Where did they go?

A Common Question that’s Impossible to Answer. 

The simple answer to that is a confident and factual, ‘nobody has a clue’. Not a single person has returned to tell the tale, have they? Even near-death experiences simply align with the cultures of the people who experience them. We know that they can see and hear us and even communicate with us, but as for the full extent of what it’s like over there, nobody knows. We will continually be trying to make sense of what we don’t know. It is in our nature; we are thinking beings. We are capable of thinking for ourselves and believing in what makes the most logical or emotional sense to us. Given that nobody really knows what happens after we pass, it means that all beliefs are equally valid. So if it is the idea of heaven that brings you joy and meets your need for closure, then that’s what you should believe in. Perhaps reincarnation as a response to karma fits well within your soul – if so, go ahead and believe in it!

They Live On

Some believe that the moment your eyelids meet is the instant that you find yourself aware that you are in the afterlife with your loved ones. It’s as if you are left on your own for a brief moment until you realise what’s going on, and then one by one your loved ones will approach you and greet you, exactly as you remember them from the physical world. This experience is merely a transition into another life – an afterlife that is very similar to their lives before death. What seems to occur is a reunion with your loved ones and the souls you remember. When you pass, you won’t be alone in that moment but are met by your spirit guide that is always around or beside you first. This is usually an ancestor or loved one. You will have no more need of the physical body. You will live on as a spirit among your people.

You will help your earthly children and your future descendants to live their lives by playing a powerful role in some way as a guardian over them. You will elevate towards a position of a guide or ancestral helper. There is the option to reincarnate, but that is rare and for those who deeply want to be able to make big and impactful changes on earth. Perhaps that is why you are here on earth: you were one of the spirits that decided to come back, to have another go at changing something for the better here. Spirit moves around back and forth from various loved ones in the physical realm, depending on where they are most needed. A constant self of ours exists that is the higher self, or the non-human aspect of us. It’s us without the psychological chemicals, the childhood attachment styles and many other things that form the foundation of what we identify as ‘ourselves’. When we incarnate to earth, we have two spirits; when we depart we return to the ‘great spirit’.

Reincarnation 

Because we can’t imagine not existing or existing in an afterlife we aren’t sure of, we fall back on the idea of reincarnation – that we live again and again – because living is all we have ever known. Many people these days are inclined to believe in reincarnation, drawn to the idea that their loved one is ‘recycled’ as a soul and returns to earth reincarnated as another member of the family, an animal or another sentient being. This is a common teaching in the eastern religions. It reiterates the fact that no higher being or force is responsible for you but you. You are the person who is navigating, creating and living in your own kharma and dharma. It makes sense that if you were to pass away and then be reincarnated, you would live a happy life as a reward for your good acts in the one preceding it, or face a litany of misfortunes if you weren’t good in the last one.

Nothing to Fear 

Some people believe in past lives and claim to vividly remember how they had died in each of their lifetimes. Fear is the last thing we need to have when it comes to thinking about passing. If you think about it, when we get up out of a chair, we don’t ask ‘will my knees carry me?’ or ‘is the ground stable?’, we simply stand up and carry on with where we are going. That is what death feels like: you simply stand up out of your body in some respects and keep going on your journey in the spirit realm until you are ready or willing to incarnate again.

Exercise 

Who’s Waiting for you?

Spend a brief moment reflecting on who would be the firs person who approaches you in spirit. Write down one thing in sentence form in a journal that you believe they might say to you first when you reunite with them again.

Next Topic: Honouring Spirit