The question of what happens after we die is perhaps the most enduring mystery of the human experience. Across cultures and belief systems, there is a shared intuition that our life on Earth might have consequences for whatever state comes next. While interpretations vary wildly, the idea that our character, actions, and choices here somehow shape our destination there is a recurring theme.
Two distinct sources, separated by millennia and origin, touch upon this profound idea: a verse from the Christian Bible, Luke 16:26, and the accounts found in Helen Greaves’ book, Testimony of Light. Examining them together, not to prove a specific doctrine, but to explore a shared concept, offers a compelling perspective on the power of how we live now.
Luke 16:26: The Great Chasm
Luke 16 contains the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It tells the story of a wealthy man who lived in luxury while a poor beggar, Lazarus, suffered at his gate. After death, their fates are reversed: Lazarus is carried to a place of comfort, identified with “Abraham’s side,” while the rich man finds himself in torment.
When the rich man cries out for relief, asking Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool his tongue, Abraham responds with a chilling explanation. Luke 16:26 states: “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set, so that those who would pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there cross over to us.”
Stripped of specific theological interpretations, what does this verse, within the context of the parable, convey?
A Fixed State: It describes a point after death where the ‘destination’ or ‘state’ is determined and fixed. There is a clear separation.
An Insurmountable Barrier: The “great chasm” represents an absolute division. Those in one state cannot move to the other, and vice versa.
A Consequence of Earthly Life: While the parable doesn’t explicitly state why the chasm exists in theological terms (divine judgement, natural law?), it implicitly links the states to the nature of their earthly lives. The rich man’s life of indifference and self-indulgence led him to torment; Lazarus’s life of suffering, though the text focusses on his plight rather than actions, led him to comfort. The chasm is the final separation between these resulting states.
For everyone, regardless of belief background, this verse in the parable highlights a powerful idea: that the way a life is lived can lead to a final, distinct outcome, and that difference can be profound and irreversible in that state.
Testimony of Light: Character Determines Destination
Shifting to a completely different source, Testimony of Light is a book compiled by Helen Greaves, presenting accounts she believed were received through mediumship from the spirit of a woman named Frances Banks. The book describes Frances’s experiences in the afterlife, portraying it not as a single location, but as various “planes” or states of being.
The central theme running through these accounts regarding destination is crystal clear: souls gravitate to the plane that corresponds to their spiritual state, character, and level of awareness developed during their earthly life.
Souls heavily burdened by materialism, selfishness, negative emotions, or unresolved earthly attachments find themselves in lower, darker, and often confused states – realms that reflect their inner state.
Souls who cultivated love, compassion, understanding, and spiritual awareness during their lives ascend to brighter, more harmonious planes where learning and service continue.
In this perspective:
There isn’t necessarily a judgement by a separate entity imposing a destination, but rather a natural law or spiritual gravity where the soul is drawn to its energetic and qualitative likeness.
The “afterlife experience” is less about external reward or punishment and more about the internal state one arrives with, which then determines the environment they inhabit and experience.
One’s character, built through countless actions, thoughts, and choices on Earth, is the passport to the next realm.
The Shared Insight: Actions and Character Have Eternal Weight
Despite their vastly different origins – a biblical parable attributed to Jesus and mediumistic communications – Luke 16:26 and Testimony of Light echo a remarkably similar core concept: our earthly actions and character formation are not ephemeral; they have profound and lasting implications for our post-mortem existence.
Luke 16:26, through the parable, depicts the result: a fixed, final separation based on how differing lives were lived. The “great chasm” is the ultimate divide between the outcomes of two fundamentally different ways of being.
Testimony of Light describes the mechanism: The soul’s inner state, forged by actions and choices, determines its vibrational resonance and thus the realm it naturally inhabits. The ‘planes’ are like different sides of the “chasm,” differentiated by the spiritual density or lightness of their inhabitants.
Both suggest that the afterlife is not arbitrary. It is, in a fundamental sense, a consequence. A consequence of the love we cultivated or neglected, the compassion we showed or withheld, the selfishness we indulged or overcame, the awareness we sought or ignored.
For everyone, this shared perspective offers a powerful call to self-reflection:
If how we live now shapes what comes next, how are we living?
Are we building a character of light, compassion, and integrity, or one of darkness, indifference, and self-concern?
The “great chasm” isn’t just a biblical image; it can be seen as the potentially vast and fixed difference between the states of being cultivated by radically different ways of life on Earth.
Whether one views the afterlife through the lens of divine judgement, spiritual evolution, or simply as a profound mystery, the convergence of ideas from sources like Luke 16:26 and Testimony of Light underscores a compelling notion: the life we are building here, through our character and actions, is the most significant preparation for whatever lies beyond. The chasm, in essence, is the ultimate reflection of the path we chose to walk.
Worldwide Temple of Aurora 