Holistic-Personal-Development.com

It’s a very Zen-like thing to do — letting go. Life after death happens to everyone, sooner or later. But what do we do? Where do we go? What do we need to do to prepare?

You may have seen the Visa commercial about all the great places that don’t take American Express. Well the afterlife is one such place. But they don’t take Visa either. Don’t worry about it. They don’t even take cash. When it’s your turn, leave your wallet at home. Leave everything at home. It’s time to let go.

It sounds hard, doesn’t it? But seriously, the transition to life after death is easier if you are prepared for it. And knowing what is waiting for you makes letting go that much easier as well.

When people think of life after death, some think of heaven or hell, some people think of the astral world, and some people think of walking into the light, and some people just want to get the after life over with and reincarnate into a better life.

As far as heaven and hell goes, they are not physical places. They are states of mind. And they do not last forever. If your predominant desires in your physical life are elevated in nature, such as listening to fine music or viewing fine art, or reading or hearing philosophical discourses, then life after death will provide as very blissful heaven state for you. The fulfillment of the desires does not require a physical body. Thoughts of music can instantly fill the mind with music. Love is expressed without physical form. For some, life after death is unmitigated bliss.

Contrast that to a drug addict or the sex addict or the alcoholic. Their desires are fulfilled only through the physical body. And since they no longer have a physical body to quench these desires, they suffer in their life after death.

And because they don’t have a physical body, the suffering is even more intense than if they had a body. But again, this is not some state of eternal damnation. It’s an experience that souls go through between lives. The purpose is to balance out the imbalanced life just lived. It helps to restore equilibrium to consciousness. And with a restored equilibrium, a more objective choice can be made about the next incarnation, and the lessons that are needed. The experiences that a soul undergoes during life after death have purpose and meaning.

Do you remember when you were in school and you had to take a music appreciation class so you could appreciate good music? I remember. Those who learned to appreciate it were able to enjoy over the subsequent years deep aesthetic experiences. One person I went to school with became an oboe player with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Like classical music, LIGHT is an aesthetic experience of an even higher degree. And if you think the percentage of people who develop a fine taste for classical music is small, that percentage is infinitely smaller when it comes to those who develop the sensitivities for experiencing the bliss of inner light.

Do you think you will appreciate the light that so many people who have had near death experiences speak about? Of all the aesthetics in the world, none of them can compare to that sublimity that is waiting for everyone in life after death.

Why is it that some people can go into a concert hall to listen to a symphony and have tears fall down their face and others are bored and fall asleep? It is due to the aesthetics that each is accustomed to.

I’m not suggesting that people experiencing life after death fall asleep from boredom. But the soul that is attuned to the higher vibration of the spirit world will have a more transforming experience. And this will determine whether that soul is released from the almost endless cycle of birth and death, or achieve liberation. It will determine whether the life after death is a mechanical process or a blissful process that leads to awakening. It will have a big impact on the type of incarnation that is to follow, if there is another incarnation.

The key point to realize throughout life is that each day we have an opportunity to raise our vibratory rate. According to the research done by Dr. David Hawkins, and reported in his book, Power vs. Force, most people don’t make much progress over a single lifetime. But some people make huge strides.

It happens easily for the soul that intuitively remembers what the purpose of life is. It doesn’t happen for those who don’t even give it a thought. The old ways of thinking and acting are imprinted so deeply on the mind that a new way of living and thinking never even occur. In that case, life isn’t an adventure; it’s a record playing over and over. And life after death isn’t much better.

True adventure is traveling to new heights, beyond where the mind has ever been to before. It’s not just seeing beauty, it’s communing with beauty. It’s a discovery of oneness. It’s a journey to realizing who we are.

Wonderful information about life after death has come from people who went through near death experiences - people who were actually pronounced dead but came back to life minutes later. A significant number of people who have had a near death experience have reported there is nothing better than death. One experiencer, Dianne Morrissey said, “If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there’s not a single experience on earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing.”

But that is not the case for everybody. Some people who have a near death experiences go through something far different. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche, recounts the NDE of a man who had a cardiac arrest: “I was going down, down deep into the earth. There was anger and I felt this horrible fear. Everything was gray. The noise was fearsome, with snarling and crashing like maddened wild animals, gnashing their teeth.”

The famed Raymond Moody, who coined the term “Near Death Experience” in the 1970s with the publication of his book, Life After Life, writes that several people have told him of seeing beings who seemed trapped by their attachments - the physical worlds, possessions, and people.

That’s not surprising. How many people, while alive, take the time to learn the art of detachment? How many take the time to enjoy the consciousness of their own being while in a physical form? Some people are so overwhelmed by life in this world that they never stopped to wonder what they were doing here.

That is the job of consciousness - to gain the ability to detach, to answer the question, “Who am I?” Life after death then becomes the wonderful experience that Dianne Morrissey spoke of.

As far as being prepared for life after death, I like the following passage, excerpted from a Stephen Levine’s guided meditation, in his wonderful book, A Gradual Awakening:

Experience everything as it arises and passes away, simple and easy, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. Just the flowing through vast space. Completely full; totally empty. Vast and immeasurable, simply being.

There is no separation anywhere but in mind.

We exist everywhere at once, perfect as is, complete.