The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You (7 page)

Eventually, religion began making up dots where no dots had ever existed. And from such connections men fashioned laws, rules, rituals, hierarchies, penalties, rights, and privileges, all for believers (unless they’re “bad”), and a total lockout for nonbelievers (even if they’re “good”). You either belong or you don’t. You will either be saved or you won’t. And pretty much anything done in the name of the religion is okay, including lying, dying, and killing.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is usually more of an acknowledgment than an explanation. “In God we trust” is such a sentiment, intentionally connecting the fewest possible dots. It’s timeless, needs no illusions, and includes everyone. More, it typically places God within “humanity” (and all things for that matter) rather than apart from Him.

There’s no way home but back the way you came.

Everyone,
being of spirit,
has the capacity to grasp the folly of their ways and the needless pain they’ve inflicted upon others; ultimately, doing so is an inescapable part of your passage through the jungles. Perhaps not as quick a passage as those who were violated would like, perhaps not even within the lifetime the violation took place, but there’s no escaping the reach of your own divine intelligence, power, and responsibilities, and there’s no way home but back the way you came.

And everyone,
being of spirit,
of love, of God, has the ability to know in their heart of hearts that there’s no such thing as a devil or hell.

From a Dearly Departed

Dear Mom:

I’m sorry. So sorry. I thought of no one but myself. I wanted to take a stand, be a man, and show the world they were messing with the wrong person. I also wanted to hurt you and everyone who cared about me, because I felt that it was your attention and love that made me into such a coward and weakling. I blamed you, not knowing then what I know now.

When I pulled the trigger I expected the shot to be followed by silence, darkness, and, finally, peace. Instead, at first, there was total chaos. Loud sounds, buzzing, machine-like humming, and then an intense light, a swishing, everything moving, flying, and, finally, my blurry vision and jumbled mind gently giving way to warm and welcoming faces, gentle voices. I thought it was a dream or some weird altered state. I felt so much love, it made me think of you. It was so beautiful. I felt so much joy. I didn’t even know I had died; in fact, I thought to myself,
OMG
,
I’m so glad I didn’t go through with it.
But I had.

In an instant I understood so much! Things that there are not even words for. And it all made sense. It was so obvious, perfect, and precise! I knew why I had chosen to be me, how we all agreed to be the family we were. I saw our prior connections, our chosen strengths and dispositions, and, above all, how we all knew of the probable futures these choices might create. I could see we all knew the directions we might go, individually and as a family, the opportunities we might create, the challenges and joys we might face. Nothing was predetermined.

Fate has no role in any lifetime, yet it was as if all the likely outcomes were known in advance … outcomes in the sense of what feelings and emotions we’d ultimately achieve—like happiness, sadness, peace, resistance, creativity, reflection, and more—but not in how we’d get there or what would happen. That was the variable. The “hows.” For the first time in my “life” (yes, I’m still alive), I “get” infinite. I saw how every decision we make creates tangents and possibilities that will bring with them unforeseen forks in the road, and more decisions, and more tangents and possibilities.

I was then shown how else I could have dealt with my life’s pain and isolation. Perspectives I could have held, insights I could have gained, decisions I could have made, steps I could have taken. I saw how my challenges complemented your challenges and how we helped each other much more than we thought. Mom, please forgive yourself. I beg you. It was my life and my decision.

It hurts me more than the gun ever could have to see how you have suffered, and to see the meticulously crafted opportunities
I had
that I let slip through my fingers in life. I never knew how close I was, how fast things can change for the better, or how much “magic” there was to count on. I didn’t think it mattered, I didn’t think I mattered, and I didn’t know how deeply my decision would hurt so many. I was so wrong.

How desperately I wish I could undo what I did … Yet I’m also comforted by all that I feel here, sufficiently to be excited about planning my return. I’ll have another chance and another after that. We all get as many as we need or want. I’ve also been shown that you, Mom, must go through what you are going through and that your choice to suffer is your choice and can only end when you choose to let it. This fork in the road of your life is a gift that we always knew might present itself if I chose as I did; you knew it wouldn’t be easy, but you knew it would most certainly be within you to see things as clearly as I’m now describing them. You knew—we all did—that I might make such a choice. And we all agreed that it would be worth the pain we risked to have the time together that we did.

Because you loved me so much, I was able to make the decisions I made, including my last, and learn as much as I did. There are not enough words to thank you for paying such a steep price in love, all for my own growth and glory. But you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m fine. I’ve been lovingly welcomed “home.” I’m adored. We all are. You are. All that you and I shared lives with me now in my heart.

Mom, we still have forever. And more adventures await than even I, from here, can imagine.

Breathe. Rest. Dream. You’ve done so well for yourself. It’s time to be happy again.

I love you so much,

Your proud son

I
T’S
W
ORKING

You are not alive to be tested, judged, and sentenced. You’re alive to live and learn, in unending spirals of love. Everything plays to these greater goals, and every decision you make while living becomes the core study material for your fabulous growth and glory—right down to the time and method of your passing, which is what the dead want to speak on next.

When the caterpillar awakens as a butterfly, the young sparrow finally leaps from her nest, or the infant gasps its first breath, three things happen:

1. There is relief.
   
2. There is joy.
   
3. There is expansion.
   

And it’s plainly obvious, given this trifecta of gains that have come from a prolonged physical struggle, that there ain’t no going back, nor would there ever be any desire to do so. And the same is true of the most sublime of all transitions: passing from the physical into the nonphysical, the condition called “death.” And while the many stories reported the world over of “near-death experiences” are entirely true, they uniquely involve life adventurers who found themselves in the rather unusual position of having expanded choices that included an
immediate
return to the “living”
as who they recently were
. More often, however, the transitional opportunity, however accidental, bizarre, or forced upon them it may have appeared, was created because they were unequivocally ready to go.

In this chapter, we’ll focus on three major areas of inquiry: “why ‘you’ are here,” “when ‘you’ are ready to go,” and a further look at the mechanics of change—how your thoughts become things: all three to reaffirm that the departed knew what they were doing, and to assure you know that now is
not
your time.

T
HE
S
CHOOL OF
L
IFE

The adventure of life is every bit the school of life. The more you learn, the more fun you can have; the more fun you have, the more you can learn.

A lifetime in the jungles can be seen as both an elective course and part of the required curriculum. Required only because you’re now moving through a process you chose earlier. This process is made up of any number of incarnations, each offering different experiences, usually measured emotionally. It’s the illusions, or your belief in them, that make your emotions possible. All emotions are born of the illusions and are unknown and unknowable without them. To put this in perspective, God, if you will, would not know what it is to feel happy or sad, angry or mad, depressed or alone, shocked or bored, to name just a tiny few, without you. Do you see? You are of God, just a tiny fragment made manifest among God’s manifestations in order to revel within them, decide what you like or dislike, and learn how to shape, shift, and move them anew. None of this discovering or exploring would be possible without you and your amnesia. Each life’s aim, therefore, is simply
to be,
which means to experience, through feelings, your choices. When you are a young (inexperienced) soul, this will always make you uncomfortable, as your emotions can frequently hurt and cripple,
until
you begin to grasp that you are their source and thus their master.

The initial discomfort in your learning curve was expected and considered in your choice; it was included in the “package deal.” It means all is well and you’re exactly where you should be, exactly where you chose to be. It does
not
mean something’s wrong with you. Nor does discomfort today mean that “life is hard” or that you will always be uncomfortable. You are
not
meant to bear that which you find unpleasant; you are meant to change it. That’s why you feel it. Your every twitch of pain and malaise invites you to wake up, pushing you to seek grander truths that will reveal a bigger reality and a more magnificent you, ever closer to an awareness of your true place within reality creation—as a Creator.

You are
not
meant to bear that which you find unpleasant; you are meant to change it.

C
REATIONISM VERSUS
E
VOLUTION

Obviously, if there’s an intelligence in the Universe that underlies your very sun, moon, and stars, we’re talking creationism. Come on: if there was only evolution and men came from apes, why are there still apes? Further, a purely evolutionary worldview would mean that all life sprang from the amoeba—daisies, insects, tree frogs, giraffes, and you! Yet there’s absolutely no trace of skeletal remains to show the gradual evolution from an amoeba to each known species today. Evolutionary skeletal remains show only
tiny
mutations of structure, not complete amoeba-to-elephant mutations. Yet supposedly all these evolved species just happen to get along, fitting into food chains within ecosystems that complement and perpetuate themselves? What a story! Plus, why are there still amoebas?

But equally obvious, as you look at the physical artifacts and skeletal remains that do litter the world, the evolution of each species
also
exists as a tool for refinement and improvement. Creation came first and evolution second,
yet both are still at play in every moment
as illusions are constantly being created, re-created, and projected into space. The mirage in a desert is the same; it’s an active, moving apparition dependent upon the desert, its source, at every moment of its existence. Yet in your jungles, the apparitions of time, space, and matter additionally take on properties and follow physical laws, adding to their believability as a reality independent of yourself (more on the need for believability shortly).

More, the physical quarks, molecules, and cells that make up your apparitions are more than a reflective haze; they’re
of
God,
pure
God. Sparks of God intelligence, not with personalities yet endowed with traits, characteristics, and attributes. These make up all physical objects, and collectively within each living organism, like an ant, a tree, or a planet, they work as one,
coded
to form the whole, just as the whole is coded to add to the greater mosaic of life as you know it. Unlike in a computer, however, each component itself is “alive” and endowed with its unique brand of intention and purpose, just as is the larger creation it helps to form. Which means that the cells of a monkey all work independent of one another, yet with the intention of making the monkey possible. And the monkey, riding unaware upon its cell consciousness, has its own consciousness, traits, characteristics, intentions, and purposes. As does its troop, as does the species, as does its habitat, as does its planet. Nesting like Russian dolls. Each larger creation becomes more than the sum of its parts yet remains entirely dependent on them.