LIFE AFTER DEATH
[edited transcript]
Perspectives and Proof,
Visions and Versions
Options and Offers
Ramesh Richard, PhD, ThD
www.rameshrichard.com
Greetings World! I welcome you today, to consider one of the hardest questions, the most influential controlling questions of your life and your death. But I’m going to present it in such a way that you can understand it and absorb it. In fact, let me do a guided discussion of the life after death perspectives and proofs, visions and versions, options and offers.

I welcome you to our website (www.rameshrichard.com). Please register there because as you think with me through the options, you will think of many questions. And as you hear me talk, you may want to talk back with me.

A Parable
First, a parable. A wealthy, powerful king called the wisest man in his court to find the greatest fool in the kingdom. He handed the wisest man in the court a fool’s staff and said, "Find me the greatest fool in the kingdom." And each day, the wisest man looked for the greatest fool in the kingdom and couldn’t find one. And he was actually left hanging and holding the fools staff. People laughed at the wisest man, they generated mockery against him.

One day, the king brought the wisest man into his presence and said, "I’m about to launch on a very long, long journey. I’m not going to return, except I don’t know my final destination." The wisest man said, "Ah ha! I have found the greatest fool in the kingdom. It’s you sir, your majesty." And he gave the fool’s staff back to the king. "Because you are about to start on a long journey, and you don’t know your final destination."

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a parable which may fit you. It fits me. We will commence on a long, long journey. It’s a final trip to the final destination. The question is whether you’ll be left holding the fool’s staff. This is a journey that you must take. There is no way that you and I can escape. When we depart from this life, the next journey will begin.

The issue is "What about our post-death situation?" "Where will we be going?" I wish this was an imaginary question, like the schoolboys who were tested by the fire instructor at a fire test drill. The instructor said, "Just imagine that you’re on the third floor and a fire broke out. What would you do to survive and escape?" "Simple" said a young fool, "I’ll escape by not imagining that there was a fire on the third floor." He was left carrying the fool’s staff.

The issue is that you and I have to decide. I’ve got good news for you. We should not plan our life around death, but we can plan our life around our life after our death. Now I don’t know if you want to think and talk about this. Presently the world’s richest man, by all public records, noted that he avoids talking about life after death because he is afraid of what the issue is. Perhaps the finest mind of the 20th century, Sir Isaiah Berlin said, "I hate death. I look forward to living forever, except I don’t know how to find the way to live forever."

Now you may not be able to avoid thinking about it, but you may avoid talking about it. I welcome you to our website because if you are thinking about it at all, we’d like to think along with you. And if you’d like to talk about it all, let’s keep talking for awhile. And let’s move each other to a firm offer, a sure option, and a safe and secure chance at life after death.

I’d like to look at this particular question under two headings:
1) Life after death: Is there a sure option?
2) Life after death: Is there a safe offer?

Life After Death: Is there a sure option?
First, life after death, is there a sure option?
As you look towards the future, there are basically three options, not four. These options automatically exclude the others. Let’s look at these three options of life after death.

1) Go Nowhere
The first option says you go nowhere. . . that when you die and they bury, you turn into dirt, or if they burn you, you turn into ash. It’s nowhere into nothingness. Pardon the pun, but nowhere is not a live option, is it? Nowhere into nothingness. . . you’re gone and that’s it.

There’s an advantage to that particular position. You don’t have to be accountable to anybody. In fact, you don’t even have to think. But there are some questions I’d like to ask about this nowhere option. How can you explain the global preoccupation, even an obsession with a global survival instinct towards life after death? Regardless of place or persons or cultures or religions or theologies or philosophies, there is always this sense around the world of looking for a different and better order, that something will be different in the post-life situation. Whether its Nirvana, or Moksha, or realization of oneness, or an extension into nothing, or an attainment of unity with something else, or eternal life into heaven, they are all looking for a different and better order of matter than they presently face. Indeed you can never be sure that there is no life after death. That’s why all over the world, you have that same sense, that there is something. . . a global survival instinct.

Come with me to the ancient civilizations of Assyria or Babylon in the Middle East. Come with me to Latin American cultures of Mayan and Incan heritage. Or come with me to the powerfully influenced regions of Indian and Chinese religion. Come with me to the contemporary practices of Africa or the South Pacific. In any context, you’ll always find a version of something else happening after death. The question is how come?. . . if you think there is nothing, anywhere at death?

And then you add the personal survival imperative. People all over the world before us have had a wish and want to somehow survive. They want to actually go into the afterlife. Depending on which religion, which philosophy, or which theology you pursue, there are various routes, some circuitous routes and some tedious routes as to how to obtain this different and better order. People are pursuing life after death.

If you came to the west with me, there is a science called cryonics. They actually have businesses built based on freezing your body at death, so that one day when the cause for death is found, they will help you resuscitate. And when you resurrect from the death, they will hopefully keep you alive, except we don’t know what will prevent you from your next death. Actually they need to figure out a way to pursue an anti-aging device through perhaps stem cell research and human genome influence and other medical advances to keep you getting younger. Otherwise you’ll come back to life the way you died. . . pretty old and haggard. Life insurance benefits are now sometimes used in order to find ways to live through and get frozen and become resuscitated again. I’m told that there are two scientists who work at the cryonics firm, and one man exclaimed, "I have found a secret of the afterlife. . . only it will take forever to test it."

There is a personal survival imperative and I’m not talking about the wish inside your culture, but rather the wish inside your very heart wanting to live past death. Why do you experience that? Maybe there’s an eternity set in your heart because of memory or longing or need. Philosophers call this the indirect evidence of reality. Have you noticed that everything else that you need, whether its food or sleep or drink or sex, if appropriately approached can all be met because that’s the w ay reality is constituted. Likewise, if there’s a universal longing and a personal imperative of a need and yearning for life after death, then the likelihood that this is how reality is constituted is something you must take into careful consideration.

But the real problem with nothing into nowhere, going nowhere after death, is that life is not just enough. I mean all these evildoers in the world who rape and kill will never be brought to justice because their death becomes equalizing and nothing can be repaid. Is that how life should be run, where there is no justice at all? So I want to ask you a very important question. Does death really have the last word? For if you go into nowhere, then this is the land of the living, but is this really the land of the living? This is the land of the dying isn’t it? You and I are going to die. This is not the land of the living. I believe it was Mark Twain, the great American writer who said, "Though not having found one atom of proof of a future life, I am strongly inclined to still expect the life to come" Why did he feel that way? Why do you sense that? Well, it’s probably because you’ve got eternity set in your heart. You have a memory, a longing, and a need. You’re not going into nowhere.

2) Come Back Here
The second option of life after death is the view that you come back here. You come back to this earthly order. This is often based in a basic belief called reincarnation, which says that somehow at death there is a transmigration of souls, and your life begins to inhabit another body. Depending on how you perform in this life, because of the law of Karma, you either go up the order of privilege or go down the order of privilege. If you lived and you performed reasonably well and skillfully and did well, you can ascend, but if you didn’t do so well and you lived badly, then you will descend.

It seems like there is anecdotal proof for reincarnation. It seems like some people have vivid memories and living memories or dreams of their past lives. Although not easily falsifiable, they hold it. And then there is the powerful phenomenom of children who are born with giant intellect or great talent in music or art, who seem to have been geniuses who have now inhabited the childrens’ bodies. But the best of all, reincarnation seems just, for whatever you sow, you must reap. Whatever you sow, your actions are entailed in what you come out to be in the next life.

I still have some questions about reincarnation that I’d like you to consider with me. . . with an open mind as a careful juror, not as a careless fool holding on to a fool’s staff. Please listen. If reincarnation is true, then this life itself is life after death. That’s why they say the slogan of the annual Reincarnation Convention is "Welcome back." A philosophy professor once asked his class, "Does anybody have experience in reincarnation?" and a quiet student in the back put up his hand and said, "No sir, at least not in this life." The student was being wise and honest because in reincarnation, this life itself is life after death. This is simply what you’ve got.

On the surface, the law of Karma seems to be providing justice, at least impersonally, a transcendental fatalism as it were. But if you look deeper into reincarnation, it has some greater problems in the issue of justice.

I want you to think that on the basis of reincarnation that Adolf Hitler who died in April 30, 1945 in Germany was born in immediately as Ravi Sharma in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) on May 1, 1945 as a quadriplegic and he did not have use of his atrophied arms and legs. He’s on the streets begging for help so that he may be fed and clothed. Reincarnation comes and says to him, "Ravi, the problems with you is that you were Adolf Hitler in the last life. You killed so many people and you deprived millions of people of independent thought, so now you are suffering the punishment for your sins as Hitler." Immediately, Ravi says, "Wait, please explain this to me. Why should I, Ravi Sharma born in Rangoon, because of the law of Karma have to experience the punishment for Hitler’s sins? I am not Hitler, I am Ravi, let Hitler experience the punishment for his sins. I shouldn’t be experiencing the punishments for Hitler’s sins. This is very unjust."

But the biggest problem with reincarnation is what we call the existential problem. Nobody that I know, who believes in reincarnation, is really looking forward to the next life. They want to escape the next life, they are not looking forward to coming back to the next life. Coming back here seems to give you some control of justice, but actually there is no control of your destination at all, especially if you don’t want to come back here. So the first option at death is to go nowhere. The second option is to come back here.

3) Relocate Elsewhere
There’s a third option. . . to relocate elsewhere. I mean, either in heaven or in hell for eternity. That is to have eternal life in heaven forever with God or eternal death in hell away from God forever. That’s the third option. Some time ago on the side of a bus, I saw a writing that said, "one life, one chance" The word chance can be translated luck, as in "You got lucky. You have a chance of winning the lottery." But the word luck can also be translated opportunity. And today, I want to give you an opportunity of the good fortune of being sure of your option of eternal life, and being safe with the offer of eternal life. Because if you’re relocating elsewhere, then the following premises are clear:

You only have one life. You only have one life and one death. You have one life, one death, and one resurrection (is that coming back to earth? No. It’s being raised from the dead). One life, one death, one resurrection. Fourthly, one judgment, which means that after you die, you’re resurrected and you face judgment for everything that you have done on this side of death. And fifth, one destiny, meaning, you either go to heaven or hell. Because of the nature of justice, nobody will be in heaven who should not be there and of course nobody will be in hell who should not be there either. What if we’re all headed to hell and have to change direction in order to come to heaven? Ponder that.

I hope you’ve registered on our website because as you think through these and other questions, I’d like to talk with you. In a moment, I’ll extend the invitation, more than just to our website (www.rameshrichard.com), more than just thinking or talking, but an invitation to a far more important proposition.

So we have finished now with the surest option. For you only have three options. 1) Going nowhere, 2) Coming back here, or 3) Relocating elsewhere. And all of these options are mutually exclusive. That is. . .

You can’t go nowhere AND come back here and relocate elsewere.
You can’t come back here AND go nowhere and relocate elsewhere.
You can’t relocate elsewhere AND come back here and go nowhere.
There is only one "you" in question and you have to decide.

I told you about that slogan on the side of the bus which said, "one life, one chance." I wish the person who wrote that slogan could’ve added to it by writing, "one life, once chance, one choice." Because you have to make a choice. I want to give you the safest offer. Life after death, the surest option is relocating elsewhere.

Now think about those questions. Think about those issues, about which view is most reliable. Which view is most prudent, full of wisdom and forethought so that you won’t be left with the "fool’s staff"? Think about which view is the most practical. Which is the least risky? In every other area of life, you have to consider risk. . . who you marry, where to locate, what job you should pursue. And so in the order of life after death, the issue is which view is least risky. That’s being prudent and practical.

If you’re prudent, you’ll ask a question like this.

"Which view really provides you a personal choice?" Or are you victimized by an impersonal karmic law or a whimsical divine will that there is no choice at all?

"Which view does not upgrade the next life and downgrade this life, or upgrade this life and downgrade the next life, so that death is simply a seamless transition from this life to the next life?"

"Which view is confirmable, substantiated, and verifiable?"

"Which view has the same condition and criteria for the entire human race, wherever there is human instinct and a personal wish to survive death?"

To answer those questions, you’ll be prudent, but since you’re very practical, you also going to choose the least risky option.

Life After Death: Is there a Safe Offer?
Is there a safe offer for life after death? There is a safe offer. Think with me on this matter. I’ve just finished reading a very large book by the finest contemporary researcher, writer, secular, and leading sociologist on the problem of the afterlife. In examining near death experiences, he asks this question that each person must consider. He says, "Can there truly be scientific testimony of a person who visited the abode of the dead and came back with a verifiable travelers report?" This means that if such a person existed, he would be the most authoritative source on the offer of life after death. Let me repeat that question. "Can there truly be a scientific testimony of a person who is presently alive who visited the abode of the dead and came back with a verifiable travelers report?" Consider the question. He was really giving us four potential sources for information about life after death.

Four sources
1) The first source of a safe after life offer is somebody who has never lived and therefore never died. Fictional persons, mythological figures, fairy tale characters have never lived and therefore never died. And many ancient religions are built on these thought up characters. But they are not a reliable source for life after death and a safe life offer.

2) The second source of a safe after life offer is somebody who is presently alive and not yet dead. Philosophers and preachers and researchers and romanticists, they fit that category. They are presently alive and are not yet dead. But they are not a creditable source of information on life after death because you can be as much an authority as they are. They can spin the theories, but theories are not proof.

3) There’s a third potential source of a safe after life offer. Somebody who lived and died and stayed dead. Gurus, prophets, founders of religions, and emperors kings have all fit into that category. They lived, died, and they stayed dead. How would you go to them as a credible, reliable source for what happens in life after death? You may have to consider spirit mediums but you still have the problem of access and verifiability. Is it really true that they give you a safe after life offer?

4) The fourth potential source of a safe after life offer is somebody who lived, who died, and came back to life.

Now as I look at the four offers, somebody who lived, died and came back to life is the best candidate and the most authoritative source for a safe after life offer, because it’s the only one who has known the other side of the story and has come back with a verifiable travelers report for you. Actually, in history, there is one such case. . . one such verifiable confirmable travelers report.

You can live until the end of history to find out about the report, but it may be a little too late. You could wait until the end of macro history until everybody ends up where they’re supposed to going, but that won’t be good enough either. You need a safe after life offer before you die, in time not a little bit too late, so that you can have confidence of the safe after life offer.

A Verifiable, Confirmable Travelers Report?
Is there a person who gives you not only a promise, but also a guarantee? There are other people who can say you relocate in heaven or on earth, but there is only one person who guarantees you that he can take you to your eternal life in heaven. This person came back from the dead in the only confirmable, verifiable travelers report in all the history and claims of humanity.

It’s a pretty bizarre claim isn’t it? But it’s an easy claim. It’s bizarre because it’s saying somebody came to life after death. But it’s an easy claim because it’s one of the easiest ways to go ahead and establish the evidence of such an event. Any open jury will look at this particular event and come to a conclusion because this particular presentation of the evidence says that there are multiple attested sources of eyewitness’ testimony, of credibility in material respects, as well as passing the test of objectivity and verifiability, and then the elaborate circumstantial evidence, which not only will convince a jury, but will actually require the jury to establish the case. That is indeed the situation right now.

This one person who came back to life after death with the safe after life offer, do you know how he went about doing that? First, he predicted that he would die. Now anybody can predict that he will die. You can predict that, and that’s easy to verify. But not only that, he predicted that on a very verifiable third day, he’d come back to life. That’s easy to check up on too. On the third day, you can find out if the person comes back to life. You can go ahead and you can predict that, but you’ll only be making noises, not promises or guarantees.

Actually, the story of this resurrection is quite well known throughout our history. . . so well known that it generated another story that you may not have heard about it. I’m told about a man and his ever nagging wife who went to Jerusalem for a vacation. Unfortunately, she died. The Jerusalem authority said that she could be buried for about $150, or take her back home for about $5,000 in travel and burial costs. The man did not hesitate to say that he wanted his ever nagging wife’s body to be sent back home. And the Jerusalem authority said, "Why would you want to spend $5,000 when you can get rid of the body for $150?" The man said, "Sir, a long time ago, I know that somebody was buried in Jerusalem and he resurrected on the third day. If that is true, I don’t want to take the chance with my wife, the fact that she may resurrect."

This person predicted that on the third day, he’d come back again, and he was checked out to be right. The best part of it all is not only does he come back to life on the third day, he also makes the safest offer of eternal life that you and I consider. I’ve given you hints all through the program that the person I’m talking about is the Lord Jesus Christ. He lived and he died and he came to life in the only verifiable travelers report. And therefore, today I am not speaking to you as a bystander, but as a critic. I’m not speaking to you as a witness, but as a juror. I’ve looked at the evidence and want to present him to you as the surest option and safest offer for your own life after death.

In one of his presentations, he said this

"I tell you the truth, that anyone who hears my Word and believes on Him who sent me, has eternal life. And shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life"

Consider those words with me phrase by phrase. First Jesus says, "I tell you the truth". This is true truth. This is not a theory, this is truth. This is not mythology, this is truth. This is not opinion, this is truth. This is not perspective, this is truth. "I tell you the truth. . . "

". . . that anyone" from whatever nation, religion, background, caste, place. . . anyone regardless of environment or family, anyone who hears my word. You are right now hearing (or reading) his word, even as I speak you’re hearing (or reading) his offer. . . . ". . . hears’ my word and believes on him who sent me. . . " Most of you believe on the God who sent his Son. Some of you don’t believe him. Others of you believe in other gods. But if you believe on the God who sent Jesus, not just believing that He exists, but believing in him, on him, not only thinking about him and talking about him, not only working for eternal life and trying to attain eternal life or spinning your own theories, but believing, resting, trusting, taking him, believing on him. . . "[you] have eternal life." You HAVE eternal life, already right now. Not you may have eternal life, there is no contingency, there is no risk. Not you shall have eternal life in the future. We’re not talking about future life only. We’re talking about eternal life right now. You can have eternal life, right now. And then whenever you die, you go on into eternal life with God forever in heaven. The last phrase says, "has passed from death to life" Not MAY pass, but has already passed from condemnation into life. You’ll never come into condemnation.

The reason you and I are under condemnation (we don’t have to do anything to go to hell, we’re already under condemnation) is because we’ve not pleased God. We’ve done many things wrong. We’ve not met his expectations. We’ve sinned. In fact, your upcoming death and my upcoming death is proof that we are under condemnation, because the penalty for sin is death. But what the Lord Jesus did when he died was to pay for the penalty of your condemnation and my condemnation, for your sin and my sin. When he came back to life, that was proof that God had accepted what Jesus had provided. Because fakes and frauds and liars and hypocrites and pretenders won’t be resurrected from the death, only truth can be resurrected from the dead, never ever to die again.

Jesus says, you will never come into condemnation, you have passed from death to life. One life, one chance, one choice. You cannot assume that you’re going to heaven. You cannot assume that you’re not going to hell. But today you have a choice. . . that you can actually receive eternal life, even as I am talking, trusting the Lord Jesus as the only authoritative source for you to possess eternal life.

A Basis for Belief
Not long ago, I was in the land of Egypt. In Egypt, they know how to take care of the dead. From millennia, they mummify the bodies. They mummify the bodies of the ones that they thought could provide them hope for the future. They took their emperors and put them in executive class boats to take them into the abode of the dead. They gave them very fine cotton-filled pillows so that they can rest eternally well. One emperor actually mummified his liver. They did all sorts of things like embalming anything that could be living in order to make the passage into eternity just right. There was even an emperor who had a golden diadem crown. A 19th century Egyptologist went to this land to excavate. They found that they had too many mummies. From millennia, hundreds and thousands of years, they had mummified and they had too many mummies, too many of these embalmed remains. And what the Egyptians had done, was they took these mummies and made thatched roofs for their huts. And they sent the mummy remains to the west in order to make fine paper out of them. And for Egyptian locomotive train engines, they took the mummies and turned them into fuel because wood was scarce in Egypt.

And as I pondered it, all of these original mummies when they were sent off to life after death were well-intentioned, but their belief was absolutely baseless. What the Lord Jesus does is he takes your well-intentioned desires and says, I’ll give you a basis for belief. I’m the only one who has lived, died, and risen from the dead so that you can put your trust in me and I will be your surest option and your safest offer of life after death.

One life, one chance, one choice. I don’t want you to be left with the fool’s staff. Come to our website, write to me, let’s engage. I’ve left the fool’s staff. I’m not holding it, and I don’t want you to handle it either. We shouldn’t plan life around our death, but you can plan for life after death. Thank you very much.
© 2007 Ramesh Richard. Please reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit Dr. Ramesh Richard, (2) no modifications are made, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you do not make more than 100 copies, (5) you include the Web site address www.rameshrichard.com on the copied resource. For placing this material on the Web, a link to the document on our Web site is preferred. If your intended use is other than that outlined above, please contact info@rameshrichard.com.