Life After Death - Part One

"Life After Death - Part One : "Rebirth in the Four Unhappy Planes" deals with the incidence of Rebirth of beings in the Four Woeful States of existence enumerated by the Buddha as the Hells, the world of Asuras, the World of goblins (Petas), and the animal realm. Through super-normal knowledge gained after attaining Enlightenment, the Buddha found out that there are in all thirty one Planes of existence of whatever kind in the Universe and these comprise the afore-mentioned Four Unhappy Planes and the Twenty seven Blissful Planes. The Blissful Planes are inhabited by Celestial beings in the Six Heavens and Brahmas in the Twenty-one Brahma worlds. The human realm is categorized under Blissful Planes because there is both pain and pleasure in the human realm. Actually Blissful Planes start with the human realm on earth as its lowest.The subject of Rebirth itself is even at the present time a highly controversial issue with more than half of the inhabitants of the globe disbelieving in it. However, there is growing evidence surfacing in the fields of child progidies, hypnotherapy, and so on supporting the theory that there is life after death. The Budddha saw through His super-normal vision that all beings are born and repeatedly reborn in one or other states of existence, whether they like it or not, until they work out their own liberation by the attainment of Nibbana some day. To make matters easy, He has said that all who are interested in putting an end to rebirth should try attaining at least the First Stage of Sainthood named as Sotapatti, in this very lifetime itself.The book emphasizes that those who commit evil actions through mind, body, and word are destined to be born in the Unhappy Planes after death and those who do good through mind, body, and word (the three doors) are bound to be born in the Blissful Planes. The book gives a vivid description of the Hells, Asura and Peta worlds, and the animal world- the Four Unhappy Planes as quoted by the Buddha in the suttas. A Call to Action is made at the end to inspire humans to attain Sotapatti by following some simple guidelines prescribed by the Buddha.