Chapter 13
Near Death Experiences and Near Life Opportunities
During the NDE there is an overwhelming understanding that everything is connected.
Dr Penny Sartori
Learning from Death
If loving yourself can teach you anything, it is that we are all worthwhile exactly as we are. The exercise of simple mindfulness can transform your inner landscape so that you experience peacefulness. In that peacefulness the realisation can emerge that we are invisibly interconnected, just like the Internet invisibly connects us all around the globe. Our shared humanity can become real to us. Loving yourself is making contact with your Higher Self. We all have a Higher Self which is an extension of the Divine. Call it Source, God, the field of infinite probabilities – call it whatever you want. It is the same boundless ocean of possibility. By being more loving to ourselves, we go to this ocean with a super tanker to fill instead of a thimble.
Our human lives are finite. What matters is not what we amass but how well we live, and how kind we are to other sentient beings. The field of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) bears this out.
The final clearing out is the letting go of the body. There is no preparation in Western culture for death or dying, which is why so many people are fearful of it. Their fear of death causes them to suffer. Becoming more aware of death is one way to soften the ego. When there is less ego, there is more room for Atman, the pure spiritual self beneath the superficial ego. From my observation as a nurse, a therapist and as a person who has lost loved ones, death is easy. It is the dying part that can be hard.
In her book, Dying to be Me, Anita Moorjani talks of the changes in how she views life since her NDE: “Previously I used to pursue, feeling as though I had to do, get and achieve.....now, however, I no longer chase anything. Instead, I allow - the more effort I have to put into trying to attain it, the more I know I am doing something wrong. Allowing, on the other hand, doesn’t require effort. It feels more like a release, because it means realising that since everything is One, that which I intend to get is already mine.” 12
In Colm Keane’s book, The Distant Shore, there was a consensus from those who had undergone an NDE that “Love is behind it all. That really is it. We are all part of the spirit of love....It’s not just a case of getting by each day and acquiring as much as we can. Physical stuff means nothing. What matters is the way you are with yourself, and with others, your honesty and kindness, and the way you treat other people.” 13
The overall message from the field of NDE research is that love is the glue that connects us all, it is who we truly are, and at the end of our lives all that matters is how much love we have shared with other sentient beings.
Aligning with our God-Self
God’s wisdom will fulfill our deepest intentions once we set them in motion.
Sonia Choquette
Aligning ourselves with spirit requires us to acknowledge that we are part of the Creator Spirit or God, a literal interpretation of being a “child of God.” If we accept that we are a child of God, then we are PART of God. We ourselves are part of the divine spark of creation. It is in us, not external to us.
Each one of us has a Higher Self that is our link to the Divine. We are part of the Divine Being. The Higher Self has the overview of our lives. The soul is consciousness. It knows things that our conscious mind, Lower Self or ego does not know. Like God, it has our best interests at heart. Instead of deconstructing all our fear-based beliefs, a useful shortcut is to hand the running of your life over to your Higher Self. “I now direct my Higher Self to run my life and rule my ego,” is a clear command directing this to happen.
This is like handing over all the things we cannot manage, control or fix to a Higher Power. The Higher Power is an extremely competent and trustworthy manager and excellent at handling the details. This then allows you to relax and go with the flow.
A New Way of Being in the World
The journey to loving ourselves is ongoing. Once we love ourselves, we find that we are called to love others more than in the past, and to be of more service. That is because we can only love others to the extent that we can love ourselves. This is a natural progression, to steer away from materialism and towards altruism. This improves our life, and the lives of others, whether human or animal.
There are two questions that will keep us on course as we integrate this new way of being in the world.
How can I be kind to myself and others today?
What can I do to help others today?
In answering those questions and living the answers, we are creating a better world.
Visualisation: Integrating the Positive Changes
As you continue to relax, allow yourself to enter your safe place, the place of well-being and harmony. Allow yourself to notice what you can see, the vividness of the colours, and the natural beauty all around you. Notice what you can hear...perhaps birdsong, or the sound of silence. Notice how the temperature is perfect for you. And especially, allow yourself to notice how good it feels...in this harmonic place, you have all the time in the world to just relax and be your true self. It feels like a burden has been lifted, to just be you. Or just to.....be.....As you continue to relax even deeper, it is so easy to allow your thoughts to become quiet, easy to ignore. Imagine turning down the volume button on your thoughts now, which in turn lets you realise that you can choose to quieten or ignore those thoughts....this is an idea full of freedom... that you can choose which thoughts to focus on, and which ones to act on.....In this beautiful place, you have a heightened awareness of all the good things and good people already in your life. Your health, your body, your breath, all your blessings... You are aware of the beauty of nature and animals. It is as if you are seeing things in a new, clear way and letting go of the habit of taking things for granted. In this relaxed state it is so easy to understand that what is truly important is how you treat yourself, nature and all sentient beings with kindness, softness and love....It is as if in releasing and letting go of each breath, you understand at a deep level that softness and surrender are gentle and peaceful and allow space for your deep self to emerge. Your deep and true self is Divine. It is love. In relaxing the body and mind, it is as if you are letting go of struggling upstream against the current, and instead, allowing more flow and ease in your life. Imagine that the safe river is the flow of unconditional love..... imagine now merging with that flow of love in a completely safe and effortless way so that you have a deep inner knowing that you are love, you are loving, you are loved......and it is so easy now to integrate all the positive changes that you have made... this awareness is now stored in the part of your mind responsible for new learning and new behaviour and it starts affecting your daily life in a positive way from this moment onwards. When you choose to return to the here and now, there are two words in your heart: Trust and Hope.
The End