The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You (2 page)

Imagine being the dearly departed loved one yourself, post–after party, taking a peek back down on earth, happy tears still wet on your cheeks, and seeing the heartbreak and bedlam among the grieving left in your wake.
Shiver me timbers!
Suddenly nothing would be more important than reaching back. To tell them it’s okay!
All is supremely well! You’re not dead! You’ll meet up later! It’s still their turn! Keep on dreaming! Keep on living! Keep on loving!

And wouldn’t receiving such news fantastically change everything for the living, forever? And who better to calm the bereaved and inspire all of us than those we love and miss?

W
HAT’S
N
OT
G
OD
?

The compulsion of the “dead” to reach out intensifies when they discover there’s no trace of a God in the afterlife
as depicted by nearly every religion.
Which is really great news when you consider how most religions depict God. Of course
there is a God
, just not like the one taught by the blind who lead the blind. Words sometimes slip when we try to apply them to truth, but to approximate: God is the sum of
all that is
—every voice, every heartbeat, every man, woman, and child, every animal, every insect, every boulder, planet, and mote of dust, including sentient beings far removed from time and space. “What’s
not
God?” might be asked to simplify the answer: “Nothing.”

You’re getting this, aren’t you? It’s what you suspected all along. We do know the truth when we meet it because it runs in our blood and forms our DNA. And so, when we ponder great questions or hear new ideas, we can, if we’re ready, finally allow ourselves to remember it. The truth
is
who and what we are, neither abstract nor fleeting; we are “it” come alive.
It’s objective.
Real. Simple. And while there may be an infinite number of roads to Rome, none of them changes Rome.

We know the truth when we meet it. It’s just that having taken the plunge into “life” ourselves in this early stage of our civilization’s spiritual development, we don’t usually grant ourselves permission to go to places in thought that we can’t touch, taste, see, hear, or feel. Very
caveman
, yet very predictable for where we are in our evolutionary arc.

These
are
primitive times, and given that times are defined by the people who occupy them, we are primitive people. Not by chance, though, but by design. We knew it would be like this. We chose to show up early in humanity’s development, perhaps as part of the price for getting to show up later as masters, or because the possibilities that exist today won’t exist in the same way later on. Doesn’t really matter now; we’re here. Babes in the jungles of time and space, and therefore understandably scared by the world around us, feeling vulnerable, relying almost exclusively on our physical senses to label, define, and make progress. E-w-w-w-w-w … and ouch!

While there may be an infinite number of roads to Rome, none of them changes Rome.

I
F
I
T’S
B
ROKEN
, F
IX
I
T

Yet being born naïve doesn’t mean we must remain so. Our ignorance has served its purpose; the illusions have gotten our attention. Game on. Now the training wheels that first helped us move forward are outgrown and slowing us down. Tears are being needlessly shed, hearts are being needlessly broken; it’s time to change our orbit, time
to bring on the dead
. Big brothers and sisters of a sort, though far more intimately than through blood, who yearn to help their tribe and flatten life’s learning curve as soon as possible. After all, before long our roles will reverse.

Today, they have what you need: perspective. You have what they need: the world they will soon inherit. Besides, we’re family, they love you, and you love them. And what they have to tell you is absolutely electrifying, transformational, fear killing, and joy inducing—the truth about who
you
are, how
you
got here, and what
you
can do with your time in space.

Of course, the dead don’t have the kind of voice you can hear, yet. Nor do they have laptops, keyboards, or Internet access. So, if I may, I’ll be your host. I’m as ordinary and extraordinary as you are, except that maybe I remember a bit more. I believe I chose this life, in part, to do just that—remember more—with a mind-set, parents, and other circumstances that have included some fantastic memory enhancers and an inclination to spend 40 of my 53 years blissfully questioning, puzzling, and ultimately tapping into the truth. During those years my main objective has been to live my discoveries: to apply these timeless answers to my life, deliberately shaping it for
my own
happiness and prosperity. For the past 14 years, however, much to my surprise, I’ve also become a full-time teacher on the nature of reality, living a life that is as much an example of what I teach as it is the cause of my joy. Coincidence? I think not.

I started searching early, as a teenager, and by the time I was a freshman at the University of Florida, my quest for truth led me to dwell upon death—big time.
Why
do we die?
Everyone?
Gone
forever? Really?!
The next thing I knew, Mom began sending me books
²
that, when combined with my own gut feelings and hunches, answered my questions and rocked my world.

Turns out that wondering about death can teach you a lot about life. The process of opening your mind, while expecting answers, coupled with taking action, knocking on doors and turning over stones, makes you a lightning rod for breakthroughs. Nothing frees you like the truth, and nothing holds you back more than not knowing it. Knowledge is power; it heals what hurts, fills what’s empty, clears what’s confused, lightens what’s heavy, brings friends together, turns dust to gold, and raises the sun. A man or a woman tuned in and turned on to truth becomes an unstoppable
supercoolhappylovething
. Yeah, I made that word up. Thanks.

As a teacher of reality, however, I don’t make things up. I share what’s obvious. I try to make it fun. I have a good time. For instance, over the past 12 years I’ve been sending out a free daily e-mail called “Notes from the Universe”: small drops of truth, sometimes packaged humorously, now received daily by almost 600,000 subscribers. I also write books, record audio programs, shoot DVDs, and host talks all over the world.

By no means
have I unraveled all the mysteries of the Universe. I’m still far less aware than my dog or even the grove of cypress trees in my front yard. But I do know the answers to the important questions. I know who we are, why we are, how we got here, and what we need to do to bring about major life changes. Answers
anyone
can tap into—and many have.

Wouldn’t you expect, after all, that life and our place in the Universe be knowable?
Really
knowable, including the before and after parts? My experiences, my experiments, my life have shown me they can be. That’s what the “ten things” in this book are about: knowing the truth and thereby moving through fear and creating consciously. This is what the dead, along with anyone who is
alive and aware and who cares about you,
ardently want you to know. The parameters for thriving on earth.

When they’re not rehashing where they’ve been or studying what’s next, the dead’s favored “seat in the house” is in the bleachers cheering you on, not on the couch wiping away your tears. Not metaphorically, but literally. They’re watching you, watching humanity, now. Slapping their celestial foreheads, excitedly pounding fists on knees, shouting advice, offering encouragement, whispering sweetness into your ears as you needlessly bumble around in the dark.

Nothing frees you like the truth, and nothing holds you back more than not knowing it.

I
N THE
C
LEARING

I found the truth and I can help you find it, too. I believe it’s absolute, simple, and knowable. Whether or not you ultimately agree with some or all that I share, this book offers insights and perspectives that can help anyone live a happier life—now. It includes a rational approach to understanding what life means and how to live it. You’ll see that by first recognizing and then accepting the abundantly obvious (life, miracles, and happiness) at face value, without the usual overinterpretations, justifications, and analysis, you can come to have a more interesting and empowering handle on your fortunes.

This isn’t going to be all “woo-woo”! I know debits and credits way better than I know dharmas and crystals. I won’t be asking you to weigh everything using your feelings alone. Instead, like the fellow life adventurer I am, as if watching over a sleeping compatriot who’s about to miss breakfast, I’m going to nudge you a bit and gently shake your shoulder to help you awaken and see that something incredible is going on. Something absolutely wondrous. And that you are at the center of it all.

That there’s an ever-present, yet sometimes imperceptible, benign intelligence that pervades the enormous vastness of reality, from the center of the earth to the farthest reaches of space, yet given the immeasurable scope and seemingly impossible magnificence of
just what we can detect,
it’s safe to say that everything has a reason, there have been no mistakes, love makes everything better, and what doesn’t make sense yet one day will.

That we ourselves are permeated by this benign intelligence, and given the overwhelming evidence from our own lives so far, we can, to a significant and profound degree, direct it at will.

I found early on in my quest for answers—and this has no doubt occurred in your life—that the longer I dwelled on a question, the more inevitably I received its answer, whether conventionally in a book that “coincidentally” crossed my path or through a mysterious sort of osmosis. That these words have found you is exactly what I mean. But given the hot topics I touch upon herein, that you are no doubt ready to examine from angles never before considered, I’d like to caution that any passage, phrase, or chapter of this book
read without the context offered by the entire book
may be disturbing or even misleading. So I strongly advise that you either read it cover to cover or simply leave it untouched, lying around your home until an avid-reader-friend finally “stumbles” upon it, reads it through, and reports his or her complete findings to you.

Finally, in fairness to the dead, the following chapters surely do not speak for them all. Among the dearly departed, some are certainly more concerned with plotting a hopeless revenge, evading a nonexistent Lucifer, or pleading with a handsome likeness of their favorite prophet than caring about the nature of reality, of which they may know very little. They’ll eventually get on board as surely as day follows night, but in the meantime, death doesn’t bring automatic enlightenment. It’s a regrouping phase for the former living to reconvene, share, laugh, cry, self-assess, strategize, and prepare for what’s next. The following chapters are therefore from those “dead” who are “in the know” simply by virtue of experience, the “old souls” who would like to reach those who
want
to be reached—those ready to learn life’s truths so they can far more happily get on with living.

Yours in the adventure,

____________________

1
According to a 2007 Pew study.

2
See Recommended Reading.

It’s odd how people like to be told what they already know, as if being told makes it more real. This is why the number-one thing the dead want to tell you is that no one dies. Not ever. Not anyone. Including you. You’re going to live forever, gallivanting throughout realities and dimensions unimaginable, carried onward by love, all misdeeds forgiven, infinite possibilities on deck, surrounded by friends and laughter, unicorns and rainbows, celebrated as the god or goddess you are.