Here to Eternity

The Beginning

I am dying   .   .   .   and it hurts. The longing to experience just a little more life is so overwhelming I can’t see anything beyond my death. Just once more I want to feel the strong grip of a baby’s tiny hand around my finger…savor the taste of chocolate…smell the scent of wet dirt after a rain shower…hear a secret whispered in my ear…or gaze deeply into the eyes of someone I love. I am filled with profound sadness and fear of the unknown.

A deep sigh passes my lips. I realize this is the last thing I will ever feel.

At once the joy of living and the pain of dying are gone. Although my physical senses are no longer working, I am still aware of my self. My body is becoming lighter. I float upwards and hover above my lifeless form. I can no longer discern my face or my physical form. What color were my eyes? Was I beautiful or plain? Tall or short? Fat or thin? What was the color of my skin? I no longer need to remember.

Now that the outward appearance of my body is completely forgotten, I begin to feel my inner characteristics dissolve. My race–more than just the color of my skin but part of the blood coursing through my veins–is gone. My gender–including my body chemistry, the specialized nature of my organs, and the steady cycle of my hormones–ceases to exist. My age–felt within my joints, muscles, and body functions–evaporates.

What I thought was the inner me–my race, gender, and age–was just deeper layers of my human physiology, just as transient as my outward appearance.

I am now completely liberated from my physical body. I am neither rich or poor; beautiful or ugly; sick or well; young or old; black, brown or white; man or woman. Only the nucleus of my self remains, a small, bright ball of energy, which burns like a flame. It contains the force and intensity of my consciousness, along with the thoughts and memories of my life.

I realize now that my body was just another object I temporarily possessed during my life, no more permanent than other material belongings. Like the car I drove, my body was just a temporary vehicle for my soul to get around in.

And yet, it seemed to be so much more important than that. When I was alive, I knew that I would die someday– that my body would cease to be –but still the physical definition of my self was as important to me as my soul. My race…my gender…my age…all mattered. They influenced who I spoke to, who I played with, who I made friends with, who I confided in, who I was intimate with, and who I shared my life with. In short, my physical attributes affected which of the other living souls on earth I connected with while I was living. Now that my body is gone and only my soul remains, I wonder why we humans make so much of superficial physical differences between our mortal, biological bodies.

I find myself hurtling through space. The freedom of leaving my earthly existence is exhilarating. My longing to be alive is now completely gone, replaced by an intense desire to begin a new journey.

Anguish

My wish instantly initiates a hum. It begins softly, but grows louder and louder. I suffer tremendously as the vibration completely surrounds me. I struggle to make sense of the noise and realize I am hearing thousands of voices from my life. I wish to understand them, and once again, my thoughts trigger an immediate change. I can now feel each experience separately. I understand that I am beginning to examine my life.

But I’m not merely reliving my life, because I’m not experiencing the events as a human, but as a soul…a spirit without age, race, gender, or physical form. More importantly, I perceive the other beings from my life as pure spirits also, so the interactions I feel are simply soul-to-soul. And rather than sensing just my own thoughts and feelings at the time, I feel what I made others feel during my life.

I experience those times I caused others to suffer. I feel the results of my pride, envy, hatred, animosity, misunderstanding, anger, selfishness, vanity, intolerance, and other unrewarding human qualities. I feel the effect on the souls of my husband, my children, my friends, and others.

It starts with the direct consequences of my actions: resentment I’ve fueled during arguments with my husband; fear and sadness I’ve deposited in my children during bouts of anger; diminishment of friendships due to lack of understanding or compassion; walls I’ve built between myself and others due to prejudice and intolerance; and aggravation and hurt feelings my incivility caused in strangers I’ve encountered.

As I replay each of these hurtful experiences, it is extremely shocking and painful to experience the depths of the feelings I caused in other people. While I was alive, I was not completely unaware of the effect I had on others, but I realize now I was just glimpsing the barest shadows. As humans, we can never really feel what another person is feeling. The only feelings and emotions we truly experience are our own; consequently thoughts of our own feelings crowd out thoughts about the feelings of others, making them seem less important than ours.

It is also disturbing to see how the physical attributes of the people that shared my life colored my interactions with their souls. With my children, I responded too often to their age and small size, without sufficient regard to the souls that inhabit their bodies from their birth to their death.

With my husband, I responded too often to his gender, judging him too quickly or simply dismissing him, instead of relying on an intimate knowledge of the soul inside his body. Out in the world, my view of others was often shaded by prejudice and my perception of their beauty, skin color, gender, and age.

Another surprise: I am shocked at how many of my thoughts are actually telegraphed to others through a glance, a sigh, failure to meet someone’s eyes or offer a smile, or dozens of other almost imperceptible actions. People knew what I was thinking across the room, inside my car, across the street, or lying silently next to me in bed. Sometimes people knew what I was thinking from sheer instinct alone.

I feel nothing could be as painful as watching the consequences of my actions against those I had direct contact with, but soon I find out I am wrong. I become aware of suffering I’ve caused in seemingly unconnected lives …children working long hours making toys for my children…slave labor forced to make clothing for me…migrant workers harvesting the food I ate…people all over the world living and working in desperate conditions to produce the things I consumed without a second thought. I feel the degradation of the planet, and the subsequent effect on all living humans, just to satisfy my appetite for the standard of living I felt I was entitled to.

So, I realize, this is hell…having to experience all the damage I caused in the world. But it doesn’t feel like punishment, even though I am suffering terribly. It feels like an awakening, a heightened awareness of what I could have prevented, a revelation on how the world might have been better if I had acted differently…and a lesson on the damage I’ve done to myself.

The resentment I fueled in my husband and the fear and sadness I deposited in my children was there in the midst of our mutual love for each other, keeping me a little farther away than I could have been. The friendships I diminished and the walls I put up were my loss. The aggravation, hurt feelings, incivility and suffering I added to the world polluted the social atmosphere I lived in. The damage I did to the planet degraded my personal environment too.

I feel deeply saddened by what I’ve seen of my life so far. I would rather have lived completely alone on an isolated mountaintop, with no human contact, rather than feel responsible for infusing this kind of damage on the world.

Relief

From out of my despair, I hear a sweet, quiet sound, like the strains of vibration on a violin string. I feel remorse draining away, replaced with a sense of peace and calm. I start feeling the positive experiences of my life. I see the outcome of humility, self-control, love, compassion, patience, generosity, tolerance, and other rewarding human qualities.

Now I witness the light I’ve shed on the world and I am truly thankful. The first thing I realize is that living a life of isolation, devoid of contact with others, is not the antidote for the poison I put in the world–in fact, the cure is exactly the opposite. The shadows we cast on the world can only be illuminated by making positive connections with other living souls.

So, I realize, this is heaven…getting to experience all the blessings I planted in the world. But it doesn’t feel like a reward, even though I am filled with joy. It feels like an awakening, a heightened awareness of what would not have been without me, and a lesson on the benefits I reaped from my actions.

I harvested the fruits of the love I planted in my husband and children. My life blossomed with the flowers of the positive connections I cultivated in my friendships. The seeds of civility, tolerance and generosity I spread made my own life bountiful.

Understanding

As I continue to watch my life unfold, my understanding of the way the universe works begins to expand. While I was alive, I was only aware of the immediate, direct effects of the events taking place in the world every day. However, beyond the immediate effect of each event, there is a more powerful and complex force perpetually at work. Due to its immense scope and interwoven web of movements, humans are rarely aware of its effect. It’s the unseen force powering the chaotic but self-organized system that operates atoms, cells, organisms, plants, animals, humans, the planet Earth, and the cosmos.

Every action introduced into the closed system we call the universe initiates a long chain of reactions and consequences, where each link triggers another connected chain of reactions and consequences. The resulting outcome is impossible to follow or predict because it depends on every reaction of every element within the ever-expanding ripple effect.

I realize now that the mystery and beauty of life comes from the way this unseen force functions. In spite of its awesome complexity, it is incredibly sensitive to small influences. Erosion of a tiny pebble can result in a landslide. A sound wave, unseen and unfelt by humans, can set off an avalanche.

The hidden power in the unseen force is the potential of the cumulative effects of tiny interactions to drive dramatic changes. It’s not just one raindrop that erodes the pebble and causes the landslide, it’s the cumulative effect of the work of millions of individual raindrops.

Like other physical elements in the system, every individual human directly and indirectly exerts influence on the whole system, but it is impossible to know when or how our influence will have an effect because the system is so complex and depends on so many unique variables. We usually have no idea whether we are the first raindrop or one of the last.

The focus of my experience suddenly shifts away from my life to lives whose seemingly insignificant actions triggered a dramatic change…

Could 13-year-old Anne Frank have guessed that her diary, which she probably thought would never be read by anyone but herself, would be one of the defining books on the effects of Nazi dehumanization? On February 3, 1944, Anne wrote in her diary, “I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can’t do anything to change events anyway.” Could she have realized that more than 30 million copies of her diary translated into 55 languages would touch readers deeply and help shape world views on war, genocide, and persecution?

On December 1, 1955, did Rosa Parks know that the simple act of refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus would trigger the start of a revolution? In 1972, when Ray Tomlinson created e-mail for 23 hosts on a simple network, and in 1973, when Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn created the protocol that allowed diverse computer networks to interconnect and communicate, could they have guessed that, 40 years later, the world wide web would host more than 3 billion sites?

Being Human

Suddenly I see myself standing in a long line of my ancestors, a chain of 30,000 related people that created me! Without each one of them, I would not have lived. But they are not the only people that determined my existence. Shadows of all the other humans living and interacting with my ancestors hover around us. Each of them had an effect on my ancestors and ultimately on me.

Everyone who has lived or is living or will live is part of the whole. Everyone is connected to everyone else. Because each living human is just one in billions, we often underestimate our influence on the system. Like the other variables in the system, the cumulative effect of small, everyday human efforts has a much greater impact on the world we live in than rare, glorified heroic achievements¹. Even heroic achievements are built on hundreds of related minor actions.

So much suffering in the world is caused, not by forces of evil, but by taking an easy path. It’s easier to be apathetic than compassionate because really caring demands response, which can only be carried out by making an effort to connect to those in need. Apathy requires no effort.

It’s easy to be intolerant because, unlike tolerance, intolerance doesn’t rest on empathy, compassion, and acceptance. Tolerance requires the effort to connect to others outside your clan, creed, community, or country. Intolerance requires no effort.

It’s easy to hate someone because hate, unlike love, hate doesn’t rest on understanding, forgiveness, and compromise. Love requires making an effort to make and maintain a connection to someone outside of yourself. Hate requires no effort.

Again I see the cure for human suffering lies in the positive connections we make with other living souls. Insulating ourselves within groups of identical people weakens the fabric of the interconnected web that blankets the earth. Forging connections by bridging gaps and tearing down barriers between others who are different gives us the kind of understanding that prevents apathy, intolerance and hate and directs the evolution of the world away from suffering towards peace.

Now I understand why I lived a life in a biological body. Our physical bodies are the medium through which our consciousness learns, temporary vehicles for our expression and experience. We’re not bodies with souls, but souls with bodies.

 

We are not human beings on a spiritual path.

We are spiritual beings on a human path.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

*These quotes were popularized by Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey, but were attributed in 1993 to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as well as G.I Gurdjieff. (Obviously, a wonderful perspective.)

The only way to truly learn about something is to experience it. Being young teaches us about youth. Aging teaches us about being old. Because an old person has experienced both youth and old age, they have a broader human experience than a young person.

Everyone alive experiences life as a child, but children, even grown ones, never truly understand the experience of being a parent until they have children of their own. What parent doesn’t inherit insight about their own parents as they rear their kids?

What does an injury teach us about the normal function of our body? What does illness teach us about good health? What do we learn about ourselves by caring for someone who is hurt or ill? What do we learn about ourselves when we are hurt or ill and someone cares for us?

The unseen force of the universe contains the contrasting experiences of youth and age, poverty and wealth, illness and health, comedy and tragedy, joy and suffering to increase the potential we have for learning what it means to be human. Diverse experiences increase our understanding of life.

When I died, I wondered why the differences in our biological bodies seemed so significant while I was alive. Our physical bodies filter and define the experiences we face in life. What can we all learn from the experiences of both men and women? What can we all learn from the experiences of many races, cultures, and religions? If we were all alike, the complexity of the unseen force would be diminished, therefore what we could collectively learn by living a human life would be diminished.

Humans must stop thinking of themselves as billions of separate individuals. I see now that we are all cells at work together within a huge body called the universe. Just as every cell in a body has a unique function, every person in the universe has a unique part to play. Whatever one cell learns expands the function of the entire body, increasing the possibility for continued survival of the whole.

Now I understand my purpose in life…to add the inputs to the system that only someone with my combination of age, race, gender, religion and unique life experiences could provide. That essentially is the purpose of every human being.

What about the purpose of the unseen force? If the universe is the body, and elements within the universe are the cells of the body, then the unseen force is the inherent instinct in every living entity to sustain itself, to persist, to continue to exist. Like the energy directing cells in a body, the unseen force responds and reacts to the inputs in the system, incorporating the lessons learned into its ongoing development.

Is the Unseen Force Divine?

The unseen force started the universe with a big bang. Maybe the unseen force was divine to begin with…or maybe, like life on Earth, it evolved from something simple and rudimentary into something vast and unknowable. It may not have started as divine, but it became divine as the knowledge it gained over eons of life lessons increased its complexity and power.

Even my death does not provide the answers to all my questions. Right now, it is simply enough for me to know that the unseen force is at work shaping the universe. If we treat the unseen force as divine, it becomes divine. If we accept it as divine, it is divine.

How people experience and define the divinity of the unseen force at work in the world is as unique and varied as humans are. Like all humans, my beliefs were reactions to every event in my life, the product of the path I was on since my birth.

Since no two people can have identical experiences in life, I realize now that it was no use wondering why everyone doesn’t believe the same thing. It isn’t surprising that certain events carry more significance for some individuals or groups. It isn’t surprising that certain religious concepts resonate for some more than others. It isn’t surprising that humans explain and describe occurrences beyond human explanation in countlessly different ways. Aren’t prayer, meditation, contemplation, purification rites, baptism, yoga, ritualized fasting and scientific exploration all attempts–individually tailored to unique human needs–to find a connection to the unseen force?

My after-death experience has done nothing to prove or disprove any human religious belief. In fact, I see the unseen force can embrace and contain religious thoughts and ideas from every corner of the world. The diversity of religious thought is a direct function of the diversity of human culture and life experience. The expanse of the unseen force holds custom-made answers for every searching person.

What makes religion dangerous is thinking that everyone should or could believe the same thing, even though no two people have the same life experiences. It’s dangerous to confuse “your truth” (what you perceive as true) with “the truth” (something that applies to everyone). There is no single truth in the universe. The universal truth is a composite of the experiences of billions of people from the past and present, and it is constantly changing as each living person meets the future.

Life Lessons

Suddenly I feel a surge of connection to all humans and a deep desire to live a human life again. There are so many things I’d do differently.

I’d make more effort to connect with people; more eye contact, smiles, conversation, touch, friendship, sharing, cooperation, intimacy, and love. I’d realize that healthy connections to diverse people are just as important to the world as good deeds. I’d learn more about and spend more time with people who are different than me, rather than staying on the easy path of seeking out those of similar race, age, gender, religion, culture, nationality and life experience.

I’d acknowledge the physical differences between myself and others…along with the life experiences shaped by those physical characteristics…but I’d connect to the soul residing within, not to the surrounding body.

I’d realize that the only way I can learn what it means to be human is to live through the contrasting experiences of youth and age, sickness and health, want and abundance, injury and recovery, joy and sorrow. I’d experience my emotions fully and avoid numbing them with excessive distractions, material possessions, busyness, or drugs and alcohol.

I’d keep my senses wide open to truly recognize what is, then imagine what could be, and navigate towards that outcome. The life lessons I experience while I am alive and how I react to those lessons affect the world forever. They are my gift to the unseen force and to every other person living now or in the future. I’d realize that the essence of what I’ve learned in my life is added to human knowledge, so the collective human spirit continues to grow…and the effect of each of us is felt forever, from here to eternity.

New Definitions

You can think of Faith as belief in the unseen force perpetually incorporating new life lessons into a collective consciousness which is learning the previously unrealized. This divine force contains all of the consciousness of all people – past, present, and future.

Rather than defining God as a separate entity, think of God as the totality of everything in existence, including all human experiences and perspectives. Without all of us–each and every one of us–God is not complete and the Divine is not fully expressed.

From a single flame, I can reproduce an infinite number of flames, without diminishing the brightness of the original flame whatsoever. Each flame burns separately but all are related to each other by their common source. The flame burning inside each of us, ignited from the original universal force, links us to billions of humans who came before, are here now, or will follow.

Faith is recognizing we are all related…we are all connected…we are all part of the whole universe…and we all have a part to play. Everything you touch, you change. Everything you change, changes you. Change is inevitable. Let us use the flame burning inside each of us to illuminate the shadows and shine a beautiful light.

 

 

~Written in August 2014