In Hinduism there is the concept of Atman which is the true inner self or the soul and in order to attain liberation one must realize the true nature of ones true self is identical with the transcendent self or God/Brahman.
This idea also reminds me of this scriptural quote from Jesus: "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3I think getting back to the pure essence of oneself is how we progress in our spiritual journey and I think that may be part of what Jesus was saying about becoming as little children.All of our bad habits, addictions and things that help us cope are unnessasary and they are all things we learned to do we were not born into them. We were not born biased or prejudiced, we learned those things too. Those are often harder to remove than addictions because we are not always aware we even have prejudices.These things must be shed so as to become like little children.When we do cross over to the otherside, what of our Earthly life will follow us there? I think all we will have is our relationships with one another.My near death experience and that of many others leads me to believe the most important and valuable things in all eternity is our relationship with God and all His children.We must unlearn the ways of man and relearn the ways of The Lord. Once we are free of that we are free to become the people we were always meant to be.
