4. THE HEREAFTER

4. THE HEREAFTER ~ 81 ~ remains beyond our reach. But all around us, we have innumerable signs, which can help us, by analogy, to understand and appreciate the nature of the world to come. Imagine a room, which ostensibly consists of four walls, furniture, a few material objects and some human occupants. To all outward appearances, that is what the room adds up to. But the moment we switch on the TV set, we are introduced to a hitherto unsuspected world of colour, movement, and highly vocal human activity. This world, with its scenery and very alive human beings, had existed all along. It had only needed the flip of a switch to make us aware of it. Similarly, our terrestrial existence is made up of a world within a world. The world we know is concrete, visible, audible, tangible. The ‘other’ world, the world within it, or rather, beyond it, is not, however, one which can be apprehended through any of the normal human senses; no switch can be turned on to make us understand what it is really like. Only death can do this for us. And, when we re-open our eyes after death, we find that what had formerly been impalpable, and quite beyond human comprehension, is now a stark,