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!

Riding The Big Blue Avatar

You don't see many blue people around. Or on the other hand, maybe you see a lot of them. The blue people (who actually are blue) mostly live in one of our imaginary worlds, like the cat people in the movie Avatar. Or the shapely, shape-shifting mu-tant in the X-Men movies. The Blue Man Group, or Smurfs!
 All the other blue people we see, the ones who just feel blue, usually feel that way because their minds have been cast into some sort of sadness. Such is Life.  

There is another well-known blue man, probably the original, and that's the Hindu deity Krishna – an incarnation of the spiritual preserver and sustainer of our Universe, Vishnu. He is God as an avatara (the origin of the movie's title) in human, albeit blue human form. In the amazing Hindu scripture The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna appears on Earth as the chariot driver of a confused warrior, and takes the opportunity to instruct the poor fellow about how to best occupy his human form in this life. He simply teaches him all about life. It's like having God as your cab driver in New York City.

Body

Sporting a beautiful blue body is obviously unusual, which is no doubt why Krishna picked it. It's quite likely that you'll pay very close attention to everything that comes out of a beautiful blue persons mouth. The first, and most obvious point it makes is that our bodies are simply vehicles that can be colored differently, like cars. And Krishna is very clear when he talks about our relationship to our bodies:

"The body is mortal, but he who dwells in the body is immortal and immeasurable."   Bhagavad Gita 2:18

"As a man abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.

The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire...cannot be made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundation of eternity."  

BG 2:23-25

So we are really just the rider, and as we occupy these different bodies, we begin to learn the things we can only learn by living in this particular human form. I like to think of it like this: when I see a middle-aged asian guy, for example, I try to think to myself, "There's one of us – in that form." When I see a freckled, red-headed teenage girl, I think, "There's one of us – in that form." And when I see myself in the mirror, I think, "There's one of us (that happens to be me) – in that form." Sometimes, that's what makes me a little blue. Sometimes it's an easy ride, sometimes not.

Listen up, because here's what's so important about all this. It means that we are a race of energy beings assigned to living in these human bodies, surrounded by a world of changing forms. We are truly one race, with or without the bodies – that's why human racial distinctions are so antithetical to our truest natures, but are also so necessary for pointing out our shared underlying reality.

It sounds a lot like science fiction, doesn't it? Well, that's one of the big problems with our limited human perception. We tend to want to think of it in terms of science fiction, because that's the funny, "self-protective" twist our body/minds use to label the spiritual facts of our unusual existence. Within our truest self – our shared being – of course we know it's true. Even "skeptics" know it. If any one of us has realized this, there's a very good chance that everyone may realize it too.

I know because I'm a person who's had multiple near-death exper-iences that eliminated whatever choice I had. It usually takes something to help you get it, just listening to an imaginary blue guy may not be enough. You can gain some real understanding through deep meditations, or by taking the testimony of certain teachers to heart. You may also tell it's true by the simple fact that your inner spirit – your inner experience of life– never changes all that much, while if you're anything like me, your body keeps changing whether you want it to or not.

Mind

If our spirit is animating our changing body, then what, exactly, is our mind? Generally, I think it's what I think with, but body-wise it's really my brain that's doing that. My thinking organ. My mind seems to live in three different ways: The part where I learn and apply knowledge – my "rational intellect." Observing, comparing, labeling, analyzing, planning…all that. Then there's a reactive much less rational part, which is unfortunately often fearful and opinionated. That's the part we usually call ego – our kind of fussy (sometimes neurotic) interface with Life. Hindu yogis call these aspects of mind "chitta." They function in the realm of the seen and known.

But then there's that third way my mind works – as all the things I know but have never had to learn. Everything I just know. That's a deeper kind of shared, instinctual mind – an intelligence that doesn't change, and accepts life in what ever form it takes,  without labeling or judging. This part of my mind just is. I don't make it up or change it, I access it. Yogis call this "purusha." Where the mind functions in the psychic realm of the spirit. What's largely unseen, but very deeply known and felt. 

This more shared, less individual form of intelligence can be difficult to recognize because it's so natural, so unconscious. How do I even know how to walk and talk? Or when I'm going to laugh? Or what is really to be feared (and what will probably be okay)? We all share all that rather critical information, that "common sense," without really having to think about. It doesn't matter whether we're yellow, or red, or blue.

 Now notice the similarity, even the simultaneity of our shared mind and all it's little parts, like say, the next time you're standing in a slow-moving line at a bank or in a store. If you could hear the thoughts of each person in line, it would sound like a chorus of complaints in unison. First the rational intellect: If they opened another window, they could take care of all of us in a much more efficient manner. Then, there's the ego: Doesn't anyone here know what the hell they're doing? I can't wait in this line all day!  Then there's our shared mind, our "common sense:" I'm either going to do this now, or some other time, and now is the only time things actually happen.

While the first two "personal" forms of mind lead us to believe we are in control, the third, shared form, is evidence of a much deeper reality where, as Joseph Campbell put it: "We don't live life, life lives us." 

Then there's this too – we are subject to the ways of the world, which, like each of us, is comprised of all its parts, demanding, contributing, reflecting. It's another even greater body/mind in which we all share – the mind and body of our planet and it's inherent cumulative intelligence. Its life. You may have heard it called "Gaia."

Astrologers recognize this form of the spiritual occupation of the planets, and the greater life of the cosmos. By spiritual fact – not by science fiction – we are a part of that greater shared intelligence, expressed by what we, as riders, demand from, and contribute to, the body and mind of the living Earth. Sometimes it's an easy ride. Sometimes not. We learn what we can only learn by riding on our planet – and it doesn't matter if our planet is yellow, like Venus; or red, like Mars. Or, like the body/mind of our Earth, if it's blue too.

"In this world there are two orders of being: the perishable, separate creature and the changeless spirit. But beyond these there is another, the supreme Self, the eternal Lord, who enters into the entire cosmos and supports it from within."

The Bhagavad Gita, 15:16,17

Read about concepts like these 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 at your local bookstore!

Friction, Freedom, and the Pearl Diver's Treasure

"The soul is causeless, and from this follow all the great ideas that we have... [The soul] is by it's nature free...that it cannot be acted upon by anything outside."

   Vivekananda

             Friction is a rather uncomfortable noun – and even less comfortable as an effect. Simply put, it's resistance. It happens all on it's own in nature, usually the active part of a slow process that reshapes a feature, or an entire landscape. When you look up the word friction in a thesaurus, it seems to be everything difficult about life: the natural chafing, scraping, and drag; then comes the discord, strife, conflict, contention, argument, rivalry; hostility, animosity, resentment, bitterness, and on and on. It's a lot of human baggage for one little natural process. You'll notice all of these effects are the result of ruffled senses, external discomforts, and hurt feelings. It's the stuff that makes life a grind.

In that natural sense of it, the wear and tear of life will become uncomfortable – it's unavoidably true. But a lot of those other synonyms for friction, the ones that describe friction between people and not just surfaces, are really only superficial as well. Psychologically superficial. So much of what means so much to us, of what hurts, only comes about as a result of the way we think about it. It only seems important for a little while – unless we repeat it over and over, and embellish upon it in our minds.

That's the (deeper) surface stuff Buddhists call selfish cravings – those feelings we hold on to in order to experience life's pleasures, or in this case life's anxieties. But like the bits of grass picked up off the river bank and carried along on the surface of the passing water, that stuff is always moving on. The rocks on the river bottom always stay right where they are, with just the shadows of our leaves, our bits of anxiety, passing over them. 

Our day to day lives are twisted and turned by the flow of time; our spirits can be tortured and stretched and tested; but our souls are always solid, steady, and smooth beneath the surface. The changing challenges of life, the spiritual lessons we all know we have to learn are a product of cause and effect, things we've done and places we've put ourselves in that have led us to where we are and what we've needed to pass through right now. That can be the rough stuff. But our souls aren't subject to cause and effect. They're grounded in our greater being, and the little (or big) abrasions of life pass right over them smoothly, with fluid ease.

 That ground where our souls firmly sit is always steady for us as we pass over, particularly if we make the effort to dive beneath the surface and take hold of  it, even for just a moment – and especially when life's a drag. It's a little like diving for pearls, that way. An irritation, a grain of sand can create that treasure to be discovered, if you are conscious of your breath, and your "selfish cravings" long enough.

"Where you stumble and fall, there you find your treasure."

Joseph Campbell

The shortest path between two points is a straight line, from our surface to our bottom – and that's what I recommend here, the straight, short line from your head directly to your heart. Don't give it too much thought, just move directly past all the surface stuff around you and make contact with the smooth solid ground beneath us all. Stop, relinquish the need to recycle that rough stuff, and re-link to the natural grounding and lubrication of your soul's connection. 

Coincidentally, that's what religion really means – re ligio – Latin for re-link.

Yes, the bottom of the river is subject to that long process of friction, of natural transformation. Growth requires destruction.  We are like that too – our spirits, that is. We're always being slowly transformed, our lives being shaped by the flowing story that carries us through this world.

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct on this page or online; and 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 them it at your local bookstore! 

Look For the Union Label on Everything!

The nature of the human experience is a pretty insular one. It's easy for us to have an obsessive awareness about everything that's immediately around us – touching us, pressuring us, jumping up on our phones and laptop screens. Because of this unconscious self-centeredness that comes to us so naturally, it's easy to imagine ourselves as being separate from everybody else. We may not even feel attached to the natural world – which we're so obviously a part of, and is clearly part of us, considering the process of birth, growth, decline, death (and rebirth) that we experience along with every other form of life here on Earth.

 To a human, life on Earth can be experienced as a set of outside forces imposing themselves on our private 10'x10' world, when in fact our most important perceptions and processing is really happen on the inside. It's how we are responding internally to the external world that defines our life experience, that gives us the sense of what's good or bad, right or wrong, something we desire, or something we fear – so our world is really a function of the way we think and feel.

"Just as a fire is hidden by smoke...knowledge is hidden by selfish desire...this unquenchable fire for self-satisfaction...Selfish desire is found in the senses, mind, and intellect...burying the understanding in delusion."

                                        The Bhagavad Gita, 3:39-40 

These misperceptions can lead us to pay a heavy price for what otherwise could be the free and joyful experience of Life. These are "the wages of sin"...the sin in this case being human Pride – the chief ingredient of that feeling of being separate. When we engage in Life in that automatically self-centered fashion, Life becomes something that happens to us, not something that happens for us. 

That's because we're often reacting to external life experiences with our awareness being dictated by our Ego – the source of our biblical "sins" of Pride, Anger, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, and Sloth. Those are the overripe "fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" that create a sense of separation in us, leading to the fearful self-centeredness that's such a natural default of the human condition. Believe me, I know all about it, and it very frequently makes me very uncomfortable too.

So what's a good way out of that unconscious corner we so willingly paint ourselves into, without tracking more wet and selfish intentions around?  Where's the key to the gate that slammed shut behind us when we were "cast out of The Garden?" Well, here's a hint: It's right under something close. You're not gonna find it by looking out there somewhere...

"The Kingdom of Heaven is not real estate."  and  "Our job is to recognize The Eternal in one another."

Joseph Campbell

Buddhists talk about looking on everybody you encounter as "a Buddha in the making," and of using "Big Mind" to recognize the "Buddha Nature" in all things. Indigenous people perceive the world as one living thing, energized and enlivened by a Great Spirit. If we "modern thinkers" use our all-important intellects – scientific reason in this case – it's clear that our sharing elements and DNA almost entirely with everything else on Earth is evidence that all of life on this planet truly is one unified thing.  Closer to home, in terms of our own species, that means that human experience is a completely shared state of being. We just need to get over our own little selves to see it.

The next time you're in a cashier's line that's moving way too slowly, realize this – if you could hear the thoughts of everyone else in line, it would sound like a chorus of people chanting in unison: "Why are they talking so long? Doesn't that cashier know what they're doing? Why does this person get such special treatment? Can't they see how long the line is? Unless this gets moving, I'm going to be late!"

That externally inspired voice is the standard-issue, default self-centeredness that drowns out the realization of our common good.  Go inside yourself for a moment, and with everyone you see, just think to yourself: All of these people are me – just trying to get it right.  In one simple word, it's empathy. With another, it's empathy and compassion. And in two more, it's empathy, compassion, and open-heartedness. 

Make an effort not to judge other people based on whether your immediate external reactions make you think that they're good or bad, right or wrong. Don't look on the outside for what separates us from one another – instead look inside, and you'll quickly discover how very much alike we all are. You'll find a few very beneficial extras too – acceptance, generosity, and the even inspiration to live life in a new way, coming from some unusual sources.

"Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me, and I will become them, and what was hidden from them will be revealed."

The Gospel of Thomas, 108

Then you may want to use those inner discoveries to extend your greater shared self outward, and immediately start gaining awareness of the real wrongs we're all facing, namely –  the unconscious destruction of Life on Earth. Don't just look for that union label in the people you're closest to, but in everyone and every "thing."
All of Life on Earth is sacred. All of Life on Earth is Divine. You wouldn't kill someone just because they may taste good – that's barbaric. You wouldn't want to destroy a natural wonder to build an empty mansion. You wouldn't want to burn the Earth's beauty for power when untold energy is bathing us in every instant.

It may be by our outer natures that we experience the challenges of our life and death, but it's by our inner natures  that we can recognize that Buddha Nature, the Great Spirit – that we can recognize The Eternal in everyone and everything. Then, if each of us can get out of our own (and each other's) way, and reveal our view of the freedom and magically joyful experience that Life is meant to be, we will know in our hearts where the lines of right and wrong are truly drawn.

"They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart."

The Bhagavad Gita, 2:55 

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct or online; and 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 them it at your local bookstore!

Spiritual Evolution and Limited Political Choices (or, How Ayn Rand is Crazy...)

It's almost that time again, isn't it? That time when we get the opportunity to exercise the one definitive right we all have as Americans, the one personal action we can take to have some effect on the nature and direction of our government – namely, to vote...but it's difficult to know how to go about something so temporal in as spiritual a way as possible.

The exercise of our spiritual beliefs and goals when it comes to politics is already a tough enough nut to crack, especially given the myriad constraints of the system we're part of. One such constraint, for example, is that I live in New York, so it doesn't really matter whether I vote or not. The Electoral College system guarantees that the state I live in will send it's votes all in one direction (that's one reason I live here...).

Another constraint of great consequence is that all our votes go in more or less the same direction, being as we have a kind of "Good Cop, Bad Cop" single-party system at present. But as the votes go more or less towards the same pro-corporate (largely pro-military, pro-"capitalist") concerns, our spiritual practices can come to bear in those ways that they go less  towards the same concerns.

Often, when bringing spirituality into play in what have now become largely pop culture contests between two faces on the same mask of Janus, one might hear a sort of twist on Taoism (probably the second verse of the Tao te Ching) – the idea that there is no "good" or "bad,"  there simply is what there is; and while it is true that there are no problems that absolute acceptance won't resolve, this painfully "realistic" axiom is actually suggesting more the point that both the good and the evil go down with the ship – not the idea that it's pointless differentiating between the two.

Here it's good to introduce what's probably the number one rule for maintaining one's spirituality all the time (not just with politics...). About the most troublesome thing a human mind tends to do by default, I believe, is to label everything it perceives (I know my "thought organ" always wants to). It's hard not to look at something and say: That's spoiled; that's pretty; that's unattractive; that's plastic; or whatever may (or may not) apply. This renders the subject into a diminished egoic category – usually a more comfortable, lesser-than entity, rather than allowing the truth about it to be the result of a rather complex personal process of discovery. 

Using what the Hindu call sakshi – that is, becoming an open-hearted, objective (non-labeling) witness to people and events, we can observe characteristics like "good" and "evil" with the insight needed to deal with them with more understanding. We might see those same characteristics at their foundation, as "compassionate" and "angry," for example. Evil does exist always in some form of human egoism, as the deliberate or not-so-deliberate motivation for self-centered gratification of one kind or another – as a selfish entitlement, a righteous justification, or a response to simple fear. 

By avoiding those motivations for our political actions (and the specifics of our present contest), and embracing the intention at the soul of our system, we should vote for what we truly believe in our hearts, regardless whether those principles are supported by a giant political party, a smaller one, or only by the write-in line on your ballot or the box marked "none of the above." For a person on a spiritual path, of course these principles include equality, integrity, ecology, compassion, tolerance, willingness, etc....in short, where there is Love. Let your unencumbered heart guide you.

In our specific system at present there's a peculiar conflation of misunderstandings at work beneath many of the policy justifications coming out of the  "Bad Cop" side of our political system. One is that Darwinism is not really the survival of "the fittest," but instead the survival of the most cooperatively adaptable. The "winners" in that skewed system are limited in their ability to act responsibly by what defines them. Capitalism (especially in a corrupted form) works very well for the institutions of finance, but ultimately not so well for the heart of humanity. We can do better.

That could serve as a general guidepost for cast-ing your ballot – which candidate's policy benefits money, and which benefits people? Or put more simply in a spiritual sense, who's true intention is to benefit the health of the planet, to com-passionately address the needs of the greatest num-ber of people?

Another prevalent mis-understanding is that the underlying logic of philoso-phers like Adam Smith or Ayn Rand is at all sane, given their bases upon presumptions of the ego's self-interest – inarguably the cause of the most destructive insanity at work in our planet's past or present. A more likely possibility is that both of them were deeply spiritually damaged. Not sane.

 For example, Ayn Rand's rejection of altruism in favor of "individual responsibility" simply makes spiritual evolution impossible. There are just too many people that can't cut that particular mustard, and (in my opinion) you simply can't find a spiritual solution while lacking as absolute a sense of compassion as you can possibly manage. Stand back from the planet with a little sakshi, and you can see we are clearly all responsible for one another. After all, we were all originally "communists" – our communal, tribal origins indicate that the whole takes care of everyone in a manner that doesn't reward any member so much that they feel separate from the rest.

When you observe Ms. Rand with sakshi, you see a deeply damaged person, not someone whose philosophy you should base your life decisions on. In a clip from Anthony Baxter's excellent new documentary, You've Been Trumped, Donald Trump's reply to the members of a local Scottish town board when they wanted to know where he got his facts about the ecological and cultural impact of his proposed development on their ancestor's unspoiled lands was: "I AM all the facts you need." That is the pathological disease of human ego, and a pretty decent definition of evil as well. 

In answer to the question: Can things change in the direction of what is better for the planet, and the most people? The "fact" of our current president may actually be all "the facts you need." If you feel limited to picking either the "Good Cop" or the "Bad Cop," I hope that helps your decision.

"It's the metaphysical impulse to transcend the illusion of separateness..."

Joseph Campbell

What I Learned From "Dying," Part 2: My Three Purposes

Earlier, I briefly described my three "Near Death Experiences" and what I learned from each of those distinctly different passages about the apparent structure of our lives here – on this Earth, and now in the "Eternal Moment," stretching out beyond this physical being...but it was left to me to realize the Why?

We're passengers (passer-bys) in these bodies. We're each a fully accounted-for part of an unimaginably spectacular, largely unperceived spiritual system. Each of us has a "mission" to be fulfilled – a set of lessons to learn, karmic tasks to achieve for our process of spiritual evolution. It's really the stuff that myths are made of, and for.

"Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told."

Joseph Campbell

Before I tell you what I came to about the Why?– about our three great purposes – I feel I need to mention a serious underlying conundrum that's accompanied me since my experiences crystallized in my life: That nothing any one of us thinks, does, or says is really all that important at all on a planet that's funneled many billions of souls...but then our feelings, thoughts, and actions also connect us to everything that is really important in Life. It stands to reason that I only need to take Life's lessons seriously, not myself.

So for our first great purpose, it's about Expression – about discovering the best qualities of being human. Not the most selfishly gratifying, but the most fulfilling. Naturally this includes all the wonderfully human experiences of passion, sex, sentiment, thrill and chills, accomplishment, and sacrifice – not just for selfish, self-centered ends (and never to the detriment of any other sentient being), but instead selflessly contributing to the welfare of others whenever possible.

I mean self-expression as in discovering your authentic self – who you really are, and what your positive, life-fulfilling role is – whether it's protecting and caring for others, building bridges, fixing finances, creating revelatory art, expressing your soul on paper, etc. – all the things we can do for one another (all the "markets" we find). It's not always fabulous at all, or about being rich and famous, or about what others might think of you. It's a more meaningful definition of success. It's about being who you're meant to be in this life. Being alive in your expression, and respecting the pure expression of all Life.

Next, it's about Evolution. About that which motivates us to our greatest good, to our highest spiritual state. What sends us into tomorrow morning, or into "The Sweet Hereafter" growing and continuing to learn and expand into our shared Source of Being in the best and most fulfilling way possible. Naturally this includes an ongoing effort to develop real character, compassion, tolerance, and willingness. To become truly open-hearted, and expansive within your emotional life, and outward through your philosophy and approach to living. All negativity is resisting this personal spiritual evolution.

This amounts to not only the spiritual evolution of the self that we personally carry through every life, but also to the evolution of all Life, as the whole is a confluence of all it's smallest parts. We are all of one growing mind, alive in an ocean of consciousness, expressing that growth in each of our own little ways; but unlike the other divine life forms on this Earth, we alone have the spiritual responsibility of stewardship. The material demands of human ego and desire are only aspects of this little human-being we must overcome –  obstacles that impede us, but that we all inevitably surrender to our expansion into spirit (like it or not). It's best way to do this comes by finding our true medium (the third purpose)...

It's about discovering that Love is the true medium of Life – the substance that all positive creation springs from. It is the air creation breathes, the water it drinks, the lubricant upon which it glides along – within us or without us. It's easy for us to believe that material powers: force, decay, the physical flesh and elements of this life are it's medium, but they are only it's constituents, or symptoms of being human – the realities of Consciousness animating as different forms. They aren't what creates it, lies beneath it all, flows through it, enfolds it's beginning and "end," and provides this life it's ultimate gratifications, fulfillments, and achievements (which are those heart-based rewards that completely overwhelm the senses and intellect).

Love creates all those motivations and sensations that humankind struggles to describe as it's greatest testament to Being. Our collective mission is to return to that medium of Life – to return to Love (apologies to Ms. Williamson). Every question is answered, every problem is solved, every challenge is met best by Love. It's the smallest, the largest, and the actual medium of Life itself...and so, it is our home. It's where we are destined to return to. It is the why in "Why are we here?"

This second part concludes my simplest summation of every thing I learned by dying, for the first three times. Now I just have to try to live it, and encourage you to live it too.

"In the end, love is the only medicine that can heal the wounds of the world. In this universe, it is love that binds everything together. As this awareness dawns within us, all disharmony will cease."

Amma

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 site, 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!

What I Learned From "Dying," Part 1: My Three Destinations

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 them in hopes that you'll never find the need to try this at home. They weren't much fun, but they were very informative.

We most often think of Evolution with a capital E, as in the theory or transitioning movement 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, are the lessons I learned, 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 people who rushed to my aid (God bless 'em). A while into all the hub-bub, I was gently shepherded off by a kind entity that remained out of view into what I can only describe as a soft, warm, cotton-wool cloud, 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, 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. That's the job, should you choose to accept it, Mr. Phelps.

"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

There is a much greater, very different but also infinitely rich realm of conscious experience, very closely connected to the one we experience here and now, that we transition into seamlessly and effortlessly when we die; like walking from one room to another. It is a world of experiencing here and now as well – The Eternal Moment we will always be alive within.

In a fairly unconscious earlier stage of my life, as the result of living in a riotously self-destructive way, I just "keeled over" one night, from one or another of the awful things I was doing to myself (what Dr. Jung would call "a low-level search for God") – or more likely, from all of them. I was paralyzed on the floor, breathless and unresponsive to the efforts to revive me. The world as we witness it disappeared from view, filled-in by a dense bright white cloud – again all easy and comfortable. My invisible host beckoned me watch a "screen" that opened up from the center of my vision and began showing me not the most auspicious highlights of my life so far, but instead some moments of profound (suppressed) significance – injuries I'd committed; opportunities I'd missed. Here's what I learned:

Our lives are woven together with moments that may already be known in this invisible, timeless dimension that enfolds our present world of experience. These moments, these lessons serve to inform and define the quality of our spiritual evolution, and transfer from Life to Life throughout our existence within what's been called "The Akashic Field." Our role is to surmount this human form's inherent obstructions and bring conscious awareness sufficient to learn from these moments, as we can only experience them through our remarkable sensory vehicles – our "selves" in this material dimension. Joy, pain, pride, desire, struggle, surrender, tenderness, realization – these are learning moments within the larger medium of Love that carries us from life to Life.

"Though it is hidden in all things, the Self shines not forth."

Katha Upanishad, 3.12

Kind of heavy stuff, right? ...but amazing and fun. If you think it all sounds rather crazy, may I remind you that we are all on a planet in outer space.

In my last NDE (I hope...), I was attacked by a gang of "skinheads" away out west, who mistook me for a hated homosexual (to them), knocked me out from behind (again the left side of my head), and kicked and stomped me "to death" for almost one hour. I'm sure they had their reasons, God bless 'em (It's possible I gave them some, unconsciously). I was propelled into a much darker place that, while safe, was nonetheless scarier than where I had been in my two previous experiences. I wasn't quite free of my physical struggle, and although I vigorously protested and did not want to return to the "world of hurt," a number of loving entities gently forced me back into this (pretty messed-up) being. I awoke with a team of EMTs working on me. Here's what I learned:

We are on a kind of mission. We are here for a reason, not just for "ourselves," but for ourself – our greater collective being. This life is not easy. It's not supposed to be easy, we're here to learn some of our harder lessons, and can't just quit because we feel like it. "Not feeling like it" is something we're meant to learn to master. Service to ourselves – to one another and to our living world – is our means to evolutionary progress. Discovering compassion and Love as the medium in which the Eternal Moment exists is our goal. Recognizing, overcoming, and transmuting the obstructions of sensory self-obsession (the evils of Ego) is a necessary path to growth – an appropriate "divine" calling, in fact. It's a propriety defined by Love and the act of loving all Life, and is sometimes called "dying to one's self."

So I give this to you because being here ain't easy (though it sure can be a lot of fun); and because I want you to know as much joy and as little pain as possible, even though I know I can't do that for you...and I'm not supposed to.

But I would like to meet you there – here – if I can... my sisters and brothers:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

There is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense."

Jalal al-Din Rumi

...read What I Learned From "Dying," Part 2 here...

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct or online; and 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 them it at your local bookstore!