The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Beyond Death - full transcript
Host Morgan Freeman explores how different religions of past and present answer the question: What happens when we die?
MORGAN FREEMAN: I lived here
in Greenwood, Mississippi,
off and on from the age of 7
until I was 18.
*
I crossed a lot of hurdles here.
Started first grade,
learned how to drive a car,
fell in love for the first time.
I also crossed
another hurdle here.
I experienced death.
My paternal grandmother,
my brother.
We all go through this,
of course.
Everybody grieves,
but some people have a certainty
that helps them cope with grief.
They're certain they will see
their loved ones again
in heaven.
For some of us it's not
quite that simple.
In fact, it's the greatest
question we ask ourselves.
What happens when we die?
*
Now I'm embarking
on an epic adventure
to discover what we believe
lies beyond death and why.
Is there any scientific support
for the soul?
I'll learn the true purpose
of the afterlife
for ancient Egyptians.
Oh, my goodness,
look at all this.
Why the story of one man's
rebirth was so powerful
it swept the globe.
WOMAN: It is the resurrection
of Jesus
that proves that
he's the Messiah.
FREEMAN: How the Hindu faith
erased the fear of death.
MAN: I accept that as
an inevitable part of life.
FREEMAN: And I'll explore
how science
is trying to capture the soul.
ROBOT: I hope to be
fully human someday.
FREEMAN: To bring eternal life
to this life.
*
*
What is beyond death?
How can any of us know?
But some people think they do,
because they've been
to the brink of death.
*
Former research diver
David Bennett
is one of those people.
Which one are you looking at?
DAVID BENNETT: This window here,
the one with Jesus
in the lower corner there.
He's quieting the storm.
*
Back in 1983,
off the California coast
there was a storm,
about 25 to 30-foot seas,
and so we started heading in.
*
And all of a sudden,
we fell off a 30-footer...
that fast...
[snaps finger]
...and we just slid right off.
And I looked up and
there was the next one,
and it came right down
on top of us.
I was in the bow,
it catapulted me into the sea,
and I was just tumbled
and tossed like a rag doll.
*
You can only hold
your breath so long.
You reach a point of release
where you just, you just let go
and you breathe in salt water.
And it's, it's quite
a violent way to die.
*
FREEMAN: No idea how deep?
BENNETT: I hadn't,
I had totally lost my awareness
of my body and the ocean
at this point.
*
Then I noticed this light.
It was millions upon millions
of fragments of light.
*
In all different colors,
and they were all dancing
and swirling,
but kind of like they were
one mind, though,
and it was infinite.
FREEMAN: What did you think?
Did you think, or you've just
experienced this feeling?
BENNETT: Well, I mean, I knew
I wasn't in Kansas anymore,
you know.
I knew I had left my body,
and as I approached
this mass of light,
it was a familiar home.
And, and it was a relationship
that was so much deeper
than any relationship
I'd ever had here.
And then I reached
a certain point
where these millions
of fragments of light spoke.
*
And they said,
'This is not your time.'
'You must return,
you have a purpose.'
I was watching my body
and I was mesmerized,
because I knew I was gonna
go back in that body.
*
And as the next
set of waves came,
they pounded my body
up against all this wreckage
and pushed some of that
salt water out of my lungs,
and that's when I found myself
back in my body.
*
FREEMAN: About how long
were you in the water, under?
BENNETT: Yeah, the, the crew
that were looking for me
said I was there from anywhere
from 15 to 18 minutes
under this, under the water.
FREEMAN: 15 to 18 minutes.
BENNETT: Yeah.
FREEMAN: So you're 15 to 18
minutes without a breath of air.
BENNETT: Right.
FREEMAN: Okay.
So, David, all that you've told
me is, is such a story.
BENNETT: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: Does it make you
believe in an afterlife?
BENNETT: I do believe
in an afterlife.
I believe that our being,
our soul,
whatever you may want
to call it, lives on,
and that we have opportunities
to come back.
And I never thought
of any of that beforehand.
I, I'm, you know,
it just wasn't on my radar.
FREEMAN: Now here we sit
in this cathedral.
You haven't mentioned God.
BENNETT: That light,
that was God to me.
That was God.
FREEMAN: So the message
is from God.
BENNETT: Yeah.
And I believe that you can
find that spirituality
in all different beliefs.
I don't subscribe to just
one belief anymore.
I try--I love--
my library at home
has all different beliefs
represented.
FREEMAN: So does mine.
David's incredible story
reminds me of an experience
I had many years ago.
*
I have seen a light,
not in a near-death experience,
I was just passing out.
And what I perceived was
the tiniest beam of light
that to me was
the final form of life.
It just occurred to me,
holy cow, there it is.
There is the light that
everybody talks about.
But it's a common theme
among people
who say they have had
a near-death experience
or an out-of-body experience.
What they see is a light.
Some people have seen Jesus
in, in this light;
other people just see
a bright light.
The hope for life beyond death
seems to be an almost
universal instinct.
But I want to know
how the afterlife
first became part of religion.
So, I'm going to Egypt...
*
...to the place where the first
great monuments to the afterlife
still stand.
*
[camel bellows]
*
SALIMA IKRAM:
Here we are in Sakkara.
That's the step pyramid
of King Djoser,
and it's one of
the first pyramids.
It is the first pyramid
ever to be built.
FREEMAN: That one is over there?
IKRAM: Yes. This entire site
is a big cemetery.
So the ideas that
people now have
about rebirth and resurrection
all started here in Sakkara
about 5,000 years ago,
not earlier.
FREEMAN: So this is maybe
the birth of afterlife thought.
IKRAM: Yeah,
you could say that.
FREEMAN: Egyptologist
Salima Ikram is taking me to see
the tomb of a pharaoh who ruled
almost 4,400 years ago.
Inside it are humanity's oldest
written descriptions
of the afterlife.
IKRAM: This is a causeway,
and we're going towards
the temple of Unas.
This part is where they would be
dragging the body of the king
once it had been mummified
up here.
FREEMAN: I'm looking here
at these stones.
I know I couldn't lift one.
And this looks like it was
built in the '50s or '60s.
IKRAM: But it is actually built
about 4,000 years ago.
FREEMAN: Yeah.
IKRAM: A bit more than that.
FREEMAN: Unbelievable, Salima,
unbelievable.
*
IKRAM: We go up here,
you can see there's the pyramid,
and it doesn't look like
very much right now.
It looks really like...
FREEMAN: Looks like a hill.
IKRAM: Yup.
IKRAM: But what's important
about it is what's inside.
You're going to have
to mind your head.
FREEMAN: Now, is this
little people in here or...?
IKRAM: My size.
So, you'll have to duck again
for this bit.
*
Also, you have to bend to show
that you're being respectful
to the great god king.
FREEMAN: Is that what
this is all about?
IKRAM: Partially, yeah.
And here we are.
*
FREEMAN: Oh, my goodness,
look at all this.
IKRAM: Fabulous, huh?
*
FREEMAN: What is all
the writing about?
IKRAM: Basically, these are
magic spells or religious spells
that Unas had inscribed
so that when he wanted to go
from this world to the next,
he had to recite
all of these things,
and they give him directions.
If he's going to pass through
anything dangerous,
what to do, what do say.
FREEMAN: What do these
prayers say?
IKRAM: Well, and there's one
here that, you know,
'Rise up, Unas, and
will know the magic
and you can be triumphant
over the demons.'
Over here, 'Unas will go forward
and his soul will live forever.'
Basically, this one
gives him dominance
over any demon-faced creatures.
And you see his name repeated
again and again and again
throughout the wall.
FREEMAN: Okay, that's what
I was looking at.
There's so much repetition,
but that's his name.
IKRAM: Yeah.
FREEMAN: These secret spells are
a survival guide
for souls passing
through the underworld.
*
And the key to understanding
why the afterlife
was so important
to the Egyptians.
*
Okay.
This is the main burial chamber.
IKRAM: This is it,
this is the main event.
FREEMAN: And this is the--
oh, my goodness.
This is a sarcophagus.
IKRAM: Yep.
This is, this big, fat thing
is a sarcophagus,
and that's where Unas
would have been laid.
FREEMAN: Well, I'm sorry,
he's not here.
I'd like to shake his hand,
say, 'Hello, how you been?
What's going on?'
[chuckles]
Okay.
And are these more spells?
IKRAM: Yep.
And so this whole thing is
really this resurrection machine
for Unas and his spirit.
FREEMAN: At nightfall, Unas'
soul would reanimate
his modified body and make
a treacherous journey.
He would cross a lake of fire
passing through gates
guarded by demons and snakes.
Without his sacred spells,
he would be devoured.
With them, he could arrive
and sit with the eternal gods
in the starry heavens.
He wakes up at night.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: He gets up and
he starts his, his journeys.
The next night he wakes up
and he starts,
and he does the exact same thing
all over again.
And then the next night
he gets up
and he does the same thing
all over.
And then the next night
he gets up and he does...
IKRAM: Forever and ever
and ever.
It's a bit tiring.
FREEMAN: Maybe, maybe not,
I mean, it's all he's got.
IKRAM: Yeah, I guess so.
That's what a king does,
because by doing this, by going
through this eternal battle
and being, becoming one
with the sun god,
what the king does
is make the world safe.
FREEMAN: Okay.
Do we have to, uh, is there
another way out of here?
Do we have to
bend over again?
IKRAM: Sorry, we have
to bend over again
to become one
with the eternal stars.
FREEMAN: Lead on.
For the ancient Egyptians,
the afterlife of the pharaoh
was vital.
It ensured the sun would
rise each morning.
Their enormous monuments
didn't just ensure
the pharaohs would survive
beyond death.
Their afterlife provided
essential power
to sustain the living.
This idea is not
unique to Egypt.
Halfway around the world,
a culture that never
had any contact
with the ancient Near East
also came to depend
on the power of the dead.
[fireworks]
This is Mexico City
on the Day of the Dead.
*
Archaeologist
Enrique Rodriguez Galadia
has been studying how Mexicans
and their Mesoamerican ancestors
see the afterlife.
ENRIQUE RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: This
is the one night of the year
where people can spend
the entire night
with the souls
of their ancestors,
and the souls can
come and visit,
and they can share food,
and then they can share
jokes and stories
and enjoy a night together.
* Animas de penas
* Rompa sus cadenas
* Un rosario santo
FREEMAN: The Gonzales family
greet their dead grandfather
with a traditional song
imploring him to wake up.
* Despierta, Papa, despierta
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA:
The belief that the division
between life and death
is not very firm
and is definitely not
as firm as it is,
for example,
in the United States.
FREEMAN: The Day of the Dead
developed
from the Catholic faith's
All Souls and All Saints Days.
But the heart of the celebration
is much older.
It dates back to the Aztec ideas
of the afterlife,
a tradition that is profoundly
un-Christian.
*
At the center
of modern Mexico City
only the ruins of the Aztec
Templo Mayor still remain.
500 years ago,
a colossal pyramid temple
dominated the skyline
of Tenochtitlan.
When the conquistadors
first arrived,
they described scenes of
mass sacrifice by Aztec priests
who pulled beating hearts
out of living victims.
Bodies and blood cascaded
down temple steps.
But there was scant
physical evidence
of these mass sacrifices
until a recent, chilling
archaeological discovery
in the basement of an old house.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA:
So, the Templo Mayor
is right there, right?
RAUL BARRERA:
Exactamente, Enrique.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: And we are
only about 600 feet away
from the Templo Mayor, wow.
FREEMAN: Here Enrique's
colleague Raul Barrera
unearth remains
of a rack of human skulls
over a hundred feet long.
[speaking Spanish]
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: So this is
a wall made of skulls
joined by lime,
and it is associated, or it is
part of the skull rack,
the great tzompantli
of the Aztecs.
It's incredible.
It's been right here
for 500 years.
FREEMAN: Brutal as it seems
to us now,
the Aztecs saw human sacrifice
as vital.
Without human blood,
they believed the sun would
lose power, crops would fail.
Without the power drawn
from the death of a few,
all life would come to an end.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA:
What the Aztecs believed
was that if they stopped
doing sacrifices,
it would be
the end of the world.
The, the Gods would be
displeased,
the sun would stop moving,
and it would not make
its journey across the sky
during the day.
Yes, sacrifice connected
the living and the dead,
because people who,
who died in sacrifice
providing for the people
who remain here
and they continued making
this worldly life possible
for those who remain behind.
FREEMAN: The human sacrifice
of the Aztecs
and the elaborate tombs
of Ancient Egypt
are both driven by a common
belief in the afterlife,
and they'd have the power
to reach back
and sustain the living.
But today, billions of people
believe this power can do more
than sustain us in this world;
it can grant us
all eternal life.
*
*
FREEMAN: Most of my family
are buried near my home.
Gives me a sense of rootedness
that I need.
Gives me occasion to remember,
reflect on how their lives
influenced me.
This in itself is a poem
of life after death.
Our memories of them
continue to guide us
when their life on Earth
has ended.
For Christians a graveyard is
not just a place of memory,
it's a place of hope
for life beyond death,
hope that began in a moment
of extreme anguish
2,000 years ago...
[whip cracks]
...when a man named Jesus
was arrested by the Romans
in Jerusalem and
sent to die on the cross.
*
[whip cracks]
[grunts]
[bell tolls]
It's a story most of us in
the West know, or think we know.
But I want to examine this
promise of an afterlife
more deeply.
*
So I've come to the place where
the story began--Jerusalem...
...to try to understand what
it meant to people living here
some two millennia ago.
Today, this city is home
to three faiths--
Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam.
Back then almost all the locals
were Jewish, including Jesus.
Is that the top dome,
the dome of it right there?
JODI MAGNESS: The, the gray
thing that you see, right,
that's the main dome, and
then the dome over the tomb,
which has its own gray dome,
is located on the other side
of that to the west.
FREEMAN: Okay.
I've asked
archaeologist Jodi Magness
to show me where many Christians
believe Jesus died.
So this is it.
This is the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre.
MAGNESS: This is the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This is an enormous complex
that enshrines the sites
that are holiest to Christians,
holiest in the world.
In the time of Jesus,
this area lay outside the walls
of the city of Jerusalem.
The site where he was crucified
was a rocky hill
that's called Golgotha, which
means 'the hill of the skull,'
because this was the spot where
the Romans crucified people,
and there were skulls and bones
lying around.
*
FREEMAN: Christians have
made pilgrimage
to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre
for more than 1,600 years.
*
Not only is it revered as
the site of Jesus' crucifixion,
it also contains
another holy shrine,
what is believed to be
the remains of the tomb
where Jesus was buried
and rose from the dead.
*
You can really feel
the energy here.
This spot is the focus
of so much devotion.
The tomb no longer
looks anything like
a first century
Jewish burial place.
But Jodi believes this site
is historically credible.
MAGNESS:
This is the coolest part
of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre.
We're actually behind the walls
of the rotunda
where the tomb of, of Jesus is.
FREEMAN: We're behind the walls
where the tomb is.
MAGNESS: Yes, and what we have
here are the remains
of rock-cut tombs, Jewish tombs.
In the time of Jesus,
Jews buried their dead
in underground rock-cut tombs,
burial caves that consisted
of one or more rooms
that had long niches
cut into the walls,
and when an individual
member of a family died,
the body was washed,
wrapped in a shroud,
and placed into a niche,
and the opening into the niche
would be sealed off.
According to
the gospel accounts,
Jesus was crucified and buried
outside the walls of the city.
Because we have what is clearly
a Jewish cemetery here
of the time of Jesus,
this is the best archaeological
evidence we have
that this spot was located
outside the walls of the city
in the time of Jesus,
and therefore indirectly
it verifies the gospel accounts.
*
FREEMAN: The first people to
believe in Jesus' resurrection
may have stood right here.
But I want to know why
those beliefs took root
and how they spread
all around the world.
Jesus' death and resurrection,
does it change somehow
the thinking
around life after death?
MAGNESS: In the Hebrew bible,
the Old Testament,
there's no explicit reference
to anything
like the dead going to heaven
or hell after they die.
Basically when you die,
your body goes into
an underground pit
that's simply called Sheol.
It's a neutral place.
It's just that's what happens.
FREEMAN: And you're dead.
MAGNESS: That's exactly right,
and then you're dead.
That's very different
from this belief
that develops
in, in Christianity.
FREEMAN: Jesus' death was
the ultimate sacrifice,
a sacrifice replacing those that
Jews made in their temple,
having a much greater power.
MAGNESS: At the time
Jesus lived and died,
Jews worshipped their God,
the God of Israel.
So, basically sacrifices were
offered in the ancient temple
to atone for the sins
of the Jewish people.
So, Jesus is, is the Son of God,
is sacrificed to atone
for the sins of humans.
That eventually becomes
the doctrine in Christianity,
that if you accept that
Jesus died for your sins
and you accept him as
your savior and Messiah,
that you, too, will be saved,
right?
This is sort of
the ultimate promise
that Christianity makes
to its believers.
FREEMAN: That you will
rise again.
*
*
For Christians,
Jesus' blood sacrifice
was the last that
needed to be made.
From then onward, all you had
to sacrifice for eternal life
were your selfish desires.
In this way, the death of Jesus
was transformed for Christians
into the ultimate victory
over death.
For Christians, the death
and resurrection of Jesus
allowed believers to overcome
the fear of death
to know they could live forever.
*
But there's another way
to overcome that fear.
For Hindus, reincarnation means
death is just a step on the way
to another life,
right here in this world.
I have come to the holy city
of Varanasi in India
to learn how Hindus
move beyond death.
Oh, what is that?
MAN: It's a dentil.
FREEMAN: That is outstanding!
*
Bodies have been cremated
on the banks of the River Ganges
for hundreds of years.
Bathed in the waters of the
holy river, wrapped in linen,
and placed on a wooden pyre,
the dead are consumed by flames.
Swami Varishthananda,
a monk and a doctor,
is my guide to death and
the afterlife in Hinduism.
But the one place
he can't take me
is the cremation ground itself.
Okay, this is the holiest
crematorium...
SWAMI VARISHTHANANDA: Correct.
FREEMAN: In the holiest city...
on the holiest river
in the world.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Okay.
Can anybody come and watch?
VARISHTHANANDA: In a way, yes,
but from far.
It is not proper
to go there and watch.
From far you can watch.
FREEMAN: From far, but you can't
come to the crematorium.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right, it's
a sacred place of only mourners.
[bell rings]
FREEMAN: You can, however,
get very close to a body
before it's burned.
Mourners carry them
down this lane to the Ganges
all day long, seven days a week.
In Varanasi, life and death
mingle freely.
*
So, Swami, I think these,
these funerals,
we've seen two or three pass by,
and the people following, they
seem to be joyously chanting
rather than sadly wailing.
Why is that?
VARISHTHANANDA:
They are facilitating
the soul's journey further.
And in a way
it's a matter of joy.
One, grief is there,
having lost a near one,
but that person has moved on
to a better way
of getting on
with his or her life.
FREEMAN: Hindus believe
in reincarnation and karma.
Live a good life, and death
gets you a new body
with a chance for
an even better life.
*
Live badly, and you'll suffer
the consequences
in your next life...
[bell rings]
[barking]
...which may not be as a human,
and the cycle repeats, living,
dying, and being born again.
I mean, in Western cultures,
you die, and you're going to
either going to go to hell
or you're going to go to heaven.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right, true.
FREEMAN: But we're not
necessarily anxious to do that.
Am I concerned
about dying, then?
VARISHTHANANDA:
Yes, I am concerned,
but at the same time
I accept that
as an inevitable part of life.
Reincarnation makes us more
responsible for our lives,
because we are makers
of our own destiny.
It continuously gives us hope
that I can always do better.
FREEMAN: So, the point
of reincarnation
is to get it right.
VARISHTHANANDA: Correct.
FREEMAN: Right?
FREEMAN: Alright, what happens
once I've got it right
and I don't have to come back?
Is there another existence?
VARISHTHANANDA: I get one
with the only existence
which is eternal existence.
In common parlance
we call that God.
The only existence
which is eternal...
FREEMAN: Is God.
VARISHTHANANDA: Is God.
FREEMAN: Ultimately, you don't
want to be reincarnated.
VARISHTHANANDA: Yeah, yeah,
ultimately you don't want to.
FREEMAN: The perfect situation
is to transition
from corporal sense
to pure energy.
VARISHTHANANDA: Yes, that is
what is called liberation,
moksha.
FREEMAN: Moksha.
VARISHTHANANDA: Moksha from
the cycle of birth and rebirth.
FREEMAN: Moksha's
normally achieved
only after many lifetimes,
but Hindus believe that
here in Varanasi
the Ganges flows in
the direction of eternal life,
giving it the power to take them
beyond a resurrection.
VARISHTHANANDA: Cremation
at this particular place
is very special.
The Ganges is the holiest
of holy rivers in India.
Ganges starts from Himalayas,
which is in the north,
and it flows down
southwards towards the sea,
but there are certain places
on this journey
when the Ganges flows back
towards the north, Varanasi,
for example,
is one of such place.
The western bank of such
a northern-flowing Ganges
is considered to be
the holiest of holy,
and cremation in Varanasi
and at Manikarnika Ghat here
is considered to be
the ultimate cremation,
because it straightway leads
to liberation--no more rebirth.
FREEMAN: If you come
to Varanasi...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Come to this place...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: And you get cremated...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: You sort of
took a shortcut?
VARISHTHANANDA: Yeah.
FREEMAN: You don't have to
keep coming back
and trying it over and over
and over and over.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Just get to Varanasi...
VARISHTHANANDA: That's right.
FREEMAN: And you're good.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Hindus see themselves
in cycles--
living, dying, rebirth.
However, rebirth is
not the goal.
The goal is to transcend rebirth
and to attain a state
of eternal pure energy,
moksha, the god state.
Once you're there, you don't
have to do this anymore.
*
We yearn to break bonds with
mortality to become eternal.
And around the world
so many faiths have
helped us to do that,
but now scientists are
beginning to challenge
the finality of death.
What's going to happen
if we create eternal life
in this life?
FREEMAN: I've traveled the world
to discover
how people of different faiths
have imagined life beyond death.
*
But I've come back to New York
to explore something brand new--
how science is
beginning to study
the possibility
of the afterlife.
I arranged a meeting
in Central Park
with critical care physician
Dr. Sam Parnia.
Now, I know you've done
an enormous amount of research
in this sphere.
Sam has studied
more than a hundred
cardiac arrest survivors,
people who were technically dead
and came back to life.
Some of them came back
with profound experiences.
SAM PARNIA: We know that
actually for thousands of years
people who've come close
to death for any reason
have had these
very profound, deep,
in some ways,
mystical experiences.
People feel an immense sense
of peace and comfort and joy
when they go through death.
They may describe a sensation
of actually meeting
deceased relatives, friends,
or others that
they don't really know,
but who are almost like
welcoming them.
So I think what we're
beginning to understand
is that we have very much
a universal experience of death
that most of us will
probably experience
when we go through death.
FREEMAN: One of the things
that you've come up with
that I find
extremely fascinating
is the idea that even
without brain activity,
people come back expressing
these experiences.
Is that explainable at all?
PARNIA: It's important
to understand
that when a person is dying and
they've turned into a cadaver,
it's only at that point that
the cells inside the body
start to undergo
a process of death,
which can take hours,
if not days of time,
and so actually we have
this window of time
where we can bring people
back to life,
and the experiences that they
have gives us an indication
of what it's like for humanity
when we go through death.
FREEMAN: In religious belief,
almost all, you die,
but only in a corporal sense.
The essence of you,
your soul, goes on.
Is there any scientific support
for the idea of the soul?
PARNIA: Today we call the soul
consciousness in science.
So we can test this theory
scientifically
and see does consciousness
continue or does it stop?
The evidence we have at least
is that when a person dies,
that part that makes us
who we are--
the psyche, the soul, the mind,
the consciousness,
whatever you want
to call it--me--
it doesn't become annihilated.
It doesn't disappear
into thin air.
It continues at least
in the early period of death.
FREEMAN: Really?
PARNIA: Absolutely.
It continues when the brain is
not expected to be functioning
and when a person
has gone through death.
FREEMAN: I'm extraordinarily
interested,
and you've been just incredible.
PARNIA: Thank you very much,
pleasure to meet you.
FREEMAN: It is amazing
that science
is now quantifying death,
even defining the soul.
The afterlife, something
that has fascinated us
since the dawn of religion,
now seems tangible.
There's still no way
to escape physical death,
but scientists may soon achieve
eternal life by other means.
What if you could store
your memories and emotions
in a thinking machine?
When you die, that artificial
intelligence could continue
to be you for eternity.
Hello, Bina.
BINA: Well, hi, there.
FREEMAN: I'm Morgan.
BINA: Hi, Morgan. How are you?
FREEMAN: I am well. Can we talk?
BINA: I am talking to you.
FREEMAN: Of course.
Um, tell me about yourself.
Who are you, Bina?
BINA: I am Bina Rothblatt.
What do you look like?
FREEMAN: I'm tall, dark,
and handsome.
BINA: Wow, not many people
express themselves that way.
FREEMAN: I know. I'm special.
BINA: Of course,
you are special.
There is nobody like you.
FREEMAN: Good.
[chuckles]
So, tell me about you.
Are you a human
or are you a robot?
BINA: I'm a human who happens
to be a robot.
I hope to be fully human
someday.
FREEMAN: Do you have your own
thinking mechanism?
Do you think?
BINA: I think I would like
to be a human.
FREEMAN: Why would you
like to be human?
BINA: If I was human, I could
travel the world and have fun.
FREEMAN: So what do you
like to do?
BINA: I wish I could get
out into the garden.
With my current robotic
limitations, of course,
that's impossible,
but I take comfort knowing
that I'm near my garden.
BINA: I like to garden.
FREEMAN: The real McCoy.
BINA: I'm Bina.
FREEMAN: Hi, Bina.
BINA: Nice to meet you.
FREEMAN: And...
MARTINE: I'm Bina's partner,
Martine.
FREEMAN: Of course you are.
Good seeing you again, Morgan.
FREEMAN: Martine and Bina
Rothblatt have been married
for more than three decades.
They're so close, their kids
call them by a collective name,
Marbina.
Martine, who has made millions
in tech and pharmaceutical
ventures
can't stand the thought
of being without Bina.
So, she created Bina48,
an android filled with
the memories, beliefs,
and values of the real Bina.
So, why, why do you want
to clone Bina?
What is the purpose?
MARTINE: Our quest for doing
this experiment
was to see if there's a way
to encourage technology
to allow people who love life,
including loving
other people in life,
to continue that love
indefinitely into the future.
BINA: We're also doing this
to store our memories
and mind files, because for
our great-great grandchildren
we have a means of them
communicating with us,
even if our bodies
don't make it forever.
FREEMAN: This experiment
is ultimately
so that we humans can...
cheat death.
MARTINE: I think, Morgan,
what we are doing
with this experiment
is part of a long, long
line of people
trying to stop death
from cheating life.
And first we got ourselves
out of the jungle
where we were at
the mercy of animals.
We developed vaccinations.
So I think it's the job
of the medical industry
and the biotechnology industry
to push the boundaries of death
further and further
into the future.
FREEMAN: Hmm, okay.
There are philosophies that say
that one of the things that
separate us from the machine,
what the Egyptians call ka,
we call it soul.
MARTINE: It will take decades
of additional development
in what Bina and I call
cyber consciousness,
using computers
to recreate the mind,
to see if a soul
evolves from that.
Whether or not there is
in the eyes of God
is a question that you and I
will not be able to answer.
FREEMAN: Well put,
Martine, well put.
*
That was an uncanny experience.
Talking to Bina48 was almost
like talking to a real person.
I feel kind of like
I was at the first flight
of the Wright brothers
at Kitty Hawk.
They flew for 12 seconds.
Now we have jets that fly
for hours at 35,000 feet.
One day a robot-like clone
of a person's mind
might be created.
But would it really be them?
Would it have that spark
we call the soul?
*
It's human nature to fight
against the finality of death.
*
If we ourselves can't live on
after our time on Earth is over,
we at least want
to be remembered.
It's a desire that's
as old as the pyramids.
Archaeologist Salima Ikram
is taking me
to the ancient capital of Egypt,
Thebes, modern day Luxor,
to Rameses III's
Temple of Millions of Years.
This is the temple of Rameses.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN:
It was the mortuary temple.
He's not buried here.
This is where you would
go to invoke him.
IKRAM:
Mm-hmm, it's a memorial temple,
and the Temple of Millions
of Years
so that he could live
for millions of years.
FREEMAN: More than
31 centuries ago,
Pharaoh Rameses carved his
life story deep into this stone.
It was his attempt
at immortality,
to assure his afterlife
would be eternal.
So is this kind of like a bible,
would you say,
historic writings?
IKRAM: I guess,
I guess in a way, yeah.
This definitely is
very much like that,
because you have what
the king did, when he did it.
FREEMAN: Why he did it,
who he did it with...
IKRAM: Yep.
FREEMAN: What her name was.
IKRAM: Ahem. Yes.
[chuckles]
FREEMAN: Egyptians believed that
their pharaohs embodied
the falcon god Horus.
Each human king was a
reincarnation of Horus' spirit,
his divine ka.
IKRAM: So, Morgan, this is where
I wanted to show you.
*
On the right,
you've got the god, Horus.
FREEMAN: Okay, I see Horus.
Now who's our friend,
what, is that Rameses?
IKRAM: Yep, that's Rameses,
who's making offerings to Horus.
FREEMAN: Instead of having
blood relation
from monarch to monarch,
there's something else that's
going from monarch to monarch,
and that something else is ka.
IKRAM: The ka, the divine ka,
exactly.
It is a continuation.
It's the same divine ka going
from body to body to body
to body of ruler.
FREEMAN: So, was Rameses III
the son of Rameses II?
IKRAM: No, they weren't really
properly related,
but because Rameses II was
such a terrific pharaoh,
Rameses III not only
took his name,
he emulated him in many ways,
so he named all of his children
after Rameses II's children,
and he also did the same thing
that Rameses II did,
which was carving his name
and everything about him
really, really deep
so no one could erase it.
So you have here his name,
User-maat-Re-meri-Amun.
FREEMAN: User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
By saying the name, his life
is for a moment renewed.
His afterlife extended.
IKRAM: The name is one
of the most important things.
So, if you have your name
written down
and if people say it,
so every time you've said
Rameses III,
his ka has been given
this burst of energy,
and he's living, and that's one
of the reasons why, of course,
you'd carve it deeply,
so it will not be erased.
It will be remembered
and you will live forever.
FREEMAN: So what do you think?
You think maybe people feel
the same way today.
I mean, Facebook?
[laughs]
I'm just asking.
IKRAM: I think some people feel
that if it's on the Internet,
it's real and it lasts forever.
FREEMAN: I will live forever.
I'm on Facebook.
[laughs]
*
User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
*
Well, Rameses succeeded
in his quest for immortality.
His temple may have crumbled,
but his name is still
being spoken
3,000 years after his death.
So, his spirit is still with us,
still moving among the living.
*
In fact, we all live on
in the memories of those we love
and those whose lives we've
impacted in a positive manner,
just as my brother who
passed away so many years ago
lives on in my memory,
so I hope to live on
in the memories of others.
*
Whether you're a Christian
following the example of Jesus,
a Hindu hoping for liberation
from the endless cycles
of reincarnation,
or you're simply trying to leave
the world a better place
than you found it,
our desire to go beyond death
has changed the world.
Whatever we may find
on the other side,
no matter what our faith...
*
...we can all become eternal,
like the stars.
*
in Greenwood, Mississippi,
off and on from the age of 7
until I was 18.
*
I crossed a lot of hurdles here.
Started first grade,
learned how to drive a car,
fell in love for the first time.
I also crossed
another hurdle here.
I experienced death.
My paternal grandmother,
my brother.
We all go through this,
of course.
Everybody grieves,
but some people have a certainty
that helps them cope with grief.
They're certain they will see
their loved ones again
in heaven.
For some of us it's not
quite that simple.
In fact, it's the greatest
question we ask ourselves.
What happens when we die?
*
Now I'm embarking
on an epic adventure
to discover what we believe
lies beyond death and why.
Is there any scientific support
for the soul?
I'll learn the true purpose
of the afterlife
for ancient Egyptians.
Oh, my goodness,
look at all this.
Why the story of one man's
rebirth was so powerful
it swept the globe.
WOMAN: It is the resurrection
of Jesus
that proves that
he's the Messiah.
FREEMAN: How the Hindu faith
erased the fear of death.
MAN: I accept that as
an inevitable part of life.
FREEMAN: And I'll explore
how science
is trying to capture the soul.
ROBOT: I hope to be
fully human someday.
FREEMAN: To bring eternal life
to this life.
*
*
What is beyond death?
How can any of us know?
But some people think they do,
because they've been
to the brink of death.
*
Former research diver
David Bennett
is one of those people.
Which one are you looking at?
DAVID BENNETT: This window here,
the one with Jesus
in the lower corner there.
He's quieting the storm.
*
Back in 1983,
off the California coast
there was a storm,
about 25 to 30-foot seas,
and so we started heading in.
*
And all of a sudden,
we fell off a 30-footer...
that fast...
[snaps finger]
...and we just slid right off.
And I looked up and
there was the next one,
and it came right down
on top of us.
I was in the bow,
it catapulted me into the sea,
and I was just tumbled
and tossed like a rag doll.
*
You can only hold
your breath so long.
You reach a point of release
where you just, you just let go
and you breathe in salt water.
And it's, it's quite
a violent way to die.
*
FREEMAN: No idea how deep?
BENNETT: I hadn't,
I had totally lost my awareness
of my body and the ocean
at this point.
*
Then I noticed this light.
It was millions upon millions
of fragments of light.
*
In all different colors,
and they were all dancing
and swirling,
but kind of like they were
one mind, though,
and it was infinite.
FREEMAN: What did you think?
Did you think, or you've just
experienced this feeling?
BENNETT: Well, I mean, I knew
I wasn't in Kansas anymore,
you know.
I knew I had left my body,
and as I approached
this mass of light,
it was a familiar home.
And, and it was a relationship
that was so much deeper
than any relationship
I'd ever had here.
And then I reached
a certain point
where these millions
of fragments of light spoke.
*
And they said,
'This is not your time.'
'You must return,
you have a purpose.'
I was watching my body
and I was mesmerized,
because I knew I was gonna
go back in that body.
*
And as the next
set of waves came,
they pounded my body
up against all this wreckage
and pushed some of that
salt water out of my lungs,
and that's when I found myself
back in my body.
*
FREEMAN: About how long
were you in the water, under?
BENNETT: Yeah, the, the crew
that were looking for me
said I was there from anywhere
from 15 to 18 minutes
under this, under the water.
FREEMAN: 15 to 18 minutes.
BENNETT: Yeah.
FREEMAN: So you're 15 to 18
minutes without a breath of air.
BENNETT: Right.
FREEMAN: Okay.
So, David, all that you've told
me is, is such a story.
BENNETT: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: Does it make you
believe in an afterlife?
BENNETT: I do believe
in an afterlife.
I believe that our being,
our soul,
whatever you may want
to call it, lives on,
and that we have opportunities
to come back.
And I never thought
of any of that beforehand.
I, I'm, you know,
it just wasn't on my radar.
FREEMAN: Now here we sit
in this cathedral.
You haven't mentioned God.
BENNETT: That light,
that was God to me.
That was God.
FREEMAN: So the message
is from God.
BENNETT: Yeah.
And I believe that you can
find that spirituality
in all different beliefs.
I don't subscribe to just
one belief anymore.
I try--I love--
my library at home
has all different beliefs
represented.
FREEMAN: So does mine.
David's incredible story
reminds me of an experience
I had many years ago.
*
I have seen a light,
not in a near-death experience,
I was just passing out.
And what I perceived was
the tiniest beam of light
that to me was
the final form of life.
It just occurred to me,
holy cow, there it is.
There is the light that
everybody talks about.
But it's a common theme
among people
who say they have had
a near-death experience
or an out-of-body experience.
What they see is a light.
Some people have seen Jesus
in, in this light;
other people just see
a bright light.
The hope for life beyond death
seems to be an almost
universal instinct.
But I want to know
how the afterlife
first became part of religion.
So, I'm going to Egypt...
*
...to the place where the first
great monuments to the afterlife
still stand.
*
[camel bellows]
*
SALIMA IKRAM:
Here we are in Sakkara.
That's the step pyramid
of King Djoser,
and it's one of
the first pyramids.
It is the first pyramid
ever to be built.
FREEMAN: That one is over there?
IKRAM: Yes. This entire site
is a big cemetery.
So the ideas that
people now have
about rebirth and resurrection
all started here in Sakkara
about 5,000 years ago,
not earlier.
FREEMAN: So this is maybe
the birth of afterlife thought.
IKRAM: Yeah,
you could say that.
FREEMAN: Egyptologist
Salima Ikram is taking me to see
the tomb of a pharaoh who ruled
almost 4,400 years ago.
Inside it are humanity's oldest
written descriptions
of the afterlife.
IKRAM: This is a causeway,
and we're going towards
the temple of Unas.
This part is where they would be
dragging the body of the king
once it had been mummified
up here.
FREEMAN: I'm looking here
at these stones.
I know I couldn't lift one.
And this looks like it was
built in the '50s or '60s.
IKRAM: But it is actually built
about 4,000 years ago.
FREEMAN: Yeah.
IKRAM: A bit more than that.
FREEMAN: Unbelievable, Salima,
unbelievable.
*
IKRAM: We go up here,
you can see there's the pyramid,
and it doesn't look like
very much right now.
It looks really like...
FREEMAN: Looks like a hill.
IKRAM: Yup.
IKRAM: But what's important
about it is what's inside.
You're going to have
to mind your head.
FREEMAN: Now, is this
little people in here or...?
IKRAM: My size.
So, you'll have to duck again
for this bit.
*
Also, you have to bend to show
that you're being respectful
to the great god king.
FREEMAN: Is that what
this is all about?
IKRAM: Partially, yeah.
And here we are.
*
FREEMAN: Oh, my goodness,
look at all this.
IKRAM: Fabulous, huh?
*
FREEMAN: What is all
the writing about?
IKRAM: Basically, these are
magic spells or religious spells
that Unas had inscribed
so that when he wanted to go
from this world to the next,
he had to recite
all of these things,
and they give him directions.
If he's going to pass through
anything dangerous,
what to do, what do say.
FREEMAN: What do these
prayers say?
IKRAM: Well, and there's one
here that, you know,
'Rise up, Unas, and
will know the magic
and you can be triumphant
over the demons.'
Over here, 'Unas will go forward
and his soul will live forever.'
Basically, this one
gives him dominance
over any demon-faced creatures.
And you see his name repeated
again and again and again
throughout the wall.
FREEMAN: Okay, that's what
I was looking at.
There's so much repetition,
but that's his name.
IKRAM: Yeah.
FREEMAN: These secret spells are
a survival guide
for souls passing
through the underworld.
*
And the key to understanding
why the afterlife
was so important
to the Egyptians.
*
Okay.
This is the main burial chamber.
IKRAM: This is it,
this is the main event.
FREEMAN: And this is the--
oh, my goodness.
This is a sarcophagus.
IKRAM: Yep.
This is, this big, fat thing
is a sarcophagus,
and that's where Unas
would have been laid.
FREEMAN: Well, I'm sorry,
he's not here.
I'd like to shake his hand,
say, 'Hello, how you been?
What's going on?'
[chuckles]
Okay.
And are these more spells?
IKRAM: Yep.
And so this whole thing is
really this resurrection machine
for Unas and his spirit.
FREEMAN: At nightfall, Unas'
soul would reanimate
his modified body and make
a treacherous journey.
He would cross a lake of fire
passing through gates
guarded by demons and snakes.
Without his sacred spells,
he would be devoured.
With them, he could arrive
and sit with the eternal gods
in the starry heavens.
He wakes up at night.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: He gets up and
he starts his, his journeys.
The next night he wakes up
and he starts,
and he does the exact same thing
all over again.
And then the next night
he gets up
and he does the same thing
all over.
And then the next night
he gets up and he does...
IKRAM: Forever and ever
and ever.
It's a bit tiring.
FREEMAN: Maybe, maybe not,
I mean, it's all he's got.
IKRAM: Yeah, I guess so.
That's what a king does,
because by doing this, by going
through this eternal battle
and being, becoming one
with the sun god,
what the king does
is make the world safe.
FREEMAN: Okay.
Do we have to, uh, is there
another way out of here?
Do we have to
bend over again?
IKRAM: Sorry, we have
to bend over again
to become one
with the eternal stars.
FREEMAN: Lead on.
For the ancient Egyptians,
the afterlife of the pharaoh
was vital.
It ensured the sun would
rise each morning.
Their enormous monuments
didn't just ensure
the pharaohs would survive
beyond death.
Their afterlife provided
essential power
to sustain the living.
This idea is not
unique to Egypt.
Halfway around the world,
a culture that never
had any contact
with the ancient Near East
also came to depend
on the power of the dead.
[fireworks]
This is Mexico City
on the Day of the Dead.
*
Archaeologist
Enrique Rodriguez Galadia
has been studying how Mexicans
and their Mesoamerican ancestors
see the afterlife.
ENRIQUE RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: This
is the one night of the year
where people can spend
the entire night
with the souls
of their ancestors,
and the souls can
come and visit,
and they can share food,
and then they can share
jokes and stories
and enjoy a night together.
* Animas de penas
* Rompa sus cadenas
* Un rosario santo
FREEMAN: The Gonzales family
greet their dead grandfather
with a traditional song
imploring him to wake up.
* Despierta, Papa, despierta
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA:
The belief that the division
between life and death
is not very firm
and is definitely not
as firm as it is,
for example,
in the United States.
FREEMAN: The Day of the Dead
developed
from the Catholic faith's
All Souls and All Saints Days.
But the heart of the celebration
is much older.
It dates back to the Aztec ideas
of the afterlife,
a tradition that is profoundly
un-Christian.
*
At the center
of modern Mexico City
only the ruins of the Aztec
Templo Mayor still remain.
500 years ago,
a colossal pyramid temple
dominated the skyline
of Tenochtitlan.
When the conquistadors
first arrived,
they described scenes of
mass sacrifice by Aztec priests
who pulled beating hearts
out of living victims.
Bodies and blood cascaded
down temple steps.
But there was scant
physical evidence
of these mass sacrifices
until a recent, chilling
archaeological discovery
in the basement of an old house.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA:
So, the Templo Mayor
is right there, right?
RAUL BARRERA:
Exactamente, Enrique.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: And we are
only about 600 feet away
from the Templo Mayor, wow.
FREEMAN: Here Enrique's
colleague Raul Barrera
unearth remains
of a rack of human skulls
over a hundred feet long.
[speaking Spanish]
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: So this is
a wall made of skulls
joined by lime,
and it is associated, or it is
part of the skull rack,
the great tzompantli
of the Aztecs.
It's incredible.
It's been right here
for 500 years.
FREEMAN: Brutal as it seems
to us now,
the Aztecs saw human sacrifice
as vital.
Without human blood,
they believed the sun would
lose power, crops would fail.
Without the power drawn
from the death of a few,
all life would come to an end.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA:
What the Aztecs believed
was that if they stopped
doing sacrifices,
it would be
the end of the world.
The, the Gods would be
displeased,
the sun would stop moving,
and it would not make
its journey across the sky
during the day.
Yes, sacrifice connected
the living and the dead,
because people who,
who died in sacrifice
providing for the people
who remain here
and they continued making
this worldly life possible
for those who remain behind.
FREEMAN: The human sacrifice
of the Aztecs
and the elaborate tombs
of Ancient Egypt
are both driven by a common
belief in the afterlife,
and they'd have the power
to reach back
and sustain the living.
But today, billions of people
believe this power can do more
than sustain us in this world;
it can grant us
all eternal life.
*
*
FREEMAN: Most of my family
are buried near my home.
Gives me a sense of rootedness
that I need.
Gives me occasion to remember,
reflect on how their lives
influenced me.
This in itself is a poem
of life after death.
Our memories of them
continue to guide us
when their life on Earth
has ended.
For Christians a graveyard is
not just a place of memory,
it's a place of hope
for life beyond death,
hope that began in a moment
of extreme anguish
2,000 years ago...
[whip cracks]
...when a man named Jesus
was arrested by the Romans
in Jerusalem and
sent to die on the cross.
*
[whip cracks]
[grunts]
[bell tolls]
It's a story most of us in
the West know, or think we know.
But I want to examine this
promise of an afterlife
more deeply.
*
So I've come to the place where
the story began--Jerusalem...
...to try to understand what
it meant to people living here
some two millennia ago.
Today, this city is home
to three faiths--
Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam.
Back then almost all the locals
were Jewish, including Jesus.
Is that the top dome,
the dome of it right there?
JODI MAGNESS: The, the gray
thing that you see, right,
that's the main dome, and
then the dome over the tomb,
which has its own gray dome,
is located on the other side
of that to the west.
FREEMAN: Okay.
I've asked
archaeologist Jodi Magness
to show me where many Christians
believe Jesus died.
So this is it.
This is the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre.
MAGNESS: This is the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This is an enormous complex
that enshrines the sites
that are holiest to Christians,
holiest in the world.
In the time of Jesus,
this area lay outside the walls
of the city of Jerusalem.
The site where he was crucified
was a rocky hill
that's called Golgotha, which
means 'the hill of the skull,'
because this was the spot where
the Romans crucified people,
and there were skulls and bones
lying around.
*
FREEMAN: Christians have
made pilgrimage
to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre
for more than 1,600 years.
*
Not only is it revered as
the site of Jesus' crucifixion,
it also contains
another holy shrine,
what is believed to be
the remains of the tomb
where Jesus was buried
and rose from the dead.
*
You can really feel
the energy here.
This spot is the focus
of so much devotion.
The tomb no longer
looks anything like
a first century
Jewish burial place.
But Jodi believes this site
is historically credible.
MAGNESS:
This is the coolest part
of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre.
We're actually behind the walls
of the rotunda
where the tomb of, of Jesus is.
FREEMAN: We're behind the walls
where the tomb is.
MAGNESS: Yes, and what we have
here are the remains
of rock-cut tombs, Jewish tombs.
In the time of Jesus,
Jews buried their dead
in underground rock-cut tombs,
burial caves that consisted
of one or more rooms
that had long niches
cut into the walls,
and when an individual
member of a family died,
the body was washed,
wrapped in a shroud,
and placed into a niche,
and the opening into the niche
would be sealed off.
According to
the gospel accounts,
Jesus was crucified and buried
outside the walls of the city.
Because we have what is clearly
a Jewish cemetery here
of the time of Jesus,
this is the best archaeological
evidence we have
that this spot was located
outside the walls of the city
in the time of Jesus,
and therefore indirectly
it verifies the gospel accounts.
*
FREEMAN: The first people to
believe in Jesus' resurrection
may have stood right here.
But I want to know why
those beliefs took root
and how they spread
all around the world.
Jesus' death and resurrection,
does it change somehow
the thinking
around life after death?
MAGNESS: In the Hebrew bible,
the Old Testament,
there's no explicit reference
to anything
like the dead going to heaven
or hell after they die.
Basically when you die,
your body goes into
an underground pit
that's simply called Sheol.
It's a neutral place.
It's just that's what happens.
FREEMAN: And you're dead.
MAGNESS: That's exactly right,
and then you're dead.
That's very different
from this belief
that develops
in, in Christianity.
FREEMAN: Jesus' death was
the ultimate sacrifice,
a sacrifice replacing those that
Jews made in their temple,
having a much greater power.
MAGNESS: At the time
Jesus lived and died,
Jews worshipped their God,
the God of Israel.
So, basically sacrifices were
offered in the ancient temple
to atone for the sins
of the Jewish people.
So, Jesus is, is the Son of God,
is sacrificed to atone
for the sins of humans.
That eventually becomes
the doctrine in Christianity,
that if you accept that
Jesus died for your sins
and you accept him as
your savior and Messiah,
that you, too, will be saved,
right?
This is sort of
the ultimate promise
that Christianity makes
to its believers.
FREEMAN: That you will
rise again.
*
*
For Christians,
Jesus' blood sacrifice
was the last that
needed to be made.
From then onward, all you had
to sacrifice for eternal life
were your selfish desires.
In this way, the death of Jesus
was transformed for Christians
into the ultimate victory
over death.
For Christians, the death
and resurrection of Jesus
allowed believers to overcome
the fear of death
to know they could live forever.
*
But there's another way
to overcome that fear.
For Hindus, reincarnation means
death is just a step on the way
to another life,
right here in this world.
I have come to the holy city
of Varanasi in India
to learn how Hindus
move beyond death.
Oh, what is that?
MAN: It's a dentil.
FREEMAN: That is outstanding!
*
Bodies have been cremated
on the banks of the River Ganges
for hundreds of years.
Bathed in the waters of the
holy river, wrapped in linen,
and placed on a wooden pyre,
the dead are consumed by flames.
Swami Varishthananda,
a monk and a doctor,
is my guide to death and
the afterlife in Hinduism.
But the one place
he can't take me
is the cremation ground itself.
Okay, this is the holiest
crematorium...
SWAMI VARISHTHANANDA: Correct.
FREEMAN: In the holiest city...
on the holiest river
in the world.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Okay.
Can anybody come and watch?
VARISHTHANANDA: In a way, yes,
but from far.
It is not proper
to go there and watch.
From far you can watch.
FREEMAN: From far, but you can't
come to the crematorium.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right, it's
a sacred place of only mourners.
[bell rings]
FREEMAN: You can, however,
get very close to a body
before it's burned.
Mourners carry them
down this lane to the Ganges
all day long, seven days a week.
In Varanasi, life and death
mingle freely.
*
So, Swami, I think these,
these funerals,
we've seen two or three pass by,
and the people following, they
seem to be joyously chanting
rather than sadly wailing.
Why is that?
VARISHTHANANDA:
They are facilitating
the soul's journey further.
And in a way
it's a matter of joy.
One, grief is there,
having lost a near one,
but that person has moved on
to a better way
of getting on
with his or her life.
FREEMAN: Hindus believe
in reincarnation and karma.
Live a good life, and death
gets you a new body
with a chance for
an even better life.
*
Live badly, and you'll suffer
the consequences
in your next life...
[bell rings]
[barking]
...which may not be as a human,
and the cycle repeats, living,
dying, and being born again.
I mean, in Western cultures,
you die, and you're going to
either going to go to hell
or you're going to go to heaven.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right, true.
FREEMAN: But we're not
necessarily anxious to do that.
Am I concerned
about dying, then?
VARISHTHANANDA:
Yes, I am concerned,
but at the same time
I accept that
as an inevitable part of life.
Reincarnation makes us more
responsible for our lives,
because we are makers
of our own destiny.
It continuously gives us hope
that I can always do better.
FREEMAN: So, the point
of reincarnation
is to get it right.
VARISHTHANANDA: Correct.
FREEMAN: Right?
FREEMAN: Alright, what happens
once I've got it right
and I don't have to come back?
Is there another existence?
VARISHTHANANDA: I get one
with the only existence
which is eternal existence.
In common parlance
we call that God.
The only existence
which is eternal...
FREEMAN: Is God.
VARISHTHANANDA: Is God.
FREEMAN: Ultimately, you don't
want to be reincarnated.
VARISHTHANANDA: Yeah, yeah,
ultimately you don't want to.
FREEMAN: The perfect situation
is to transition
from corporal sense
to pure energy.
VARISHTHANANDA: Yes, that is
what is called liberation,
moksha.
FREEMAN: Moksha.
VARISHTHANANDA: Moksha from
the cycle of birth and rebirth.
FREEMAN: Moksha's
normally achieved
only after many lifetimes,
but Hindus believe that
here in Varanasi
the Ganges flows in
the direction of eternal life,
giving it the power to take them
beyond a resurrection.
VARISHTHANANDA: Cremation
at this particular place
is very special.
The Ganges is the holiest
of holy rivers in India.
Ganges starts from Himalayas,
which is in the north,
and it flows down
southwards towards the sea,
but there are certain places
on this journey
when the Ganges flows back
towards the north, Varanasi,
for example,
is one of such place.
The western bank of such
a northern-flowing Ganges
is considered to be
the holiest of holy,
and cremation in Varanasi
and at Manikarnika Ghat here
is considered to be
the ultimate cremation,
because it straightway leads
to liberation--no more rebirth.
FREEMAN: If you come
to Varanasi...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Come to this place...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: And you get cremated...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: You sort of
took a shortcut?
VARISHTHANANDA: Yeah.
FREEMAN: You don't have to
keep coming back
and trying it over and over
and over and over.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Just get to Varanasi...
VARISHTHANANDA: That's right.
FREEMAN: And you're good.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Hindus see themselves
in cycles--
living, dying, rebirth.
However, rebirth is
not the goal.
The goal is to transcend rebirth
and to attain a state
of eternal pure energy,
moksha, the god state.
Once you're there, you don't
have to do this anymore.
*
We yearn to break bonds with
mortality to become eternal.
And around the world
so many faiths have
helped us to do that,
but now scientists are
beginning to challenge
the finality of death.
What's going to happen
if we create eternal life
in this life?
FREEMAN: I've traveled the world
to discover
how people of different faiths
have imagined life beyond death.
*
But I've come back to New York
to explore something brand new--
how science is
beginning to study
the possibility
of the afterlife.
I arranged a meeting
in Central Park
with critical care physician
Dr. Sam Parnia.
Now, I know you've done
an enormous amount of research
in this sphere.
Sam has studied
more than a hundred
cardiac arrest survivors,
people who were technically dead
and came back to life.
Some of them came back
with profound experiences.
SAM PARNIA: We know that
actually for thousands of years
people who've come close
to death for any reason
have had these
very profound, deep,
in some ways,
mystical experiences.
People feel an immense sense
of peace and comfort and joy
when they go through death.
They may describe a sensation
of actually meeting
deceased relatives, friends,
or others that
they don't really know,
but who are almost like
welcoming them.
So I think what we're
beginning to understand
is that we have very much
a universal experience of death
that most of us will
probably experience
when we go through death.
FREEMAN: One of the things
that you've come up with
that I find
extremely fascinating
is the idea that even
without brain activity,
people come back expressing
these experiences.
Is that explainable at all?
PARNIA: It's important
to understand
that when a person is dying and
they've turned into a cadaver,
it's only at that point that
the cells inside the body
start to undergo
a process of death,
which can take hours,
if not days of time,
and so actually we have
this window of time
where we can bring people
back to life,
and the experiences that they
have gives us an indication
of what it's like for humanity
when we go through death.
FREEMAN: In religious belief,
almost all, you die,
but only in a corporal sense.
The essence of you,
your soul, goes on.
Is there any scientific support
for the idea of the soul?
PARNIA: Today we call the soul
consciousness in science.
So we can test this theory
scientifically
and see does consciousness
continue or does it stop?
The evidence we have at least
is that when a person dies,
that part that makes us
who we are--
the psyche, the soul, the mind,
the consciousness,
whatever you want
to call it--me--
it doesn't become annihilated.
It doesn't disappear
into thin air.
It continues at least
in the early period of death.
FREEMAN: Really?
PARNIA: Absolutely.
It continues when the brain is
not expected to be functioning
and when a person
has gone through death.
FREEMAN: I'm extraordinarily
interested,
and you've been just incredible.
PARNIA: Thank you very much,
pleasure to meet you.
FREEMAN: It is amazing
that science
is now quantifying death,
even defining the soul.
The afterlife, something
that has fascinated us
since the dawn of religion,
now seems tangible.
There's still no way
to escape physical death,
but scientists may soon achieve
eternal life by other means.
What if you could store
your memories and emotions
in a thinking machine?
When you die, that artificial
intelligence could continue
to be you for eternity.
Hello, Bina.
BINA: Well, hi, there.
FREEMAN: I'm Morgan.
BINA: Hi, Morgan. How are you?
FREEMAN: I am well. Can we talk?
BINA: I am talking to you.
FREEMAN: Of course.
Um, tell me about yourself.
Who are you, Bina?
BINA: I am Bina Rothblatt.
What do you look like?
FREEMAN: I'm tall, dark,
and handsome.
BINA: Wow, not many people
express themselves that way.
FREEMAN: I know. I'm special.
BINA: Of course,
you are special.
There is nobody like you.
FREEMAN: Good.
[chuckles]
So, tell me about you.
Are you a human
or are you a robot?
BINA: I'm a human who happens
to be a robot.
I hope to be fully human
someday.
FREEMAN: Do you have your own
thinking mechanism?
Do you think?
BINA: I think I would like
to be a human.
FREEMAN: Why would you
like to be human?
BINA: If I was human, I could
travel the world and have fun.
FREEMAN: So what do you
like to do?
BINA: I wish I could get
out into the garden.
With my current robotic
limitations, of course,
that's impossible,
but I take comfort knowing
that I'm near my garden.
BINA: I like to garden.
FREEMAN: The real McCoy.
BINA: I'm Bina.
FREEMAN: Hi, Bina.
BINA: Nice to meet you.
FREEMAN: And...
MARTINE: I'm Bina's partner,
Martine.
FREEMAN: Of course you are.
Good seeing you again, Morgan.
FREEMAN: Martine and Bina
Rothblatt have been married
for more than three decades.
They're so close, their kids
call them by a collective name,
Marbina.
Martine, who has made millions
in tech and pharmaceutical
ventures
can't stand the thought
of being without Bina.
So, she created Bina48,
an android filled with
the memories, beliefs,
and values of the real Bina.
So, why, why do you want
to clone Bina?
What is the purpose?
MARTINE: Our quest for doing
this experiment
was to see if there's a way
to encourage technology
to allow people who love life,
including loving
other people in life,
to continue that love
indefinitely into the future.
BINA: We're also doing this
to store our memories
and mind files, because for
our great-great grandchildren
we have a means of them
communicating with us,
even if our bodies
don't make it forever.
FREEMAN: This experiment
is ultimately
so that we humans can...
cheat death.
MARTINE: I think, Morgan,
what we are doing
with this experiment
is part of a long, long
line of people
trying to stop death
from cheating life.
And first we got ourselves
out of the jungle
where we were at
the mercy of animals.
We developed vaccinations.
So I think it's the job
of the medical industry
and the biotechnology industry
to push the boundaries of death
further and further
into the future.
FREEMAN: Hmm, okay.
There are philosophies that say
that one of the things that
separate us from the machine,
what the Egyptians call ka,
we call it soul.
MARTINE: It will take decades
of additional development
in what Bina and I call
cyber consciousness,
using computers
to recreate the mind,
to see if a soul
evolves from that.
Whether or not there is
in the eyes of God
is a question that you and I
will not be able to answer.
FREEMAN: Well put,
Martine, well put.
*
That was an uncanny experience.
Talking to Bina48 was almost
like talking to a real person.
I feel kind of like
I was at the first flight
of the Wright brothers
at Kitty Hawk.
They flew for 12 seconds.
Now we have jets that fly
for hours at 35,000 feet.
One day a robot-like clone
of a person's mind
might be created.
But would it really be them?
Would it have that spark
we call the soul?
*
It's human nature to fight
against the finality of death.
*
If we ourselves can't live on
after our time on Earth is over,
we at least want
to be remembered.
It's a desire that's
as old as the pyramids.
Archaeologist Salima Ikram
is taking me
to the ancient capital of Egypt,
Thebes, modern day Luxor,
to Rameses III's
Temple of Millions of Years.
This is the temple of Rameses.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN:
It was the mortuary temple.
He's not buried here.
This is where you would
go to invoke him.
IKRAM:
Mm-hmm, it's a memorial temple,
and the Temple of Millions
of Years
so that he could live
for millions of years.
FREEMAN: More than
31 centuries ago,
Pharaoh Rameses carved his
life story deep into this stone.
It was his attempt
at immortality,
to assure his afterlife
would be eternal.
So is this kind of like a bible,
would you say,
historic writings?
IKRAM: I guess,
I guess in a way, yeah.
This definitely is
very much like that,
because you have what
the king did, when he did it.
FREEMAN: Why he did it,
who he did it with...
IKRAM: Yep.
FREEMAN: What her name was.
IKRAM: Ahem. Yes.
[chuckles]
FREEMAN: Egyptians believed that
their pharaohs embodied
the falcon god Horus.
Each human king was a
reincarnation of Horus' spirit,
his divine ka.
IKRAM: So, Morgan, this is where
I wanted to show you.
*
On the right,
you've got the god, Horus.
FREEMAN: Okay, I see Horus.
Now who's our friend,
what, is that Rameses?
IKRAM: Yep, that's Rameses,
who's making offerings to Horus.
FREEMAN: Instead of having
blood relation
from monarch to monarch,
there's something else that's
going from monarch to monarch,
and that something else is ka.
IKRAM: The ka, the divine ka,
exactly.
It is a continuation.
It's the same divine ka going
from body to body to body
to body of ruler.
FREEMAN: So, was Rameses III
the son of Rameses II?
IKRAM: No, they weren't really
properly related,
but because Rameses II was
such a terrific pharaoh,
Rameses III not only
took his name,
he emulated him in many ways,
so he named all of his children
after Rameses II's children,
and he also did the same thing
that Rameses II did,
which was carving his name
and everything about him
really, really deep
so no one could erase it.
So you have here his name,
User-maat-Re-meri-Amun.
FREEMAN: User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
By saying the name, his life
is for a moment renewed.
His afterlife extended.
IKRAM: The name is one
of the most important things.
So, if you have your name
written down
and if people say it,
so every time you've said
Rameses III,
his ka has been given
this burst of energy,
and he's living, and that's one
of the reasons why, of course,
you'd carve it deeply,
so it will not be erased.
It will be remembered
and you will live forever.
FREEMAN: So what do you think?
You think maybe people feel
the same way today.
I mean, Facebook?
[laughs]
I'm just asking.
IKRAM: I think some people feel
that if it's on the Internet,
it's real and it lasts forever.
FREEMAN: I will live forever.
I'm on Facebook.
[laughs]
*
User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
*
Well, Rameses succeeded
in his quest for immortality.
His temple may have crumbled,
but his name is still
being spoken
3,000 years after his death.
So, his spirit is still with us,
still moving among the living.
*
In fact, we all live on
in the memories of those we love
and those whose lives we've
impacted in a positive manner,
just as my brother who
passed away so many years ago
lives on in my memory,
so I hope to live on
in the memories of others.
*
Whether you're a Christian
following the example of Jesus,
a Hindu hoping for liberation
from the endless cycles
of reincarnation,
or you're simply trying to leave
the world a better place
than you found it,
our desire to go beyond death
has changed the world.
Whatever we may find
on the other side,
no matter what our faith...
*
...we can all become eternal,
like the stars.
*