Exploring Your Options for the Afterlife - part 1 of 3

I had “that dream” again the other night…  it’s the one where I am back in school and suddenly realize I forgot to drop a class or else have an upcoming final exam in a class I didn’t attend or study for!  Perhaps you have had this or a similar dream.  After all these years, “that dream” still surfaces in me from time to time.  Now, I interpret this dream symbolically – one where something is going on in my life which I am not paying adequate attention to or preparing for. 

Our lives are often a series of events or challenges which we do not always fully anticipate, prepare for, or lean into because of fear or some other circumstance. 

I remember clearly the last week of my father’s earthly life. He shared with me some regrets from his own life and one stood out in particular.  Sometime during his professional career, my dad was approached by a well-known and successful businessman. The man was looking for someone with an accounting background who was also dependable and trustworthy.  My father had all of these attributes and was quickly offered the position along with a promise that he would be very well compensated and valued in the company.

Ultimately, my dad turned down the offer. And in the final week of his life he shared that this was one of his biggest regrets. He understood he had not accepted the job out of a fear of the unknown along with a certain sense of unworthiness.

As I get older (and hopefully wiser!) I experience my own regrets and the occasional sense of unworthiness.  Regrets are not unusual.  In the International best-selling book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, authoress and hospice nurse Bronnie Ware observed over and over again a pattern of regrets in her patients including:  

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me

• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard

• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings

• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends

• I wish I had let myself be happier

I noticed right away the use of the word “courage” in two of the regrets above.  The lack of courage typically equates to fear.  And fear can quite literally keep us from fulfilling our highest good in this world and hinder our progress in the next one too!

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less" - Marie (Madam) Curie

If you talk with people or read different surveys, you discover some of the biggest recurring fears in life include public speaking, heights, going to the dentist, and dying.

One of our hopes in part one of this three-part blog series is to de-mystify the change called death and therefore make it less fearful. After all, our souls are on a continuum of birth and rebirth (reincarnation) here on Earth. And our ultimate goal is to graduate with honors from Earth’s schoolroom so we can live, serve, and evolve in higher dimensions across God’s vast creation!

To begin our journey together, we want to share with you an excerpt from the TV series The Twilight Zone. It features a moving encounter between an elderly woman, who has feared death her entire life, and an angel played by a very young Robert Redford.

In parts 2 and 3 of this series we will continue to explore your options for the afterlife and describe some of the events you will likely encounter in the next world!  In addition, we hope to inspire and offer the best tools available for you to have the opportunity to make it to the highest possible level in the next world – all while avoiding the pitfalls or “hell” of our own creation!

Setting the Sail in Life

Remember, what determines where you go when you leave this earth is your state of consciousness and your actions during your life. You set the sail! As you come to the end of this life, remember that you have to be the captain of your ship and set your sail for where you want to go and what you want to be. Don’t let somebody else do it for you.

For now, we leave you with a beautiful poem by Henry Van Dyke called Gone From My Sight.  It uses the metaphor of a ship sailing over the horizon to describe death. The poem offers solace by suggesting that a loved one's passing is not an ending but a continuation of their journey.

Gone From My Sight

by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast, hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone, "there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

To be continued. Stay tuned for part 2 of Exploring Your Options for the Afterlife. Until then...