The "Spirituality Today" Review, by Peter J. Morris

While Spirituality Today is no longer with us, this book review from it's Editor, Peter J. Morris, still is:

Writer Robert Kopecky has the extraordinary distinction of having died and gone to heaven not once but no-less than three times during his life. On each occasion he has been unceremoniously sent back down into physical reality and these dramatic experiences have, quite naturally, led him to develop a unique perspective of what it means to be a human, alive on planet Earth at this time.

A Place of Being

In his book, How to Get to Heaven, Kopecky identifies the specific life lessons each near-death experience (NDE) has taught him. More specifically, he has come to recognize that his three NDEs were not separate events at all but that they formed an important part of an evolving sequence. He qualifies these as; Perspective, Presence, and Purpose; with each one heading up a different section of his book.

The experiences of death and brief awareness of life on the otherside’ to which Kopecky was party, leads him to conclude that what we perceive of as ‘Heaven’ is less a ‘place’ and more a ‘state of being’. He qualifies this further by saying, “Going to Heaven isn’t about dreaming a dream of the afterlife. No, going to Heaven is about being right where you are — wherever that may be — and waking up.”

A Threefold Perspective

In Part One of How to Get to Heaven the author examines our core human traits and in particular those that require development. These include humility, release of ego-control, love and kindness. He is of the opinion that practicing honesty and forgiveness aids this process.

Part Two focuses upon the state of presence as a means of creating quality to our lives. Kopecky describes this in the following way, “Awareness in this very moment informs and determines where we’ve come from in life, where we are, and the amazing potential we can access to empower where we are going.”

In the third and final part of his book the author explores how by carrying all of these spiritual principles into everyday actions it becomes easier to discover our own special purpose.

Review

So many reports of near death experiences include a single, common theme, which is that the recently deceased needs to return to the Earth plane specifically to fulfill – or complete, a personal destiny; or in order to undertake an important task for humanity. This also seems to be the case with Kopecky – someone who has clearly taken this challenge to hand and unravelled a personal destiny from which so many people can now benefit.

Whilst the spiritual philosophy that permeates his book has been drawn from mainly Eastern or Buddhist principles this does not color the book to such a degree that it becomes detached from its central theme. Indeed, the result is a deeply satisfying read for throughout its pages Kopecky presents a very personalized style of writing – one that keeps the reader thoroughly engaged and hungry for the next round of insights. The depth of revelation and enlightenment here is rarely found in spiritual publications and comes as a breath of fresh air.

How to Get to Heaven by Robert Kopecky is a comforting book for anyone concerned about the fragility of life. More importantly though it is the sad, the lost and the lonely, the dispirited, disillusioned and disengaged who will gain most from reading it. For those readers I”d personally guarantee that How to Get to Heaven offers the chance of a major personal transformation long before reaching its final page.

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

The Simple, Grammatical Cure to All Our Problems

This selection about the cure for society's problems comes from Chapter 11: Looking Into the Truth,

How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying)

A Simple Trick of Grammar Can Help You Find the Truth

      I really just want to have a simple, hooked-up, plugged-in knowledge of what I am: a beautifully fragile, flawed, creative, and potentially loving expression of Divine Source; along with my wife, my kids, my occupation, a nice meal on the table, and a little sunshine on my face…but it’s just not going to happen that way all of the time. I need some tools to help lift me over the self-created obstacles that block my spiritual view, especially when I like those obstacles. I need ways to trick my ego into leaving the room, so I can lock the door behind him and be happy in a room full of transcendent connectedness—a room with a view of Heaven. 

      In this human form, I find material life is like a vacuum—especially since it comes with so many attachments. It's easy to get sucked into all of the common biases, day-to-day definitions, and material demands of my life. While I can forget my divine connections in an instant, it seems that any time I’m not truly present, I can instantly become obsessed with all the material things that "I am supposed to be." I can quickly forget my own Divine Source.           
      All of the temporary aspects of my life—the externals—have always been changing, even when I don’t want them to; and it’s the instinctive, unconscious effort to control these changing parts of life that sucks us in, isn’t it? One of the best spiritual tools I’ve ever come across is a simple language trick that helps me divide what parts of my life are always changing from what parts aren't. It may be obvious to you that grammar isn’t my strong suit, but even an amateur analysis of sentence structure can help open the window in my heart up to a superior view of of The Divine, in a way.

      Ramana Maharshi, a wonderful 20^th century Indian swami, put his finger right on an important point of fact when he simply said (and I paraphrase): “The only important part of "I am this, or I am that" is the "I Am" part. It is always the second half—the "this or that" part that is the problem.” With that helpful grammatical foot up from the good Swami, we can see the distinction between the start of those statements we make about ourselves, "I am," and the finish, "this or that," and what an easy way it is to separate spirit from the material:

      "I am bored; I am an American; I am still waiting to get paid for that job; I am victimized by my landlord; I am smarter than all of those people are; I am detaching from that; I am very spiritual." 

      What changes and what doesn't change in all of those statements? You'll notice the second part, the "this or that" object is what changes, or can always change. It’s the movable part. The first part, the subject "I Am" always stays the same. So if we simply drop the second part, the first part is our connection to the eternal Self—the part that we all share! In this easy, open-ended way, we’re directed straight into the mystery, the common ground that we all spring from and stand upon. It's how we are all the same. That little I Am can compassionately connect us to each other, and to all of Nature, all the plants and animals, the oceans and the Earth—even to the stars and the Universe itself. It’s a pretty big trick for such a little bit of grammar. 

      Then it’s hard not to notice how that second part grammatically separates us from The Divine, by opening the door to our painful regrets, fantasies, expectations, and sense of self-entitlement: 

      “I was once the Homecoming Queen; I was really the first person to use that technique; I am more deserving of that promotion than anyone else; I am going to lose weight.” I am quite sure that none of that really matters.

      Just catching ourselves and stopping at "I am" immediately reconnects us to the real substance of Life, and appropriately disconnects us from the unnecessary desires, fears, conceits, and the like—our troublesome attachments to the vacuum of the material. 

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

"Transcend the Turmoil"

Transcend the Turmoil

A Different Definition of Success

a working book title (for 2020?)

©2018 Robert Kopecky

What a Jumping Fish Can Teach You

        What is the best way to live? With a BMW, a big house, and a job with an important title? Of course those things may be great to have at times, but they only contribute to the real quality of your life in a certain way. Your true happiness—the way you really feel—has more to do with your understanding of Life and how you fit in it. When we completely identify ourselves with the material aspects of our being-in-the-world, we may come to feel insecure or ungrounded, because those things come and go. They're undependable, momentary, 
transient. 

        The other day while sitting on a rock by the river giving my mind a break, a fish suddenly surprised me by jumping clear out of the water right in front of me. Naturally, fish do that while pursuing bugs to eat, but there didn't seem to be any bugs around. This fish appeared to be jumping free of its watery medium for fun – or to make a kind of statement, like:

        "Here I am! I'm free of the water for this moment! I'm exposed to the air-world!" (of course, he may have been saying, "Hey buddy, you seen any bugs?" but for my purposes we'll stick with the first version).

        For a very brief moment (the image of which stays with me indefinitely) the fish was "a fish out of water," separated from the actual medium of his being – the water; but if you had blinked, you would have missed it.

        People say that about life too, don't they? You blink, and it's over.

        Water has always served as a great metaphor for the nature of Life as a medium – the depth of its mysteries; the ceaseless directional flow of it; the images and inevitabilities that it carries our way, that arise from it; the surprises that suddenly drop into it from out of nowhere. Those are the things that change, that come and go – but it's the medium it takes place in that I want you to think about. This is about the way you think about it. Let's think about it like we were fish (in a Buddhist way):

"As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on dry ground, our thought trembles all over in order to escape the dominion of Mâra (the tempter)."

                          The Dhammapada, 3: 34

        Like that fish out of water, we're not entirely safe or secure exposed to this world of shifting material conditions, filled with destructive temptations. As an "Out-of-Body Near-Death Experiencer" myself, I can testify to you that we are clear, sweet spiritual (energy) beings, inhabiting the (sometimes unreliable) vehicles of this body we're in—and this tenuous world all around them. 

        No wonder we might feel insecure.

        Like that fish, humans are 90% water ourselves; and if we can remain aware of that medium that is our natural element (and our real ultimate home)—the true ocean of energy we swim in every moment—we can leap free of the demands and pressures of this difficult world, and "who we're supposed to be" in it. We can detach with compassion from all this messy stuff, and return to the true, secure medium of our being—which I like to simplify as Love.

        Have you ever heard of "The Gnostics?" They lived what we think of as Christian spiritual principles before Christianity was institutionalized, and they had a very interesting "fish-out-of-water" way of looking at life that I think fits the picture I'm drawing pretty perfectly. They saw themselves as brief visitors here, in a way:

        "The Gnostic ideal, simply put, is that you really are a displaced part of Heaven, but during this experience of human life, that knowledge eludes you. Momentarily, you’ve forgotten your true connection and the way to return, so you’ve actually come back into this life to rescue your authentic self, trapped in your limited perceptions of this world. Within a transformative moment of gnosis, you’ll remember who and what you really are, where you really come from, and how to take yourself back home.

        In Gnostic mythology, all of humanity is an expression of a divine light imprisoned on an imperfect plane of existence, enfolded in the beauty of earthly existence, yet victimized by the suffering that is such a big part of it all. Each of us contains a connecting spark of the Divine Light within called the pneuma (what the Hindus might call atman). Our fragment, imprisoned in this body, has fallen away from the radiant, infinite matrix of limitless potential, which is our Source called the pleroma. 

        Life's sadnesses inspire the longing to reunite our spark with the transcendent unifying power that we inherently know to be our loving origin—the effort to restore ourselves to our authentic nature. When gnosis takes place, we are restored as beings of light."

                    from How to Get to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) 

        So whenever you're feeling uncomfortable, when you're experiencing that "fish-out-of-water" feeling, take a blink and give yourself a moment of "gnosis." Return to that medium of our solid, profound grounding – this ocean of Divine Energy we all come from, and all return to – and experience being enfolded in that Love that is the true nature and source of life on this beautiful Earth.

        ...and remember what every fish knows by heart:

"Everything that changes, isn't real."

                    Nisargadatta Maharaj

        "Reduce your needs to the simplest level of intelligence and

practicality. Live lightly and respectfully on the surface of Mother Earth!"

                    from 20 Tips for Getting to Heaven; How to Get to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Llewellyn Books, 2018.

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

A Talk for Virginia Beach IANDS at Cayce A.R.E., 4/14/2018

Thanks to Neil Helm and the Va Beach Chapter for this lecture/book event, and excellent workshop – a beautiful group in a lovely location.

Visit the Brand New Website

I'm very happy to announce my new website is up–it's basic for now–but soon I'll be listing events, and featuring reviews and links to shows and happenings...💛 

http://www.robertkopecky.com

Come by and check it out!