Spiritual Forum

Continued from Part 1

We excel to new heights in a steadier way in the spirit planes if we choose to stay there after passing on, but a lot of people choose to come back for reasons related to rapid soul growth and the desire to assist others in awakening.

Mary Bosworth advises us not to worry about death or what lies beyond it, and to enjoy ourselves while we’re here.

“Take no thought nor anxiety for the future life. Have no dread of death, which is only a coming, a rebirth, into this life. Do what you can to help others into an understanding of the immortal life of the human soul, and live in happy contentment and confidence of your future…” (1)

I couldn’t agree with Mary more.

Let’s utilize the immense opportunity we have to be of service while we’re here, and instead of fearing death, let’s understand it as the peaceful and harmonious transition it can really be. Let’s enjoy this physical reality as much as possible without falling into indulgence, because we’ll always remember that life doesn’t end.

Knowing that death is a “rebirth” as suggested here really takes the weight off of our shoulders. Try to grasp the idea that life is eternal; that we’ll continue to live and evolve forever. The spirit is infinite, and the place we’ll go when the time comes is heavenlier than we yet know.

Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson tells us about the unfortunate and irrational nature of our fear of death.

“We have seen the shadow of ‘death’ and the ‘grave,’ those two ogres that frighten so many good souls, filling them with a dread that is utterly and completely unwarranted. Man was never intended to go through his earthly life with this monstrous dark shadow forever hanging over him. It is unnatural and thoroughly bad. It has been raised by men upon earth in remote periods of the earth’s history and it has so continued for the generality of earth’s dwellers for generation after generation of the incarnate.” (2)

Our fear and avoidance of death produces a heavy weight that can be hard to transcend, and as Benson says below, people from the other side feel satisfied when they can convey knowledge about life beyond death to us.

“It is but natural that, with the opportunity presenting itself, we should visit the earth and, by bringing with us a little of the light of knowledge, we should be able to dispel the fears of death of the physical body that haunt so many people and, in place of those fears, give some knowledge and information of the superb lands of the spirit world wherein we now live and wherein you yourself will one day come to join us.

In place of fears of a speculative ‘hereafter’ we try to show you something of the brilliant prospect that lies before you when that happy moment arrives for you to take up your true and undoubted heritage in the spirit world.” (2)

Because of the extent to which they feared death before discovering the realms beyond, some people who’ve passed on want to let us know that there’s nothing to fear and that the other side brims with consciousness and activity. How open or receptive we are to this message depends on us, but they play their part by spreading the word.

A departed soul speaking through Betty Bethards tells us that the experience of death is akin to peacefully going to sleep.

“Death is a change in the rate of vibration. As you go to sleep at night, and your consciousness leaves the physical body, you are experiencing the same thing as death.” (3)

Of course, we should keep in mind that death is a more permanent state than sleep. I suppose what’s being said here is that death is as peaceful as falling asleep, instead of violent and painful, and that our consciousness temporarily leaves our bodies every night in the same way it’ll permanently leave when we pass on.

When the body dies, we’ll feel ourselves float up out of it and we’ll consciously perceive the spirit planes.

We’re then told that we’ll willingly shed our bodies (but not our personalities) when we’re finished here, because from a higher perspective, the human body is seen as a hindrance.

“Your personality, your memory, everything you consider to be you will leave with this energy [upon death] because you are energy.

Once your work is accomplished there is no longer any need to stay in the physical vehicle which you are using on the earth plane. The body is as dust and will return to dust. It takes the energy force of the etheric body, living within your physical vehicle, to produce a being. At death the being leaves, and you could [not] care less about the physical vehicle which is a hindrance, like a prison.” (3)

I don’t think the intention of the above quote is to suggest that we should despise our physical vessel or the dense reality around us, but the consensus among the departed seems to be that shedding the body is as simple as, like others have said, putting on a new pair of clothes.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we’re spiritual beings having a human experience. The etheric body, sheltered in the physical vessel, simply moves on when it’s ready or when the vessel can no longer be of service.

It’s a simple but powerful shift, and if we choose to, we can undergo the apparently dreadful process of birth and shift right back into this reality to grow and be of service to others. A lot of people believe that we reincarnate continually until we reach a less dense state of consciousness, and the number of lives you experience is your choice.

Continued in Part 3 tomorrow.

Footnotes:

(1)- Fred Rafferty, ed., Charlotte E. Dresser, medium, Life Here and Hereafter. Author’s edition. Downloaded from http://www.harvestfields.ca/ebook/02/001/00.htm, 2 Feb. 2008.

(2)- Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson through Anthony Borgia, medium, Here and Hereafter. San Francisco: H.G. White, 1968 (dictated in 1957).

(3)- Betty Bethards, medium, There is No Death. Novato, CA: Inner Light Foundation, 1976; c1975.

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