​"Apparently there is an After-Life" ~ Raymond Moody
Have you noticed how many people are talking about, writing about, and interviewing others about, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) lately? Interest in the subject has got to be at an all-time high; of all my talks on YouTube, the one I did for the Florence Unitarians on this subject back in 2017 is the most viewed (LINK).
Is it just that the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Brian Weiss, Raymond Moody, and half a dozen other psychotherapists made this topic acceptable - or are many more people, in fact, experiencing another plane of existence?
Yesterday, in my Course In Miracles class, we read again the words in Chapter Two: “'Heaven and Earth shall pass away' means that they will not always exist as separate states." Wow. Not destruction but union! No more separation! Is it possible? Placed in context, it's clear that the narrator of the Course, who identifies as Jesus Christ, is telling us that what we call Heaven is our natural state of being and what we call Earth is the experience we have been projecting around us as our minds have become culturally conditioned to think that we are separated from the Source of our life and wellbeing. In short, they are not 2 different life spaces, but rather 2 different ways of experiencing life.
So that means that what we call NDEs are not the journeys of our souls into another set of dimensions of space-time, but are rather experiences of our true life, our actual state of being, from which we are generating this dream we call birth, life, and death on Earth.
The folks who describe their NDEs tell us that, in the life which we call Heaven, unconditional love and acceptance, and an intensity of life without decay, light without darkness, and blissful joy, are the norm. There is no duality, no contrast, no conflict, no sense of "not okay" when they are in that state of being, that state of awareness.
They tell us that there is a sense of "travelling to" that state, often through the darkness of deep space, but only a few describe an equivalent journey back "into" their Earthly body. Usually it's a sudden "thump" and they're opening their eyes in the Earth world they had "left."
In the Vedic tradition of Hindus and Buddhists, there is a concept, satchitananda, which can be loosely translated as "love-bliss-consciousness". People in that tradition are encouraged to find that state of being and live in it and from it as much as possible. Entering into the meditative state of samadhi is a way get there. And, not too surprisingly, the people who achieve it often describe their experience as one of unconditional love, joyful bliss, and an intensity of life and light everywhere, with no sense of duality or conflict among the various aspects of being.
Is there a connection?
Is it possible that who we are is, truly, "not human beings but spiritual beings having a human experience" (to quote Wayne Dyer)? Is it true that when we are "awake" and active in this body we are actually in a dream-state in our heavenly bodies, generating this life experience? 

For the Memorial Day service at Florence Unitarian Universalist Fellowship this year, I chose to talk about the amazing amount of research that has been done into the experience of "passing away", or "crossing over." Here's the video of the talk: (CLICK HERE).
In the talk I mention several films that provide some insights into the experience:

• What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams (how our belief system affects our experience)
• Resurrection, with Ellen Burstyn (what the NDE process looks like & how it can affect us)
• Defending Your Life, with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep (how one "Hollywood" belief system could interpret the common stages in the experience)
• Saved by the Light about Danion Brinkley (how the experience can transform us, with a description of the process that his highly consistent with other accounts).

None of them are "accurate" for all folks but each provide a piece of the puzzle.

Some of the authors I mentioned (among hundreds that are out there) are:

• The Education of Oversoul 7 by Jane Roberts
• Life Between Lives and Journey of Souls by Michael Newton
• Saved by the Light by Danion Brinkley
• The Betty Book by Stuart Edward White

The video ends before I finished the talk (ran out of battery, I'm told), so I'll take this opportunity to share my final comment:
   A friend of mine has committed her life to being a LightWorker, has sold everything she owns, and lives in hotels and other peoples' homes as she is called around the world. I called her early one morning and we talked about how the world is changing and how our lives are being changed in the process. Toward the end of the conversation she said to me "... in my meditations I've been told that we're doing something nobody has ever done before. We, all of us, are lifting the consciousness of the whole of humanity. The angels and archangels, and all the avatars can only love us through this process - they don't know how to guide us because they've never done it. When this process we're in is completed, no one will have to 'pass over' again - 'the veil' will be gone."
​
Thank you for being the folks who are raising humanity to such a high level of consciousness.

We're approaching Memorial Day and as I prepare my talk for Sunday, I thought I'd share some musings here.

Years ago my mother shared with me a series of science fiction books in which the main character is an orphan, raised by a group of elderly scholars. One was a philosopher, another an historian, another a retired world-traveling doctor, etc. You get the picture.

Well, as the series unfolds our hero travels all over the galaxy applying his unorthodox, but highly effective techniques to all kinds of problems. He’s gone for years. And finally gets back home, only to find that those elderly gentlemen have passed away. And, though they have willed to him all of their collective belongings — from books to houses to bank accounts — he is bereft. They have betrayed him by not sticking around to be his support system now, when he needs it. He mopes around the old home for a while, feeling totally lost and unsupported. 

Then, out of his angst, he starts talking to them — you know how it is, “How could you? What am I going to do without you?” – all the usual stuff that we go through when we’re missing someone who we don't think we'll ever see again.

Well, to his surprise — and the reader’s — his old mentors start answering him! After a while, his room is as full as it ever was, and each of them has something to contribute to his conundrum.

I have to say I wrestled with that a bit. 
For about 15 years, in fact.
Then I began applying the principles of New Thought - from Unity and the Science of Mind.

I needed to heal some old hurts if I was going to be able to function as a working mother. And in the writings of Ernest Holmes and Louise Hay and Emmet Fox, a book called Emanuel's Book, some therapy manuals, and others, I found a series of steps that worked (check out the link to "Ruth's Method for Healing the Past").

And I also found a way of looking at our experience that I’d never seen in all the reading and searching I’d done all my life. I learned that, no matter who or what or when it appears to be, every experience we have is actually happening inside us!

Even now, everything you are perceiving as outside of you is in fact a combination of ideas and feelings that are inside of you — and so am I. So when I look at the people around me, I’m actually CREATING them in my mind - my own personal world.  And when I remember them... Well, I’m sure you can see how that’s even more the case.

So I was healing some old hurts with my mother and some other folks from my past one day, using a process of visualization and internal conversation, and I realized that I was doing the same thing as the guy in that science fiction book! And, just like the guy in the book, I was getting answers to my questions that seemed to come from outside my own thinking!

What’s even more amazing is, even though I never told any of those people that I was doing this work, they all changed their behaviors toward me! They said and did things differently around me because of the work I did with the images of them that I hold inside me.

So what does all this have to do with ongoing life of those who seem to have died?

Some of you have figured it out…

You see, the people we know and love — and even those we don’t — all live in our own hearts, minds, and souls. And, as far as we’re concerned, that’s the ONLY place they’ve ever lived. Whether they’re in their body in the next room, on the other side of the country, or on the other side of the veil we call death — everything we know, love, and hate about them IS INSIDE US.

So as long as we live, they live. They are alive, now and always, in our hearts and minds and souls. They are just as accessible inside us as if they were in their bodies — because the only place they’ve ever really been is inside us!

And there’s more ...
Because there is only One Mind, and my mind thinks the thoughts of the One Mind, then not only does everyone I’ve ever known and loved (or don’t think I love) exist as a thought in my mind...
They all exist as a thought in the One Mind — and that is eternal!

So here’s the gift of all this — got some unfinished business with someone who’s no longer on the planet? No Problem!  Sit down and imagine them sitting in front of you, and tell them everything you have to say — good and not so good — then feast your inner eyes on them while they tell you what they have to say. You’ll be amazed! Then — and here’s the best part — tell them you forgive them, and ask them to forgive you, even if you think they hurt you...

(I know, I know that doesn’t seem to make sense, but think about it, you’re the one who’s been carrying that hurt around and blaming them for it, so you need to be forgiven to release it. You can read about my discovery of - and wrestling with - this in the book that describes my own healing journey: Finding the Path) 

As you do so, allow both of you to feel the Light of Forgiveness surround you and lift you into the State of Grace. FEEL the love and light and peace and joy of it!

Same thing for someone you really, really miss. Sit down and see them with you, allow them to let you know how much they care for you, and, again, tell them everything—good and bad—you’ve been thinking. Get to the place where all you know is the love between you. Then FEEL the wonderful state of love and light and peace that is your birthright!

THIS is what it means to be a spiritual being having a human experience!
This love and light and delight that comes of being freed of all burdens of fear, loss, and guilt in our relationships…
This knowing that, in Truth, all is consciousness, and all hurts and breaks are healed in consciousness — we are made whole...
THIS is the salvation we’ve been promised, the fulfillment of our true nature.

We are eternal ideas in the One Mind, and we have the creative power to transform our experiences by tapping into that Mind through the power of imagination. 

As we allow ourselves to KNOW that everyone we love is alive in us, and that the way to connect with them is through that “wormhole” into other dimensions that we call our hearts, then we begin to live the life we that is our birthright — the life of love eternal.

Bless you on your journey!