The Road to Paradise
Chapter 8
Why people believe that death is a complete cessation of life and existence
In our awake physical day-consciousness we cannot see our inner world of thought, for it is not directly accessible to physical sensory perception.
We can, however, experience with the physical senses those thoughts that are copied in physical matter.
We have also the same access to seeing our thoughts or mental manifestations as outer realistic phenomena on the spiritual plane, when the physical day-consciousness is transferred to this plane.
This transference from the physical to the spiritual plane of day-consciousness occurs when we fall asleep or in another way lose our awake, physical consciousness.
But as the physical consciousness does not constitute the entire consciousness or faculty for experiencing and creating, the loss of it does not mean that we have completely lost consciousness or the faculty to experience life.
Even if the being's experience through the physical organism and set of senses is not functioning, the being can fully experience and create in its inner world or primary world of thought.
It is just that in this state it cannot copy the spiritual experience and creation in physical matter, and thereby make it accessible to physical senses.
When the being wakes up again and becomes conscious on the physical plane, it cannot therefore remember anything whatsoever of the state of experiencing and creating it was in during sleep or physical unconsciousness.
This results in the belief that the being is completely unconscious during sleep, and that, when the physical organism cannot wake up any more and has therefore become a corpse and begins to decompose, it has completely ceased to exist as a living being.
From this emerges the belief in a real death or real cessation of the experience of life.