Our experiences of the soul

In each state of consciousness the soul looks different. In the physical world the soul is centered around emotions and idealism. It connotes warmth of heart, love, devotion to God. We look to our souls to remind ourselves that we have a divine spark inside, and yet we don’t base our lives on it. The soul flickers in and out.

 

In the subtle world the soul is spirit, denoting holiness, closeness to God, and freedom from the burdens of physical existence. The soul no longer offers mere comfort; it is the bliss that pain was disguising. The soul is constant now; its guidance can be clearly followed without confusion. The primary feeling is magnetic: one is being drawn inexorably toward the divine.

 

In the domain of pure consciousness, merging is complete. One sees that self and soul are one. Since there is no here and there, the soul has no location. It exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. One no longer seeks the soul’s goodness, holiness, or purity. It simply is. 

 

The divine plan is life itself. It includes all creatures in their proper place. The proper place for humans is, first, in eternity and second, here on earth. Death, like the pause between two breaths, is how you cross from one home to the other.

 

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 126-127, 157). Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.

Afterlife is a "special kind of tomorrow"

Near-death experiences tell us that the stage of “crossing over”—the temporary realm preceding the full experience of the afterlife—still feels personal. People report seeing their deceased friends and relations, for example. The dying person continues to see the room in which his body lies, and memories and associations keep tying him back to physical existence. The possibility of taking a creative leap has yet to be realized. As long as you continue to feel like the person you were, you can’t experience the unknown.

 

When you are in a physical body your perspective makes physicality real. When you are dreaming at night, the dream state is real. When you are “crossing over,” both waking and dreaming are unreal, and the field of consciousness is real. What causes this change of reality? Vedanta holds that consciousness is convinced by its own creations. Therefore, nothing we can see, hear, and touch, whether in waking, dreaming, or beyond both, is ultimately real. They represent shifting perspectives.

 

To be completely free means waking up from all dreamlike states and reclaiming who you are: the maker of reality. One cannot say that all dying people will achieve this kind of absolute freedom. They may glimpse it only for a fleeting second; they may sense the possibility of breaking away from one dream and yet be seduced into the next one that comes to mind.

 

Consciousness is tied by thousands of threads to old memories, habits, preferences, and relationships. Whenever someone really presses the issue of what happens after we die, my response comes in the form of a question: “Who are you?” You have to know where you are right now, in order to know where you will be tomorrow, and the afterlife is just a special kind of tomorrow.

 Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 84, 87, 98). Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.

Heaven is an experience in consciousness

When Jesus tells his disciples that they should be in the world but not of it, his teaching seems unlivable. My physical body anchors me here every moment. But the soul manages to be in this world while remaining firmly outside time and space. Jesus is giving us a clue about the kingdom of heaven within.

 

Many times, Jesus sounds like a rishi in the tradition of Vedanta. Certainly, that’s true about being in the world but not of it. In simple terms, he is telling his closest followers followers to stop thinking of themselves as physical creatures. Jesus becomes more explicit if we look outside the four Gospels to the fragmentary Gospel of Thomas, which was written very early, perhaps within a century after the Crucifixion, but was later excluded from the official canon.

 

Jesus said: “If those who lead you say to you: See, the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the sky will go before you; if they say to you: It is in the sea, then the fish will go before you. But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father.” This passage shows how profound the roots of religion are, and how compatible the great traditions of wisdom would be if dogma didn’t stand in the way. What Jesus says here supports the view that heaven is everywhere, but it goes further by saying that heaven is an inward experience—an experience in consciousness. 

 

Jesus sees the soul everywhere and thus he can see that the essence of people lies outside time and space. Like the rishis, Jesus was comfortable living with eternity. Why, then, aren’t we? Eternity can’t be grasped by the mind in our ordinary waking state. Our waking state is dominated by time while eternity is not. There must be a link. Vedanta says that there is a continuum, in fact. Every quality in yourself is actually a soul quality.

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 63-64). Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.

Heaven is an inward experience and our home

The notion of heaven keeps things human, and that’s one reason it has survived so long. The image of returning home after we die, resting from our labors, and receiving our just reward offers powerful reassurance. (It’s difficult not to come to tears listening to the old gospel hymn with its gentle, rocking refrain: “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, Come home…Come home.”) 

In an age of doubt, however, the shakiest assumptions about heaven are the two it can’t do without:

1. We go somewhere when we die.

2. The place we go to is the same heaven or hell for everyone.

In Christ’s conception heaven is present: It’s an inward experience that can be felt by the righteous. Heaven is also future: It’s returning home to be with God that the righteous await on Judgment Day. Heaven is personal: It is to be found “within you.” At the same time, heaven is universal: It is an eternal abode beyond birth and death, a place outside Creation.

This teaching was revolutionary because Jesus built a bridge to the soul, exhorting every person to find his (or her) way across.

What you choose today will ripple throughout a thousand tomorrows.

 

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 55, 57, 61). Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.

Crossing Over – How the Afterlife Dawns

1. The physical body stops functioning. The dying person may not be aware of this but eventually knows that it has occurred. 

 

2. The physical world vanishes. This can happen by degrees; there can be a sense of floating upward or of looking down on familiar places as they recede.

 

3. The dying person feels lighter, suddenly freed of limitation. 

 

4. The mind and sometimes the senses continue to operate. Gradually, however, what is perceived becomes nonphysical. 

 

5. A presence grows that is felt to be divine. This presence can be clothed in a light or in the body of angels or gods. It can communicate to the dying person.

 

6. Personality and memory begin to fade, but the sense of “I” remains.

 

7. This “I” has an overwhelming sense of moving on to another phase of existence.

 

This sevenfold awakening isn’t the same as going to heaven. Researchers often call this the “inter-life” phase, a transition between the mental state of being alive and the mental state of realizing that one has passed on.

 

Westerners argue over whether the afterlife could be as real as the physical world; Easterners declare that both are mental projections. Westerners limit the human life cycle to a short span between birth and death; Easterners see an eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

 

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 40-41). Harmony/Rodale, 2006. Kindle Edition.

Death fulfills our purpose on earth

I believe that death accomplishes the following miraculous things:

It replaces time with timelessness.

It stretches the boundaries of space to infinity.

It reveals the source of life.

It brings a new way of knowing that lies beyond the reach of the five senses.

It reveals the underlying intelligence that organizes and sustains creation (for the moment we won’t use the word ‘God,’ for in many cultures a single creator is not part of dying or the afterlife).

In other words, death is a fulfillment of our purpose here on earth. Every culture offers a deep faith that this is true, but ours demands a higher standard of proof.

At the deepest level vibrations cease. The universe flatlines like a dead brain. Yet the appearance of death is illusory, for the frontier where all activity ends marks the beginning of a new region, known as virtual reality, where matter and energy exist as pure potential. The basis for virtual reality is complex, but in simplest terms, a nonphysical region must exist to give birth to the physical universe.

If eternity is with us now, underlying all physical existence, it must underlie you and me. The illusion of time tells us that you and I are shooting in a straight line from birth to death, when in fact we are inside a frothy bubble let loose by eternity.

 

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death: The Burden of Proof (pp. 25-28). Harmony/Rodale, 2006. Kindle Edition.

"Love is everything, does everything" . . .

After the pain, everything changed. I left my body and didn’t look back at my physical body because I didn’t want to. I looked only at the tunnel and at the light. I was drawn into that tunnel.

The walls of this tunnel were mainly covered with photos. I was physically in all the pictures, but I didn’t recognize myself in all of them. I remember stopping to take a closer look at one of these pictures. In the picture, I was with several people, sitting in the back of a red convertible, and driving in a sunny spot. There were five of us in the car, and we were all happy. We were laughing together. I didn’t recognize myself and the others, I just know it was me. With reflection, I have come to think that these photos could be images of my previous lives memories that are stored on the energetic fence of my soul. Analogous to if the tunnel represented the walls of my Soul and when I arrived there I was in a state of pure spirit.

Sitting on the red convertible, my physical body was totally different from the one I have today. That’s why the photo affected me that much and surely because it contained an important memory.

In the tunnel everything went so fast. But somehow, I had the time to see all the photos if I wanted to. There was no time. It was like time no longer existed and that it never existed. I feel that only in the non-physical state can a person understand this notion of “without time” or the non-existence of time because it seems impossible to describe it on Earth.

At the end of the tunnel, I found myself in a totally white place made of light. Nothing there was material, only the immense, white light. There was no end or beginning. It was like being inside an infinite sea of light, with gentle pink waves.

The light was not blinding and it was so beautiful. And above all, it was so warm. This white place was full of love, sweetness, warmth and peace. But I felt Love at its highest when three immense columns of light came in front of me. These columns of light were esoteric beings. I have never felt a love such as this one. The love that they have for me and that I have for them, is indescribable.

No one on Earth knows me more than they do and I know no one more than I know them. I am part of them as they are a part of myself. Even my sister, with who I am very close, and even my mother, seemed and still seem to me like strangers compared to the three of these Beings. I know there are many more of these Beings where I come from. They are my family. I cannot describe this love because, it can only be felt as it exceeds our understanding of love on earth. Nothing can be used to compare it. The love we have on Earth is not really love, it is rather an educational love to teach us what Love is. We destroy love, we condition it, we suppress it, and we change it, thinking we know what love is. But Love is everything, love does everything, and love must be understood. Love is totally misunderstood and Earth is a great school and opportunity to teach us about Love.

These three pure Beings spoke to me in a different language. They used my thoughts but it was different than thoughts. They reminded me that I had chosen to be incarnate on Earth and that I had to go back. I already knew that by being by their side, everything was coming back to me. They gave me so much love. I was at home and I badly wanted to stay. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to go back. That’s how it had to be. I remember laughing a lot with them. They understood me. They knew the difficulty of an incarnation, as well as I knew it before I incarnated on Earth.

I was so small compare to them. I didn’t see them entirely; they were too tall. It was like being at the foot of Hyperion, the highest tree of the world. Or it was like looking at a cloud that grew from the soil of Earth to rise up to the heavens. I didn’t see their faces, hands, or their legs. I don’t even know if they have any. They are light; love is light - I know that. A beautiful, pure column of light, that’s the only way I can describe them.

I know now, that the place where I met them was just a wonderful transition place. It was like a cross between several worlds and surely a cross between several universes. But I can tell you that even in this place of transition, no cravings exist, no fears, and no lacking for anything. I had everything. I was everything and I didn’t need anything. I knew it and I understood. Everything was simple, in its place. Everything was pure and unconditional love. There were no rules, and all decisions belonged to me. Nobody decided for me. These three beautiful Beings helped me get back to Earth.

I don’t know how long I was there for; it could have been a month was like a second, or a year like a day. It’s impossible to say.

So, I went back. I had to. I went down that tunnel and looked at the pictures. I can’t tell if they were the same pictures, but they were there. After the tunnel, I came into the living room and was on the ceiling. My physical body was lying on the couch and all my friends were around me. They were stressed while moving and touching my body.

When I returned to my body it was very difficult and I was in pain. It was a physical pain but also, a pain in my soul. I was choking, feeling uncomfortable and cold. The contrast was like being in a huge lake of pure, clear, and warm water, with this pure water becoming me, covering me with love, extending my being to the sky. Then suddenly, finding myself inside a small box open to a dark rainy sky, in a deserted cold street in town, where every drop of rain that fell on me, brought ice into every inch of my blood.  

NDERF.org #8935