about “after” and what it’s going to be.
Those faithful and spiritual types believe in “more,” an afterlife of well, everything. I hope that our energy – our soul – lives on.
So much has been written about life the afterlife, but what about the before life?
Before life explores existence before birth, and has been a subject of various philosophical and religious viewpoints.
Our existence is a miracle. Picture one of those huge spheres containing numbered bingo balls, bouncing around. Inside the sphere are 400 quadrillion balls and only one with your name on it. That’s the odds of you appearing on this side of existence!
Lucky, or predetermined?
The afterlife is a broad concept encompassing various beliefs about what happens after death, including spiritual realms, reincarnation, or nothingness. Nothingness creeps me out.
Different religions and cultures have diverse perspectives on the afterlife, such as heaven and hell in Christianity, reincarnation in Hinduism, or the concept of Sheol in Judaism.
The “Before Life” refers to the period before a person’s current life, which is often a subject of speculation and philosophical or religious interpretation.
Some believe that souls pre-exist before entering a physical body, while others might view it as a realm of potential or non-existence.
In Islamic thought, it’s believed that souls existed in a realm of pre-existence before being sent to this world. Hinduism incorporates reincarnation, and suggests a cyclical existence involving both before and after lives.
Are the two connected?
If you believe in the continuity of consciousness or the soul, it naturally raises questions about its existence before birth and after death.
David Eagleman once said: “We don’t really understand most of what’s happening in the cosmos. Is there any afterlife? Who knows?”
Has each individual human soul existed before mortal conception, and at some point before birth enters, or is placed into, the body?
Concepts of pre-existence can encompass either the belief that the soul came into existence at some time prior to conception or that the soul is eternal.
Throughout time, our fellow humans have pondered such things, from the Ancient Greeks, to Baha’i faith, and Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam and modern philosophy.
In the Hindu holy scripture – the Bhagavad Gita – Krishna tells Arjuna: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.”
And Hinduism espouses that everyone has pre-existed in another form.
A paper by Hameroff et al notes the origin of life may have been driven by conscious feelings right from the start.
Life on earth is envisioned to have begun in a “primordial soup” – an oily frothy liquid and nutrients. Simulations of this primordial soup in the 1950s found “amphipathic” molecules, the building blocks of cells and well, life.
These molecules didn’t evolve per se, they were present from the very beginning, enabling all life on earth. How does a unique molecule just “show up” and spawn all life?
Pre-existence is touched on in Christian doctrine, too. The Bible notes that angels and other spiritual beings were created by God before the creation of the world. Job 38:4-7 describes the “morning stars” and “sons of God” singing together at the creation of the earth, meaning they were around prior to the physical universe.
Religion aside, new research indicates our brains can potentially reach out to the stars in some strange way.
Proponents of panpsychism – that every material thing has some sort of consciousness – argue that the brain does not “create” consciousness but rather “filters” or “amplifies” a pre-existing consciousness that permeates the cosmos.
Wow.
And then there’s our pineal gland, a pinecone-shaped gland roughly the size of a grain of rice, which been called the “seat of the soul.” While it’s primary purpose is to secret melatonin to regular our sleep-wake cycles, many believe our “third eye” is apparently like a devine antenna.
Rene Descartes believed the soul is closely linked with the pineal gland.
Whether faith-based, philosophical or rooted in science, ideas of everlasting life seem to be less fiction, and perhaps more in the realm of possibility.
With each new glance into the cosmos by modern space-based telescopes and cameras, we’re uncovering even more mysteries. It’s one, never-ending pandora’s box of marvels.
The new waves of data are not just about planets, moons, stars and debris floating around the universe. It’s about a pattern, a commonality, a connection of it all. It’s like the universe has a sense of purpose.
There are billions of planets with billions of beings on them. Maybe some of the more advanced races have figured out this cosmic connection and live outside of the confines of time.
Physicists indicate time is fluid, non-linear where past, present and future not only co-exist but flow simultaneously. To what end, no one knows.
So my friends, maybe we always were, and are, and will forever be!