Join Robert with Kirsty Salisbury on "Let's Talk Near-Death"

Join Robert with Kirsty Salisbury for this new, light-hearted thought-provoking and entertaining interview

on her award-winning podcast – NDE stories, afterlife conversation, the truth about death,

and how to realize Heaven wherever you are!

Let's Talk Near-Death with Kirsty Salisbury, and special guest Robert Kopecky

"The Perspective of Presence," It's Always Been Now, and Will Always Be

      This excerpt from How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) comes from Chapter 8:  

Finding Presence Now: It's Always Been Now, and Will Always Be

      Maintaining presence allows us to respond appropriately to life's personal challenges. Our ego always wants to be in control by labeling, judging, comparing, and making demands, while being truly present lets us recognize our harsher ego demands and reject them, allowing our deeper, intuitive intelligence to arise within that eternal moment. If we let our ego-mind – our feeling offended, our sense of injustice, our need to be right – spontaneously dictate our actions, we tend to be reacting, or often over-reacting to simple circumstances.  We can blow situations out of proportion, losing the perspective that kindness, humility, honesty, forgiveness, and compassion can give us. In fact, we can make proper choices only when we're fully present to do so, because not only does presence give us the priceless gift of constraint – the ability to take that extra moment to let sanity and reason arise – but it also puts us in touch with an existent intelligence that is greater than our own. Just stopping and intently focusing on one breath can instantly allow us to check in with Heaven, so to speak.

      In Heaven nobody gets caught overreacting in senseless or destructive ways. Everyone relishes taking that eternal moment to adjust to every situation. In fact, in Heaven everyone is quite calm and thoughtful, as you may have already imagined.


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!

Lessons from an "Out-of-Body Experience"

It isn't often that you hear someone describe what it's like to die – that's an experience rarely reported; but I have the dubious qualification of having survived three distinctly different "Near Death Experiences," and I'd like to pass on what I learned from the first one, an "out-of-body experience" – in hopes that you'll never find the need to try this at home. It wasn't what you'd call fun, but it was very informative.

We most often think of Evolution with a capital E, as in "the Theory of," or as the transitioning growth of successive generations, species adapting across expanses of Time – and so it is. My experiences lead me to consider it as a personal process, largely because of realizing the importance of the Eternal Moment (in which everything alive is always living), and because the evolution of the whole spreads out from the evolution of each individual. As that phenomenon of personal experience, my life's evolution is more directly related to my NDEs than to all but a few of my "conscious" life lessons. It's like peeking behind the curtain...

So here, preceded by brief circumstantial descriptions, here is the gift I received from my first NDE, set down short and sweet as possible:

I was in a serious single car accident (I'd like to say through no fault of my own, but it wouldn't be true) and instantly found myself suspended in mid-air over the crash site, observing the wreckage, my body, and the ministrations of the lovely people who rushed to my aid (God bless 'em). After a while into all the hub-bub, I was gently shepherded off by a kindly entity (that remained out-of-view) into what I can only describe as a soft, warm, cotton-wool cloud, and on to a place of great ease and comfort where I was sat down in a congenial but serious conversation regarding the true nature of things, and my position within it.

The space was idyllic, like a very nice summer's cafe. There was no sense of Time or of gravity, and certainly not of any want or necessity.Thought operated in a non-sequential, undemanding way – all at once easily, as it were, rather than in any urgent, serial way (like after a good meditation). Here's what I learned:

We are avatars living spiritually within these physical bodies, very much like driving around in a car (...I wish I could afford a new one). Of course, our bodies are us, here in this place we call The World; but they aren't really us – they're the means to experience this sensory experience, "good" and "bad," and to gain as much from it as we can in the service or our own, and our greater collective Self's evolution. This allows us to investigate the karma of our lives, to repair it, and to create it anew by being of service to those we love, and to the world as a whole.

So when we observe others as well, we can realize that they are simply their karmic energies (as I am mine), filtering through their somewhat limited (and not always easy to maneuver) human forms. That understanding informs a sense of compassion and identification that allows the people and events in your life to clearly be happening for you – not to feel like they are happening to you. Then, we can objectively witness the miraculous diversity of Life – in all it's sometimes challenging forms – with tolerance, respect, and wonder!

I call this way of seeing: The Gift of Perspective.

"The fundamental, simple, and great mystical realization is that by which you identify yourself with consciousness, rather than with the vehicle of consciousness. Your body is a vehicle of consciousness."

Joseph Campbell

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!

Why Meditate? Because "Meditation Works When Your Mind Doesn't."

Sitting quietly clears our mind to reflect Consciousness better, and grounds and binds our mind to our heart...

      As a three-time near-death survivor, I can tell you that Heaven is not any place in particular—in fact, it is different things for different people; but all heavens have some very powerful attributes in common that demonstrate it to be an attainable state-of-being, available to everyone...possibly in the next life, and very possibly in this one.

      This little excerpt from the chapter Meditation Works When Your Mind Doesn't, in the Part III: Purpose section of How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), is a taste of the relief, clarity, and serenity that meditation can provide anyone (even the most unlikely meditators) in a successful search to find a little piece of Heaven.

      "When we start being able to sit longer in meditation, we can consciously engage that holistic experience and hold ourselves in a balanced state where we discover that most demanding thoughts aren't really so important. Life can be experienced in a more "realistic" way when we are in this way "less realistic," because we recognize that the actual moment we're living in is fine, as it is. Life isn't really full of sequential demands or threatening "realities" at all—those are mostly imaginary delusions thrown up by our prehistoric ego. Equipped with the conscious awareness that a meditation practice gives us, we can start freeing ourselves from unnecessarily demanding thoughts. Nothing really needs to happen right at this moment—unless a bear is heading your way or you're sitting on something wet.

      The escape from serial thinking delivers us into presence, and the power and comfort alive in the eternal moment. It's a presence for Life that only becomes possible when we can gain some control on the courses we run through our heads, and meditation allows us an easy awareness of those different parts of of inner life—the duality of material ego versus our extra-dimensional spirit. When we can identify ourselves with our loving, spiritual nature, we become more effective in our demanding daily lives, because the ease  in our thinking makes it easier to get things done.

      As we sit making space in our thoughts, we experience a sense of joyful transcendence, and a sense of unity that's impossible to experience when we're pent-up and weighed-down by material demands. There's the presence of that graceful intuitive intelligence, rising up through our more spacious thinking, informing our decision-making and problem-solving with fresh clarity and confidence." 

      I almost always end my encouragements to meditate with this wonderful quote from the Buddha, when he was asked: 

"What have you gained from all your meditation?"

"Nothing at all," he replied.

"Then what good is it?"

"Let me tell you what I lost through meditation: sickness, anger, depression, insecurity, the burden of old age, the fear of death. That is the good of meditation, which leads to nirvana."

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? And BTW, in Buddha-talk, nirvana is Heaven.

(quote; Easwaran, The Dhammapada, p.58)

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn 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!

It's "How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying)" Book Launch Time!

March 2018

I'm pleased and grateful to announce the release of my new book, exploring simple spiritual solutions for ourselves and our world (by someone who learned the hard way)

 From Llewellyn Books, it's: 

How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor

NDE survivors, mystics, swamis, and saints have all described a Heaven of infinite Love, luminous radiance, and complete compassionate connectedness—but I'm here to tell you that you don't have to go to quite so much trouble to locate that Heaven on Earth in your everyday experience of life. It's all around us, and within us, all the time!

Here you'll find reviews from Thomas Moore, Anita Moorjani, Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, and many others, for a voyage into the Perspective, Presence, and Purpose that can help us realize a kind of paradise, in any world we may happen to live... 

A "How to Survive Life (and Death)" Excerpt from the Chapter "The Last Time I Checked (Out), I Was in Arizona"

Perhaps the scariest, but most awe-inspiring (and comforting), realization I finally reached—long after all my bumps and bruises had subsided—has also been the hardest one for me to wrap my head around and to actually learn to live with. It's the part I mentioned earlier that has to do with really never getting any privacy (in a way that has probably crossed everyone's mind at one time or another).

Years later, when I came to the point where I could turn the corner on all the pain I'd suffered and caused in my life, I was hit by something I'd known all along—something very, very moving: Someone had been with me each time I nearly died. Someone had gently shepherded me away from my wrecked car; someone had shown me those scrupulously selected scenes of great significance from my life; and someone had gently, but forcefully, pushed me back into this life to tell you what I'm telling you now. I've realized now that it was one someone—my guide, my guardian, my angel—whom I have finally come to know personally (like a lost and loving aunt). I'm certain that we all have one, and that we are all receiving that same kind of personal attention. We are never alone.

Now, we all know why that's scary. I mean, really, somebody's watching me all the time? That's right. But it's no big deal because, fortunately, I'm not particularly important, and neither are you. Nobody is, yet everybody is.

And "all the time" is nothing really. I believe that our angels observe us from a perspective apart from time. I believe they can see every one of those life moments eternally, as they happen, like discreet panes of time suspended in space—in much the same way that those moments can suspend themselves in our memories. All of this is happening now. All of it has always been happening now, and always will. Being human makes this impossible to see. Yet, in our hearts, each of us knows the cause and effect of all these moments strung together, especially when we concede to this intimate exposure of the truth. We know the parts of our lives that need mending, the edges that need smoothing, the loose ends that need to be bound.

Who really wants a witness to all their stuff, regardless of how forgiving that witness may be? It's been said that "your sickness lies in your secrets"—your misdeeds, selfishness, hostile thoughts, and all that stuff we "safely" hide in our little compartments. Being human makes us want to believe that no one can see it written on our faces, or veiled in our desires, or behind our actions. But, of course, they do. That's who we are, on the outside. The question is, who are we really; and who are we going to be? Those self-revealing secrets shouldn't cause us fear, because we're actually keeping them so we can learn from them. Life doesn't happen to you. . . 

Our angels (and angelic people) immediately forgive our misdeeds because they, too, know them so well. In this way, our fears can be dissolved into the reality of that profound intimacy—that shared knowledge of our greater selves. The Sufis call it fana, the dissolving of the human self into Eternal Love. That's nice, isn't it?

I think it was a great Swami named Maharshi who said that we don't fear death because of the painful end of life. By that time, many of us are ready for it. What we're never ready for is that painful accounting for what we've been up to, that golden interview. It's an embarrassment we naturally wish to avoid, again. So death is a blissful relief, but it can be made even more blissful by the way we live.

All of this helps me describe the hidden, but always available, "technology of the heart" that I've been talking about. It's all part of that greater reality that we're actually occupying—the realm of the spirit that constantly enfolds, supports, and directs us—and to which we and all of Life belong. But you already knew that.

 Still, I hope they haven't been watching everything. . .

Not to scare you any more than the idea of being watched all the time, but in the context of my last moments in Arizona, it is clear to me that there are real consequences to being bad—both now and later. It just simply is not good. Being self-centered, cruel, violent, even just unconscious will deliver us to a "darker" place, in this life or the next, than where we might be able to live otherwise. How much darker is up to you, what you've done in Life, and how hard you're willing to look at yourself–and don't fool yourself, everything is accounted for.

It comes as no surprise, does it? There simply are better ways to live and better ways to die, and one has everything to do with the other. And as I've found out about ways to die, exiting on a bad note is not the best way to get there. 

The way this physicality is imbued with life energy—the means of our animation and of our sensual awareness—is all achieved by a pretty particular set of forces. And it won't do to go about releasing it all willy-nilly, or without some consideration and some proper well-deserved reason. It may require effort. 

Personally, along with the very clear lessons I've learned through my own experiences, I find a lot of resonance in the wisdom of the ancient masters when it comes to the possibilities for our future, our past, and our present. And how can you go wrong with the good old ancient masters, for crying out loud? So, as best I can (and preposterous as it may seem), I'm going to try to describe what the three "fatal" experiences I've had have taught me about what may actually be the best way to go about "dying"—which (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) I don't believe is really dying, but actually just changing forms from this matter into a form of energy that grows out beyond our current constraints into an entirely different dimension of being. 

I hope that, by now, you see that this is the central message of this whole book—what my experiences taught me and what I want to pass on to you: Simply that there's nothing to fear about dying. It's really a logical and beautiful culmination of Life, and quite a fluid process. And once you get past the rough patches you may have to cross to get there, you'll see, as well, that there is no Death. 

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is now available everywhere, but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Postcards

...probably every illustrator has a box (or boxes) of old promo postcards floating around, stacks of ephemera destined for the landfill, but momentarily taking up closet space. Here are some of mine, from newer (pay no attention to AOL addresses...), some older, some practically prehistoric...

Two very early postcard promos for Heaven, Brad Benedict's groundbreaking 70's diner/store in LA...this rocker was my 2nd published illo for "L.A. Weekly"

for the Paramount Hotel

...this one, from when the ol' timers sat around in internet cafes
..."We Unite to Create Decadent Western Art." Now they're designing animation too!

for "In L.A." magazine originally

oops...if you want some of these, I have plenty I could still stamp n' send...