AFTER DEATH JOURNEY
EGYPTIAN AFTERLIFE AND SPIRIT WORLD
Article about The After Death Journey and the Egypian view of the afterlife. About the After-Death Journey and the Egypian Afterlife. What is the after death journey like? NDE revelations about the journey of the soul after death. The after death world. .
CLICK FOR BOOK INFORMATION
The Journey to the Next World
The Zen master Gudo was asked, “What happens to an enlightened man after death?”
Gudo replied, “How should I know, I haven’t died yet.”
Since the earliest times, mythology and religion have used allegories of a journey to represent the transition to the next life. The earliest peoples associated the death journey with the dawn of the sun and its journey across the sky. To early man the sun was immortal, as it “died” every evening, traveled through the underworld, and was “reborn” every morning. They therefore buried their dead facing the position of the rising sun and covered the bodies in red ochre to symbolize new blood and life. Confident of their rebirth, the Neanderthal mourners of 60,000 years ago supplied their dead with the adornments, tools, and food needed when they returned.. These rituals may date back to the times before our evolution into Homo sapiens.
AFTER DEATH JOURNEY ACCORDING TO THE EGYPTIANS
 The symbolism of a journey is taken up by other early religions, in particular the ancient Egyptians. During the Old Kingdom, the sun god was Ra, who gave immortality to the collective state through the pharaoh, his son. Consequently, only the pharaoh could attain immortality and there was no solace for the common people.
Much of our understanding about their ideas comes from The Egyptian Book of the Dead, now accurately translated as the Book of Going Forth by Day. It contains a large number of funeral texts spanning the entire history of ancient Egypt. It is a guidebook about how to behave in the afterlife, providing lots of tips to help you get a good deal. In particular, there are the stock answers and spells you will need when the god Osiris asks about your life and sins. He will weigh the deceased’s heart and then judge his soul according to the good and bad deeds done on earth. The power-obsessed Pharaohs took care to have a spell or two handy to ensure passing the test.
In later periods, the Egyptian hierarchy were also given these spells, and also anyone who could afford to pay for them. Provided the soul had purity of heart, it coexisted with the gods in the afterlife. The Egyptians also believed in a sort of astral double, that they called the ka, which was the guardian spirit or life force. This ka looked exactly like the person and would spend time after death hovering around the tomb. They also spoke of the ba. Associated with the breath, or soul, this was the source animating the person. It was represented by a human-headed bird.
AFTERLIFE JOURNEY:
Egyptian Techniques for Buying Your Way into Heaven
 According to the Egyptians, the soul sets out, staff in hand, on its journey to the Osirian Field of Reeds, which is a happy place where the dead enjoy the rewards of the afterlife. It was considered to be in the general direction of the Milky Way, the Great White Nile of the sky. The soul is taken into the divine realms in the boat of the sun god Ra, as he makes his way across the sky.
The passenger would disembark in the underworld when the sun set in the west and be taken though one of seven gates. Escorted by a jackal-headed god or a faithful dog, the soul enters the Hall of Truth and is brought forward to be judged by Osiris.
 Osiris then weighs the soul against a feather. If it does not tip the scales, the soul is deemed worthy and is given entry into the Osirian Fields. However, if the heart is heavy with sin, it fails the test and is taken to a place where stern correctional treatment is meted out. In some accounts, the condemned soul is thrown into the lair of a terrible creature called Ammit.
The symbolism of a journey is found in mythology throughout history. The deceased is taken to the “other side” across a river, a bridge, or even on a bird’s back. The symbolism of the boat dates back to the Neolithic period. The most well-known boat is that of Charon, the Greek ferryman who transports the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades. To this day, some people still put coins in the eyes or mouth of the dead so that they have money to pay the ferryman. And, in Europe, there is an amusing superstition that if two of these coins are removed from the corpse and dropped briefly in a glass of wine, which is afterwards given to a husband or a wife, it will “blind” them to any affairs or infidelities of the other partner!
|
