Life and death; the movement of atoms and elements through an eternal cycle of change. The process through which our species evolves. Life and death are commonly judged as being good and bad respectively. But, what use is such a judgement? Will the world stop turning if you are unhappy about one day having to give up the body? Of course not, everything is fleeting, nobody owns anything; indeed, every single breath we take is returned to Mother Nature.
If you meditate on Life and death, you will find that like all other opposites in the world of matter, they are in fact One. They do not differ in kind but by degree. That is, they are fundamentally the same thing, but they are opposite poles within the eternal cycle of change.
I woke up feeling rather different but I just couldn’t put my finger on the reason why. “Oh well” I thought, “not to worry” and I set about performing my first task of the day; the same task I’d performed as my “first task of the day” for as long as I could remember. That task was to swing my legs around and out of bed and place my feet into the pair of ever faithful house shoes that waited patiently at the side of my bed for me every morning. I hated slippers and refused to wear them, “only old people wear slippers.” To my amazement, the shoes were not there. I sat there on the edge of the bed feeling slightly baffled, but at the same time surprisingly contented and relaxed. I looked up, and at the end of the bed there was a familiar face smiling at me. “Now, where do I know you from,” I thought, not even thinking for one minute how odd it was for me to wake up and find someone in my bedroom; someone who was vaguely familiar but who, nonetheless, had no place there.
“Best get on with the day,” and I rose up feeling unusually light and with an incredible sense of freedom. All the while, my uninvited visitor is still smiling at me. I suddenly thought to myself, “where am I?” As I got up, I realised that I didn’t recognise any of the decor in the room. I didn’t know where I was, but I certainly wasn’t at home. I also realised, somewhat surprisingly, that I wasn’t troubled by any of this, in fact, I felt incredibly happy. I thought I would ask the character with the familiar face where I am and how I got here.
As if he’d read my mind and before I could get my words out, he said, “all is well dear soul, you are going home, but you will have to stay here for a while in order to undergo a period of adjustment.” I realised also at this point, that I had heard those words loud and clear in my head, but my companion’s lips had not moved. “Oh…and you were right, I did read your mind…well, sort of. We communicate telepathically here, so I heard your thoughts and replied accordingly.”
“What do you mean, HERE,” I said. “Where am I and what do you mean by a period of adjustment?”
“Well, my friend, where you have just come from people would say that you have died. But actually, as you are now experiencing, there is no such thing as death. You have simply left your physical body behind in the world of matter. You need a period of adjustment because you have to get used to functioning once again in what some souls in the physical world would call the etheric, or astral body. Everything here is much lighter and the rate of vibration is much faster; what you would have described as the speed at which atoms move around. It’s the same laws of physics here, the only difference is that everything happens much faster. The greatest example of this is that our thoughts manifest instantaneously.”
“Wow, this has all knocked me for six, it’s so much to take in.”
“That’s understandable my dear friend, but don’t worry, I’m here to help you with the adjustment process, and just to satisfy your curiosity, the reason I look familiar to you is because I am. You and I have known each other forever; indeed, I have never left your side, but you have had a sojourn on the earth plane and it will take a little while for you to readjust to the vibration here.”
“But I don’t even know your name.”
“We don’t bother with names here as we have no need for them. We just automatically know everything that we need to know. There is no time here either, but I’ll go into all of that in due course.”
My companion’s warm and kind persona made me feel very much at ease, and I realised too that he was right; I’d been talking to him, but my mouth had not moved; our communication had taken place purely by thought. “Get some rest now,” he said, “and I’ll be back to see you shortly.”
I’ve always been very cynical regarding the amount of influence religion has on society, I should add that I can only speak about the UK, and specifically the Christian Church. What particularly bothers me is the way that vast numbers of people have bought into the concept of being judged at death. The judge in question is an all-loving God, however, there’s a catch. The all-loving God is also angry, jealous and vengeful, and “He” loves you so much that if “He” deems that you haven’t loved “Him” back in accordance with the conditions that “He” imposed on “His” love, then you are for the high jump. Or, to be more precise, an eternity of hell-fire and brimstone. Of course, this is absolute nonsense, but it’s actually good nonsense because it has given me the inspiration for another book.
I have tentatively called it, Death – A New Beginning, and it will consist of a series of poems and (very) short stories that deal with death as a process. The process that enables us to transition to our next reality. In other words it will look at death from a spiritual perspective, but minus the angry God. So, this is the way my writing will be going for the next few months. The following piece, entitled “An Eagle Caged” is one such piece that may end up in the book.
Encased in a body of flesh
I was as an eagle caged
I existed to fly
But with clipped wings?
I was but a dreamer
Spending my days pondering
On what might have been
And what might yet be
If Only I could free myself
From the living death
But, is this not life’s greatest conundrum?
To seek freedom
Only to find that one was never caged
Merely a slave to the ego
Yes, a slave to the ego was I
A believer of life’s dramas
As they played out in my mind
I was the star of the show
Stumbling around the stage
Like a drunken actor
Struggling to remember his lines
Now, as the deluded await judgement
From their angry God,
My latest adventure concluded
I dissolve into the nectarine sweetness of Divinity
So, which is which? When we are born, we are born into a very restrictive physical body and those who do not ultimately realise that they are something much greater than the body quite often live lives of “death.” In other words, they quite often live lives of pain and suffering. Paradoxically, when we go through the process of physical death, the soul experiences an incredible sense of freedom; the spirit literally flies when the body is shed.
Also, people with little or no spiritual awareness are usually very afraid to “die.” Given that death is a very important part of life, are they actually afraid to live? In contrast, people who have a certain level of spiritual awareness quite often do not fear death because they know that death is merely a process (not an end) by which we are able to transition to our next reality.
Of course, in consciousness there is neither birth nor death, only “That Which Is.”
“His breathing has become very shallow but he seems comfortable, oh wait… I think he’s gone.”
“I don’t know what’s happening to me. I thought I could hear distant voices, then the light; so bright yet so comforting… and the tunnel. But I feel so peaceful.”
“I don’t know what’s happened to my bed, it just seems to have disappeared, and I don’t recognise any of these characters, they just seem to be going about their work quietly and efficiently.”
If ever we needed a reminder of our shared nature with mother earth, we need look no further than the sun. She rises in the East (birth) in all her majestic glory and sets in the West (death) in equally glorious majesty. Only to appear once more above the horizon (rebirth). Each spectacular sunrise and sunset symbolises the eternal glory of the light (spirit) and the cyclic nature of life.
As the light of the sun at setting is a precursor to its light at rising, never diminishing, so the light of the spirit shines eternally, ever brightly through each physical birth and rebirth.
Death being the stepping stone from one great adventure to another.
“I am Death, the Great Awakening.” “Awakening to what?” screamed the deluded from the rooftops. “To what is already there,” Death replied. “Why do you fear me? I am the lifter of the veil, the bridge to your next adventure, I am the light leading you out of the darkness, not into it.”
The deluded screamed again, “No, you bring only fear, pain and suffering, why should we listen to you?” Death replied once more, “My friends, it is not I inflicting your fear, pain and suffering on you; I bring only light. You have lost sight of your true nature, and as a result, you have succumbed to cause and effect.”
“I exist to relieve you of such inflictions, not to bring more.”
But the deluded would not listen, they chose fear instead, and thus, continued on the wheel.
Life and death; the movement of atoms and elements through an eternal cycle of change. The process through which our species evolves. Life and death are commonly judged as being good and bad respectively. But, what use is such a judgement? Will the world stop turning if you are unhappy about one day having to give up the body? Of course not, everything is fleeting, nobody owns anything; indeed, every single breath we take is returned to Mother Nature.
Author - Richard F Holmes 