TonytheRainbowHealer

Get ready because this is a long one. Today I want to help demystify one of the things that humans fear most:  Death.  This information is important because when we contain fear surrounding something so seemingly unknown and mystical as what happens before, during, and after we die, we can have all sorts of problems.  Just some of these off the top of my head include not living the lives we want to, ending up with regrets, having slow lingering deaths, becoming trapped in the spirit realm as a ghost after we die, and more intense grief, loss, hopelessness, anger, depression, and sadness regarding your own demise or a loved one’s.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but nobody will get out of this life alive.  Yes not even you dear reader!  Why be scared of something that is going to happen regardless of whether you want it to or not?  Burying one’s head in the sand and pretending it is not going to happen will only make you ill prepared when it inevitably does strike you or your loved ones.  Our society is so fixed on trying to pretend death does not happen when in reality, death is all around us.  We experience it every autumn when the leaves fall off the trees, and all the plants of spring and summer die away.  We experience the death of relationships, the death of ideas, the death of thoughts and emotions, the death of housing, the death of a way of life, the death of a career, etc. Ultimately death is about change, transition, and transformation, and that does not have to be a terrible thing. It is a necessary part of the cycle of life and without death, we do not get the transformation that comes with it.  We would also not get to be reborn like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Besides, who wants to be stuck here on Earth forever?

Our society sweeps death under the carpet, and this starts early on and continues throughout our lives.  This can be seen in everything from plastic surgery to make us look younger to the way we treat our senior populations.  Once upon a time on this planet, our elders were thought of as wise.  They contained knowledge, and they helped pass that knowledge on to their children and their children’s children.  Our communities looked out for our elders when they needed caring.  Yet now we throw them in nursing homes and hope that the government will somehow have enough funds to take care of them.  Is this anyway to treat the people who raised us, and who contain valuable knowledge and wisdom about life and our history which can be used for our growth and well-being?  I realize that because of the nature of our society, this is not necessarily possible currently for all humans. I’m not meaning to judge individuals, but rather pointing out the problems with the current societal constructs. People are working multiple jobs and don’t even have time or money to take care of their children let alone their parents. Our societal priorities are skewed. Luckily as we move into the Age of Aquarius, we will find this community connection again where we treat each other more like we are all a part of the tribe. People will not be left on their own to deal with their sick and aging elders. We are so scared of death and loss and letting go of our loved ones that we keep people unnaturally alive through extreme medical procedures, drugs, and with medical equipment, far past what the body, Mother Earth, or Source/God intends. I would argue that much of our Western medical system is set up for fixing emergent problems and stopping and preventing immediate death. Keeping people alive with no concern for the quality of life is also a high priority. It is ironic that what would help humans the most is to focus on fixing and preventing the problems that lead to death energetically before it even gets to that point, however insurance companies don’t want to pay for prevention and drug companies need you to buy all their drugs. We don’t look at humans holistically, and Western medicine fails to understand that the mental, emotional, and spiritual are crucial and integral to full health and well being and that those levels of our being are also directly involved in our healing as well as our deaths.

People are so scared about talking about the inevitable that they often don’t even make plans until it is too late.  Do you have a living will and durable power of attorney?  Do you and your loved ones know what your final wishes are for your body, funeral, and possessions or is this something you will just “deal with later when you have time?”  The truth is nobody knows how long we have on this planet, and every day here could be your last.  One can choose to view every day as a gift or as a nightmare, but either way it will come to an end at some point.  Even our death rituals are steeped in irrational and insane fear.  My friend and roommate once told me a story about how when she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, she showed the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous to people over there.  They couldn’t really understand the movie because it was in English so the humor went over their heads, however they did laugh hysterically watching dead bodies be painted with makeup (which of course was not supposed to be funny!).  We paint our bodies and embalm them in order to preserve them for longer (almost as a way of pretending death did not happen).  Our loved ones are not even in the bodies anymore because they are just bio matter suits that the spirit has discarded and given back to Mother Earth who we borrowed them from.  We are not our bodies.  We are eternal souls; spirits temporarily inhabiting the bodies in order to have life experiences for our lessons and spiritual growth.  Our society does not even like to talk about death or allow us to express our feelings and thoughts around death.  We are not allowed to grieve losses, show emotion, or cry (bottling this up causes disease by the way).  Babies are taught not to show emotion from day one when we continuously tell our babies to hush and be quiet and rock them so they stop crying.  This sets the tone that emotions are bad from day one, and we carry this through our lives and particularly hold on to this belief when dealing with issues surrounding death. Yet conversely, we disrespect death and treat it as insignificant. We fight wars and treat nature with disrespect slaughtering humans, animals, and plants worldwide. We make and watch violent movies and TV programs where people are killed like their lives don’t matter and never did. We play violent video games where the only point is to kill as many things as possible in order to win the game. It is a strange dichotomy.

Another reason not to fear death is that most likely you have done it before!  Unless you are a brand new soul (and there aren’t a ton out there, but they do exist), most likely you have done the whole death thing many, many, many times before.  Reincarnation is not just a “belief” of some religions, it is a fact whether science has proven it or not.  Our Souls send us here over and over again to learn lessons for our spiritual growth.  Even major Western religions such as Christianity spoke of reincarnation until churches began removing, ignoring, or misinterpreting said passages from the bible many centuries ago (a quick internet search can show you the biblical passages that refer to reincarnation).  The leaders of the churches did not want the common folk to have this knowledge so they disposed of it or “retranslated” it to mean something else (a common practice in many ancient holy books).

The hardest thing to deal with regarding death is probably loss and change.  That is something we all struggle with.  When someone dies it feels like we will never see them again, and we mourn what we used to have in regards to that relationship with that individual.  One will go through a wide variety of thoughts and feelings when they find out someone is going to die and all are valid.  It is normal and healthy to go through this process.  Some of our greatest lessons in life revolve around birth and death.  Although this will sound trite, it is the only piece of advice I can offer in regards to going through loss.  Find your inner spirituality.  Sense in to the greater purpose of life and know that that individual that passed will always be with you.  You can still talk to them, and they will hear.  And you will see them again.  I know that is all easier said than done, and this is where I think having a spiritual advisor, healer, therapist, or even group counseling can help.  Seek help and comfort from friends and loved ones and other people who understand what you are going through.  Also have comfort in knowing that that individual’s lessons were learned for that incarnation, and it was time for them to move on.  We choose our entrances and our exits from this planet (even if not consciously).  Nobody ever leaves this planet without their Soul choosing to leave.  This needs to be looked at from a Soul perspective rather than from the personality’s perspective because obviously most individuals do not choose to or want to die.  However, the Soul knows when an individual’s time is up, and nothing you can do or say can stop that process for you or someone else.  Conversely, if it is NOT time for you to leave the planet, you will not (unless of course there is a suicide situation going on). It is not your fault if you can’t save yourself or someone else.  It is simply your or someone else’s time.  You or they are graduating and moving on to the next class.  When you are dead, don’t fear not seeing the friends and family you are leaving behind because you will quickly realize after you are dead that you will be together again and can check in on them whenever you like.  Even something as horrific as murder is actually a contract agreed upon by both Souls involved so that they can both learn lessons for their spiritual growth.  The victim has given the gift of the lesson regarding their murder to the murderer by sacrificing their life.  The murderer will hopefully learn that taking a life is wrong either during their life or at the end of their life, and their spirit will grow and hopefully not do that again in another life.  And what about suicide?  Well we do have the free will to opt out whenever we want, but should we decide to opt out before our contract is up, we will have to repeat that life over again with the same lessons in the future.  Is it really worth it to opt out and have to experience all that misery again?

Death is a very individual process and can vary for each individual; however I do have some general themes that I can lay out about what happens when we die and after we die:

The Death Process

If I am going to be honest the thing that scares me the most about death is the physical pain of dying.  Who wants to feel that?!  The good news is that Spirit will usually ease us into death by having us begin to feel the peace and love of Source while our bodies disintegrate especially in slow deaths.  The veil between the living and the dead lifts.  We may begin to see our spirit guides who were there with us through our entire lives.  We may also see deceased loved ones, Angels, Ascended Masters such as Jesus, or we may just begin to see Source (this is “the Light” so often talked about and usually it appears at the end of a long tunnel).  Dying violently such as in a big explosion or a plane crash?  No worries!  You will pop out of your body before you even feel anything.  Either way you die (slow or quick), you do pop out of your body.  Many times people find themselves looking down at their bodies from up above.  It can be a bizarre experience to find yourself looking at your beat up corpse while paramedics are working on what used to be you and seeing your loved ones hysterical when you are completely fine.  Many near death experiencers report thinking “what is all the fuss about?”  From most near-death experiences I have read, people love being dead!  It feels way better than being stuck in a clunky and limiting body.  We no longer have our earthly burdens, and people just feel a general sense of peace. Many near death experiencers also report seeing our spirits connected to our physical bodies by a silver cord of light. As long as this cord is in tact, we can return to our bodies (hence why the people that saw this had “near” death experiences). If the cord is completely severed, we are dead for good.

The Afterlife Realms

While some people pop out of their bodies and find themselves on the ceiling looking down on their bodies, others pop out directly in another dimension. There are many levels of afterlife realms and not simply one “heaven” and one “hell.” Heck, the Earth realm is a dimension itself so really it is like changing stations on the radio. We move to a new station. We are energy and vibration, and we go to whatever dimension or level of afterlife realm our energy “fits” in. With energy, like vibration attracts like vibration so we move to a place where we are with others like us, where our consciousness (and thoughts and feelings) fit in. There is no more hiding our thoughts and feelings because in our natural state as spiritual entities, we can no longer hide those things within the constraints of the physical body. This is why it is important to raise your vibration and live your life from Love as much as possible while you are alive because we are creating our afterlife experience every day we are alive. A general rule is a hellish life leads to a hellish afterlife, and a heavenly life leads to a heavenly afterlife. Religion has tainted and misunderstood the concepts of heaven and hell though and used these concepts to promote fear and control the masses so perhaps a better way of stating it is a life filled with unconditional Love leads to a heavenly afterlife, and a life with a lack of unconditional Love leads to a hellish afterlife.

The Tunnel and the Light

Near death experiencers have reported time and time again that after they popped out of their bodies they experienced moving through a tunnel to a Light. The tunnel experience is created by the spirit moving to another dimension sort of like a wormhole. The tunnel is basically a means to move our spirits through the afterlife realms to the new place we are to reside. The vibration of our spirit will move it to the realm our spirit is most aligned with. And what is the Light? That is Source (God) of course. The Light is where we all came from, and it is where we all return to eventually. The Light is where all the answers to every question are. It is the Source of all knowledge, all creation, all wisdom, all truth. It is also pure and complete unconditional Love. The closer you get to the Light, the faster your vibrations raise, and the more Love you feel.  The Light is so intense in its core that souls cannot even get to its center or they would blow up from the power of it all.  When we are in the Light, we feel more Love than we knew was possible. The Light is also ultimate Presence. There is no time and space on the other side in the way we know it in this realm. Everything is perfectly and everlastingly Present. For more info on the Light, see my post here.

Heaven Realms and Life Review

What happens when we go to the Light?  When we are in the Light, we see friends and family members we have come into contact with along our journeys.  We have Soul families up there, and we reunite with our Soul friends.  There are cities of Light.  Fields, forests, lakes, waterfalls, rivers, flowers – all the nature scenes we see on earth and more – and all the animals that have lived or will ever live all reside there as well. The colors and sounds our senses encounter are far more vivid and wonderful than anything we can ever experience on earth.  Our pasts, presents, and futures and all the answers to all the questions that you have ever wanted to know are there.  There is a place called the Temple of Knowledge which is like a big library where we can study and learn any info our Souls are ready for. Communication takes place telepathically on the other side as we no longer have physical bodies. Near death experiencers describe hearing the music of the Universe playing out perfectly all around them (it sounds kind of New Agey from what they say). People all around are creating, Loving, and doing work that brings them and others joy. People are able to be their true selves in full freedom.

Once you arrive, many people meet with Ascended Masters such as Jesus Christ or Buddha or with Beings of Light (which are Angels, Ascended Masters, Guides, or deceased loved ones) who guide them through the process and welcome you back home and get you reacclimated. Our spiritual advisors meet with us, and we are usually greeted in a sort of homecoming ceremony with our friends and Soul family members, many of which we recognize but don’t know how we know them.  We have a life review where we get to experience everything that happened in our lives all over again; the good, the bad, the ugly.  Although this seems like it would take forever, there is no time there so this is not as daunting as it sounds. It all seems to go by in a second.  Thanks to western religions, people are so scared of judgment that they may be scared to even go to the Light.  Don’t be afraid of judgment…there is only unconditional Love here.  The cosmic irony is that the only judgement we receive comes from OURSELVES.  The guides and teachers will point out parts they want us to look at, ask us questions, and give us any info we ask. We review our lives, and feel our thoughts, feelings, and actions and feel other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.  We will feel what it felt like for someone when we did something terrible to someone else, and we will feel what it felt like for someone else when we did something great for them.  We will understand where everyone was coming from in our lives at any given time, the ripple effects to the rest of the world of all of our actions, and all the lessons we were attempting to learn in that life.   We will learn what was really important in our lives and what was insignificant. HINT – the only thing that truly matters is unconditional LOVE. Often times we are surprised that its the small acts of kindness and Love in our lives that made the most difference and what changed the world the most. The houses, the job titles and promotions, the competitions won, the awards, the cars, the book knowledge learned and degrees earned, the trips and experiences, the possessions and money we accumulated, the events we participated in or put on…none of that really matters. It is always about unconditional LOVE and people. We will grade ourselves on our last incarnation and then start planning for the next incarnation to determine what we want to work on in the next life.  We may decide to stick around in the Light for awhile to recover from the last incarnation, but ultimately we come back because we desire more lessons and more Soul growth.  Each time we come back we learn more, and our Soul expands more.  We may eventually decide to be a guide for someone else, or we may move on to be a teacher as our Soul expands.  Eventually our Souls are so expanded and so filled with Love that we move to the center of the light to give up our individuality to become a part of it for eternity. Eventually the Light might explode out in another big bang, establishing you as a whole new Soul to start the cycle all over again.

Hell Realms, Satan, and the Void

Now what about that hell place?  Well hell realms exist, and dark entities and demons do reside there.  Do we go there as a punishment for the lives we have lived or because we didn’t believe in this religion or that religion?  No!  The vast majority of people that end up here do so because they have created it for themselves in the afterlife.  Also like attracts like when referring to energy so if the energy of something is dark, it will go someplace dark to match the vibration of it.  If it is Light it will go someplace Light.  Another common misconception is that we burn in hell for all of eternity. Well yes in that there is no time on the other side, but we can and do move through all the realms as our Souls grow and expand. WE ARE ALL ALREADY SAVED! Every single one of us. Most of us have been to all the different realms before at some point. I have encountered many near-death experiences where people have been tormented by dark entities and other negative spirits for what seems like eternity until they were brought out of it by either the Light/Source, or they are brought back to life on the earth. People stuck in these realms also will be reincarnated back to Earth to start over sometimes as well.  This place is not necessarily what you might expect, and often times is a self-imposed hell. The two main hell realms are generally the Earthbound realm near Earth and the Void. People get stuck in the Earthbound realm of darkness when they are unable to find the Love within themselves and when they are unable to let go of their earthly existence, the lives they just lived and their addictions and earthly ties. The Void is another place we can go which is completely void of Light and Love. There we are left to our own to reflect and come to terms with who we are and who we were and to work out our own internal shit. We see ourselves for who we really are. This is basically a type of purgatory. Here people torment themselves over everything that did not go as planned in their lives or that they did wrong.  They may stew in their negativity for as long as they want.  Most often times they will feel all the negative emotions…fear, sadness, anger, jealousy, hate, etc.  They will reside in this personal hell until something snaps them out of it, because they are rescued by a Light being, they are able to find the Light in themselves through Love, or they are reincarnated.  Yes people can and do get out of hell realms, and one is not stuck there forever.  Is there a supreme dark entity named Satan?  To be honest I don’t know but my gut says no. I have other thoughts on Satan and that will be in a future post. No near-death experience I have ever come across has mentioned a Satan.  I think Satan might just be a synonym for the Ego.

Ghosts

Another possibility after death is to become a ghost.  What is a ghost?  A ghost is a spirit who has not crossed over and gone to the Light to have a life review and move forward in their Soul’s progression.  They are found in the Earthbound realm. What causes a ghost?  There are many scenarios that can cause a ghost situation to happen.  A person may die a traumatic and unexpected death such as in murder.  The spirit may not know they are dead if it happens too fast, and the person will wander around in that state of confusion until it wakes up.  If they are unable to process their death they may be stuck in a loop re-experiencing their death over and over again.  Ghosts also can be formed when a spirit is unable to let go and move forward into the Light for any given reason.  If someone is seeking justice or revenge for what happened to them or to have control over the living or other spirits, they may stick around.  If they are unable to let go of their loved ones, possessions, houses, careers, etc. the same thing can happen.  Often those struggling with severe addiction can end up as ghosts as they still try to fruitlessly get their fix of the drug, alcohol, food, sex, or whatever earthly thing that they were addicted to. This is another reason it is so important to try and overcome your addictions prior to death. Some people get lost on their way to the Light or can’t find Source.  All you have to do in that case is ask for assistance from Guides, Angels, Ascended Masters, deceased loved one’s or Source itself, and you will find it.  In most near-death experiences I have read, people usually just look up and see it.  Think and feel LOVE and you will find it. Finally, ghosts will remain ghosts out of fear.  They are too scared to go to the Light because they are afraid of judgment and being sent to hell (thank you religious fanatics for that one).  Source is Love and Light, and all you will feel when you go there is a Love stronger than anything you can begin to imagine…not judgment.

Finally, I want to mention those people who don’t believe in anything; the ones who believe after you die that is it, and that there is nothing else.  Some of these people end up in the Void mentioned earlier.  There they will reside in complete blackness until someone is able to get through to them that they still exist.  Usually it takes another Angel, Ascended Master, Lightworker, Guide, or loved one to snap them out of this.  In my opinion, this is one of the most harmful beliefs an individual can hold in life because getting these people to wake up when they believe there is nothing is incredibly difficult and can take an extremely long time.  Again what we create and believe in life, we are creating for our deaths and afterlives. Find your inner spirituality before you die so you can avoid this. At the very least cultivate Love and be open to the possibility of something else. This will create the energy within you to attract the like energy of the heavenly realms when you die. Again unconditional Love is all that matters.

If there is one last piece of advice I can give about dealing with death, find out as much as you can about it before you actually die.  The more you know, the better prepared you can be.  Knowing how to avoid becoming a ghost or stuck in the Void or a hell realm will help you progress faster in the afterlife.  This way you can move on to the next great adventure for more Soul growth sooner. For more info on any of this please check out this site.

When you are dead you feel more alive than when you were alive, and your entire life you just lived will seem like just a dream.  Going to the Light and feeling all that Love is really going home so why postpone it any longer?  Release the fear!