I bet you’re
thinking to yourself, “Why would I care?
I’m alive and busy? What does it matter? Why would anyone actually care about
this?”
Weird concept? Absolutely. Really,
when you think about it, there is so much other really important stuff to think about that why would anyone spend
any time on this?
Bet you’re
also thinking that this is way too morbid a topic for anyone to discuss, but
hey, it’s Halloween and right now (whether or not it’s Halloween), being ‘dead’
is ‘in.’ After all, All Hallows Eve, is that exceedingly popular time of the
year when discussing the dead, ghosts, method of death, myth and legend is
absolutely a cool thing to do. Whatever would ghost hunters do without all
those dead people walking around, creating orb fests for their cameras?
But this
entire season begs the question: would we
have as many ghosts as we surely have if religions treated living and dying
completely differently?
This persistent question demands an
answer. Perhaps the best answer comes from the ghosts themselves. Ghosts, when
people actually take the time to talk to them, will actually tell you that they
have absolutely no idea what to do when they leave their body.
One woman from
the early 1700’s told me that she was angry that the Bible didn’t tell her what
to do now that she is dead. Nothing was as she anticipated it. She asked me why
her Christian faith was so silent on this critically important point.
A man who
committed suicide had no idea that
living, yes, living in the ‘afterlife’ was pretty much as miserable for him as
living in the life he had just exited. He was pretty sure that God wouldn’t
welcome him, so he had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Another woman
in the 1600’s had no way of accurately discerning that she had in fact died. She complained that her preacher did not
warn her what it would be like. In deference to her minister from that time,
the truth is that he didn’t know either what death feels like. Really, who
does?
Children, who
have approached those of us who cross the dead over to the Heaven World, have
told us that they had no idea that they were dead, much less what they were
supposed to do next. They begged us to help them.
Christian,
Jewish, Muslim and all of the plethora of belief systems that populate the
cities and countries all over the world simply do not address the steps to take
once any person leaves his or her body and instantly ceases being ‘a person’
and immediately becomes ‘a soul’ or ‘a ghost.’
It would be so
helpful if people could actually understand how to determine if they have died.
You wouldn’t think this is such a difficult question, but it is perhaps the
most critical question. Dead people continue to speak to the living, continue
to want that drink of alcohol, that heroin fix, that piece of chocolate cake.
They continue to grieve a lost loved one, or a lost life, their own or someone
else’s. Who you are does not cease when
the last mortal breath is taken. Who you are continues, simply in a different
dimension.
Religions,
most of them, fill people with visions of fire and brimstone, a great image for
Halloween, but not so great for children, for adults who have led good and
honest lives, who have loved, learned and yearned for a peaceful place upon
death. Laying someone to rest may help the living but it doesn’t do a thing for
the dead.
If you have
been told all of your mortal life that you were born in sin and that you will
die in sin, why in heaven’s name would you know what to do at death?
If you were
told that Christ, that divine being eternally hanging on all those tortured
crosses all over the world, died for your sins, how can anyone ever be worthy
of his love after that horrific a sacrifice? How can you, a measly, muddled
mortal ever compete for entrance into that divine club in the 5th
dimension when you are just full of sin?
No church ever
tells you that you will be forgiven if you simply ask for help, that angels,
those concierge guides of the Heaven World, are standing by to escort you to a
better place. Yes, angels will help you into the Heaven World no matter how you
died, who you were in life, what you have done or who you harmed. You have only to ask for help.
Maybe that’s
the rub. Maybe religions have a hard time fully appreciating that God will
embrace us all: the good, the bad, the murderous and the mostly innocent among
us.
Maybe
religions would be horrified to realize that there is no religion in the after,
there is only the Heaven World wherein reside God, Christ, Buddha, and all of
the other astounding beings who have tried with marginal success rates to help
us find our way home.
Ironically, it
is only the Tibetans who help their believers know what to do to transition
from the mortal body to the etheric body. They even guide you in the correct
position to take at death, if you know that death is coming. They help you to
know that love awaits you so that you do not need to enter that 4th
dimensional land of the unknown without remembering that it is temporary and
that the light will be there. They fill their people with hope, not fear. What
a concept! They keep it simple and like the message of Christ, remind people
that death is that entrance into life everlasting, not death everlasting.
Several years
ago I went to a restaurant in San Juan Capistrano, with my daughter. While
sitting there, I kept getting the sense that there was a teenage ghost standing
by asking for help. Finally I put my colorfully delicious turkey/cranberry
sandwich down and spoke to him. I asked him if he was the person everyone was
speaking about in the front part of the restaurant. Apparently there was a
luncheon in the bistro to honor this young man’s life. He told me that he kept
trying to tell them that he was right
there! He didn’t go anywhere! He kept asking me why they couldn’t see him.
He even tried to ‘connect’ with his minister who was leading a prayer before
the meal. I reminded him that he probably couldn’t see ghosts of loved ones
past either when he was alive. He nodded sadly and looked down where his feet
would have been. I quickly brought in an
angel to guide him to the Heaven World.
Most people in
the religious hierarchy, and I do not call them leaders, because leaders
actually lead you somewhere, rather than to a dead end, have no idea themselves
what to do at death. It’s easy to point the finger, to cast blame, but the
truth is, no one told them either what happens next.
Can you
imagine the paradigm shift if people knew what to do when that last breath
leaves us?
Photography by Tina Erwin
No comments:
Post a Comment