What Happens When We DieBecause the spirit arrives at a complete understanding of self. . . .he is not judged by an old man with a long white beard; he is his own judge. The Spirit's Path—from Transition, through Judgement, to KarmaBy Bernard Willemsen
I recently had the good fortune to be with my mother when she died. I'd heard from my sisters in Holland that her health was declining rapidly so I decided to travel with my daughter, Tricia, to see her before it was too late.
Shortly after our arrival, she was admitted to hospital. The following morning, Tricia, my three sisters and I were sitting together beside my mother's bed. I couldn't help but feel that she wouldn't be with us for much longer. After a while, I saw what appeared to be a black cloud covering her feet. I now knew for certain that we had come just in time; I'd seen the death veil before, watched as it gradually shrouded a friend's body, soon after which she passed on.
As I sat with my mother, I tried from time to time to sense her energies. I couldn't sense her legs; the body psyche had already disappeared from them. Within a few hours, they were totally enveloped by the black veil.
It was around that time that I noticed the two spirits in the hospital room. At the same time, a column of light appeared beside my mother's bed. I recognized it as the passageway through which the spirits would take my mother back with them to the spiritual realm.
As dawn approached, most of the life energies associated with my mother's body had dispersed. While her spirit was preparing to come free, an aura glowed brightly around her head, becoming highly visible several hours before her passing. All the while, the room was filling up with spirits. I was astonished at the number present and wondered
whether it had anything to do with my relationship with the spirit world. In any case, it pleased me to see so many, as my mother had always disliked being alone and this way I knew she would have quite an entourage to accompany her.The column of light gradually moved closer to my mother's head. Soon, her breathing stopped altogether. Now directly above her head, the column expanded to a width of about four feet. The light was spectacular as my mother and the spirits that had come to be with her departed. I felt joyful at my mother's beautiful passing, while at the same time a deep sadness arose within me.
A short time later, seated beside her body, I sensed a dramatic change in the atmosphere of the hospital room. It was as though someone had opened all the windows and let in fresh air.
For those people who were not discouraged from believing in an afterlife, the time of transition is a joyful one....They may even feel as though they have emerged from a cocoon.
Because my mother believed that her life would carry on after she died, she probably wasn't entirely surprised by what happened to her. In fact, our beliefs about death play an important part in our passage from the physical to the spiritual world. People raised in a Christian culture, for example, may see angels or other symbols of their faith just before or just after they die. Others may see bright lights or hear singing. Still others may see their ancestors. The mythologies of our cultures and religions determine to a great extent what we experience and help us to make the transition from one world to the next.Public education today has led many of us to question the religious or spiritual beliefs we hold and replace them with beliefs or disbeliefs based on scientific knowledge. When science fails to accept the reality of something, we assume it doesn't exist. We may say, "I don't believe in it," without having given the subject any thought whatsoever, or having spent any time researching it. Why are we so adamant about 'not believing' in something of which we have no personal experience or knowledge? Perhaps we feel that what we don't know isn't worth knowing. Maybe the idea disturbs us so much that we'd rather not consider it. Or could it be that we don't want to admit that we might be wrong? Disbeliefs, like beliefs, are often inherited and rarely examined. But in order to discover new territory, we have to be able to set them both aside, at least for a period of time.
If a person is brought up to disbelieve in the continuation of life after death and never has cause to question her disbelief, she is likely to be very surprised when she dies, unless her mind-set is so powerful that she denies she's dead and stays in the physical (i.e. mind-set) world. If those who taught her to disbelieve are waiting to meet her, however, she may have little choice but to accept her experience as reality. She will then be able to move on to what is called `transition.' During transition, the spirit becomes accustomed to life in the spiritual dimension and all that it entails, including her new state of disembodiment. What the spirit believed about the afterlife is now irrelevant, as she is now faced with its reality. If this reality conflicts with the beliefs she held during her life, she will experience difficulty adjusting to her new situation. Recall that the spirit's ego system is exactly the same as it was in the physical world.
For those people who were not discouraged from believing in an afterlife, the time of transition is a joyful one. These spirits quickly come to feel at ease as they realize that, apart from being without a body, little has changed about their sense of self. They may even feel as though they have emerged from a cocoon. It can be greatly liberating to discover that death is not the end of life but merely a moment in the overall life cycle.
Not only do we shed our bodies when we enter the spiritual realm, we also leave behind our concept of time. Time has relevance only for the business of maintaining physical life. Once the spirit enters transition, time as we know it in the physical world ceases to have meaning. The spirit doesn't get any older, nor is he concerned with the change of seasons. His life is measured in periods, lasting anywhere from a moment to a hundred or more years in our time. While in transition, the spirit learns about the next period, during which he will review all his earthly acts and thoughts. That period is called `judgment.'
In society, a person is judged primarily by whether or not his actions conform to societal law. He is only guilty if he gets caught, and even then his guilt must often be proved in a court of law. In contrast, the spirit is judged according to his own truth.
We are all working together towards a common goal: to foster the development of mind so that the soul can grow.
The root of one's truth lies within his ego system, largely hidden from his awareness. It is determined by the way in which his ego system was shaped by his parents from infancy through adolescence. All the teachings he receives go into the shaping of the ego. That which is not taught leaves a void in the ego, leading to the creation of the ego defence, which plays an equally important role in determining his truth.Everything that one learns and experiences in his lifetime contributes to the creation of his truth. But because our truth is often obscured to us in life, we sometimes find ourselves at a loss to explain our actions. This is further complicated by the conflict between ego-based actions and ego defence-based actions. When our actions are based on ego defence (in which case we might call them reactions) our truth could be said to be based on an untruth.
Take the example of the boy who never felt valued by his parents. Because the parents failed to teach him self-worth, which is required for proper ego development, a void was created in his ego. This particular void gave rise to a need for validation, perhaps leading him to lie in order to impress others, or steal to prove his courage. For him, lying and stealing are a matter of psychological survival. Because these actions are driven by the ego defence, he may have little control over them. Even though he knows
that it is wrong, he persists in this behaviour in an attempt to win recognition from his peers. Because this boy's unconscious truth is that he has little or no value, it can be said that his truth is based upon an untruth, since every person has value by virtue of the soul.While theft is an unlawful act in most human societies, its status is less clear in the judgment period. It is not necessarily the case that someone who steals is acting against his truth; it depends on the individual situation. It might be assumed, for example, that a person who steals food is acting against his truth because he was taught that it is wrong to steal. If we look more closely, however, we may discover that, in this case, theft was the only option he felt he had to obtain food for his children. Under these circumstances, stealing is not judged to be wrong. By committing the theft, this man was acting according to his truth, since he believed that the survival of his family took precedence over obeying the law.
If, on the other hand, someone who can afford to pay for the food chooses to steal it anyway, he knows very well that he has acted wrongly. Under human law, both of these people might be acquitted; perhaps the judge would sympathize with the first and the second would be saved by a clever lawyer. In the judgment period, however, the only deciding factor will be the answer to the question: "Did this person act according to his truth?" The lawyer himself will be subject to the same scrutiny.
The ego defence can cause us to do terrible things to other people. Even though we are aware that our behaviour is causing someone pain, we may still be acting according to our truth. Sometimes, however, we suffer as much as the other person because our actions are based upon an inner struggle or conflict.
Carrying out one's karma is a bit like doing community service to God and, as such, it is its own reward.
There are some people who act against their own truth by choice, out of greed, envy, lust, or desire for power. When they come to the end of their physical lives and realize that they'll have to account for their deeds, they may decide to remain in the mind-set world to avoid judgment and the punishment they imagine will follow. Those who have committed crimes against nature or humanity - crimes that ultimately interfere with the growth of the soul - may not have any choice about where they will go. Instead, they may find themselves stuck in the underbelly of the mind-set world.
Judgment is a period of great clarity and illumination, a time for the spirit's truth to emerge. The pure ego, which was shaped out of the soul drive, is now separated from the ego defence, which was created out of mind energy. Guided by the ego alone, the spirit reviews and reflects upon all the knowledge and experience he accumulated in his lifetime. He is now able to see how his ego was shaped and how his ego defence and its untruths developed to mask the voids. The spirit is able to view himself without shame or guilt and, in the process, may discover that he has far more worth than he ever imagined. At this time of enlightenment, it now becomes clear to him why he thought and behaved the way he did at any given moment in his life. Because the spirit arrives at a complete understanding of self, he is able to determine on his own whether or not he followed his truth. He is not judged by an old man with a long white beard; he is his own judge.That's not to say that we're entirely alone during this time of self-revelation. Just as a woman giving birth requires a midwife, a spirit undergoing the birth of his new sense of self requires a facilitator, so the spirit's peers gather to give support and encouragement.
After the spirit has reached the point of enlightenment, he is ready to embark on what we call the `karma period.' At that time, he will be given a particular task or karma to fulfill and will become a 'karma' spirit. This task is not considered a punishment. It is simply a reflection of the way the spirit led his physical life or, more specifically, the degree to which he followed his truth. Punishment as we know it happens only in the physical world. Once the spirit is free of the ego defence and fully understands his past actions, punishment serves no purpose.
Nor is the spirit rewarded for his good deeds. In fact, once he enters the karma period, the way he led his life in the physical world is no longer an issue. Here he will discover that his life was merely a period of learning and development in preparation for his entry into the spiritual world. Carrying out one's karma is a bit like doing community service to God and, as such, it is its own reward.
The purpose of the karma period is a momentous one. Recall that the ego is shaped out of the soul's drive and that any parts left unshaped become voids in the ego. The ego defence, which is created from mind energy, arises in an attempt to fill the need left by those voids. In other words, the ego defence masks the untruths about ourselves. While the spirit carries out his karma, the ego defence as well as all the other mind energies are gradually transformed until they come to match the purity of the soul. Once this process is complete, the soul will harvest these energies for its own growth.
In general, the length and type of karma a spirit is given to perform depends upon the amount of mind energy to be purified - the more purification necessary, the longer and more intensive the period of service will be. In cases where there is relatively little energy to purify, the spirit may even be able to exercise some choice as to how she fulfills her karma.
If any place represents what I think of as heaven, it would be the world of the karma spirit. Hell, on the other hand, would be the experience of the spirit lost or trapped in the physical (i.e. mind-set) world.
Through my experiences with karma spirits, I now know what happens after we die. I've learned that the spirit world exists right alongside our own, and that we are all working together towards a common goal: to foster the development of mind so that the soul can grow.
Adapted with permission from Beyond a Shadow: The Path of the Spirit, by Bernard Willemsen, with Penny Margolis (Winnipeg: Quasar Books, 1997).
Born and raised in Holland, longtime Winnipeg resident Bernard Willemsen now lives with his wife and partner Penny Margolis in Nova Scotia where he is building a new Centre for Human Energy Studies. His third book, The Path of the Student, is due to be published this year (2000). For more information on Willemsen's books, workshops, seminars, and Centre visit his website.Click here to read an interview with Bernard Willemsen.
View books by Bernard Willemsen at Amazon.com or Chapters.ca.
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