- It doesn’t exist. You leave your body behind but your consciousness remains. You still have a body of sorts, but finer and lighter than the one you have left behind. You merely step out of one type of existence on the ‘heavy’ material plane, into a finer, lighter form and place.
- Dying isn’t difficult. You have almost certainly done it many times before. Even if your final moments of physical existence are traumatic or painful, the transition is simple and experienced as a form of release.
- You are not alone. You have a spirit guide or guardian, someone who has taken on the task of accompanying you through life and aiding your transition at death. You may also have friends and relatives waiting to greet you when you pass over from this life to the next.
- You will not become instantly wise and omniscient. In fact you carry on much as before, with the same emotions, cravings, habits of mind and body, likes and dislikes. There is no physical pain because you no longer have a physical body, but your energetic body remembers much of the physical body’s experience. Your memories will gradually increase to encompass much that you forgot when you joined with the foetus, becoming a baby again in your mother’s womb. By the same token, once you have absorbed the lessons of your past life, memories will fade.
- If you have been ill for a while or death was traumatic, you may need a period of rest and recuperation before finding your feet in the next phase of your existence. There are healers and helpers there for this purpose. You may even decide to become one yourself in due course.
- The next life, much like this one, is a place where you continue to grow intellectually and spiritually. It is a life of love, work and service to others. You will still be able to enjoy music, sport, or scientific discovery. You can learn new skills, expand your horizons, enjoy your own company and that of others. Where you go next and what it is like will depend on how you lived your last life, and where you feel most comfortable. As much of what you see is created mentally, it will reflect your tastes and desires, and the thoughts and feelings of those around you.
- There is no judgment, except the knowledge of how you lived your life and how it affected others. You measure your own life against the goals you had set yourself. Your life review may be joyful or painful, or both. You will clearly see and feel not only each moment of your past life, but experience each event from the perspective of those whose lives you touched for better or for worse. You will have no special privileges, but neither will you be cast into oblivion. You be treated with loving concern rather than condemnation.
- It is possible to get lost on the way, but if you ask for help it is always there. Those who get stuck in the lower or darker zones are the people who are not ready for a lighter, more loving existence. They are not abandoned or forgotten, but they need to want to move forward before they can be helped.
- Some people hang around the earth plane because they don’t realise that they are dead, or are afraid to move on (ghosts). Some lost souls may even try to possess the living, attaching themselves to their aura and affecting the lives of their hosts. There are people on both sides who seek to help those who get stuck here, or who possess or attach themselves to others.
- Life is a gift and a privilege and death gives it meaning and purpose. Each day is a chance to grow in love; to learn and to experience all that life has to offer, whatever path we choose to take, whatever life may bring us.
Further reading
Bowie, Fiona (2011) Tales from the Afterlife. Hampshire, UK: Zero Books.
This short book presents a kind of road map of what you might expect when you die. There are ten scenarios regarding the transition and afterlife experiences of individuals, depending on their personality, character and circumstances. Each one draws on actual experiences and real people. Included are extracts of channelled writings from those who have died and moved on to the next plane of existence, to further illustrate each theme.
Fenwick, Peter & Fenwick, Elizabeth (2008) The Art of Dying. London & New York: Continuum.
Peter Fenwick is a neuro-psychiatrist, who has spent many years as a clinician studying death and dying, in particular what we can learn from near-death experiences. In this book the Fenwicks present some of the accounts they have come across of those who are dying and of those who accompany them, as well as what we can learn from those who have left their bodies and returned. The message is that death is not to be feared and can be a peaceful and hopeful journey if we learn how to approach it without fear.
Robert Kastenbaum (2004) On Our Way: The Final Passage Through Life and Death. Berkeley: University of California Press.
This lovely book moves between personal reflections, academic works and case studies. Kastenbaum, a clinical psychologist, draws on many different disciplines to take a look at the ways in which human beings approach life and death, as well as what comes after. Kastenbaum introduced the notion of a ‘death system’ that reflects the socio-cultural ways in which an individual comes to understand and experience their relationship to mortality.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth (1999) The Tunnel and The Light: Essential Insights on Living and Dying. New York: Marlowe and Co.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross spent much of her life as a doctor working with dying children. In this personal, inspiring book she presents her philosophy on dying and living, sharing many of the insights she gleaned from the children she treated and accompanied along the way.