“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Read the quotation above again and let this truth sink into you. Let this thought envelop your very being. Then read it again. This one quotation, if pondered, will change the way you think about the world, world events, your own role in this world and your life itself. Two very important aspects are being talked about — who we are and what is happening to us. According to this, we are actually spiritual beings having a human experience and not the other way around. So we are immortal and eternal beings on a never ending journey.
When you dream at night you are no longer aware of your physical body. But you clearly are still conscious in the dreamscape. While there may be a fluid nature to the experience, it is actually ‘you’ who is experiencing something. So who are ‘you’ exactly? The real you is your consciousness or spirit. It is the eternal I am. During sleep we do not remember our bodies or the surroundings but we still have the awareness of being. We are spiritual beings who are currently using a physical body to experience the lower frequency physical world.
We are spiritual beings having a “human experience”. Spirituality is reality and everything physical or energetic is a part of that reality. We experience life as a human so that we can learn and grow and evolve spiritually. Life on earth is about learning lessons. It is about using our talents to make the world better in some way. It is about loving yourself and others. Just like a scuba diver or astronaut needs a special suit to survive underwater or in space, the same way the soul takes on a human body in order to survive in this physical world. ‘
So where do we come from when we are born and where do we go when we die? First, do we even understand these things? If you ask somebody a simple question, “What is the opposite of death?”, 90 percent of people answer: “Life”. Seems like a simple answer. But it is the wrong answer and you will see why. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal and therefore has no opposite. Birth and death are simply entry and exit points. They are doors that open from the spiritual world into the physical world and then back again. Neither did your existence begin at birth, nor would it end at death. These two things are simply transitions from one world to another, from one frequency to another.
Imagine you are watching Netflix and you get bored and change the channel to Amazon Prime. Now you are watching a different show. But just because you switched from Netflix to Prime does not that mean that Netflix has stopped broadcasting? It is still flowing in the background. But now your device is tuned into another frequency. So it is with physical life and non physical life. The place where we have come from and where we go ultimately has been described in many spiritual texts and accounts as a place that is made of light, energy and thoughts.
Our souls exist there in a more subtle form which has been called the astral body and then even higher levels exist which are called the causal body. These frequencies have been described to range from realms of existence that are much like our earth but with more subtle energies to higher dimensions full of light and love and much more beautiful than earth without any negativity, disease, parasites, wars and so on. It is a place where there is much learning and evaluation of lessons learned on earth. Some may call the higher levels ‘heaven’.
Dr. Raymond Moody in the early 1970s changed the world forever with his book, Life after Life, which brought the near-death experience or NDE into popular culture. Many years later Dr Michael Newton came out with Journey of Souls, which brought the life between life (LBL) sessions into popular culture.
The NDE is an experience where someone was declared clinically dead for a few minutes (mostly following a heart attack or accident) and reported floating out of their body and entering into a bright light which led them into an energetic tunnel or vortex. At the end of the tunnel they met their loved ones who had passed on before them and also met a council of elders and saw a life review in which there were specific moments highlighted from the incarnation that just ended. They would see and feel how they made others feel by their conduct. Then they were asked if they wanted to come back. In some cases they did not want to come back but were told they have to. In every case, they reported that they felt love and that they were back home. Then they returned to their earthly bodies. These NDEs are all scientifically recorded and acknowledged since most of these occurred in hospitals.
LBL sessions on the other hand are hypnotic regressions that take the subject to the time between incarnations. In each case, the subject describes that the souls live in soul groups and soul families and that there are spirit guides that are assigned to them. Plus the spirit world is a very organised and hierarchical place and not random. Time and space do not exist there and it is a very fluid place where transportation and communication both happen telepathically.
We also reportedly meet our loved ones who have passed on from earth and this includes loved ones from all our previous incarnations. There is a constant feeling of being loved and this love seems to exist everywhere in the spirit world. We meet souls that were with us through many incarnations and some souls who are with us mostly in the spiritual realms but may not necessarily incarnate with us. Even if someone reincarnates then, according to Dr Michael Newton, they only take about 20-30 percent of their energy with them to earth and the rest remains in the spirit world which means that there is constant interaction between souls even if they are incarnated. The higher selves are connected even if their incarnations are happening simultaneously.
Another aspect of the spiritual world is reportedly a constant divine light and music that plays. Plus there are no restrictions on the senses and everything is alive. Also it is reported that everything is highly enhanced — the sounds and colours are much more vivid than on earth and some colours do not even exist on earth. Also people have described that the spirit world is a lot more real than physical life. Just like conscious life seems more real than a dream, the same way, life in the spirit world seems more real than life on earth.
Along with this, it is clear that we are all souls and that there are many levels of existence with various forms of spiritual beings of different development levels. Some are teachers, guides and soul family members that are all helping us in our infinite and eternal spiritual journey. Many reports say that there is no end to the realms of consciousness and evolution. Even the great ones that have come to earth are still evolving further on their journeys. It is an endless experience designed by God to explore and learn.
Everyone has lost a loved one. It is natural to mourn and miss those we have lost. But remember that we actually never really lose anyone because they still exist in another realm of existence. That realm is our true home where we all came from and where we will all return some day. There we will be reunited with our loved ones. Till then keep living life to the fullest and take each new day as a new opportunity and remember that we are on earth for a reason and there should be no worry or no hurry to leave.
Prashant Solomon is a Delhi-based author and businessman.
