Will donating my body parts help me in the afterlife?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): Does donating body parts really have any meaning in the afterlife; negative or positive?

Acharya Prashant (AP): What’s your name?

Q: Anubhav

AP: Anubhav is asking, will donating body parts help me in the afterlife or help someone else in the afterlife, in whatever way?

The question is, ‘Do we know this life?’ We are talking about afterlife as if life itself is very clear and intimate to us. We do not know this life but we are so very interested in other life, in some other world. Do you know life? When are you thinking of afterlife? Right now in this life. Do you know this life? What do you mean by afterlife and why must the mind jump to the thought of the afterlife?

What is life? Is life about eating, breathing, walking, sleeping, procreating? Is this life? Remember, if this is life, then very soon technology will come up with humanoids, with machines, with robots that will do all of these things. Breathing is a chemical-mechanical process. You can have machines that can breathe, very easily. Digestion of food, all the impulses in the brain — electrical, chemical processes. Any machine can do all of this. Walking, getting tired, procreating, you very well know of test-tube babies. Machines can do all of this. If this is not the definition of life then this life is not living at all because this life can be produced in a factory.

But most of us are only that: Very very mechanical people, very very programmed people. What is programming? Programming is when your reaction to a certain situation, to a certain input, to a certain stimulus has been determined in advance. That when such input will come, you will give this kind of output. That is called being programmed.

Two chemicals never have a choice. You bring them together they will have to react given a certain pressure and a certain temperature. This is programming. The chemicals are programmed to react. Is that life? Iron is programmed to attract to magnet. Will you call iron and magnet alive though they are attracted to each other? Water is programmed to boil at a certain temperature. Now would you call…