#03 Life after death, and embracing our Immortality

Thank for joining me for this special podcast —Our topic will be on Life after death, and embracing our Immortality.

Life is a journey of wonders, with a new mystery at every turn. There’s so very much for us all still to learn, so much yet to discover and uncover about the many mysteries in life. But — the greatest mystery in life may not actually be about life; but about what happens to us after life.

Who hasn’t wondered what happens to us after we leave our bodies behind? You know… The moment we’re born we’re destined to die. Death is coming to us all. One day the sun will set. Emily Dickenson’s once wrote, — “Dying is a wild night and a new road.”

On death and dying, the one question I hear most often is could there be another option, an alternative to death alone, waiting for us somewhere still unseen beyond the limits of our normal understanding. 

You likely already heard of near-death or after-death experiences. Experiences that might involve someone who died, possibly during a surgery, who after returning to life, remembers viewing themselves from outside of their body. For a long time, the medical field was hard pressed to accept afterlife experiences as real or even possible. But those once positioned beliefs have out of necessity, changed. Afterlife viewing has happened so often, there’s now even a scientific term for it, “astroscopic viewing.”

Though a more familiar term for an “out of body experience, one that’s been around a while longer, is “OBE.” As I indicated earlier, although OBE’s are not often talked about, perhaps because of an insufficient understanding, —out of body experiences aren’t actually that rare.” As many as one out of ten people experience at least one out of body experience in their lifetime. Perhaps you have?

OBE’s aren’t solely bound to death experiences. They can occur for a variety of reasons, — though typically they’re sudden and unexpected—they can happen during a heart attack, in a coma, or during a life threatening accident, most often during some form of sudden trauma. But sometimes they can happen in thin moments, during times of natural transition. I’ve personally spoken with a number of people who claim they’ve experienced OBE’s recurrently, —and quite often, just prior to waking up from a deep sleep. There are also plenty of ancient belief systems that advocate or speak of learned practices in which the spirit self can be consciously separated from the body.

Though the one OBE we all eventually participate in is our definitive afterlife moment. Ancient Egyptian myth speaks of a Ba, a birdlike soul self, that’s able to hover outside of the body after death. In Heliopolis, it was once believed that the Bennu bird, an equivalent to the phoenix, rises again and again from the ashes of its former manifestations, The Bennu was seen as the eternal Ba of Ra. In other words, the One great sun spirit that gives life to all.

According to classical, medieval and renaissance Hermeticism, and later held to be true in the field of theosophy, an astral body lives in us that serves as a subtle energy bridge between our-soul self and our physical body. Long ago, and now buried in the ancient mists of India, — once practiced among certain siddhas, —highly adept  sages with advanced psychical skills, —there was a mystical technique known as Parkaya Pravesh, which  means the ability to leave one’s own body at will, and if needed, to even enter the body of some other person. Although, Parkaya Pravesh, was not so much an ability to leave one’s body and then fly to another location. It was n more correctly practiced as a technique that involved transcending the human form altogether, slipping into a non-local aspect of our greater shared consciousness, and then experiencing or perceiving reality through a broader and freer perspective. We’ll talk more on that a bit later. 

There are also many other religions that believe in astral worlds or planes, most of which exist as subtler, parallel dimensions, —some of which energetically interface our physical world. Most are believed to be inhabited by both good and bad entities. —worlds that are populated by by angels and demons, and a large variety of other entities and spirits.

The Inuit natives of Greenland and Canada claim to carry special abilities to travel ethereally to remote regions of the world, or even to other worldly dimensions, to seek out support or knowledge for their tribes when needed. Cultures from nearly every corner of the earth have their tales to tell, involving practices that employ various forms of astral or OBE travels.

Now, all of this might very well be exciting to think about, But, —if you’re following this OBE concept correctly, —you might be wondering, how is it even possible to see or hear anything without our physical ears or eyes? Once we’re out of our body, our organs of sense aren’t available.

And, when we’re clinically dead, who is that left who’s listening or viewing? And more importantly, does an out of body experience prove that we’re able to live on, or exist without our bodies? And if that’s true; — do we ever really die?

It might surprise you to learn, there are some very viable scientific answers to these questions. —Answers that could one day open an incredible world of possibility. The Possibly Of not just moving us to search for life some far off in a distant galaxy, but also in other dimensions or parallel realities.

While some of those answers have only recently come about through the research done in the field of quantum mechanics, molecular biology or neuroscience, similar claims have actually been around for thousands of years.

It’s not at all uncommon for our oldest surviving religions to assert afterlife claims. Though not all religions agree. Nearly every religion has its own unique tradition of dogmas relating to what might happen to us after death. There’re generally three fields of thought, —the least popular is that you simply end, —that concept is popular particularly among atheists. Another more popular belief is that after-death, your soul or spirit is destined to enter some manner of heavenly or hellish experience. The most common belief around the world, is that you come back, —that you’ll reincarnate.

The early Nile River Kemuteans believed, after you die, your spirit-self travels to an underworld destination where your spirit heart is weighed out on a justice scale against the white feather of truth. —Otherwise referred to as the feather of Maat. If your heart weighs in as light as that feather, unburdened by fault or falsehoods, you’re directed on to an upper world of immortals, referred to as Arra. But, —If your heart weighs in heavy with corruption or guilt, you’re ushered back to this earthly world for another life, —with a renewed chance to get things right.

In Christianity, if you behave well in life, you might go to heaven, —if not, you descend into an eternal hellfire. Not a pleasant thought. Fortunately, there’s an alternative; the way to avoid burning in hell forever, is to confess your sins to Jesus before you die. That’s a clause in the Christian religion contract you won’t want to miss. In confessing you can be saved and redeemed, regardless of how bad your crimes once were. You might go straight to heaven, or you may have to wait a while for that long-awaited judgement day, when Jesus will come back to earth and the righteous dead will rise again from their graves. 

If all that frightens you too much, you could always covert to Buddhism. Although Buddhists believe there’s no one there, no self, to survive an afterlife, only a collection of tendencies and illusions persist, in which that no one, that no self is somehow ensnared. The Buddhistic goal in life is almost solely to escape life’s suffering. The first of their four noble truths, referred to a Dukkha, is that all life is suffering. The way to accomplish that is to free our awareness from our limiting desires and ego tendencies. In the end, the ideal is to dissolve our consciousness into nirvana, a field of ultimate release. Nirvana can literally be translated as the extinguishing of the flame of existence.

Buddhism also proposes, at your time of death, your consciousness enters one of a few differing Bardo’s for transition. A Bardo is a Tibetan term for an in-between state, —after life, it’s the gap we experience between our physical death and our next rebirth. The Indian, Sanskrit term for Bardo is Antarabhāva, —which can be translated as “a between consciousness.”  

The Bardo concept correlates somewhat with the commonly held idea of life passing before our eyes at the time of our death, —although a Bardo lasts longer, generally enduring around twelve days. Although it can happen sooner, the transition enduring as little as three to four days. It’s a time when a great deal of afterlife phenomenon occurs, involving the degeneration and settling of one’s life tendencies that followed the deceased into death.

Souls aren’t really a true part of Buddhist belief, so it gets a bit sketchy at times, who those tendencies follow into death. After the release of one’s life-tendencies and a period of energetic reordering, what remains of them, determines if that person’s consciousness enters an emancipated condition of Nirvana emptiness, or will pass back into life to complete their journey. 

Judaism has a less contracted afterlife view than Christianity, allowing for a bit more flexibility. Some Judaic beliefs do hope for an ideal heaven ascent, similar to Christianity, but other beliefs may allow for a possible reincarnation. There’s also a mythic belief in a netherworld, —Sheol.  Sheol is “dark and abysmal,” —sometimes referred to as “the Pit,” or “the Land of Forgetting.” Most believe that only the wicked go there, but some believe that Sheol’s not just for the wicked, —it’s possibly where all humans descend after death. Severed from God and humankind, the dead live on there, in a shadowy state of meaningless existence. A rather dismal thought.

Another far more preferable facet of Judaic belief is that our physical world is merely a pre-meeting place that leads to Olam Ha–Ba, (the World-to-Come)” Obviously much more assuring than Sheol. It’s believed a virtuous person might suffer in their earthly life, but if their virtues endure life’s burgeoning tests, he or she might be rewarded with entry into Olam Ha–Ba, a reward of heaven.

So, if your Christian or Jewish, be very good, the alternative doesn’t lead to anything pleasant.

This recommendation also falls true if you’re Muslim. Islam also believes in heaven and hell. Although some Muslims believe they enter a deep rest after death, awaiting an eventual judgement from Allah. They’re judged according to their deeds in life. On the overall, Muslims believe, that at the time of death, the angel of death, Azreal or Malak al-Mawt, comes to extract the soul from the body. Sinners' souls are torn from the body in the most unpleasant ways, while the virtuous are thankfully freed more gently. Although, what the world of the dead actually is, is still somewhat up for debate. Muslims, according to their activities in life, could feasibly be sent to a heaven or hell, —or be put into an intermediary soul-sleep until a great resurrection occurs at the end of the world.

Hindus believe strongly in an ongoing Samsara wheel, involving a reoccurring recycling of life after life. They believe the soul transitions endlessly through a long progression of various Karmic incarnations. There are also numerous upper and lower worlds that might play into this journey, ranging in experience from extreme suffering in the lower worlds, to experiencing sublime bliss in the upper worlds. Where one ends up is again due to one’s lives lived in virtue or vice, good or bad, or the depth of one’s illusions or realizations of, and adherence to the righteous Dharma path.

Some Hindus believe reincarnation occurs directly after death; others believe that a soul-self could first enter other realms. They believe that an atman-soul, if illumined through correct life realizations, could feasibly ascend into the ideal swara-loka, a heavenly realm of immortals and eternal life. There are of course, a large variety of other beliefs in other world realties that might also play a part.

And, —If one is very bad, he or she might even descend into Narak, slipping into one of a variety of hells to suffer the consequences of their evil actions. Though unlike the Christian eternal hellfire belief, Hindu hells are thankfully not lasting, acting only as temporary lower realms for more intense learning, that’s driven through increased suffering. In other words, really tough love!

Now aside from these and a variety of other diverse religious beliefs… there are also those very ancient traditions that long ago, managed to make similar discoveries that parallel our newest, contemporary cutting-edge scientific discoveries.

What makes them alike, —the essential ground that those ancients and our contemporary scientists share, is they’re both are now Panpsychistic, —both agree that a unified field of quanta consciousness is fundamental to everything.

Perhaps the most exquisite and powerful ancient Eastern studies on afterlife came about thousands of years ago, through the profound and intimate investigations of advanced Vedic era Drashta Rishi-Seers. These were highly adept seers, enlightened-consciousness-scientists, who explored the worlds beyond directly, through their profoundly powerful transcendental practices. —They delved straight through the Maya veils of material illusions to reclaim the non-local source-essence of their own consciousness. What they discovered in that process is astoundingly similar to the most advanced cutting-edge discoveries being forwarded today.

What rang true then, and presently rings true for our contemporary quantum physicists, is that there are essentially three realties: our relative experience, the physical universe as we know it, and an underwriting quantum realm that is not only ubiquitous by nature, it interfaces a third non-local realm that timelessly encompasses our relative reality, and beyond, as a whole.

In quantum mechanics there’s the idea that a silent unified fifth dimensional field exists non-locally beyond the plank floor, —where the micro quanta world of supra small particles, disappear into a silent ubiquity, —in which —all things or beings are ultimately particle entangled, simultaneously.

In the ancient transcendental rishi sciences, there exists a similar quanta realm, that lives beyond the normal reach of our linear awareness, that likewise interfaces a silent absolute Oneness-field. —These two views are fundamentally one and the same. Which together, promote the view, —that consciousness is the fount for all that is.

The Non-local, Oneness, might be described as that field in which we are forever One, where, we’re in no way individuated into separate identities. It is also time as a single block, rather than being a linear progression of moments.

The non-local can be metaphorically imagined as a shoreless ocean, which is absolute and timeless by nature, but has in it an infinite flow of potential lives and expressions. —In other words, while this Oneness field might make our separation possible. —It remains forever One.

Now, —pay attention here. This is important to our topic of afterlife: —this Oneness field, which is the root-soil for everything, is also where death does not exist.

Non-local Oneness represents a deeper timeless inner world where our purer omnipresent consciousness serves as the foundation and source potential for all that comes into existence, and eventually returns to source potential. It in itself is however never changed, it remains forever absolute.

Yes, —everything comes from and returns to its source potential. On a quantum micro level of existence, including, of course, our quanta human existence, —our quintessential stuff of matter, where we are yet only wave particles, is comprised entirely of vacuum oscillations. — Transitory arrivals and departures of micro energetics that endlessly vibrate out of existence, only to return again renewed in a new location, in a new particle configuration to promote further potential manifest expressions.

This appearance and disappearance, is happening right now, on a quanta level, acting as the foundation for change, for everything that exists. In fact, were it not for this quanta process, time itself would not exist.

Oneness is a realm where everything is entangled. It’s where we don’t exist in separation, —because here, there’s only a shoreless oceanic field of potential.  And while that may sound astounding, what’s truly astounding is that there also exists an unquantifiable supreme aspect of consciousness, to which we all are intrinsic, that owns and governs this infinite field of potential. A supreme presence that resources this undreamt potential a dream it into a theater of the possible, giving us a playing field in which we can live out an endless dream of diversity.

While this sounds quite religious, even godlike, it’s also discovered science. Try to keep in mind, when thinking of what it means to be a non-corporeal being, between life, —this one being consciousness, by virtue of owning the source entanglement of everything, is root-connected to every thought, or action, or formed expression simultaneously. Essentially, the only real difference between being alive and dead is defined by being either in or out of a physical body.

Whether we are in our body or out of it, —Oneness is, in either case, always with us.

It’s only when we learn to transcend our differences, and reach for that grander purity deep within, that we begin to see. Not only that we are more than what we might have imagined we are, but also that we cannot truly die. —We might change our forms from life to life, which may appear to have beginnings and endings, though in truth, it’s only a change of form, a necessary transition that carries us from one potential expression to another. Perhaps it truly is exactly as Rabindranath Tagore, a famous poet, musician, and artist from India, once wrote: I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times... In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Technically, we might refer to the absolute field from where we arose, as our infinite field of potential, from where the secret colors of our painter palette, our wave probabilities, emerge for us to paint ourselves into our lives. Whether as individual or collective beings, together we collapse those prospects into existence simply through our desire to be.

—Now that sounds a lot like magic. And in a very real way, it is. Because, according to both modern sciences, and the ancient seers, we virtually conjure up our reality out of an empty cauldron.

Astrophysicists will tell you, before the appearance of anything everything was in symmetry, a perfection that represented an absoluteness. We on the other hand, are driven endlessly on by a sometimes conscious, and sometimes unrealized, summoning asymmetry, an asymmetry that apparently lives on in an otherwise silent wholeness, and asymmetry to that forms by default simply because we can search for ourselves. Driven on by our experience of imperfection in life. No — contrary to romantic belief, nothing is ever perfect in life. Except perhaps that life is forever imperfect. Which we should rightly be grateful for. For if it were not for that imperfection, we could not create or move forward, or ever come to know our Oneness in time.

You might want to take a little time to consider what that means, it’s not initially an easy concept to understand. We are quintessentially forever One, complete and perfect, but in life, as free agents of consciousness, we can amortize our revealing of that Oneness, albeit imperfectly, out over an eternal arrow of time. This difference, between our Oneness and our belief in dualistic limits and separation, in a foundation of Oneness, is the tension and force that propels us forward. In fact, it is what allows us to live in an otherwise silent and absolute field of pure potential.

Alone we are the drops that fill rivers that flow endlessly back to the sea. But we are also the sea that dreams in it an endless diversity of drops, that form the reincarnation of souls that fill the rivers of life, that seek to fulfil the urge to return to wholeness.

Yes, —we collapse our reality into existence because we need that something that we’re always searching for to continue on into our enlightened, self-realized, state of consciousness, which allows our return to Oneness, but also allows us to play for a while in a kind of potential-driven dream. What this ultimately means is we are our own creators-creator-ess’s in life, and —we are also the source consciousness that dreams it all.

So let’s return to our original question: what does this mean for us in our after life?

In life we trust heavily in our brains, our mental organs for dualistic consciousness, to form our perceptions and actions. However, our brains are not the source of our consciousness, they are merely the translating instruments of a deeper consciousness that feeds our physical existence with subtle wave particle vibrations that scale up into our brains, and simultaneously our relative universe, to form the perceptions by which we realize and communicate our sense of reality.

Imagine this: Before all else, you are the One sun shining down into a shoreless sea of moving waves. The sea is fundamentally whole, even absolute in its reach. But we can’t see that wholeness. In order to see what this Sea is we look into an endless diversity of reflection, each carried in a wave potential, each of which we imagine has an identify of its own. —You, me, them, Fred, Martha, Charlie, or whatever name you choose. Your identity is in fact, just a complex wave with smaller waves in it, rising and falling, being born and then later melting back into the sea, —and then rising again renewed somewhere else for a new expression. —The Sun, the real you, remains forever free, eternal and everlasting, —all the while life changes.

The answer to your afterlife should be obvious to you.  For those of you haven’t yet thought this out, —you’re the Sun! And the wave you identified with is merely a changing form in it. It is you, but not the whole you. Your imagined life is only a partial separation dream, secretly belonging to a greater dreamer, for whom death does not exist. The Sun cannot die, because it has no beginning or end. —Though lifetimes can come and go, you are forever.

Remember, every particle that comes into existence disappears, only to return again renewed to further its participation and expression in life. Energy can’t be destroyed! —But it can be transformed.

We—You, are the result of this ongoing renewal process.

The things to remember:

• You are not your body, beyond your identity self, you create and feed your existence from through a build that occurs in a profound quanta-realm, where pure potential awakens into form because you search for it. 
• Keep in mind, you are not your bodies source potential either; you are a free agent of pure consciousness that collapses that potential into existence.
• That real you, that free agent, can identify with the living and dying, —your body, mind, and so on, but it is secretly always the One Sun source. You are not the reflection you perceive in diversity; you are its shine.
• What moves you through time, through life, is an asymmetry that dreams up potential inside a greater symmetry. That asymmetry is felt in your individuated consciousness by default, which summons further moments of potential to advance and evolve your former imperfect moments. 

So —let’s ask this question again: How is it even possible to see or hear anything without your ears or eyes? If you’re non-local, and your no longer bound by your limiting form, you can perceive through the eyes of that one agent of consciousness that sees everything. Although that’s pretty lofty. You may not really get that view until your truly spiritually awake. More likely, you’ll simply perceive the world through a subtler astral aspect of your energy body. But not for long, once you start your journey into a new life, you’ll forget the past, losing it in the fog of your new hardwired fleshy investment in a new body.

Our human mind and its senses are fundamentally just fractals of a greater omnipresent intelligence that’s simultaneously connected to everything that exists. If your greater non-local Self can create or invent an instrument like your brain, that can receive quanta vibrations that it translats into perceptions of reality, then you can certainly perceive perceptions from the purer non-local field.

So, where do you go next after you die? Well that depends on the life you lived. If you lived a virtuous life, then a virtuous path is the momentum and force that calls you on. If you lived a corrupt and evil life, then the pressure of that disparity between truth and illusion by divine law seeks remedy in the next life, pushing you into toward resolving the currents of karma that relate directly to that former dark life.

While that idea might seem a bit daunting, especially if you’ve been wicked in life, you are nonetheless, in essence, still the Sun. —And, the Sun is your end destination, —which means, no matter how hard your next life might be, the healing force of that Sun is ever with you.

In sum: What happens to that person that you identified with in life? Well, think if of it as a blessing. You get to put down your remembering for a while and try again. Nothing ever truly lost in Oneness. You simply move on to a new form, which is built upon the unresolved issues that relate to whatever imperfections you carried into death.

We are both eternal and ephemeral. The ephemeral aspect of us exists in time, governed by the three qualities of inception, existence, and dissolution. Our manifest experience of ourselves comes to be, live, and then die. As does everything in the material universe.

This change, and resulting life to life transition, is necessary for time to exist: —consciousness creates and then destroys in order to create again, which allows the time process we need to live out our lives.

Where will you incarnate after this life? Walt Whitman said: “Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”  Why? —Our essential nature is forever eloquent; it always seeks the most graceful and probably direction for realizing its highest goal. Though once life begins, every moment is grace, every moment is precious.

The One, wants it all. It wants duality, and at the same time Oneness. In fact, that’s what awakening or enlightenment actually depends on. What that means is, you’ll manifest where you can best move towards awakening in your next life. So, if not now, then maybe then.

On a departing note, keep in mind, this reality is not, and cannot be, the only universe for your Journey to carry on. You may well incarnate in a parallel universe. But that’s another topic; one we’ll reserve for a future discussion.

Be well, —I look forward to taking with you again.