We will now move into a five-part series on death and the afterlife.
Death & the Afterlife
“Birth is much more of a shock than death. Sometimes when you die you do not realize it, but birth almost always implies a sharp and sudden recognition. So there is no need to fear death.”1
“A death is but one night to the soul.”2
“Your existence before and after death is as much a normal phenomenon as your present life.”3
“Death is not an end, but a transformation of consciousness.”4
Robert Lawlor tells us in Homage to Pythagoras: “The first books of philosophy written in traditional cultures are consistently about death. Plato, in one of his dialogues, has Socrates announce that any true philosophy is a philosophy of death. So philosophy was not originally an activity of mental speculation, but rather it was actual instruction concerning procedures to follow at death.
The title of the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” is a mistranslation. It is not “the book of the dead,” but literally translated means “The Book of Coming Forth by Day.” We can interpret this to as the entry into a visible spectrum of light. It was understood by these ancient practitioners of perceptual philosophy, that a conscious life is not possible without a conscious death.
There is of course a biologically necessary relationship between fear and death. But the problem is that both as a race and individually we obstruct with fear the memory of our last death, as well as the ability to image positively the one that we must face next. This is the source of the great cosmic amnesia that we are undergoing, the forgetfulness of our identity: where is our origin, why we are here, and where we are going. The new education and the new science must try to overcome this stifling amnesia by disclosing or remembering the immortality of the vibratory worlds of form to which we are harmonically and eternally connected.”
“For there is not any thing which is of greater importance with respect to science, experience and wisdom than the ability of remembering.” ~ Iamblichus
Life & Death
“Mortality (birth, life, death) is the framework in which the soul is expressed in flesh.
Dying is a biological necessity, not only for the individual, but to insure the continued vitality of the species.
Dying is a spiritual and psychological necessity, for after a while the exuberant, ever-renewed energies of the spirit can no longer be translated into flesh.
Birth and Death have the function of intensifying and focusing your attentions.
Life seems dearer and more sacred because of the existence of death.
Full enjoyment of life (in our current framework) would be impossible without the knowledge of death.
In the entire fabric of your existence, this life is a brilliant, eternally unique and precious portion, but only a portion, from which you emerge with joy and understanding whether you die tomorrow or in years to come.
Life and death are but two faces of your eternal ever-changing existence.
In its way – the 24 hour period represents both an entire lifetime and many lives in one.
In it, symbolically, you have “death” (sleep) as your physically attuned consciousness cones to the end of the amount of stimuli it can comfortably handle without rest.
At your normal physical death, you come to the point where your earth-tuned consciousness can no longer handle further data without a ‘longer rest’.
Consciousness, yours and mine, is quite independent of both time and space. And after death you are simply aware of the greater powers of consciousness that exist within you all the time.
The very words “life” and “death” serve to limit your understanding, to set up barriers where none intrinsically exist.”5
Knowledge of Time & Cause of Death
“There are no accidents.
No one dies under any circumstances who is not prepared to die.
[This may be very hard to accept. It deserves much contemplation and soul-searching.]
Your own choice will dictate the way you die, as well as the time.
No one will consciously know; yet they will know because they will choose the circumstances according to their own belief systems.
They know and yet pretend not to know.
Many die young because they believe that old age represents a degradation of the spirit and an insult to the body.
Some prefer to die in the most dire circumstances – swept away by the raging waves of an ocean, or crushed in an earthquake, or battered by the winds of a hurricane – they prefer to leave physical life in a blaze of perception, battling for their lives at a point of challenge, fighting and not acquiescent.
Slow death in a hospital or an experience with an illness would be unthinkable to these same people; yet some others do choose this experience for their own reasons.
Sometimes, epidemics and recognized illnesses serve the sociological purpose of providing an acceptable reason for death — a face-saving device for those who have already decided to die.
In some historical periods the plight of the poor was so horrible, so unendurable, that outbreaks of the plague occurred, literally resulting in a complete destruction of large areas of the environment in which such social, political, and economic conditions existed.
[Those] plagues took rich and poor alike, however, so the complacent well-to-do could see quite clearly, for example, that to some extent sanitary conditions, privacy, peace of mind, had to be granted to the poor alike, for the results of their dissatisfaction would have quite practical results. Those were deaths of protest.
Individually, each “victim” was to one extent or another a “victim” of apathy, despair, or hopelessness, which automatically lowered bodily defenses.
People who feel powerless, and who find no cause for living, can come together then and “die for a cause” that did not give them the will or reason to live. They will seek out others of their kind.
Some people’s deaths are quiet periods.
Some others are exclamation points! Later it can be said that the person’s death loomed almost greater in importance than the life itself.
Some people die in adolescence, filled with the flush of life’s possibilities, still half-dazzled by the glory of childhood, and ready to step with elation upon the threshold of adulthood — or so it seems.
Many such young persons prefer to die at that time, where they feel the possibilities for fulfillment are intricate and endless. They are often idealists, who beneath it all — beneath the enthusiasm, the intelligence, and sometimes beneath extraordinary ability — still feel that life could no more than sully those abilities, dampen those spiritual winds, and darken that promise that could never be fulfilled.
There is usually an implied statement in these types of death so that the death seems to have an additional meaning that makes parents and contemporaries question.
They turn their deaths into lessons for other people, forcing them to ask questions that would not be asked before.
Some of this has to do with temperament, individual differences and preferences.
Each person born desires to be born. He or she dies when that desire no longer operates. No epidemic or illness or natural disaster — or stray bullet from a murderer’s gun — will kill a person who does not want to die.
Ideally this desire for death, however, would simply involve the slowing of the body’s processes, the gradual disentanglement of psyche from flesh; or in other instances, according to individual characteristics, a sudden, natural stopping of the body’s processes.
Left alone, the self and the body are so entwined that the separation would be smooth. The body would automatically follow the wishes of the inner self.”6
Consciousness & Death
“First of all, there is no separate, indivisible, specific point of death.
Life is a state of becoming, and death is a part of this process of becoming.
You are alive in the midst of small deaths; portions of your own image crumble away moment by moment and are replaced, and you scarcely give the matter a thought.
If the cells did not die and were not replenished, the physical image would not continue to exist, so now in the present, as you know it, your consciousness flickers about your ever-changing corporeal image.
So as you are alive in the midst of your own multitudinous small deaths, though you do not realize it, you are often “dead,” even amid the sparkling life of your own consciousness.
By “dead,” I mean completely unfocused in physical reality. There are pulsations of consciousness, though you may not be aware of them.
What you call death is simply the insertion of a longer duration of that pulsation of which you are not aware, a long pause in that other dimension, so to speak.
Consciousness – human consciousness – is not dependent upon the tissues, and yet there is no physical matter that is not brought into being by some portion of consciousness.
The pulses mentioned earlier are so short in duration that your consciousness skips over them merrily, yet your physical perception cannot seem to bridge the gap when the longer rhythm of pulsation occurs. And so this is the time that you perceive as death.”7
What Happens at the Point of Death?
“What the question really means to most people is this: What will happen when I am not alive in physical terms any longer? What will I feel? Will I still be myself? Will the emotions that propelled me in life continue to do so? Is there a heaven or a hell? Will I be greeted by gods or demons, enemies, or beloved ones? Most of all the question means: When I am dead, will I still be who I am now, and will I remember those who are dear to me now?
Practically speaking, there is no one answer, for each of you is an individual.
Generally speaking, there is an answer that will serve to cover main issues of this experience.
The ideas that you have involving the nature of reality will strongly color your experiences, for you will interpret them in the light of your beliefs.
Your consciousness may withdraw from your body slowly or quickly, according to many variables.
The fear of death can cause such a psychological panic that out of a sense of self-preservation and defense you lower your consciousness so that you are in a state of coma, and you may take some time to recover.
A belief in extinction, such a certainty that identity is about to be blotted out in the next moment, is a severe psychological experience that can bring about unfortunate reactions.
An individual can be so certain that death is the end of all that oblivion, though temporary, results.
In many cases, immediately on leaving the body there is, of course, amazement and recognition of the situation.
There are instances where the individuals concerned do not realize the fact of death. It is not a matter of refusing to accept it, but a lack of perception. In this state such an individual will also be obsessed with earthly concerns, and wander perhaps bewildered throughout his own home or surroundings.
The body itself may be viewed and many funerals have a guest of honor amidst the company – and no one gazes into the face of the corpse with as much curiosity and wonder.
It is uncommon, but there are some who will misinterpret the entire experience and try to reenter the corpse. This happens when the personality identified himself almost exclusively with the physical image.
Some have wept over the corpse long after the mourners have left, not realizing that they themselves are completely whole – where, for example, the body may have been ill or the organs beyond repair. They are like a dog worrying a bone.
Those who have not identified their consciousness with the body completely, find it much easier to leave it.
Those who have hated the body find, strangely enough, that immediately after death they are quite drawn to it.”8
“Natural death would undoubtedly be more harmonious. Death by murder would be confused and the entity would need some time/space in which to get its bearings. Death by suicide would cause the necessity for much healing work and the making of a dedication to the third density for the renewed opportunity of learning the lessons set by the higher self.”9
Plato writes of death, “For everything that is contrary to a thing’s nature causes it pain, while everything that corresponds to its nature is pleasant. So, by the same principle, death that is caused by illness and wounds is painful and unnatural, while there’s no death less troublesome that the one which accompanies old age on its journey to a natural end. Such a death comes with more pleasure than distress.” Timaeus 81e
The After-death Form (Body)
“After leaving the physical body, you will immediately find yourself in another. This is the same kind of form in which you travel in out-of-body projections, and again let me remind you, that each of you leaves the body for some time each night during sleep.
Following death, it will be the only body you are aware of for some time.
This form will seem physical, but it will not, generally, be seen by those still ‘living’.
It can do anything that you do now in your dreams – it flies, goes through solid objects, and is moved directly by your will, taking you, say, from one location to another.
As a rule, you cannot manipulate physical objects – You cannot pick up a lamp or throw a dish, for example.
Most individuals after death choose a mature image that usually corresponds to the peak physical abilities, regardless of the age when the physical peak was reached.
Others choose instead to take the form they had at the particular point when the greatest mental or emotional heights were achieved, regardless of the beauty or age that characterized the form.
You will feel comfortable with the form that you choose.
Physical reality will not be lost to you – Your memories will be retained.
Much later and on many levels you will finally learn to take many forms, as you choose, consciously.”10
The Mind/Body/Spirit Complex after Death
“Upon death we lose the chemical body. There is still a mind/body/spirit complex.
The ‘body’ complex becomes a manifestation of a more dense and intelligently formed and powerful body complex – this is the “form-maker” or the indigo-ray body.
The indigo body, being intelligent energy, is able to offer the newly dead soul a perspective and a place from which to view the experience most recently manifested.
Much of the mind complex is lost, due the illusions of the mind carried during life.
In other terms, nothing whatever of importance is lost.
In terms of the spiritual channel, much is opened due to the lack of necessity for the forgetting characteristic of third density.”11
This means you will be able to see through the veil. There will be no veil. The true nature of reality will be self-evident.
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- ibid.
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1981
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- Roberts, Jane, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1981
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- ibid.
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 69.6, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=69
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 47, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=47
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