Soul Rescuers: A 21st century guide to the spirit world. Natalia O’Sullivan
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for dying.
Bishop Barrington Ward
In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying Soygal Rinpoche recommends a simple but extremely powerful visualization practice known as phowa for both those who are dying and those who are caring for them. Phowa means the ‘transference of consciousness’ and is a simple meditative process of relaxing the body while the mind invokes an embodiment of whatever the practitioner believes in. This can be Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mary, St Francis, a guardian angel or simply a vision of pure golden light. Everyone is encouraged to visualize their own embodiment of the divine filling the heart and mind with a peace which allows the soul to merge with a pure body of light.
For the rest of us the monks advise that we reach our death thinking loving and compassionate thoughts, praying to be reborn in the realms of golden light or as another human being on the journey toward enlightenment and holding our own vision of Divine Truth in our mind’s eye as darkness comes.
The breath of life which enters our bodies at birth in a great inhalation then leaves us with a sigh.
DEATH
What does death feel like? More than eight million people have died and come back to life again and they come back with extraordinary tales of the world beyond. What is remarkable is that most people tell similar stories and remember the whole experience with astonishing clarity. Dr Raymond Moody’s collection of case studies, Life after Life (Mockingbird Books, 1975), one of the first books on the subject, identified a number of what he called ‘core experiences’.
In every instance people describe the sensations of dying as feelings of peace, stillness and serenity. Once out of their bodies, when they hear the doctors or onlookers pronounce them dead, they move toward a long dark tunnel at the end of which is a brilliant white light which draws them onward and envelops them in an all-consuming love. Even those with no religious convictions or belief in an afterlife have similar experiences and describe the light as emanating from an ancestor, angel, religious figure or other spiritual being.
Some people have come back describing encounters with pure light beings or angels who look like the angels of classical art – people of extraordinary grace and beauty with wings growing out of their shoulders. Others claim to have met spiritual masters like Jesus or Buddha. Usually they are asked telepathically what they have done with their lives. Few feel judged or afraid and most feel such peace that they do not want to return. Most of the ‘near dead’ feel unconditional love and safety in this light. Few of them want to return and yet all of them are turned back. There is usually a boundary, a wall, a river or a great sea beyond which they cannot pass. It is usually here that they are given instructions or the choice to return.
Soizic Aureli remembers the terrible shock of plummeting back into a body wracked with pain after dying during an operation for cancer when she was 33. When she left her body she had been given a clear choice:
This angel-type person said to me: ‘You can stay if you want in this dimension, but you have not done anything that you came to do in your life yet. If you choose to go back you have to change your life completely and make sure that you carry out your mission in this life.’
Going back wasn’t easy for Soizic. She was unhappy in her marriage and dissatisfied with her job. She felt trapped by her life and hated working in the corporate world. The cancer and the radiotherapy had made her weak and tired. She really wanted to stay. But she suddenly remembered her youngest daughter, who was only three-and-a-half years old. ‘I had to go back to be with her because I knew that no one else would look after her. I also knew that whatever happened I would change my life completely.’
To be in the Light, even for a second, is so overwhelming that simply to have the experience is tantamount to the glory of transcendence. It leaves a mark on your soul, deep and profound.
P. M. H. Atwater, Beyond the Light (Birch Lane Press, 1994)
When she came back she did just that. She decided not to listen to the doctors anymore, stopped taking the pills and discharged herself from hospital when they told her she would have no more than two months to live. She called her homoeopath, changed her diet, took alternative remedies, got back on her feet quite quickly, then left her marriage and changed her job.
Today she is a counsellor who works with psychosynthesis, which she describes as ‘soul psychology’. Many of her clients have cancer.
The vast majority of people who leave their body give compelling descriptions of the unearthly light and blissful atmosphere they encounter. P. M. H. Atwater, who wrote Beyond the Light after she herself had died and come back three times, found that nearly everyone who had seen this extraordinary light felt that they had been in the presence of God, no matter what their previous beliefs.
For most people the experience of ‘near death’ is overwhelmingly positive, but people have also gone to places which are dark and frightening. Survivors have described falling through a vortex or being on the edge of a dark whirlpool surrounded by swirling clouds, being surrounded by the noises of groaning and screaming, and seeing grotesque human or animal forms. Panic, loneliness and fear overwhelm them and the people they meet are often shadowy figures who do not recognize them and who seem trapped and unhappy. In these cases the survivors fight to get back, struggling against forces which seem to hold them in order to prevent their return.
When Joey Rae died for some 30 minutes after a heart bypass operation she saw everything in the operating theatre – bells ringing, machines flashing, a flat line on the monitor and the panic. Her first feelings were relatively calm; she felt very light and knew that she was either going to die or was already dead.
This inner knowing just took over. I was not scared anymore and I wanted to take charge of my life for the first time. I wanted to stop being the victim I had always been.
Soizic Aureli
A man she did not recognize came and took her hand. It was her biological father whom she had only met once when she was four years old. As she saw this dark man leading herself as a young girl toward a bright illuminated tunnel she began to feel scared and a huge sadness came over her. She rapidly recollected her family and a sense of loss engulfed her. She became acutely aware that they really needed her, especially her five-year-old grandson. Then I became very upset and angry. It started to feel as though I was in a nightmare. I really had to struggle to get back into my body.’
She hovered between life and death for days. Her family focused their love and attention on her. The illness had been sudden and Joey Rae was still young. They were all deeply afraid that she might die and absolutely unwilling to accept that she was going to leave them.
Joey Rae’s brain had suffered some damage and she had lost sensation in the left side of her body, but after 17 days in intensive care she was taken off the critical list and returned to the ward. After only a few weeks she was completely back to normal. Her personality, sense of humour and determination came back in full force but she had changed in the way she approached life and her family.
The experience has also completely changed her daughter Nikkita’s vision of life:
I realized the power that will, the mind and love have over our destiny. We have a choice. Nothing is predestined. It has taught me about the power of love and how love can act as a really strong magnet to the confused and injured spirit.
People always return changed. In shamanic cultures the near death experience is created on purpose by putting initiates through life-threatening situations and debilitating physical hardship in order to make them aware of other states of being. They are the teachers and healers of the rest of the community because of the knowledge that they bring back with them from the realms of infinity. In the West survivors of ‘near death’ also often change their life course and become healers and spiritual teachers, helping others to overcome their fear of death.
Denise Linn, the internationally renowned healer, lecturer and writer was shot and almost killed when she was just 17. When she got to the hospital she was in an incredible amount of pain and she was aware