Penguin,
I hope the mods won't mind me linking to a
recent post on the Magick forum, because it addresses the subject of death directly, and the relationship which I believe
can exist between ourselves and the deceased. This is in the context of Harry Potter, so if you are familiar with those movies & stories, Penguin, it will be easy to understand ...
One of my earliest experiences, which I remember with
utmost clarity, also occurred at
exactly the age you mentioned, Penguin. My parents were not home, having gone to a dinner party, so I was staying across the street with a neighbor. The kids had gone to bed, me included, so it must have been somewhere around 8 or 9pm. We were all asleep.
What I remember was as clear and as "real" as things we do
physically, so I must politely disagree with anyone who says, "ah, you were just dreaming."
Of course I was dreaming! 
But others who have had an experience like this, whether in childhood or in adulthood, know good & well that the experience is
exactly what it seems like - an
out-of-body experience!
Looking back, I would guess that
had this experience not become a frightening and unpleasant one ... I most likely
would not have remembered it, so this tells us something about time, and memory, and the way this relates to the brain in connection with out-of-body travel. If I hadn't become frightened, I do not think anything unusual would have occurred, but
I'm glad it did, because I consider the experience of
great value, these 30 years later ...
What happened was, I went floating across the front yard at the neighbors, and the first thing which is
bright in my memory was the
lamppost, an electric streetlamp, about 8 feet high, which shone forth with absolute
beauty and brilliance in the astral plane. I would say I went floating right past it, very close, and I certainly noticed it (!), but it didn't strike me as odd in any way, nor did I stop to admire it. This suggests that it wasn't unusual at all, and that the kinds of things I was used to seeing, even as a young kid, must have been marvellous (by earthly standards), indeed!
I floated past the lamp, moving swiftly but not
that fast ... and went right across my own front yard in a direct line for my bedroom window. I was not
thinking of moving,
per se, or doing anything whatsoever to
try to move. It wasn't like I was swimming, nor was I stretched out like Superman. I was pretty much just floating, as if you might be standing there and suddenly you became
lighter than air, then got swept along on a current of wind.
I do recall moving through my own bedroom window, and then I found myself sort of hovering over the edge of my parents' bed. In all the years
since then, as well as right here, right now, I have always known
with absolute clarity and certainty what it was I was doing, or trying to do. I went floating from across the street,
straight to my parents bedside, in one, fairly swift motion, because
this was what I did probably every night (as do all children), to "get my parents out of bed" and visit, travel, play, etc. ... on the astral plane.
The entire floating experience, from the moment I left my body until the moment I have hovering in my parents' bedroom, might have been 5 seconds ... I can't be sure. But I do know what happened next, because that's why I remember this experience! I got sick! I only vaguely recall that when I didn't find my parents in their bed, it very much upset me - terrified, perhaps - and so I immediately woke up (yanked back to my body in a split second, which has probably happend
to us all more times than we can count!). I do not know exactly why I got sick, but it could have been because I came back so quickly, or possibly even as just a direct, instinctual response to the fright. Either way, I was upset, and cried, and I think the neighbor may have called my parents ... but I remember going home with them some time afterward - and certainly they knew that I had been sick. No big deal, really, but I don't think I ever mentioned my out-of-body experience to them.
~~~~~~~~~
How does this relate to death? Simple. So-called
`near-death experiences,' or NDEs, as well as
`out-of-body experiences,' or OOBEs, are often classed together. They share many details in common, first & foremost, the
definite, lucid awareness of being
out of one's body. Sometimes there even a direct
perception of one's physical body, usually from an angle above, as one hovers - and perhaps watches doctors trying to resuscitate one, in the case of an NDE. Either way, people often describe movement in such terms as
floating, flying, or falling ... and of course, the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel" is a prevalent detail in the case of NDEs.
This is
by no means the only OOBE I have ever had, although it is one of the most lucid, and is the earliest that I recall with such clarity. I knew
in my brain consciousness, from that moment on, the truth (in simplest details) about other planes of awareness, and other states of consciousness. Everything else, even including the most detailed explanations in esoteric books on this subject, is
just elucidation.
When we die,
we survive the death of the body. Soon afterwards, we experience a
"life review," during which time we are shown the
true, inner sigificance of everthing that has
ever happened to us during the present lifetime. This is shown to us by our own Soul, and we see it "from above," so to speak. We understand why
everything happened to us, why things didn't always go the way we might have wanted them to, and we see the true nature of the various relationships we have experienced. We see how our tiny little lives influenced and impacted the lives
of everyone around us ... and vice versa. We see that actually, the way we have lived our life
did have an effect - even upon the rest of the people in this world,
every single one.
And I deeply believe, in my innermost being, that it does not matter whether we have believed in rebirth (
reincarnation) or not. We are also shown how our present lifetime fits into the context
of a short series of lives ... perhaps a string of three, or seven, or ten. The goals that we had in the lifetime that is over, are revealed as being important,
but of secondary signficance in comparison with the
much greater objectives of the being we call
`our Soul.' And so our lives are judged, not just based on
whether or not we accomplished all of these goals, but also according to how much we progressed toward the
greater objectives of the Soul.
Ultimately, during this "life review" (which may last several hours, even days, I have read) ... we are shown
the true nature of the law of karma, or Cause and Effect, which Christ speaks of
directly when He says, "
As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Many people are frightened by these words, but the Lord of Love was not trying to scare small children, or even to make adults cower and scream. He was attempting to show us that
for every act of good that we do, so likewise, good will return. And
for every selfish or evil act, so too will be the result. This is true, spiritual "Justice."
So after our life's review, and possibly a brief period of unconsciousness (just like sleep), we awaken on the
'astral plane,' which the Catholics call Purgatory, the Hindus call
kamaloka, and the Tibetan Buddhists call
the bardo. This is the world of our dreams, where we have traveled out of the body during all the years of our physical lifetime, during sleep. It is also where our
aura can be seen, even during life, by those with clairvoyance.
Usually, the first few experiences will last several hours, several days, or even years, and they can be rather hellish.
Yes, they are likely to be frightening,
for all of us. Christians are treated no differently here. Jesus does
not sweep down, and say to us, "You are special, you are different, and you do not have to go through this." If we pray to Him, we are very likely to receive a response, and it might come in different forms. Most likely He will
not come to us directly, and there is a very good reason for this. Many people do not apply good, simple logic, or if they did, they would realize
that Jesus cannot express Himself properly in these lowest, darkest worlds of human experience. He has
nothing in His own being which corresponds to this imperfect aspect of our nature.
And so what he will do is send a representative - someone who is
very pure of heart, pure of mind, and spiritually awake, yet who is still undergoing their own transition into the higher worlds. It may be someone who, like us, has recently died - yet who has been in the astral world a bit longer, and has already moved past this part of it. Or it may be a disciple, someone like ourselves, who is
out of the body during sleep, and who has been trained by the Master on how to operate - lending assistance to people (like us) who have recently
crossed over. Or it may even be an angel, one who also serves the Master, and who will come to comfort us. But regardless, and even if you do not pray to Jesus,
if you will but look to the Light, and reach out inwardly - through prayer or meditation - to the thoughts, or visualizations, of a being that you consider
Holy, you
will be answered, even in this
lowest astral world.
This is because God's Laws apply to
all of us, and Christians are no different than Hindus, and Muslims are no different than Pagains ... in the sight of the Lord. Good actions meet with pleasant "reward," and bad actions meet with
unpleasant consequences. We teach this to
every child and we profess to know this as adults, yet strangely enough, there are many people who somehow wish to be exempt. They are not. To quote George Harrison (of the Beatles), who I am listening to right now:
"The lord loves the one that loves the lord
And the law says if you don’t give,
Then you don’t get loving
Now the lord helps those that help themselves
And the law says whatever you do
Is going to come right back on you"
This is no less true
during life, but sometimes we do not realize that we are facing
karma, and so we think life is unfair. It is because we do not understand, and if we did, it would be clear
why everything happens, good or bad. The Soul shows us this after death, but then we must move through the astral world
just like this one ... relying upon what we have been taught, and we must do this alone, at first, which forces us to call upon our
inner courage, and causes us
to be resourceful,
and creative.
Unless we have been
very wicked, our unpleasant experiences after death will be over very soon. It may seem like awhile, but it will likely only be hours, days, or perhaps weeks, if we have been
very naughty indeed. This is
not punishment. This is the same thing happens if you throw a ball against a wall.
It bounces back. You do not throw a basketball against a brick wall and expect it to be absorbed. No "magic being" is going to come along and steal it, either, or make it disappear. That isn't how life works. People are very superstitious, however, and sometimes they wish this were true. They will learn, however, that God has set up the Universe so that
life is fair for everyone ... and if it were any other way, we would sooner or later complain of injustice. We only complain now, because we do not see how fair it really is, and how/why it
must be this way!
So unless we have been a murderer, or a criminal, or perhaps a politican (okay, that's a joke
), we shall move quickly through the
"muckiness" of the lower astral, and the world around us begins to
brighten incredibly. We interact with others ... other "dead people," sometimes our friends or family - when they are
asleep, and dreaming, and we may even be fortunate enough to meet other beings, such as angels. But gradually, day by day, we are moving closer to the Divine, to "God above."
If we do acts of GOOD, and if we seek to help others, we shall have marvellous,
wonderful experiences (!) ... and in time, it will be apparent to us that we are preparing for
another transition.
Our experiences have become increasingly pleasant, maybe even almost
blissful ... until finally, as the whole world we have been starts to fall away, we shall see our aura expand, and we become free of that last little portion of our astral body, and it falls away. Even our astral body (called by some the "spirit body," although this is a mistake), is
not who we really are. And so we enter a much, much higher world, and by this time
we do not have any outward contact with the material, physical world that we used to live in,
all those years ago ....
Instead, we enter a world
that is truly Heaven-like, and this world has many, many names in the various religions of the world. It is no wonder Christians call it `Heaven,' but even here, we do not
"live forever." We may be there for
several hundred years, but consider -
this is beyond all conceptions of `time.' There are no watches, no clocks, and probably no calendars the way we have been used to seeing them. We are with
all our friends and family, and in fact,
we are all united with a considerable degree of cooperation and understanding. In the Christian worship service, this level of the afterlife is hinted at when the Congregation sings
"And give us a foretaste of the feast to come ..." (it means many things, this is part of it)
In the final stage of life after death, we get a brief glimpse of our future life, then we descend again into incarnation and are born again, as a tiny infant. We live another life,
during which we advance (and do not simply repeat things). After about age 21, in each new life, we begin to
truly press forward ... and there
is an end to this. We
do, after our last human life,
"return to God." Every religion teaches this; they just say it in different way.
Love and Light,
taijasi
