Life After Death

On Death ~Kahlil Gibran

You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Excerpted from: "Coming Home A Guide to Dying at Home With Dignity" by Deborah Duda

People sleep and when they die they awake... - Mohammad

Until the Second Council of Constantinople in A.D. 553, reincarnation, which teaches that we're responsible, was included in the Bible. Jesus himself indicated his belief in reincarnation when he said that John the Baptist was Elijah, the dead prophet returned. (Matthew 11:14) For more than 500 years, reincarnation, "the mystical doctrine", was widely accepted by Christians including the most eminent church fathers. The Council, presided over by the Emperor Augustinian, declared it heresy. They called it "the mythical doctrine" and deleted it from the Bible by a vote of 3 to 2. Perhaps it was politically expedient for the Church for people not to know that they had more than one chance to get to heaven, or that eventually everyone gets there no matter what their religious path.* Reincarnation is still found in St. Augustine's writings, a man who inspires both Catholics and non-Catholics.

* The edict of the Second Council of Constantinople said: "Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine or the preexistence of the soul and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema." Pope Vigilius never authorized the "anathema" but it was generally believed that he had. Because the Church never made an 'official' statement against reincarnation, perhaps it's possible for practicing Catholics to believe in reincarnation without being in technical disagreement with Church doctrine.

Your own heart is the best source of knowing about life after death. I can share with you my reality and how I arrived at it. I can tell you about recent studies and writings across the ages. All of these are just footnotes to your own knowing.

If you're willing, try this:

Find a quiet place and close your eyes. Breathe gently inside and let go of any ideas you have about life after death. Become 'empty'. If thoughts come up, don't get caught up in them . . . just watch them. Breathe into your heart and from this place ask for guidance... Ask if death exists other than as a change in form. Ask if we're born again and again. Trust what you hear, especially if it's a calm gentle inner voice. If nothing comes, that's OK too. My own sense is that life after death and rebirth are two the best-kept secrets in the West. Working with dying people, I've found that most have had hints or visions that life continues and/or that they've lived before and will again. -. they felt that I wouldn't judge them crazy or senile, many dying people shared experiences they'd not shared before. We learn a lot about our common human experience when people feel free to share their experiences without fear being ridiculed.

One of the glorious things about being alive in our time is that mystics and scientists are finally beginning to say the same things. Mystics have always believed life continues after death. Some scientists are beginning to say, "Well, maybe." To mystics the one family of humankind has always been a reality. Now scientists, in particular biochemists at the University of California, have proven genetically that all the humans alive today had the same mother. Their study used a part of the cell inherited only from the mother, so they haven't yet announced who our father was. We're beginning to realize that the mystic and scientific paths are both valid ways to approach truth.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. has said, "I don't have a shadow of doubt death (as an end) doesn't really exist... If they hang me up by my toes, I won't stop exploring life after death." Raymond Moody, M.D., in his popular book Life After Death, reports the experiences of people who 'officially died' and were resuscitated. Since his book, numerous books and articles on "near-death experiences" have been published. Many are by medical doctors who received firsthand reports from patients and by ordinary people who've had the experience themselves.

What Dr. Moody reports basically agrees with what dying people have told me. From his interviews with people who died and were resuscitated, Dr. Moody reports:

When the 'officially dead' persons heard someone say they were dead, they felt surprised and afraid. After the initial fear, they felt incredibly peaceful. Some reported hearing noises, buzzing, ringing, roaring, chimes or bells. Most experienced a dark space, often described as a tunnel, which they moved through quickly. Many then experienced being outside of their bodies and looking down, surprised at the efforts being made to revive them. Seeing and vision seemed enhanced. Most reported reunions with relatives and friends who'd died earlier, a sort of greeting committee. Nearly all experienced a beautiful luminous light or 'light being' who felt enormously loving. The identification of this light being was determined by their experience before death. (Dr. Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson made a cross-cultural study between the U.S. and India. They found that Christians interpreted the light being as Christ and Hindus interpreted it as a Hindu deity. Both Asians and Americans saw the dark passage, brilliant light and 'dead' relatives. The light being often suggested that the person review their life. No one reported feeling this was punitive, only instructive. The person reached a barrier or limit where they felt they must choose whether or not to return to life. Most found 'being dead' so beautiful that returning was a hard decision. Many decided to return only because of their great love for their children or spouse. After the experience, most felt they wouldn't be afraid to die again. And their experience of life was greatly enhanced. What about heaven and hell? Each of us defines them in our way. To me, they're states of consciousness rather than places. Heaven is consciousness of union with everything, with God. Hell is consciousness of separation. Heaven is remembering who we are. Hell is forgetting-believing we're separate and alone. Heaven is love. Hell is fear.

There is only one time-space, so after we die we all go to the same 'place'. If we got what we deserved based on some of our unkind behavior in life, there probably would be a hell. I believe we get what we deserve based on who we most profoundly are, no matter what the outward appearances - love. And love is the reward for love. So I believe in a heaven, a 'place' of love, after physical death.

I also believe as surely as hell has existed on earth, so does heaven exist on earth. To experience heaven on earth, we have to heal the eye of the heart so we see life through the lens of love instead of the lens of fear. Then we see the beauty, courage and nobility of our human family and the exquisite natural beauty of the earth. When we're in love, we experience heaven on earth. That's why we long for that experience. Through our much disparaged "rose colored glasses", we see the truth. Heaven is already on earth. We don't have to wait until we die.

To me, hell is all the things we create when we see life through the lens of fear. Hell is punishment. If life is a school for remembering love, as I like to think, would God punish us because we stumble and fall? Seems unlikely to me. I imagine that each time we fall, the God in us picks us up, dusts us off, says "I love you", and we start again. No one punishes us except ourselves.

Evidently, after we die, we review our lives so we can learn from our experience. Perhaps this review is what some call hell or purgatory. Re-experiencing some of the unloving things we've done can be awful. Once my whole life flashed before me and I felt enormous pain just witnessing myself turning my back on someone whose eyes were asking me for love or help. I hate to think how I'd have felt if I'd killed someone. But perhaps in terms of unconditional love, killing someone physically and withholding love, killing someone emotionally, are of equal weight.

What about sin and evil? To me, they're energy we haven't looked into deeply enough to fully understand. Sin and evil are a lack of love. So they are healed by love, not punishment, which is just more lack of love. At times we may have to physically segregate someone so they won't hurt us while they're learning to love. Prisons won't be effective deterrents until they teach love.

Punishment is a form of manipulation. It's a way to control people with fear. Perhaps hell, major punishment, was invented so some groups could control their members with fear. Many organized religions suggest that their way is the only way to God. Follow instructions or be punished! This is not to deny the beauty of organized religions, but only to point out that they are made up of people like you and me who have free will and are, therefore, fallible.

I believe we can't give the responsibility for our relationship with God, with life, to anyone else. We are each ultimately responsible.

Until the Second Council of Constantinople in A.D. 553, reincarnation, which teaches that we're responsible, was included in the Bible. Jesus himself indicated his belief in reincarnation when he said that John the Baptist was Elijah, the dead prophet returned. (Matthew 11:14) For more than 500 years, reincarnation, "the mystical doctrine", was widely accepted by Christians including the most eminent church fathers. The Council, presided over by the Emperor Augustinian, declared it heresy. They called it "the mythical doctrine" and deleted it from the Bible by a vote of 3 to 2. Perhaps it was politically expedient for the Church for people not to know that they had more than one chance to get to heaven, or that eventually everyone gets there no matter what their religious path.* Reincarnation is still found in St. Augustine's writings, a man who inspires both Catholics and non-Catholics.

The fundamental premise of reincarnation is that everyone is in the process of returning home to God or growing to godhood. And we are born again and again until we reach that union. Each soul is created equal to every other soul. Each soul has free will to remember its true nature in its own way and its own time. No time or way is better than another. The paths home are as many as the people on the earth. Nothing can stop our homeward journey. Any delays we might experience are just opportunities to deepen our understanding.

Reincarnation teaches that we choose when and to whom we will be born. We choose our parents, the ones most suitable to provide the environment we need to complete any unlearned lessons. As a soul, we enter the physical child conceived by the chosen parents. We reincarnate in groups, so we see again and again people we've loved and helped as well and those we've hated and hurt. According to this belief system, our coming together as families and friends is no accident.

We also choose when we will die. When the soul sees that the body is no longer in condition to support our continued learning, it gives a signal for the dying process to begin. Sometimes the soul leaves the body before the body stops functioning. This may explain a feeling commonly reported by people on deathbed watches. They sense the person has already gone.

According to the belief in reincarnation, we create, allow, or tolerate everything we experience in our lives in order to help us learn, or remember. We don't always get what we consciously want in life; we get what we believe or what we fear. No one is a victim. Assuming we're victims is a way we avoid taking responsibility for what we create. Once we remember who we really are and become responsible co-creators, we aren't born again, unless we choose to return to serve our fellow human beings.

"Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7) The cause and effect of our actions is sometimes called the Law of Karma. The law is simply a description of how energy works. Plant a carrot, reap a carrot. Give love, receive love. Karma may also be understood as our unlearned lessons and/or as judgements we make that keep us feeling separate.

Karma means we're responsible and accountable for all past choices and actions no matter how small. We reap the blessings and the teachings. Being sick, having a car accident or going to jail are not punishments or 'bad karma.' They're opportunities we've created to help us remember or learn so we can change our lives and live more joyfully.

There's also group karma. I believe, for example, it's the karma of the human race and individuals to learn to live together in peace. World War II, for example, was a reminder we created that we weren't doing too well. It was group karma, but no one chose to be alive at that time who didn't have the individual karma to learn from it.

Unconditional love doesn't create karma. If in any situation my intention was love, I am responsible for love. If hate was my intention, I'm responsible for hate, and karma is created. "Working out karma" - being responsible for what we feel, think, say and do -teaches love and compassion. It helps us move beyond separation to the truth of unity.

Unconditional love transcends karma. Another way of saying that is "Divine will transcends the cause and effect of human will." Sometimes this is called the Law of Grace. Grace is the teaching of compassion that Jesus Christ added to the older Hindu and Buddhist teaching of divine justice, karma.

For example, if I become a different person from the one I was when I created the karma (by changing, trans.. forming, repenting, re-thinking, etc.), I'm free of it. Karma is education, not punishment and I've learned my lesson. Justice is the great teaching of the mind; love, compassion and freedom are the perhaps greater teachings of the heart.

Unconditional love heals, completes, finishes karma. At any time we can break the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, by loving unconditionally. It may take many lifetimes. Or, it's possible for you and I to do it right now.

In a very real sense, helping others love the God within them is helping ourselves, for .

No man is an island . . . (each) is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.., any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for you - John Donne, 1623

Perhaps our work is to love, to serve and to remember.

When we see all of nature working in cycles, I often wonder why we don't envision the same for ourselves. Is it arrogance or is it fear that we'll lose our individuality, our specialness, if we're part of some larger whole? Are we confusing uniformity with unity? Each flower, tree, sunset and human being gives its unique gift to the whole. We see a seed planted, growing to maturity, bearing fruit, decaying, dying and releasing seeds that sprout anew. Over and over we see the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Are we not too part of the cyclical process of nature? Does not the seed-core in us continue to grow after our bodies die?

* * * * *

I'd like to share with you how my understanding of the continuity of life grew.

As a child, when I was still closely connected to my heart-knowing, I knew that life didn't end. But everyone said it ended with death and they were bigger than me, and I wanted their approval. (Interestingly, Dr. Kubler-Ross reports that children up to five years old believe death is reversible.) It didn't make sense to me that we came into the world, did this little dance and were snuffed out.

I heard a lot of talk about justice, loving our brothers, freedom and perfection that didn't make sense in terms of what I saw around me. "Why are they starving?" "Why was their son killed in an accident?" "Why are we so lucky?" "Why is his wife so mean to him?" "Why is she dying of cancer? She's such a good person."

It seems unfair! It looks like chaos!

Then I noticed there were some things I really loved and some I hated and most of the time I didn't know why. Not so long ago I loved everything Black American, Native American, Persian and Tibetan and hated everything German. I didn't think I was a racist.., so why hate Germans? Out of ten years living in Europe, I spent one night in Germany. That night I was so terrified that I barricaded my hotel room door with a dresser and chairs. Definitely not rational!

First with the help of friends guiding me and then alone, I slowly began to remember what I call past lives. Others may prefer to call them personal archetypes.

I remembered having been a German Jew who died at Buchenwald. After remembering, slowly I began to understand. I was judging Germans as they had judged me. They made Jews separate. I made Germans separate. There is a 'Hitler' in me - the part of me that judges. I forgave myself for making that separation and now love Germans as I would anyone else.

There is a 'Hitler' in each of us. It's the part that keeps us separate from each other, from our kinship with all of life.

Perhaps the Jews and Germans sacrificed to remind us of our common humanity - to give us another chance to remember to love. Will we listen to the gentle teaching of love, or will we create something horrible to remind us again? It's our choice. At each moment of our lives, you and I must choose between love and fear. If we don't choose love consciously, fear wins by default.

Gradually I began to experience life as a wave of energy, now cresting in form, now dissolving into formlessness. The unconditional love, justice, freedom, peace and joy we dream of are possible for everyone if we're moving toward realizing them over a number of lifetimes.

I began to understand that what I'd interpreted as chaos were opportunities to learn. I began to understand that all our concepts and beliefs about life, including my own, are not to be taken too seriously. They're helpful, if limited frames of reference that give us a sense of purpose and direction. They point us toward experiencing everything as one. They aren't the experience. They too dissolve in the union with all that is. So one set of beliefs is temporarily as useful as another as long as it makes the heart glad and leaves room for the beliefs of those who differ.

I know again in my heart that death is just a word we invented to describe leaving a body we no longer need. Life is endless . . . only the form changes. *

The edict of the Second Council of Constantinople said: "Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine or the preexistence of the soul and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema." Pope Vigilius never authorized the "anathema" but it was generally believed that he had. Because the Church never made an 'official' statement against reincarnation, perhaps it's possible for practicing Catholics to believe in reincarnation without being in technical disagreement with Church doctrine. -Ashlynn Ward