Category: Understanding the Basics

There are four groups of people who agree on what happens when you die:

• children who remember past lives
• those who’ve experienced a Near Death Experience (NDE)
• people who’ve had an out-of-body experience
• mediums

I’ve had personal experience with 3 out of the 4 things on that list. Of course, anything involving the afterlife requires a measure of faith. It’s not as if you can bring back a souvenir after you visit. Either you’ve had a personal experience to help boost your belief, or you have to take the word of those who have.

The most detailed study of children with past life memories comes from psychiatrist Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia, with more than 2,500 case studies. This phenomena can be found all over the globe, but is most commonly found in places like India where the culture widely supports the concept of reincarnation. This helps parents feel comfortable to share their experiences with their children, quelling fear of ridicule. There’s someone in my immediate family who spoke both vividly and specifically of memories of war when they were only a few years old. There are several books available that deal with the study of these children and their stories, which I encourage you to read.

An excellent resource for reading personal accounts of near death experiences is the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, or NDERF.org. They keep browsable archives of individual accounts on their website. What’s most astonishing about these records are the similarities.

My personal experience also agrees with the following qualities of a visit to  the afterlife: 

• journey through a tunnel or passageway
• movement toward bright, colorful light that is welcoming and doesn’t hurt the eyes
• encounter with a loved one
• experience with telepathic communication
• encountering a boundary which you can’t cross without officially dying
• experiencing emotion so powerful it’s impossible to put into words, though suggestions like ecstatic bliss and perfect love may give you an idea

I’ve also studied mediums, and though there are charlatans only interested in feeding on the grief of others to make money, there are convincing mediums to be found. I’ve read, seen, and experienced countless accounts of readings during which unknowable details are conveyed by the deceased to their living loved ones.

Taken individually, all of these subgroups are fascinating in their own right, but the sum total of what they imply is even more wondrous. It’s shocking that it’s not more widely discussed, given all it implies for every single one of us. I strongly encourage my readers to explore these records on their own, but know this:

We come from a loving place that is our true home. While here on Earth, we’re surrounded by the loving support of those on the other side, who never leave our side and will never fail us. Communication with them is not only possible, but likely if you are able to open your heart and mind. And when we die, we’re not ending but passing through a doorway on a journey back to where we belong. We leave fear and the amnesia that comes with physical life behind. No longer are we confined to the narrow space of a body, but can expand our awareness to the size of all of existence if we so choose. We are immortal. We are forever connected to an endless, stunning force of love that never judges but always encourages growth and forward movement. Nothing there is static or boring. The most soothing peace lifts us out of the weight of physical life.

In my opinion, one of the best proofs of the afterlife is your own gut feelings. Read some of the detailed descriptions out there waiting to be found and listen to your own internal reaction to them. Do they feel true? Is there something eerily familiar about them? Do they bring a sense of comfort?

If you stumble over a moment of doubt, dig deeper. I’ve heard people discredit the notion of the afterlife simply because of things like the commonality of the recently deceased to have an encounter with Jesus, Buddha, or other famous religious figures. Deepak Chopra discusses the explanation for this in detail in his book, Life After Death: The Burden of Proof.

As he explains, there is a collective unconscious that we all tap into. It’s why people all over the globe will simultaneously have the same inspired idea. There have been hundreds of occurrences of people applying for patents for an invention at the same time. The same happens with pitches for books or movies, because our ideas are all pulled from the same ether. When a new concept is meant to birth itself into our world, it comes through wherever it can, and not just through a single mind.

When we die, we experience the afterlife we’ve been conditioned to expect by the cultures in which we live. We pull a familiar interpretation of the afterlife from the collective unconscious and experience something accordingly. Despite unfailing similarities like moving towards the light and being met by loved ones, afterlife accounts all tend to have unique styles or flavors. What you find when you cross over is tailored to your current evolutionary state as a soul, your karma, your expectations, and what both you and your guides determine is what is appropriate just for you.

People “meet” Jesus or Buddha during an NDE because part of them expects to. This doesn’t mean they’re actually meeting Jesus and Buddha, but they are meeting a loving higher being who projects that comforting image to welcome them and help ease the transition of their arrival.

I’ve also read an account of a pastor who spent his life intentionally scaring his parishioners with threats of Satan, only to encounter the “devil” himself as he crossed over during an NDE. After the initial rough shock, the pastor’s guide let the gruesome projected image dissolve to reveal himself and the rest of the man’s awaiting loved ones waiting to welcome him. They’d thought he had a good scare coming to him after a lifetime’s obsession with such a negative creature.

No matter what might hold you back or inflame your doubt, as someone who’s both been blessed to bask in the love of the afterlife, and who has endured the passing of someone close to me, give yourself the gift of curiosity. The more you discover, the less fear you’ll carry with you, and the more free you’ll become to simply enjoy living while you’re still here to do it. I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything. The feelings it stirred in me, the impact it had on me—they’re indescribable and so much better than your wildest dreams. Though so very hard to capture with things as crude as words, please give these written accounts a read. They just might soothe something in your soul as well.

Have a blessed day, friends.

It’s always said good versus evil is the ultimate conflict in our world. This isn’t true. ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ as presented by organizations like the Catholic church do not exist. They’re warped shades of the truth, build to conjure fear and exert power over the masses. In reality, there is only the Source of all creation, and everything separated from it. The Source is Love and connection contrasted by that which is selfish and disconnected. In other words, the real ultimate conflict is Ego versus Soul.

By Ego, I don’t mean the traditional definition of the word, but the personality our minds construct during our lives in order to identity and separate ourselves from everyone else. It’s the way we tell ourselves we are unique and special, in ways no one else will understand. The personality is tied to our physical bodies, wired into the mind. The personality is driven by fear, above all else. It tells us to be afraid of others’ success, to do anything in our power to rise above others and establish ourselves as better than. It whispers to us that life is a competition, and we are losing.

But the personality—the Ego—isn’t real. It doesn’t exist beyond our bodies or beyond this life. When we die, we leave the personality behind. It’s the Soul that is eternal and continues on.

Knowing this, the Ego fights the Soul instinctively, for supremacy. It does its best to scare us into compliance, so that we will scramble for power outside of ourselves to prove its worth. It makes us believe that material possessions—houses, cars, clothes, jewelry—are what determine our value. That power comes from things and accomplishments, job titles and awards. But I invite you to really look at those in our world right now who do have money—as much of it as anyone could dream. Do they seem happy to you? Content in their lives? Or do a great many of them they seem afraid? Paranoid even? Miserable?

That’s because sometimes we don’t understand something until we have it sitting in our hands, to experience up close and personal. Those people have what so many never will, and yet… it’s not enough. There is no salvation in money. No peace or true joy.

Ego is also responsible for our thoughts. The voices in our minds that obsess over past and future, worrying over what has already happened, or what might be. It fills our awareness with noise so that it feels more real and in control of us.

These are the types of lies the Ego is built on. It is afraid because it is by nature impermanent, and cowers in the face of imminent, inescapable destruction. The Narcissists in our lives are Ego-driven. They are the closest to our understanding of ‘evil’ that we will ever find.

Soul is our connection to the Source. It is pure, powerful Love, bonding us in unbreakable ways to every living force in our reality and beyond. Soul is immortal. It’s also quiet in its power, whereas Ego is loud. The thought-noise in our minds generated by Ego tends to cover over the peace of the Soul waiting for us beneath. It’s necessary to go inward to connect with our Souls in order to silence the noise of thought created by Ego. Through things like meditation and in-depth self-scrutiny, we can clear away the chatter in our own heads, letting the Soul’s steady peace rise to the surface.

Our Souls are the source of all true power, originating from the Source. What this means is that everything we would ever need is already within us, accessible and ready to be discovered. All of the needs you’re trying to fill through things like money, fame, or accomplishment can be better satisfied through understanding ourselves better. Once you’ve begun to truly love yourself as you are naturally, the need for attention or physical proof of your worth disappears.

And you should love yourself. Our Souls are each perfect and unique ‘as is’. Is there room for growth? Absolutely! That’s why we’re here on Earth—to heal the parts of ourselves our Souls have decided to focus on, on this part of our journey. But you were born with all of the tools required to complete this task. You have the talents and interests specially designed to steer you toward the pre-set life goals in your Soul contract. Fate will set you on the right path and keep you moving in spiraling patterns around key issues. By taking a broad view of your life thus far, you will notice patterns. Pay close attention to them! These are your unique lessons. They will keep appearing in your life over and over again until you resolve them.

You may ask how to solve these patterns—especially since we tend to get stuck in them for a while. The answer is simple. Intuition. Gut feelings are the voice of our Soul directing us to where we should go. They’re subtle, and we have the ability to ignore them, so you must pay attention to your inner guidance in order to both hear and understand what’s being conveyed.

We are not incarnated with the full force of our Soul. We only take a small part into our Earthly bodies for the duration of our lives. The remainder of our Soul stays behind in our true home, anchoring us there. Our Souls are too powerful energetically for our physical bodies to survive more than a small portion of them. The small part that we do incarnate with is a portion we’ve chosen to heal through our lessons on Earth. We also bring with us gifts to use to contribute to the greater well-being of this world.

I promise you that if you work at distinguishing what impulses are coming from your Ego, and which come from your Soul, it will go far toward resolving the main trouble spots in your life. Stop trying to prove yourself to be right, or better than, or more than others. Just recognize the beauty to be found in each of us, and how astonishing the real you—your Soul—is. You are powerful. You are intentional. You are exactly who you were meant to be, without having to work at it at all. Nothing about you is a mistake. Nothing can truly hurt you, because your Soul is eternal. It is loved more than you can know, and always will be. Your only enemy is your own Ego. I encourage you to face it, and see what miracles can be discovered by simple self-understanding.

Have a blessed day, friends.