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Accepting death and emerging spiritually
Accepting death and emerging spiritually
The experience of a lifetime by Carolyn North, published by Amber Lotus (PO Box 31538, San Franscisco, CA 94131, USA, tel 415 695 0311; fax 415 695 0300; e-mail: order@amberlotus.com; 1998, ISBN 1 56937 218 7, 264 pages, $17.95). Reviewed by Nicholas Albery.
The experience of a lifetime is the moving story of the spiritual emergence of four people as they prepare to die, and of the author's glimpses of a multidimensional universe where life and death are part of the same loving wholeness. In other words, this is not a book that will be everybody's cup of tea, but for those who can enjoy its New Age flavour, there is much to appreciate. Carolyn North sums up what she experienced as follows.
'A multidimensional universe where life and death are part of the same loving wholeness'
Awareness grows when dying is accepted
What I was interested in understanding was how facing death might define how we lived; how the way we lived might define how we died. In short, I wanted to know whether it was possible to live well while preparing for death, and then to die well when it was time to die.
The answer I gradually have gotten was that it is.
I have learned that when the process of dying is accepted, the growing awareness that emerges when soul and body actively prepare for this great transition, seems to corroborate all the wisdom traditions of the world.
The good news is that death happens, and it is OK. The loss, for those left behind, is excruciating, but what we can learn in the process is a gift beyond compare if we can allow ourselves to see it that way ...
I have been asking the question:
"Can we prepare for death in a way that is whole - physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically and spiritually? And more deeply, how can we use this experience to learn how to love?"
How does our world fit into the larger picture?
Carolyn North's philosophy of death and dying is gleaned from many sources, ranging from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to a trance medium. In the following adapted extracts she summarises her research in a manner that is far more confident than I would ever dare to be about such a deep mystery.
'It's as if the universe were a many-dimensioned dart board, with infinity as the outer ring'
It's as if the universe were a many-dimensioned dartboard, with infinity as the outer ring; the earth, then, would be the bull's eye. The immanent spirit and intelligence of the Whole Unity, sometimes called God, permeates the Whole Thing, not only all the inner rings, but every being, every atom, every thought within them. The rings encompass one another in layers of decreasing density (or increasing subtlety) as they expand farther outward, toward the finer and finer vibrations of the Ultimate Principle, which is Love. Since our language is based upon our familiar, earthly reality, words cannot explain the intricacies of this multidimensional and abstract universe, so we give it many names and descriptions and stories which can do no more than hint at the ineffable reality. In some cultures, respecting its ungraspable nature, we even insist it remain unnamed.
Souls are shards of light from the ultimate Light, and descend into embodiment on the earth to experience matter in its most dense manifestations. Ultimately, all souls are connected to each other and to the Whole from which they emerged. At death, each soul returns to the source, being pulled to the level of frequency which resonates with its particular level of development. In the dartboard image, the souls would retreat from the bull's eye and be absorbed by the outer rings until such time as they were ready for the next stint of earth life and experience.
What is the purpose of life on earth?
Human beings incarnate on the physical plane to experience the limitations of matter as a means of evolving the soul, raising the denser vibrations of the earth's vibration to a higher frequency.
'Human beings incarnate on the physical plane to experience the limitations of matter'
Another way of saying this is that we are learning to illuminate matter with spirit; or we are, lifetime by lifetime, expanding into Divine consciousness.
What is it like to die?
It is a peaceful letting go, or shifting into another mode of being which feels freer than the constraints of the physical body, especially if there was sickness or trauma before the passing. You wake up recognising that you are still yourself, still in the world, still amongst other beings, often your own relatives. This is the transition phase, before going on to your rightful sphere of vibration.
What is it like once you get there?
Since the soul has simply shifted to a more subtle frequency of vibration, it appears very similar to the earthly world, except that matter is finer, more tenuous. You still look like a human person, not an angel. Being on the level of thought, you perceive your surroundings in whatever way you think of them. If you died in anger and despair, you will find yourself in what has been called Hell, but it is not a place so much as a creation of your own state of unhappiness. You may create whatever you desire; the very thought brings it instantly to existence, and so you may lift yourself from the Hell of your own making simply by your desire for change.
'Thoughts cannot be hidden from other souls, you choose to clean up your inner act'
Thoughts, however, cannot be hidden from other souls, with the result that you eventually choose to clean up your inner act, which can now be read like a book. Sooner or later every soul's impulse is to move on, either back into incarnation for further lessons, or into the next realm of finer vibration.
What happens then? Who is there? What do you do?
The first thing you do, is die again. Passage from one ring to the next always involves the transition of death, as the soul shifts to a higher frequency. By resonance, you are drawn to those other souls of a similar frequency, or your soul group. These have been your long-term companions on a journey that has been ongoing for millennia. At this stage, you continue the process of assimilating the lessons learned from your previous earth-plane existence, and you may assume a number of tasks: teaching, assisting the newly arrived to make the transition; preparing souls for coming incarnations; guiding those currently on the physical plane; waiting for those in self-imposed Hell to awaken.
Then what?
At some very advanced point in the soul's evolution, you have attained the pure, high vibration of absolute Love. Willingly, you give up form, however tenuous, and merge with the immanent, Divine Source from which you originally sprang, thus assisting the Whole toward yet greater evolutions.
Like the dartboard, there are circles within circles and the widest circle and the inner, bull's eye circle, are reflections of each other - a microcosm and a macrocosm. Life is a continuum on a multitude of levels, and death is simply a part of it. Nothing more, nothing less.
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