I died and I can tell you that death is not the end... we travel only from life to life... //www.curezone.org/forums/m.asp?f=206&i=260

Dear 25004,

Fear is a terribly negative and destructive
emotion. You need to banish it from your life.
Dont feel anguish for things that happened in
your past, and don't feel anxiety about the
future that lies ahead of you; a long future,
since you're just 17 years-old.

You're very fortunate, 25004, to be having
this spirituality crisis at such a young age.
If you spend the rest of this year, educating
yourself about the spiritual world, you'll
put yourself on the path that God, the Universal Soul, intends you to be on. And in
a few years, you WILL have banished fear from
your life, as well as other negative emotions.

Right now, this existential crisis you're
immersed in, seems like a Curse; a blight
that clouds every aspect of your life. But
if you listen to your intuition, your Inner
Voice, and learn the truth about life and death, in 5 years, you'll look back on this
ordeal as a great Blessing. And you'll thank
God it happened at 17 instead of 57. Your
entire life will be rich and satisfying and
fulfilling, unlike the lives of so many of
your peers.

My first suggestion is that you do some reading on the Near Death Experience forum here
at CZ. Click on the R/N messages, and read
them. Rudenski's are especially revealing.
Then go to this website -- http://www.near-death.com
and slowly explore it. Make sure you read the
NDE of Thomas Mellen-Benedict, perhaps the
best and most reassuring NDE ever written.

If you're someone who can learn from books,
begin reading authors like Eckhart Tolle.
Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Osho,
Swami Rama, and Sogyal Rinpoche. Your library
probably has a small section devoted to
books about spirituality. Look through those
books, and trust your intuition about which
ones to check out. I highly recommend The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Daizy4 has a very enlightening blog here on
CZ. It's title is "Clear Myst." Do some reading there. You'll find other blogs devoted
to spirituality, too. Read some of the R/N
posts on this forum, as well as the Consciousness and Awareness forum.

We humans seem to be separate from each other.
We're like waves on the ocean, who look around
them, and see just other waves. The waves are
unable to look down, and see the vast ocean
that supports and connects them.

Humans are like those waves. We can't see the
vast ocean of energy that connects us to
every living thing in the universe.

When a wave crashes onto the beach, it gives
up its form; its body. But the water in the
wave, its soul, returns to the ocean, to be
reformed once again.

Yes, you will die someday. Every living being
will die. But like the wave, 25004, you will
be giving up only your body; your form. Your
soul, the water in the wave, will return to
the Ocean of Energy that we call God.

Here's a quote from Marianne Williamson, a
gifted and poetic spiritual writer: "I know
that death is not death, but a recycling of
energy, a remodulation of my cells, according
to higher assignments in my soul's progression. My spirit does not die, but rather enters new channels of life."

Every true mystic of every religious and spiritual persuasion. has said exactly the
same thing. After you die, you will find yourself immersed in God; immersed in total,
unconditional love; a love that is peaceful and calm, infinitely warm and infinitely caring. You'll know beyond any doubt that
you're safe forever; that you're Home.

Once you begin educating yourself about spirituality, 25004, you'll find Doors
opening all around you. One book will lead
to another. People will pop up, and provide
you with need-to-know information. With every
day that passes, you'll feel more sure that
you're on the right path; that your spiritual
quest has become the most important part of
your life.

I will keep you in my prayers, 25004. Keep
us posted on your spiritual progress.

Blessings,

Owen

PART 1 - In the Sea of Change, Who am I?
________________________________________

There is a part of you that remains constant, unchanged, through all changes and fluxuations in your life. It was there when you were a child, it's there now, and it will be there when you are old. It is there in both happiness and sorrow, love and fear, peacefulness and anger. It is there regardless of your identity -- whether you're a Christian, an Atheist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a boy, a girl, a doctor, a beggar, or anything else. Look at all the fluctuations in your life, all the "changeable" things, all the experiences, and ask yourself: "What is it that is always the same?"

Is it your name? No. It may have been with you since you were born, but it's just something external. Something given. It could have been any other name, and it can be changed easily. It's just an external "label" applied to your body.

Is it your body? No. The body never stays the same! It's always changing. It's not the same now as it was when you were a child, and it won't be the same as it it now when you grow old. Eventually it will die and decay. "Dust to dust" and all that stuff...

Is it your thoughts and personal identity? No. Those things are always changing! One minute thoughts of happiness are coming in, the next minute thoughts of anger are coming in. One minute you are interested in painting and say "I am a painter", but then you lose interest and move on to join the Army, then you say "I am a soldier." Then you experience traumatic events of war and move towards a life of "religion" ... you start studying the Bible and then say "I am a Christian". It never ends, it's constantly changing. Your thoughts -- and your identity when it is rooted in thoughts or "the world" -- are never the same.

So what is it that stays the same?


PART 2 - The Perceiver
______________________

For anything to be known, there must be a knower. For this moment to be perceived, there must be a perceiver. If there was no perceiver, then you wouldn't be experiencing this right now.

When you dream, there is a feeling of "being in" the dream. It's what's happening "right now" and you usually don't know any reality other than the dream. When you awake, the dream dies, but the experience of it, the "memory", still remains. You remember the dream because there is a continuity of awareness ... the same awareness that was perceiving the dream, is also present in your "being awake". Without that continuity of awareness, there would be no memory of ever having the dream in the first place. No feeling of ever "being in" the dream. It would just be blank, nonexistent. This is partially evident in the many people who say "I don't have dreams" ... Really the vast majority of them DO dream, they just aren't "present" enough, aware enough, during the dream to remember it. But because of that lack of awareness, it's as if the dream never occurred. This is not a perfect example! but I hope it's adequate enough to convey my meaning...

If when you died, the "perceiver" died as well, then this entire experience would vanish, as if it never existed in the first place. If there was no "perceiver", or awareness, that remained after the death of this body and identity, then there would be no possibility of "remembering" this experience RIGHT NOW! The "proof" of life after death, is in the fact that you're perceiving this moment, right now. But "life after death" is a wrong idea. Life comes and goes. When death comes, life ends. And when life comes, death ends. It's better to see it as "awareness after the cycles of life and death".

Instead of fleeing from thoughts of death, accept them. Use them as a great catapulting force in the search for yourself. Your body will die. Your current identity will die. All things in the world of change perish. It's inevitable. All of these things are only temporary. If you invest your sense of self in these things, the only result is pain and misery when they are inevitably taken from you. The only "escape" from death, and all suffering, is in knowing yourself -- the "self" that always "is". The "same self" that can never be anything other than itself. That "self" is already here, now, completely free, completely untouched by death or anything else. You just aren't aware of it yet. You just have to uncover it. So start digging. :)

--James

hi 25004,

first off i am glad you posted and are being brave enough to deal with this issue. the funny thing is that most humans have this same nagging worry you do but never really deal with it, so that fact that you are is a good thing not a bad thing.

i would say do not try to banish these thoughts from your head. fighting them will only make them worse. accept that these thoughts are there, acknowledge the thoughts, the worries, the anxieties, confront them and then get on the job of answering this question. view it as a challenge, an opportunity, a mountain to be climbed, a door to walk thru. you are at the beginning of a spiritual journey, take the next step.

i would DEFINITLEY read rudy's nde, and i second owen's advice. i have read some of the books he reccomended and they are well worth the effort. here is another site devoted to the experience of people who have died, left their body, experienced the next world, and have come back to their body. i read it from time to time, it ALWAYS give me hope and inspiration for the journey here on earth.

http://www.nderf.org/

cruise around on that site and look at all of the various nde's and you will see that many have died and that they all report that life and consciuosness continue on beyond this body. we are not our bodies, we are our eternal selves, our spirits, we are just inhabiting this body for a time to learn lessons we couldn't possibly learn without doing so. the lessons all revolve around love in its infinite modes of expression. we choose to forget our eternal life on the other side when we inhabit this body to give ourselves a fuller physical incarnate experience. forgetting our life on the eternal plane is part of the plan, but remembering it is also part of the plan. it sounds like now is your time to start remembering. you already know much of this, it is just a matter of remembering.

look to Love, look to the eternal Spirit to guide your steps and you will be guided. fear can be a destructive force or it can motivate you, spur you to a deeper spiritual understanding of yourself and the universe. allow it to do just that. God fully exists outside of all religions and philosophies, you can experience the eternal Creator just by opening your heart. no religion is needed.

hope all of this helps and i pray for a wind at your back on this journey you are undertaking, it is well worth the effort.

ff

If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.

Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies; but the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality.

They alone live whose lives are in the whole universe. The more we concentrate our lives in limited things, the faster we go towards death. Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.

As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?


Quotes from Swami Vivekananda in relation to death.

Wow thankyou to everyone who responded honestly it did help but it seems I keep going up and down first i love life and i see it as wonderful and then i get so low i cant help it i just want it to stop. I thought i was doing pretty well but i don't know these feelings of helplessness are so intense! is there anyway i might be clincally depressed because i really go up and down i dont think this is they way a person should be living.