obyvatel
The Living Force
I have been thinking a lot about death at present due to a personal situation and guided by Laura's post here , I started to look into the work of Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross on this topic. Dr EKR's work on the five stages of grief while coming to terms with a terminal condition outlined in her book "On Death and Dying" seems to have received significant attention. Though the stages are not so well demarcated in real life experience, they provide a roadmap for understanding the mental state of a loved one coming to terms with a terminal condition and is useful for caregivers and family/friends. The wikipedia version for this Kubler Ross model is here .
I was more interested in Dr EKR's work on the question of life after death which she outlined in a book "On Life After Death". Bear has provided a review of this book in this thread . Her work on this topic is a combination of scientific research and seeking with the heart. She and her team has documented many thousands of cases of near death experiences (NDEs) and out of body experiences (OBEs). Her data is based both on experiences of patients who were considered clinically dead and later came back to life as well as techniques to generate OBEs under controlled circumstances. Faced with what I perceived as "asking" from some aged family members, I listened to the audio version of this book and decided to share the following paraphrased version with them.
[quote author=paraphrased summary from On Life After Death]
There are three stages to the moment of death. Death refers to the physical body which can be regarded as a temporary house - or cocoon which houses a butterfly. The butterfly is the Real Self or the soul. The physical body or cocoon is animated by physical energy. As soon as the cocoon is in an irreparable condition - be it from suicide, murder, heart attack, or chronic disease, it doesn't matter what happened - it will release the butterfly, your soul so to speak. Symbolically speaking, when the butterfly leaves the cocoon, it marks the beginning of the second stage. When your cocoon is in such a condition that you could neither breathe nor could your pulse or brain waves be measured, your butterfly has already left the cocoon. At this second stage you are supplied with psychic energy, while in the first stage you were supplied with physical energy. In the second stage, you are inhabiting a temporary ethereal body which is animated by this psychic energy. In the ethereal (or astral) body, you will experience
a) physical wholeness and well-being. The ethereal body is not affected by the pain, disease, amputation or mutilation that may have affected the physical body. There is a feeling of serenity and detachment.
b) total awareness of the environment. You will be able to see and hear what is happening in the area you were in immediately before the death of the physical body. You will also be able to read the thoughts of people present.
c) ability to travel anywhere you want to at the speed of your thought. You could visit relatives or close friends in distant places the instant you think about it. The ethereal body is not constrained in time and space as the physical body.
d) presence of relatives/friends who have preceded you in death by a few minutes to several decades. You will also meet what is described as guardian angels or spirit guides. Strong emotional bonds formed while being in the physical body with now deceased human beings and religious figures may play a role in who is present to greet you in this stage. Nobody dies alone.
Communication between those in the ethereal body happens through thought transference – there is no need for verbal communication.
After having met with ancestors/relatives/spirit guides, you will come to a symbolic crossing. For some, it may be a river; for some, a mountain pass; for some a bridge or tunnel - whatever form this crossing takes has cultural as well as individual significance.
After having made this crossing, you are at its end embraced by light. This is the third stage. This is the realm of spiritual energy. After this, it is not possible to return to the earthly body (referring to the cases of near death experiences and out-of-body experiences of people who have not undergone the process of physical death but have temporarily inhabited the ethereal or astral body). But you wouldn't want to return to it anyway, for after seeing the light nobody wants to go back. In this light, you will experience for the first time what man could have been. Here there is understanding without judging, and here you experience unconditional love. In the presence of this cosmic consciousness, which many people compare with Christ or God, with love or light, you will come to know that all your life on earth was nothing but a school that you had to go through in order to pass certain tests and learn special lessons. As soon as you have finished this school and mastered your lessons, you are allowed to go home, to graduate.
In this light, in the presence of God, Christ, or whatever you want to name it, you look back on your entire life from the first day until the last. With this viewing of your own life you have reached the third stage. On this level you are no longer in the possession of the consciousness from the first stage, or of the awareness from the second. You are now in possession of knowledge. You know in minute detail every thought you had at any time during your life on earth. You remember every deed, and know every word that you ever spoke. This recapitulation is only a very small part of your knowing because at this moment you know all consequences resulting from your thoughts, and from every one of your words and deeds.
God is unconditional love. During this review of your earthly life you will not blame God for your fate, but you will know that you yourself were your own worst enemy since you are now accusing yourself of having neglected so many opportunities to grow - to grow in understanding, to grow in love, to grow in all those things which we still have to learn.
[/quote]
Overall, this material seems to chime well with some of the things that the C's have said. Since it has a certain basis in research, I am inclined to have a degree of trust in this material.
I was more interested in Dr EKR's work on the question of life after death which she outlined in a book "On Life After Death". Bear has provided a review of this book in this thread . Her work on this topic is a combination of scientific research and seeking with the heart. She and her team has documented many thousands of cases of near death experiences (NDEs) and out of body experiences (OBEs). Her data is based both on experiences of patients who were considered clinically dead and later came back to life as well as techniques to generate OBEs under controlled circumstances. Faced with what I perceived as "asking" from some aged family members, I listened to the audio version of this book and decided to share the following paraphrased version with them.
[quote author=paraphrased summary from On Life After Death]
There are three stages to the moment of death. Death refers to the physical body which can be regarded as a temporary house - or cocoon which houses a butterfly. The butterfly is the Real Self or the soul. The physical body or cocoon is animated by physical energy. As soon as the cocoon is in an irreparable condition - be it from suicide, murder, heart attack, or chronic disease, it doesn't matter what happened - it will release the butterfly, your soul so to speak. Symbolically speaking, when the butterfly leaves the cocoon, it marks the beginning of the second stage. When your cocoon is in such a condition that you could neither breathe nor could your pulse or brain waves be measured, your butterfly has already left the cocoon. At this second stage you are supplied with psychic energy, while in the first stage you were supplied with physical energy. In the second stage, you are inhabiting a temporary ethereal body which is animated by this psychic energy. In the ethereal (or astral) body, you will experience
a) physical wholeness and well-being. The ethereal body is not affected by the pain, disease, amputation or mutilation that may have affected the physical body. There is a feeling of serenity and detachment.
b) total awareness of the environment. You will be able to see and hear what is happening in the area you were in immediately before the death of the physical body. You will also be able to read the thoughts of people present.
c) ability to travel anywhere you want to at the speed of your thought. You could visit relatives or close friends in distant places the instant you think about it. The ethereal body is not constrained in time and space as the physical body.
d) presence of relatives/friends who have preceded you in death by a few minutes to several decades. You will also meet what is described as guardian angels or spirit guides. Strong emotional bonds formed while being in the physical body with now deceased human beings and religious figures may play a role in who is present to greet you in this stage. Nobody dies alone.
Communication between those in the ethereal body happens through thought transference – there is no need for verbal communication.
After having met with ancestors/relatives/spirit guides, you will come to a symbolic crossing. For some, it may be a river; for some, a mountain pass; for some a bridge or tunnel - whatever form this crossing takes has cultural as well as individual significance.
After having made this crossing, you are at its end embraced by light. This is the third stage. This is the realm of spiritual energy. After this, it is not possible to return to the earthly body (referring to the cases of near death experiences and out-of-body experiences of people who have not undergone the process of physical death but have temporarily inhabited the ethereal or astral body). But you wouldn't want to return to it anyway, for after seeing the light nobody wants to go back. In this light, you will experience for the first time what man could have been. Here there is understanding without judging, and here you experience unconditional love. In the presence of this cosmic consciousness, which many people compare with Christ or God, with love or light, you will come to know that all your life on earth was nothing but a school that you had to go through in order to pass certain tests and learn special lessons. As soon as you have finished this school and mastered your lessons, you are allowed to go home, to graduate.
In this light, in the presence of God, Christ, or whatever you want to name it, you look back on your entire life from the first day until the last. With this viewing of your own life you have reached the third stage. On this level you are no longer in the possession of the consciousness from the first stage, or of the awareness from the second. You are now in possession of knowledge. You know in minute detail every thought you had at any time during your life on earth. You remember every deed, and know every word that you ever spoke. This recapitulation is only a very small part of your knowing because at this moment you know all consequences resulting from your thoughts, and from every one of your words and deeds.
God is unconditional love. During this review of your earthly life you will not blame God for your fate, but you will know that you yourself were your own worst enemy since you are now accusing yourself of having neglected so many opportunities to grow - to grow in understanding, to grow in love, to grow in all those things which we still have to learn.
[/quote]
Overall, this material seems to chime well with some of the things that the C's have said. Since it has a certain basis in research, I am inclined to have a degree of trust in this material.