Last in the 2 part series on Death
There is a lot of mystery and fear about what happens after we die. It is my opinion that the more talk about death, the less fear and mystery will surround it. We talk about birth and life all the time; yet, we steer away from discussing death. We all will have the death experience. It's a natural cycle of life. The more we share our thoughts, opinions, concerns, fears and feelings about death the sooner we will dissolve the taboo surrounding the death and dying experience. Where do we go? Will I see my loved ones again? Will Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Krishna, or others be there to greet me? The answer is yes if that is your belief system. According to the author, healer, and channeler Guy Steven Needler, “when we disincarnate, we bring with us our belief systems. We create where we initially find ourselves after we die.”
Where Do We Go When We Die?
If you believe you will go to a heaven when you die, where you will see all your dead relatives and friends along with Jesus, then that’s what you will experience. If your belief system is one that if you sacrifice yourself for a cause when you die, you will be met with a dozen vestal virgins, then that’s the environment you will create. If you believe in nothingness when you die, you will arrive into that nothingness. You will hang out and do nothing.
The soul will frequently remain near friends and loved ones until after funeral or memorial services.
Communicating with Loved Ones After Death
I remember a time when I was meeting with a family whose mother had died. The daughters came to me to officiate at the funeral services. They asked if I could contact their loved one or if she was nearby.
The mother indeed contacted me. She kept showing herself to me lying in a coffin in a bright red dress. She insisted that she be buried in the red dress. My conversation with the family went something like this:
“Dottie (not her real name) is wearing a red dress and lying in her coffin. She insists that she would like to wear a red dress for her funeral, I said.”
The daughters responded, “Oh, we are so relieved. We were going to bury her in her favorite red dress, but we weren’t sure if we should do it. It’s not typical for someone to wear a red party dress to be buried in. We didn’t know if she would like it.”
Dottie put her family at ease with this vital communication. As it turned out, everyone was more at peace going forward with the funeral service.
We set about creating a service that was unique to their mother. The family celebrated their loved one’s life with memorable music that was happy rock music, which was their mother’s favorite. The music was played periodically throughout the service. This tribute was a happy, poignant true reflection of their mother and her life.
When we transition to the other dimension, a soul may not know that it has left the physical body and remains in its astral body. They don’t always know they are dead. It is similar to when we travel to a new place or are very tired and go to sleep. When we wake up, for a few seconds, we are disoriented and don’t know where we are. This can happen to souls when they transition (die). They are confused, especially if they had a sudden or traumatic death. They become disoriented when they leave the body. These souls are what we would refer to as spirits and ghosts. Poltergeists often move objects trying to get our attention. They believe they are still alive because the soul realizes they still exist.
Remembering My Death from a Past Life
Years ago, I had the experience of not knowing that I had died. I had a spontaneous regression in my dream state. This dream/regression occurred in the 1980s.
It was night, and the lifeboat was rocking violently in the dark, choppy water. I was a teenager with my mother and two aunts, and I held on with both hands. I lost my grip and toppled backward into the murky water. I was wearing a hat and a long coat, weighing me down in the water.
I remember thinking, “How stupid could you be to fall out of the boat!” I was terribly upset with myself.
In the next scene, I watched men on the dock zipping up a body bag with me in it. Screaming, I frantically tried to get the attention of the men on the dock to open the bag.
“I’M RIGHT HERE!” I kept screaming.
I yelled, “I’m not dead. I’m right here!”
The more I screamed and was ignored, the more agitated and panicked I became. Suddenly a crew member from the ship in a white crewmen’s cap hugged me. I was relieved that someone had heard me. He hugged and comforted me as I cried uncontrollably. At that movement I was relieved that someone heard me.
I had been so frustrated that no one could hear me. No one could listen to me because I had drowned. I was dead. The crewman recognized me because he had also drowned and was in the astral state. He hugged me because he was without his body and recognized me in our astral forms (without a physical body). That was the end of my dream. Today it is still as vivid as if I dreamed it last night.
The next day I told my friend about my dream and how unsettling it was. He was a practitioner of leading people through regressions. He told me it sounded as if I had a spontaneous regression. He had a couple of reference books that he frequently used to help his clients with locations and dates to verify their regressions. This was before everyone had the internet in their homes.
I was on an ocean liner with my family in a lifeboat. Based on my coat and the other women’s styles with me, we determined it was probably in the 1930s in the US. We looked up ocean liner accidents. There had been an ocean liner that ran aground when it caught fire on September 8, 1934, off the coast of Asbury, New Jersey. The name of the liner was the SS Morro Castle. My last name at the time of this dream was Castle! When reviewing aspects of the dream, I also realized that the crewman who hugged me in that life was my father in this life. My father in this life was also a sailor.
From a human perspective, it could take quite a long time for a soul to become aware of where they are and know that they no longer have a body. Our spirit guides lovingly soothe the departed soul to help it gradually become aware of where it is and that it has left the physical body.
We can help those who are wandering lost in the astral plane by sending them love and encouraging them to go to their rightful place and that they are not where they belong.
The Bhagavad Gita refers to God/Creator within us at the Atman, the soul.
It instructs that when we leave the body at the time of death, we should go with our consciousness on God/Creator and be united with Creator.
When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, it is said that his last words were “Hey Ram” (Oh God).
Whatever we remember at the last moment of leaving the body will be what our minds have most constantly dwelled on during physical life.
We have many names for God. There are over a hundred known names around the world for our higher power, such as God, Creator, Source, Allah, Atman, Brahma, Buddha, Christ, Christ Consciousness, Divine, Divine Feminine, Eshwara, Divine Presence, Goddess, Shiva, Vishnu, Jehova, Jesus, Krishna, Holy Spirit, The Tao, Love, Mother Universe, Yahweh, YHWH, OM to name a few. Remembering your higher power as you go about chores, work, prayer, meditation, and relaxing is a good idea.
Wherever You Go There You Are
Wikipedia states that Paramahansha Yogananda was the first principal Indian teacher to settle in America and the first prominent Indian to be hosted in the White House.
Yogananda referred to God as Divine Mother. He said, “Don’t depend on death to liberate you from your imperfections. You are exactly the same after death as you were before. Nothing changes; you only give up the body. If you are a thief or a liar, or a cheater before death, you don’t become an angel merely by dying. If such were possible, then let us all go and jump in the ocean now and become angels at once! Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be hereafter. And when you reincarnate, you will bring that same nature with you. To change, you have to make the effort. This world is the place to do it.”
Yogananda reinforced the case for, you can run, but you can’t hide. Wherever we go our consciousness, our sentience, and our karma goes with us. Fortunately, we get a do over when we reincarnate into a new life. We have a chance to apply what we learned from our previous incarnations.
Wayne Dyer once said, “...since I did come from an invisible energy Source that some call God, or Tao, or Divine mind, then I must be like what I came from. My conclusion about my origination is that I came from Spirit, and my true essence is that I am what I came from.”
Our soul carries the divine essence of God/Creator/Source; it is everywhere and in all that is. The body is our vehicle, our costume that is useful to us while we live, learn and grow in our earthly incarnation. We are not the body. We are a soul within the body. When the body has served its purpose and it’s time for us to move into another dimension, the soul departs and leaves the body to return to the elements.
We consist of sentient (able to perceive and feel things) energy. When we die, we are energy without a body. When the soul awakens, it returns to its normal state of sentient energy that is within a larger entity - God/Creator/Source.
When one is fully self-realized, they know who they are and where they are from. Needler suggests, "that if you find yourself with a body and with other humans, when your body is demised, try to remember that this isn’t what you really are. And this is just something that you’ve created, and you need to move out of it. And so when that happens, broadcast your desire for your guide and helpers to extract you from it, and you’ll be back where you should be in the environment you should be interacting with your True Energetic Self and Source in the way it should be.”
Death is not to be feared. Instead, it is a natural cycle of existence. We are never alone and always cared for in our physical life and the life after our death. I encourage you to hold the intention of being your best self and working toward learning by meditating, praying, and sitting in the stillness of your Divinity. Laugh often. Laughter raises our frequency and dispels the dark shadows of our unwanted thoughts and feelings.
Honor your sacredness and know that you are worthy of every good thing. Your life is what you make from the karma you created through your thoughts, words, and actions. You can use your experiences, (without judging them), for information and learn from them. You are a divine soul of God/Creator/Source! We have all come from the same Source Entity; we are all relatives and a human family - We Are One!
I welcome your questions and comments.
In Oneness and Love,
Sri Agni Mata
Check out the first post on the death series,
“What Happens During the Death Process”
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