A caption screamed across the page, "Astronomers on verge of discovering 'exoplanets' in quest for life outside the solar system."

In four to five years, astronomers and other scientists are confident their space exploratory adventures should discover the first earth-like planet where life could develop or may have already.

Yet, the riddle of life and death remains just as mysterious as Man's real purpose of his existence beginning as a single cell, the ovum, at the moment of fertilization by the spermatozoa.

Finding earth-like planets does not exactly provide the right answers to the question that has also dogged humanity since the dawn of civilization: "What is the meaning or purpose of life?"

Exploring the external cosmos is not likely to provide an answer to the riddle of life and death. Perhaps, the "inner exploration" journey into the human mind may provide a clue to the answer.

If human logic is not the right mechanism to search for an answer, should we look at man and his inner life from the same point of view as we look at the universe and vice versa?

Or even perhaps by understanding the inner human consciousness as Man in eternity and unity with the external cosmos, maybe the right step to resolve this five thousand million year riddle?

One of the main characteristics of modern thought is a contradiction between the way man regards the external world, outside of himself and the way he regards the internal world, "inside" himself.

But if Man is indeed a microcosm of the Solar System, this should be reflected in the cosmos of the world of nature, and both reflected in turn in the cosmos of mankind and on individual.

Qua Vadis?

To begin with, we should ask ourselves, is the human physical body a replica of the solar system?

If Man is indeed a "microcosm" of the solar system, the nature of the universe, its laws and principles should be reflected or corresponds within Man.

For example, when we impose a logarithmic scale to Man's life, there are only nine milestones and then stops.

In the publication, "The Theory of Celestial Influence: Man, the Universe and Cosmic Mystery," author Rodney Collin elaborated on these milestones.

He says: "The first milestone the energy for digestion.

"The second milestone for motion, at the fourth the energy for building the body, at the fifth the energy for thought, at seventh the energy for passionate action, at the eight the energy for sex, creation and self-mastery.

"In the circle, the ninth milestone is also zero or the beginning, conception. It shows that death and conception are one."

"This is the mystery of life and death," Collin explained.

At the ninth, this energy of such intensity enters for ordinary man. It is absolute and final, as fire is absolute and final for a piece of wood. His individuality vanishes in it.

He is destroyed and appears to him as death.

In fact, as Collin elaborated, the energy of death is the energy which unites all things, merges all things into one, just as all wooden objects put into a fire is united in the same heat and the same ash.

What is death?

Essence of man

Ordinarily described as purely physical signs-the immediate cessation of breathing and heartbeat, the gradual loss of bodily heat in 15 or 20 hours, the wave of rigidity which slowly passes from the jaw to the feet and disappear in the same way, and the onset of putrefaction in two or three days.

But it tells us nothing about what happens to the "essence" of the man, to his individuality?

Collin says, "Nor does it tell us what happens to his consciousness, if he has acquired any. And it throws no light on what unification in death could mean."

Where does a man's essence go at death? What is the mystery of death and conception being one?

Indeed, no ordinary knowledge, no ordinary experience and certainly no ordinary "spiritualism" give us any hint at all.

Perhaps, there is a clue. In fact, the molecules in Man's body "die" and are replaced by new ones with every breath he takes.

In short, we "die" every fraction of a second.

"With each breath, he possesses a quite new molecular body. And in a barely perceptible pulse of attention, "himself"-all he knows, understands, remembers, all his habits, likes, dislikes, all that he calls "I"-has fallen asleep and woken again to find everything as before," Collin rationalised.

What causes this continuity of "death" and "recurrence of new birth cells?

Man's molecular body dies and is reborn.

Does this mean that since death and conception are an eternity, each man's life lies in time but the sum of his lives lies in "eternity"?

As Collin provides an analogy, "The point the effects of his life joins the next is the point at which time joins eternity. At that point the effects of his life pass out of time into another time."

Death only marks his exit from the world of molecular matter, and conception his entrance into it. From one point of view the door of his entrance is but the other side of the door of his exit.

Our ideas and imagination conditioned by our perceptions of the physical sense organs are not subtle enough to find out the answers of "life after death".

Perhaps, the exploration of the brain and inner mind or consciousness can provide this answer.

Only a "higher mental function" of the paranormal world and multi-dimensional realms of existence can shed some light into this old riddle.

If the human is more than a physical machine endlessly reproducing itself, we only need our human "spirit" to build a bridge between them and the answer to the riddle of life and death may just lie ahead.

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