Death

Q. Please talk about death and what happens after death.

A. Everything in this world is recycled. Vast as it may seem, nothing leaves the system of the physical universe. Know yourselves to be made up entirely of re-used parts! By this we mean, not the objects in your bodies, such as organs and arteries, but the particles that make up those objects; the cells and atoms and sub-atomic particles. Your entire physical structure, to which you are attached as 'I', is in fact born and reborn and reborn infinitely and knows no death. Memory enters your nervous system through these particles and it is for this reason that you can place yourself in so many lifetimes at so many times. Death, then, at the physical level, is a process of cellular dispersal. But dispersal is not uniform at this level. Where tension or contraction has been held in the physical around an experience involving, perhaps, pain or trauma, a group of cells may cling together and move into a new form as a unit. This will constitute a karma, or a memory, which requires to be released so the cells can become unbound. This releasing of that which has become bound, or contracted, is the natural process of life which moves from contraction to expansion and then back again into contraction. So the physical/emotional bodies disperse and regroup, and the personal, which seems so fixed from within, reappears in another form, simulating separate entity where there is none. In this sense, life and death are impersonal. Consciousness which is the source of all things, arises and falls continuously in a stream of 'I's.

That is one level of the answer to your question about death. However, your question is also asked at another level - the level of identity and personal will, and so we will address that too. We have told you that the world is formed through desire and aversion, the negative and positive poles that make this electromagnetic realm possible. The personal universe is created through personal desire, and thus is largely a question of choice. Understand that personal desire is a matter of co-creation. Life scripts are loosely designed ahead of time and worked into the structure of the manifest form. In simpler terms, you are predisposed, genetically and spiritually, to live the life you live. When physical life ends, there is another option for co-creation, depending on the beliefs and desires of the being who is dying. If the person has developed a deep desire to serve humanity, they now have the possibility to do so in non-physical form. If they wish to stay with a loved-one, they can do so in non-physical form. They can become guides and teachers, angels or fairies, all according to desire. Understand - desire is the cause of manifestation, which itself is a form of contraction. Undifferentiated consciousness is the ultimately expanded phenomenon towards which all form moves. Depending on the agenda of the individual will, movement towards undifferentiated consciousness may be fast or slow. Time spent in service to the physical plane may be long or short, as may time on other planes of existence.

Q. It sounds like you are saying that when we die, we have a choice about what happens next.

A. This is so. Spirit plays on many levels and in many forms. But understand that at the point of death, once the body is released, what remains is not of the personal in the way you understand it. Thus, a parent who, in dying, worries for the wellbeing of his or her child, will, at death, perceive the child as spirit and know from a place beyond the personal whether the play will or will not be served by their attendance on that being. In other words, at death, perspective and attachments shift dramatically.

Q. Is the doorway to death necessarily the doorway to non-duality?

A. By no means. And even from a place of non-duality, a being may choose to help those struggling in the mire of life and death. But such duality as exists beyond death is less dense than on the material plane.

Q. So someone can be held close to the physical plane through hate as well as through love?

A. It is rare for a soul's desiring to be a holding in hate. It is more usual for hate to be reincarnated in the physical as a karma, as it represents a contraction rather than a soul's desire. Do you understand? Desire is manifestation, as is aversion, which is only negative desire. But the desire that would hold a being in non-physical form is related to love. 'More love, less physically dense' is the rule. So aversion and hatred tend to fall to earth, so to speak, which is the metaphor of Satan. It can happen that a being can be contracted overall, in such a way that the cells fail to disperse, in which case there can be a haunting, a perceptible, almost physical presence that awaits re-entry into form. Such a system would be characterized by intense fear and control, fear being the absence of love. Here hatred can be a presence. But one who chooses to remain connected to the physical while remaining non-physical will experience duality as less dense. Thus they may experience, for example, sorrow vs. joy, related to compassion, rather than hatred vs. sexual desire.

Q. Is it possible to work out karma on a non-physical plane?

A. No. Karma is always physical. Desire in the non-physical is a co-creative event. Spirit and individual awareness dance to a new tune. In the spectrum of levels between the physical and the undifferentiated, the less dense the form, the more love is present.

Q. I find this all very confusing. It seems that you are saying that death does not necessarily lead to non-duality, but that the less physical planes are more permeated by love. That when we die we have some choice about where and how we move on.

A. It is the same level of choice that you had when you came into this body, and that is why it is difficult to talk about. First of all, the choice only arises at a certain level of evolution, or expansion. But to say this implies linear progress, which is not the case. The journey through the physical to the non-physical takes many lifetimes and many unfoldings of karma. But this unfolding is not personal. The personal is an illusion. And yet, that which is inherent in the journey has choices, the same choice you had to enter this body. The word choice here is misleading, because there was no 'you' to choose and yet choice happened.

A being who moves on to incarnate in the non-physical is not necessarily beyond duality, or fully awakened. But the most dense aspects of duality cannot be held in the non-physical, and therefore violence is not known there. The love that is consciousness permeates more strongly where mass is less.

Q. And can an individual who has existed in the non-material choose to come back to the physical?

A. Yes. This is an easy step, though a rare choice.

Q. Okay, so who or what is it that is doing all this choosing? In other words, if I call on Tessa, my friend who died in 1995, will she come? And if she does, what or who is she, if not the person that I knew?

A. You can call anything into manifestation from undifferentiated consciousness because consciousness is all-things-in-potential. Life responds to you, always. Therefore when you call Tessa, you call her core spark or nature into awareness. This core spark is always, has always been and will always be a quality of the undifferentiated mass. Has always been, and will always be, in other words, 'in potential'. It is as though you pull out the color blue from all objects in a room. It would show itself to be present in many objects that look to you 'blue-less'. So those you love never die, though they change in form, and their essence is always available to you.

Q. And what if she has moved on - is on another plane or in another body?

A. No, you slip back into the personal again. Her essence will always respond to you. Life always responds to the desire that is love. She can be in many places at one time and that will not limit your access to her in any way.

Q. I suppose the problem I'm having is to do with my understanding of who is experiencing what here.

A.Yes. Because your mind is fixated on individual identity, and tucked inside many of the questions you ask is the fear of losing the sense of "I", the attachment to separation. There is no language available to us that can express the subtleties of life beyond the physical. We can only tell you that the journey continues, that suffering diminishes as form becomes less dense, that choices are always available, though the question of who chooses is complex.

Q. I guess that will have to do for now. My head is spinning!