What happens when we die? Peter Noble, a microbiologist at the University of Washington, has done some fascinating research on life after death. The scientist was able to identify 500 specific genes, any of which scientists regard as active and alive after physical death. The process reaches its peak 4 days after death.
So, how do the dead stop being alive and why does this happen? As one scientific article puts it, "An ongoing mystery in the study of biological systems is what happens to highly ordered structures that are far from equilibrium when their regulatory systems suddenly fail."
Having living genes after death
Scientists have previously noted some "living" genes in microorganisms that remain in the body for some time after someone dies. Noble and his colleagues have systematically evaluated over a thousand corpses. The team tracked which of these genes functioned in tissues of recently deceased mice and zebrafish, tracking changes over four days in fish and two days in rodents.
What's even more fascinating about Noble's discovery is that the “living” gene, which still displays a spark in a dead body, functions in the same way as those involved in our birth.
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Purpose of genes
Many of these genes are useful in emergencies. They perform tasks such as stimulating inflammation, activating the immune system, and countering stress. The function of other genes was much more shocking.
“What is especially surprising is that developmental genes are switched on after death has occurred,” says Noble. These genes usually aid in the development of the embryo, but they are not needed after birth. According to the researchers, one possible explanation for their posthumous awakening is that the state of cells in deceased bodies is similar to that observed in embryos.
It turns out that a person, a more developed organism from an evolutionary point of view, can have such cells that will allow him to literally be reborn after death? Tibetan Buddhists have an answer to this question. Like many other cultures around the world, Buddhists believe that our bodies are just a vessel, but our consciousness is immortal.
Buddhist view
Perhaps these genes are needed to help transfer consciousness into a non-physical state. Tibetan Buddhists believe that immediately after the death of a person, his soul is quite ready to determine his next incarnation, based on the spiritual aspects of his recently lived life.
We can reincarnate unconsciously, simply by reaching out under the influence of karma (repeated thoughts and actions) into a life that is very similar to the one we have now lived, or we can consciously reincarnate. This means that our egoistic “I” (our awareness of ourselves as a person, endowed with emotions, beliefs, things that give us the feeling of “ego”) does not reincarnate, but our essence, or Buddha nature, simply takes a different form, without a person. which we previously defined in ourselves. In Tibetan Buddhism, Bon, and other spiritual traditions, the highest attainment of death (through meditation) is the rainbow body.
Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural state of a person, and the practice of Dzogchen is a combination of teachings and meditations aimed at realizing this state - the rainbow body.
Physical immortality
As Drubwang Tsokny Rinpoche explains: “Trekche is a neat cut that divides the darkness into pieces like a knife. So, the past thought has stopped, future thoughts have not yet arisen, and the knife cuts through this stream of present thought. But no one is holding this knife. When you repeat the action over and over again, the chain of thought falls apart. If you cut the rosary in several places, at some point this connection ceases to exist."
What is Rinpoche talking about? Its idea is to free the physical and egoic bodies. Then the person reaches what has been called the golden body or heavenly body. The man is called the cloud wanderer. He begins to experience a state of God-consciousness in which Divinity descends and transforms spiritual, intellectual, mental, vital and physical bodies. This state is likened to physical immortality or the highest perfection.
Unsurprisingly, we have multiple genes that hint at the possibility that our entire physical form can transcend death.
Maya Muzashvili