The world to come. Life after death. The Afterlife. There are many names for the belief that we have an existence beyond this life, that some part of us—our soul, our spirit, our essence—lives on after the death of our physical bodies. There is a range of religious and spiritual views of the afterlife, some of which include a concept of our reincarnation in human form, some of which do not. Some see this reincarnation as a process of going through many lifetimes in order to have the opportunity to perfect ourselves and then move on to a higher realm or otherworld. Others see the afterlife as a place of static bliss, while others envision an ongoing process of purification. While it is hard to know what awaits us after death, our beliefs of the afterlife play a strong role in how we live our lives day by day.