The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You (10 page)

You came from “dead” and back to dead you’ll return, and on the whole, you’ll spend far more time “there” than “here.” Yet while “there,” your main focus will be to hone and perfect the art of getting “into body” (as opposed to your celebrated “out-of-body” experiences).

And now, as you read these words, for just a little while longer it’s still your turn on stage. Yet because all this may be challenging for you to believe, perhaps you’re skeptical. Maybe you’re unconvinced that today is packed with meaning and that you are who and where you most wanted to be. That you’re the magician of your life, master of the illusions that dance around you, and an intergalactic tidal wave of love and pure energy. After all, sometimes finding a parking space seems to be asking for too much, while losing weight, paying off debt, and finding Mr. Right can sometimes seem like a cruel joke. No wonder the living love to lament, “I plan, God laughs.”

And why
wouldn’t
you be ready to die right now? Especially if you’re suffering over the “loss” of a loved one? Especially when everything seems so random and chaotic? Especially with the load of “issues” every life seems to accumulate? Especially if you keep getting stuck, don’t get what you want, and find that this whole ordeal asks a bit too much of you? This chapter is for you.

C
ATCH
-22

First, understand that life within the jungles puts you on the cutting
edge
of reality creation. Little else could compare to the choice of forgetting all in an adventure that gives new eyes to God, as well as new ears, new feelings, and a new heart that will never cease beating, for “to be” is “to be” always.

To accomplish this, you’re on a journey of your own creation, yet where you’re truly going is
not known or knowable
. Not even “God” knows, otherwise there’d be no point in going.

You are here as God to find this out, to blaze a new trail. You are a pioneer into consciousness—although looking at life from your mortal perspective,
you are assured of nothing
. There are angels who dare not tread where you’ve trod and who find your courage utterly breathtaking.

And therein lies the catch of living a lifetime within the jungles of time and space:

Life’s adventures are only possible because of life’s challenges.

Not that every high must have an equal low; we already covered that. But that every moment must carry with it an “or.” The greater the “or” you create, the more thrilling. For example, of all the joys on earth, few compare to the crowning glory of achieving
against the odds,
succeeding
in the face of peril,
triumphing
over adversity,
or finding love
where there seemed to be none
. Yet in every such case, the poor odds, peril, adversity, and loneliness
must come first!
Turning 2 million dollars into 100 million is
nothing
compared to turning zero dollars into 1 million, because to do so you must start with …
zero.

Yet these very challenges, these invitations to greatness and pathways to joy, are all too often seen by “the locals” as problems, curses, and demons! Reason to wither and withdraw your magnificence rather than engage it and turn it up. The whole point is missed. Your life isn’t great
except
that you have chicken pox, you’re broke, or your girlfriend cheated on you;
your life totally rocks because
you have chicken pox, you’re broke, or your girlfriend cheated on you! Your issues aren’t random, they’re by design. Divine design—
yours.

Life is not meant to be hard so that you can be happy beyond it.

The dead, therefore, want you to get that no matter where you are, everything is okay, getting better, and happening just as it “should,” in a steady progression that will forever take you higher. This is God’s trajectory within time and space: eternal expansion. They want you to know that even in their absence, however much you might miss them, the fact
that you still live
is exquisitely meaningful. It means that you still have places to go, friends to meet, and lessons to learn; that there can still be more smiles than frowns, more laughter than crying, and more joy than sadness, in a living, loving Universe that’s literally conspiring on your behalf.

They want to remind you that the world is still your oyster, though your “work” is not done. Let go of the past, return to the here and now, and begin shaping the rest of your life. Hang in there and keep dancing life’s dance, knowing that you are inclined to succeed and prone to joy because these are propensities of the Divine, traits of the Immortal, your eternal birthrights.

H
APPY
E
NDINGS

Come on. Would loving parents ever give their child a book to read that didn’t have a happy ending? No. But they might well advise, “Don’t stop reading during the scary parts!” And neither would a “greater you” give yourself the gift of time and space if it wouldn’t be all good
in the long run,
no matter how things may appear midway. So good that
no matter what might happen,
it would be worth every bump and turn along the way.

As I hope you might suspect, the “happy ending” in this metaphor most certainly isn’t when you “die.” Life is not meant to be hard so that you can be happy beyond it. The happy “ending,” therefore, comes with finally understanding those tricky areas you move through
while
you are alive. The key is that you do indeed need to
move through them
and not “stop reading at the scary parts”; you must prevail, hang on, and keep trucking to emerge on the other side of whatever the tricky area was.

When you have mastered it, a new dream appears from which another journey begins.

Most people trying to understand life, God, and purpose immediately ask about the world’s pain and suffering. They never ask:

Why do so many people on the planet, from the arctic to the Sahara, have enough food?

Why do so many people seem to live charmed lives, with friends, partners, and children?

Why are there so many lottery winners, rock stars, and multimillionaires?

But if you want to ask about “happy endings” for children starving in faraway countries, or the horrific abuse that happens in virtually every nation (both very fair and highly responsible questions), you’ll have to put them in the context of 7 billion other lifetimes happening at the same time and admit that such tragedies are comparatively few. And granted, even while the number of people who experience some form of violation in their lives is not small at all, those violations alone do not necessarily define those lives, which often are otherwise happy before or after the violations. To judge your life or anyone else’s, your progress or the seeming lack thereof, by any spot along the path takes whatever’s happening in that moment completely out of context.

F
LEETING
G
LITCHES
; L
ASTING
G
IFTS

Losses within the jungles are not only temporary but, like time and space themselves, illusionary. What better way to learn this than by choosing a path with probabilities that contain “losses,” where misunderstandings can be revealed and then dispelled? Imagine the intoxicating euphoria the bereaved and seemingly abandoned soul feels upon discovering the truth that not only does the beloved live on, but they will be together again, forever. By accepting or even welcoming your challenges, you create opportunities for their gifts to be revealed. Then you’re free to revel in the wonder of it all and move boldly ahead on a path that can now take you even higher into the light on even greater adventures than your earlier limitations would have allowed.

Nothing is by chance. To be alive means you knew what you were getting into and knew of all the probabilities that might one day present themselves. Any seeming hole in your life now is a custom-tailored invitation from yourself to yourself to be led to greater truths about life, love, and reality than you would have otherwise ever taken the time to consider. When shaken by a loss or tragedy, a flaw or imperfection, you have the choice to be taken down or lifted up by it. And given the resilience of the human spirit and every individual’s innate inclination to succeed, the uplift, eventually, will be your choice. You’ll discover that you’ve remained complete in spite of your challenges, setbacks, and heartbreaks—even that you’ve been made more by them.

Case in Point: Spousal Abuse

This is a sensitive subject, so to be very clear, nothing justifies abuse of any kind, ever. It is wrong, undeserved, and criminal. Those who commit such offenses should be sternly dealt with. Those who suffer from them should be afforded swift compassion and rehabilitation. Nevertheless, it happens, and because you deserve the hard questions answered, this issue can help illustrate some of the points in this chapter.

So, hypothetically, if a “victim” concluded that she was dying, life was unfair, and her situation had no redeeming hope, she’d be right
in that moment
. If those were her only conclusions, however, she would be seeing the abuse out of context, a context that would include her past and future. Further, if she were then to base major life decisions solely upon these shortsighted conclusions—canceling future plans, avoiding her friends, or allowing anger to build—she’d end up blinding herself to the miracles that surround her, short-circuiting her own healing abilities and concealing the life-balancing and spirit-enhancing insights the crisis reveals. Such as:

Understanding that one’s worthiness need not be earned.

Learning that hearing or saying no is neither a denial of love nor inappropriately selfish.