#52) The Afterlife and the Worth of Souls

Hello, and welcome back to "Always Be Better" with Mel Windham. Today we're going to switch over to the Spiritual Track. But before we start, I'd like to remind you that as I've said before, my goal is to have everyone enjoy these conversations, including people of different faiths, and even atheists. So, I will do my best to keep these discussions agnostic.

Also, I want these first three videos of this year to share a theme in common: the power of you. You'll see where this is headed by the end of this video.

And one last observation before we begin... When we touch on religious, philosophical, and spiritual items, it's impossible to rely on evidence and logic alone -- this is something I'll explain in a later video. Nevertheless, I find these topics intriguing and often important, because they are all connected to our human experience. I will not be providing a water-tight proof, but rather some unique ideas that are always fun to discuss.

I'll begin today's journey with a quote from my church's scripture: "the worth of souls is great." This comes from our Doctrine and Covenants section 18, verse 10. And other religions seem to have similar beliefs. The soul is something that is usually seen as being separate from our body, or an important part of our body that is in tune with spiritual matters. In other words, each of us has something inside of us that is very important. And thus we all have value.

In contrast, an alternate view in which there is no such thing as a soul, we are held to a more heartless reality: a survival of the fittest, or a dog eat dog world. If one doesn't accomplish anything in this world, then who cares? We're just a speck in a universe filled with quintillions of other insignificant life forms. In the grand scheme of things, we are Nothing. And everything's going to die in the big Heat Death trillions of years from now.

What if we were then to throw in something like an afterlife? Let's say that after our bodies die, something survives -- a spirit or a soul, and we still have experiences. Then, would our personal value increase? You can think about that for a moment while I describe a unique observation -- and here I would ask for you to stay with me till the end, because I want you to notice this as well -- and in the end, we're going to flip the script.

One thing that I've always wondered about is -- why is it I can't seem to get away from myself? In one of my earliest memories, I see credits rolling on a screen -- almost as if the beginning of my movie. As a young child, I imagined myself the star of the Melvyn Channel -- you know -- kind of like "The Truman Show," but in my own head? I would even make my own commercials.

Because, in my young head, I rationalized: if I can see everything that I'm doing, then why can't everyone else see it? I mean, I couldn't get into my mother's head and see what she did at work. Likewise, I couldn't imagine my father's view when I was in trouble and I was hiding from him. I couldn't see what he saw as he was looking for me.

Out of all the billions of people in the world, I could only experience me -- 24/7 -- sleeping or awake. And if there were quintillions of other beings throughout the universe, I was only that much more special. Kind of like when Zaphod Beeblebrox stared into the Total Perspective Vortex. (Oh, that's something you can look up.)

However, as I got older, I came to realize that I was only experiencing "perspective." That is, every single human being experiences this exact same experience. We're all stuck with ourselves for our entire lifetime. It's all a simple manifestation of our own consciousness.

Now, try this. Close your eyes and think back to your own earliest memories. Do you remember walking around your home? How about going on trips watching the world go by, but you're still there in the car? How about when you see yourself in the mirror and it's impossible to look at yourself without looking back? How about sleeping and dreaming?

Have you ever wondered why you're never outside of your own body? Or why you're unable to jump into someone's head and truly see, feel, smell, and hear everything they're experiencing?

Oh -- it's easy to imagine. You've seen videos from a first-person perspective. Your friends tell you stories and your brain can form images that approximate their experiences. Even now, you can probably imagine being in my head right now as I'm saying these very words -- but notice how it's all in your mind. You just can't get away from it.

Everything that happens in our world -- and even in the entire universe -- affects you, even if by the smallest degree. When you're looking up at a star, that's light from a distant sun that's traveled hundreds or thousands of years just to touch your eye. In the meantime, Someone in Thailand just coughed, and you may not notice -- they're too far away, but in a few weeks, molecules from that very small cough will enter your mouth. Either way, nothing in this universe seems to matter until you learn about it. The items that are much closer to you have more of a direct relation to you, and are thus much more important.

Now, I want you to imagine that you instantly stop existing. Maybe a sudden heart attack. What happens to the rest of the world? Your rational brain would tell you that they will keep on living without you, having their own experiences. But wait ... you no longer have a rational brain. And there is no longer any you to be told these things. You're gone, remember?

And perhaps you are now saying: Mel, it's not that hard to imagine everyone else continuing on. But again -- you can no longer imagine. You're gone. There is even no Mel here telling you these things right now. Whatever happens next, it just doesn't matter because you're no longer able to process anything. The rest of the universe might as well be gone. And even if you were to say -- well life will continue on because I don't have to be the one experiencing it, I could point out that eventually there will no longer be life in the universe. And then EVERYTHING would have been for nothing.

If you haven't already done so, you can go ahead and open your eyes. I have taken you through the Total Perspective Vortex, and some of you might be irreparably depressed, but let's look at this through another perspective -- this is where we're going to flip the script. The goal of this little exercise -- the closing of the eyes and engaging in this thought experiment -- is to get in touch with your own soul, and recognize it for what it is. This is a normal part of meditation. 

And if you were resisting me, and I hope you were, I posit that it was your soul protesting -- that it is actually impossible to stop processing inputs, which would imply something audacious. That perhaps there really is some part of us that continues living -- some kind of an afterlife.

When I look into my own soul like this, it really does feel like it's eternal. I've always been like this, and I will always continue to be like this -- there's no end. There is something special in there that I can't deny. It gives me hope and reason to continue on and keep pushing forward.

It's kind of like what I said in my Einstein video a couple of years ago. When Newton came out and put the universe in a gigantic grid, it revealed that no one was at the middle of the universe. But then when Einstein came around and gave us Relativity, it suddenly put EVERYONE and EVERYTHING into the middle of their own universe.

And this is how I want to flip the script. Because only you can experience you -- 24/7 -- sleeping or awake -- you really are the center of the universe. You are special, and you have nearly infinite worth. You really are one out of quintillions.

And with that, I would like for you to become fully aware of this, because then you can realize your full potential. This is the ONE thing no one can ever take away from you. And once you realize how much control you really do have, you will be able to do ... ANYTHING.

So, give it some thought. We'll talk about this some more in the near future. And I'll see you here next time on "Always Be Better."