L ife on earth is just a small chapter in the storybook of our soul. It will pass away as all things do eventually. But the good news is that our souls live for all eternity in our true home on the other side. That is where all our departed loved ones are today and you will meet them again. So do not worry. Keep on living.
We are living in challenging times. The Coronavirus is rampaging India and has caused many people to pass away. Those left behind are mourning the losses of their loved ones and those who survive should be thankful that they have been given some more time here on earth. But the irony of physical life is this – there is only one certainty in life and that is that everyone is going to eventually pass away and go onto the next part of our soul’s journey. Some call this the ‘afterlife’ but the term ‘other side’ seems more appropriate. Because ‘afterlife’ implies that life is only the ‘physical’ life which is just not the case. We need to understand that life itself is permanent. There is no end to life. It is just moving into another realm of existence and it is reportedly as painless as moving from one room to another.
Our souls were on this ‘other side’ even before we were born. They chose the life experiences that they would have. They chose their parents, nationality, race and other things before they came here as they wanted to create a life that would help them overcome whatever pending karmic issues they had from their last life. They also chose particular situations to let them learn certain lessons that they still needed to learn. Life on planet earth is a much sought after destination in the spiritual material universe. There are unlimited and uncountable other planets that can be chosen and surely there are also other popular destinations to incarnate but earth offers a place where spiritual growth happens faster because of the immense challenging nature of this world. Many other planets are more advanced and therefore do not have wars, diseases, poverty, hunger and therefore life is a lot easier. While this sounds good, it does not offer much potential for spiritual growth as there are fewer challenges.
Think of these physical incarnations whether on earth or other planets as like a complex package of experiences that the soul undertakes willfully. Like we can choose a location on earth to go for a vacation, the same way our souls choose which planet they want to have their next physical incarnation experience on. There is always more to learn and explore and physical death is just like getting onto a flight and going back home. It may be the end of that particular visit but not the end of the person concerned. When it’s your time to go back to the other side (which is our true home) you will meet your loved ones again.
So how do we know this? Well, there are thousands upon thousands of accounts of NDEs (near-death experiences) where people have been declared physically dead for a few minutes. There is no heart or brain activity but they miraculously returned to life and claimed to have floated painlessly out of their bodies, entered a tunnel or vortex that took them to another realm or frequency. When they emerged from that tunnel they were in a room where they met loved ones that had passed on before them. Some of them emerged into a meadow with beautiful flowers and met their loved ones. They felt an overwhelming feeling of love, peace and well being. They had no desire to return because they then remembered that this was their true home and they had just returned. They also met people from other earlier lifetimes and their memories of other lives in physical worlds returned. But in addition to that, some of these people say they visited large libraries which contain the Akashic records, a record of every life lived by everyone who ever lived or will ever live, they visited healing chambers, they visited a council of elders and spirit guides where they had a life review, they visited a huge planetarium that contains information about every inhabited planet in the universe, they visited large concert halls, lakes, waterfalls, temples and many other things.
The other side is a detailed world like our own but much better. The NDErs say that earth is like a bad photocopy of the other side. Something like how in a virtual reality video game the world within the video game looks kind of like the ‘real’ world but isn’t exactly. Same way, the physical earth plane is kind of like the other side but not exactly. The other side is more real and the experiences there seem more real in every way than on the physical earth plane. Some of the NDErs even say that many of the ideas that are there on earth have been sent into human minds from the other side to gradually improve the earth and make it more like the other side.
Situations like wars, pandemics, famines, earthquakes and other natural disasters keep happening from time to time. People do leave this physical realm in large numbers and sometimes we lose people we love to these situations. We feel hopeless, lonely and sad because we think the person has gone forever. But this is not the case. It is just like someone you love has returned home from a vacation before you. You can no longer see them physically but you know that they are safe and at home. This is the message that needs to be spread to everyone. Your loved ones still exist and are aware of the happenings on earth.
In life, nothing is permanent. This too shall pass and there will come better and brighter days. Until then, remember we have a true home where we will all return someday. Do not be in a hurry to get there. We are all in this physical realm for a reason. That reason is to live life, learn our lessons and love one another as you love yourself to create a better world for future generations of spiritual explorers who will invariably return to or come to earth for the first time.
Know that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience and that life is not the opposite of death. Birth is the opposite of death. They are simply entry and exit points into incarnations. Life is eternal, therefore it has no opposite.
Prashant Solomon is a Delhi based author and businessman
