EDITORIAL: Death, Dying — and Life by Drunvalo

In this issue, we will expand into the final frontier of our physical experience on Earth: death, dying, and beyond. In death, we leave this world and enter the higher worlds — an experience for which many people often are truly unprepared. We would like to help in this preparation.

Life seldom thinks of Death. When it does, it often views the possibility as if it were a movie. And somehow we personally see ourselves as immune — unless, of course, we find ourselves actually dying. Humans live in the moment, and normally feel as though they are going to live forever. We all know that we are someday ''supposed'' to die, but we live as though death will never happen.

From my personal view of the human spirit, life is eternal. We just change forms — or move into no form at all — but we continue. From Alpha to Omega, from the beginning to the end, we continue. And in the end there is always the beginning. Uroborus.[1]

''Continuing,'' however, can have many implications. Often, people — especially ill and depressed people — think only of dying itself and how it will affect them personally. They don't see the bigger picture of their lives.

The Religious/Spiritual View
All over the world there are diverse religions and spiritual pathways which hold that death is not the end. Christians believe that Jesus realized he was the Son of God, and in so doing used a path of consciousness that resurrected his body from the dead. According to Christianity, Jesus consciously walked into the higher dimensions of life, where he remembered His immortality. We are invited to follow.

Many other religions, such as Tibetian Buddism and most Hindu religions, believe in reincarnation, where the person who dies is reborn, entering a cycle that leads back to Earth — back into other human experiences where more is learned. The cycle continues until the disciple realizes Self and finds resurrection or ascension.

In the Spirit of Truth
Is it true, what so many billions of humans have believed from the beginning, that immortality is real?

Some people believe the answer is no. They are certain that the ideas we are going to be discussing in this issue are the thoughts of crackpots. They think that ''immortality'' and ''God'' are concepts created by the human mind to give hope to a world that is actually controlled only by what they understand as ''cause and effect.''

The spiritual worldview, the skeptics hold, gives hope and reason — but there is no proof. And so in their minds they see this manifestation that we call Reality as something that simply exists. It just ''is.'' There is no God to blame it on.

But in fact there are no ''scientific'' proofs that affect the nature of Reality. Even hard science consists of theories. And yet, as we have put forth in past issues, even hard science now finds that its attempts to understand Reality come closer to the spiritual view than to any mechanistic explanation.

So in this issue and the next, we are going to explore the possibilities, asking many well-known authors and personalities to share their beliefs and experiences, to open their hearts and give us the wisdom that they have learned and lived.

This August issue will center on death, dying, and after-death experiences that are still linked to this plane. These are the aspects of death and dying that are actually part of this life, that are known and have been experienced by many. Unfortunately, however, these aspects are often regarded with fear. But it is my knowing that if dying were truly understood, it would be seen as beautiful, simply a transition to another birth in another world.

Continuing next month, in September, we will gaze beyond the veil that soon falls when earthbound spirits leave this plane. We will listen to people from around the Earth to hear the wisdom they have learned about the cycles of rebirth, and what exists on the ''other side.'' This will include the ideas of reincarnation, resurrection, and ascension.

Seeing through others' eyes can help prepare us, so that the journey we all must take will be lit with Love, rather than darkened in fear.

Facing our fears may be one of the greatest first steps we can ever take. And Love just may be the greatest wisdom.

In love and service,

Drunvalo

Footnotes:

Uroborus (also spelled Ouroboros) is the classic image of the snake biting its own tail. The snake in itself is linear — but in feeding back upon itself it becomes the archetype of the eternal cycle of Being. In the classic Jungian framework, the tail-biting Uroborus is the symbolic depiction of the Self.