Death is not as many imagine it to be. All of us at the hour of our death will see and experience much to which we are not accustomed. The purpose of this brochure is to expand and detail our understanding of the inevitable separation from the transitory body. Some think death is a sleep without dreams. You close your eyes, fall asleep and there is nothing more, just darkness. Sleep ends in the morning, but death is eternal. Many are very frightened of the unknown and of the question, "what will happen to me?" So, instead, they choose not to think about death. However, deep within us there is always the knowledge of the inevitable and an accompanying sense of disquiet. Each one of us will have to cross that boundary. We should contemplate it and prepare ourselves.
Some say, "What is there to contemplate or prepare for? It's beyond our control. Our time will come and we will die — that is it. While there is time, we must take everything we can from life. Eat, drink, love, achieve power and glory, earn money, etc. Don't dwell on anything unpleasant or upsetting and certainly don't think about dying." Many follow this ideation.
Yet at times each of us may have more disturbing questions: "What if that's not the case? What if death is not the end? What if I find myself in a completely new place with my abilities to see hear and feel intact?" And most importantly, "what if our future beyond the threshold depends in part on the way in which we lived this life and what we were before we crossed the threshold of death?"
From a compilation of the accounts of survivors of clinical death, we can glimpse what the soul sees and experiences upon its separation from the body. During the process of dying, when a person reaches the limit of enfeeblement, he can hear as the doctor pronounces him dead. Then he sees his double, a lifeless body, lying below him surrounded by doctors and nurses trying to revive him. This unexpected scene shocks the person, who for the first time looks upon himself from outside of his body. It is at this point that he begins to realize that all of his abilities — to see, to hear, to think, to feel, etc. — continue to function, but now completely independent of his outer membrane, the flesh. Finding himself floating above the people in the room the person instinctively tries to make them aware of his presence by touching or speaking to one of them. But to his dismay, he is completely cut off from everyone. No one hears his voice or notices his touch. At the same time, he is puzzled by his feelings of relief, peace and even happiness. There is no longer that part of himself, that "me," which suffers, which needs and is always complaining about something. Having experienced such ease, the soul usually does not want to return to its body.
In the majority of documented cases of temporary death, after a few moments of observation, the soul returns to the body and thus ends its knowledge of the afterlife. However, on occasion the soul continues to travel further into the spiritual world. Some liken this condition to travelling through a dark tunnel. After this the souls of some arrive in a world of great beauty where they sometimes meet deceased relatives. Others arrive in a realm of light and meet a being of light from whom feelings of great love and understanding radiate and warm the soul. Some insist that it is our Lord but all agree that it is a Super power , full of good and compassion. Still others arrive in dark netherworlds where they describe seeing loathsome and cruel beings.
Sometimes the meeting with the mysterious being of light is accompanied with a "review" of life during which a person remembers his past and judges the moral value of his actions. After this, certain people see something similar to a barrier or boundary. They can feel that if it is crossed, they will not be able to return to the physical world.
Not all people, who revive after death, experience all of the stages described above. A significant percent of people returned to life could remember nothing of what happened to them "on the other side." The mentioned occurrences are placed above in order of their frequency from greatest to least. Based on Dr. Ring's facts only one in seven people who remember their out of body journeys speak of seeing a light or speaking with a being of light.
Thanks to the progress of medicine, the reanimation of the dead has become a somewhat standard procedure in most modern hospitals. Before, it was almost never attempted. Consequently, there exist differences between accounts of life after death in ancient, traditional, and modern literature. Religious books of the older era describe the appearances of the souls of the dead who tell of things they have seen in heaven or hell and of their otherworldly meetings with angels or demons. This first category of accounts should be considered descripttions of a "distant cosmos" in as much as they tell us of a spiritual world far removed from our own. Whereas the second category of contemporary accounts, as detailed by the doctors, primarily describe the "near cosmos" i.e. the first experiences of a soul who has just left the body. They are interesting in that they complement the first category of accounts and provide us with a clearer picture of what awaits each of us on the other side. In his own words: "All of my attention was concentrated on myself…a certain state of division within me…there appeared an inner person… the main one, who had a complete indifference to the external one (the body) and to what was transpiring with him.…It was amazing to see and hear everything, and at the same time to feel an estrangement toward everything. Thus, for example, the doctor asks me a question; I hear and understand that which he asks, but I do not reply. I do not give an answer, because I feel there is no reason for me to speak with him… I suddenly felt myself drawn somewhere downward with irresistible force…I exerted myself and began tossing about… "Agony," I heard this word pronounced over me by the doctor…but, I was not afraid… No, I felt no physical pain whatsoever, but undoubtedly I was suffering. I felt heavy within and weary… I, however, only felt an insurmountable striving towards somewhere, an attraction towards something… I felt more clearly that I, as a whole, could not unite, that something had to separate within me… I almost screamed out loud, and made an attempt to free myself, to tear myself from that force which was attracting me, and suddenly I felt a calm within myself… I opened my eyes, and everything that I saw in the course of that minute, down to the slightest details, registered in my memory with complete clarity.
Thanks to new studies in the realm of reanimation and a comparison of the many near death experiences, it is now possible to compile a detailed schematic picture of what the soul experiences soon after separating from the body. Of course each case has its peculiarities which are absent from others. It's natural to expect this since the soul enters the other world like a newborn with undeveloped senses. For this reason, the first impressions of those who "dive" into this "other world" are very subjective. However in their similarities they help us create a fairly complete, if not comprehensive, picture.
We shall list here the most distinctive moments of otherworldly experience taken from contemporary books on life after death.
1. Seeing a double. Upon dying, a person does not immediately realize his state. Only after seeing his "double" lying breathless below him and becoming convinced that he is incapable of making himself known to the living, does he realize that his soul has left its body. Sometimes, as in an unexpected accident or other sudden death, the soul does not recognize its body and thinks it is someone else, who looks like them. The seeing of one's "double" and the inability to attract the attention of the living creates a shocking impression on the soul, so that it is not sure if it is a dream or reality.
2. Continuous consciousness. All, who have had a life after death experience, witness that they maintained their feeling of self, all of their mental and sensory abilities and their free will. In fact, their vision and hearing became more acute; their thought acquires precision and becomes extremely energetic, the memory clarifies. People who had long ago, due to illness or age, lost certain abilities regained them anew. They could see, hear, think and so forth all without the aid of their physical being. It is amazing; for example, that a man blind from birth, upon leaving his body, could see everything that was being done to his body by the doctors and nurses. He later recounted everything he had seen in great detail. Having returned into his body he was again rendered blind. The doctors and psychiatrists who define the functions of thought and emotion as just electrochemical processes of the brain should look into the data gathered by the reanimating doctors in order to correctly understand man’s nature.
3. Alleviation. Usually, death’s precursor is illness and suffering. However, once it has left the body the soul rejoices that the pain is gone and there is no longer any pressure or choking. The mind is clear and the senses tranquil. The person begins to accept his soul, and the body becomes secondary and no longer necessary, as does the rest of the material world. " I leave, and the body — an empty shell" explained one man with near death experience. He watched the operation on his heart like "an uninvolved bystander." Attempts to revive his body did not interest him. Apparently, he had made his peace with his past life and was ready to start a new and better life. He did, however, retain love for his family and concern for the children whom he was leaving.
At this point, it is important to mention that there is no rudimentary change in the character of one's personality. The uniqueness of the personality remains as it was. "The supposition that upon discarding the body the soul begins to know and understand all things — is untrue. I came into this new world the same as I had left the old." (narrated K. Uekskuell).
4. The Tunnel and the Light.
Soon after seeing its body and surroundings some souls continue into the other spiritual world. While others, not noticing the first, go directly to this second stage. The passage to the spiritual world is described by some as a journey through a dark space, reminiscent of a tunnel at the end of which they come into the realm of unearthly light.
Thus, after inevitable separation from the transitory body, SOUL commences Journey to Spiritual World. OH God!
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