I’ve heard it said that religion and an afterlife were invented to control human beings. Maybe, maybe not. Religious threats of a horrible afterlife if you don’t have good behavior here on earth,  don’t work consistently. And life experience teaches otherwise. After Mom and Dad died, I still felt their presence. Religion and an afterlife were accepted by me as part of an ongoing reality in consciousness.

Maya Angelou wrote:

“A great soul serves everyone all the time

A great soul never dies.

It brings us together

Again and again.”