Recognising the death process.

[Tony]

Recognising the death process.
This is a Tibetan Bardo supplication by Kunga Paljor. Translated by Gerardo Abboud.

It is a short prayer, but it also describes the process of so-called death, the intermediate state and reincarnation. You may think its all rubbish, that's ok, it doesn't hurt to glance through it. It does need a commentary to go with it, but this maybe helpful on its own, though there is more details available, from other sources. My basic source comes from Trungpa's Tibetan Book of the Dead, but I have been to many teachings on the subject.

It is basically is a reminder of what to lookout for.

One of the problems I have found in life, is that you cannot ask questions on a subject you did not know existed. Basically if one can recognise that everything is our own projection, we can either become enlightened or go to a higher realm to finish ones practice.

We have all been through this before but simply forget. We forget because we still believe and hold onto everything as being real/solid. It is that simple. There is more to this reincarnation business than meets the eye. I suppose it could seem like a nightmare, if you believe this is all to be real!


Namo mahamudraya,

1. Comprehending all phenomena as illusory,
Free from impure illusion, you discovered the pure kayas.
Leader who guide illusory beings,
To your illusory form I go for refuge.

2. Lord,who has an illusory body,
Bless me and all beings tricked by illusion,
So that, undeceived by illusory phenomena,
We recognise the nature of illusion.

3. At the time of discarding this transient illusory body,
Bless us so that by cutting all ties of attachment, aversion and grasping,
And resting naturally in unfabricated mind essence,
We take death as the path.

4. At death, outer phenomena cease:
Sight and the rest of the five senses gradually stop,
And forms and the rest of the objects dissolve one by one.
When this happens, bless us to recognise the stages of dissolution.

5. As earth,water,fire and air dissolve into consciousness,
Vitality wanes, one is thirsty and mouth ans nose dry up,
warmth fades, breathing shortens and rattles.
At that time, bless us to take the pain of dying as the path.

6. Consciousness dissolves into luminosity and the outer breath stops,
While the inner breath continues during the four instants:
Appearance, increase, attainment, and great luminosity.
Bless us to recognise them, one by one.

7. The inner sign of appearance is smoke like, the outer sign the rising moon,
And the thirty-three concepts deriving from aggression subside.
Bless us that, at this time,
We remain clear, alert and determined.

8. The inner sign of increase, is like fireflies, the outer sign the rising sun,
And the forty concepts deriving from passion subside.
Bless us that, at this time,
Aware and mindful, we recognise them.

9. The inner sign of attainment is like a burning lamp,
The outer is blackness, like an eclipse,
And the seven concepts deriving from ignorance subside.
Bless us that, at this time, we recognise all with perfect attention.

10. When the fourth instant, the great luminosity, dawns,
The inner sign is like a cloudless sky,
And the outer sign is like the break of day.
Bless us that, at this time, mother and child luminosity merge.

11. If consciousness does not rest there but instead shifts
To the navel, in between eyebrows, cranium, nose, ears,
eyes urinary tract, anus or mouth,
Bless us to block these nine and open the one exit.

12. Gods of desire, form or formless; or gods, jealous gods,
Humans, animals, hell beings or hungry ghosts;
Bless us that we close the doors to rebirth as these,
And dakas and dakinis welcome us in the celestial realms.

13. If consciousness were to wonder in the bardo,
Then, not knowing we are dead, we will despair of relatives and friend,
Who don't respond even though we want to relate to them.
Bless us that , at this time,the ties of attachment and aversion are severed.

14. When, endowed with full sense faculties and miraculous karmic power,
One may go anywhere unimpeded,
Except to Mount Meru, Vajrasana and one's mother's womb,
Bless us that we know it all to be an illusion.

15. Sun and moon are invisible and the body casts no shadow.
Just by thinking, one can go around the billion solar systems,
Helpless, like a feather blown about by the wind.
When this happens, bless us to master our own minds.

16. One feeds on smell, and the mind rapidly flickers.
When myriad deluded experiences occur,
And afraid and sad we become depressed,
Bless us that we recognise these as delusions.

17. At times, remembrance is extremely clear,
But immediately one forgets,
And one doubts whether one is dead or alive.
When this happens, bless us to know we are unequivocally dead.

18. Three and a half days after death,
One realises one is dead,
And, depressed and disheartened, seek a refuge.
Bless us to know, at that time, our own awareness to be the refuge.

19. When we realise that state is the bardo,
Visualizing our body as the deity, then meditate on luminosity,
And further meditating on their indivisibility,
Bless us that, by this, the pure illusory form arises.

20. When terrifies at collapsing mountains, raging oceans, blazing forests,
And the sound resembling the howling gale at the end of times,
Roaring together with a thousand thunders,
Bless us to perceive these as the natural sounds of reality.

21. When the five coloured light rays clash and shine,
And from seeming spheres of light of all sizes,
Appear terrifying wrathful forms roaring orders to strike and kill,
Bless us to perceive these, our own projections, as the deity.

22. When, terrified, we feel we are plummeting
Into the abyss of the whiteness, redness and blackness,
Arising from passion, aggression and ignorance,
Bless us to perceive this, our own projection, as pure.

23. When the body of our next birth takes form,
And the white, red, yellow, blue and black lights,
Of gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings appear,
Bless us to know these five pathways one by one.

24. When seeing gods enjoying sensual pleasures in celestial palaces,
Lakes adorned with swans, royal bulls and horses,
And in a mansion our parents in union,
Bless us that attraction, aversion and jealousy are purified.

25. When, driven by gale, rain, clouds heat and cold,
We approach a cave, a ravine a wooden log, and so forth,
And feel like entering them to find refuge.
Bless us that we know these to be bad places for rebirth.

26. Seeing house of slaughter, fire or iron,
Attracted to them, we feel like entering.
Bless us to recognise our own nature and be fearless,
And so turn away from these bad places for rebirth.

27. Envy and jealousy in the case of birth through womb or egg;
Attraction to smell and taste in the case of birth by warmth and moisture;
Or attachment to the places of miraculous birth;
When these arise, bless us to have no desire, aversion and craving.

28. When seeing one's parents, or the other modes of birth,
Bless us that, free of attraction or aversion, knowing these to be illusory
And remembering the recognition of the natural state,
Without clinging, we close the door to the womb.

29. If, unsuccessful, we are to take birth,
Bless us that, upon remembering,
We are born in Sukhavati, Tu****a or Abhirati;
Or as a chakavartin, or in the bramin caste.

30. As soon as we are born, may we remember our previous life,
And have the fortune of practising the Mahayana Dharma.
Through love, may we generate the purely altruistic attitude,
And persevering, quickly attain enlightenment.

31. By the blessing power of the buddhas and bodhisattvas,
The pure nature of absolute reality,
And also our pure wishes,
May we achieve these aspirations as expressed.


(When it talks of the red and white elements, these are the reversing elements of the mother and father seeds. I think the red descends from the throat, and the white ascend from the navel. They meet in the heart centre and that is when a blackness occurs, so from then one is unconscious for three and a half days.)

It is important to recognise the early stages of death for oneself and others, so we can relate to it in an honest way, whatever your beliefs.


Tony

[Tenzin]

I heard in a talk before that when we have dreams of a rising red landscape, or soaked up by anything red coming from below, it could be a sign of our physical life coming to an end soon. Just sharing it off my head.

And there it is again!

7. The inner sign of appearance is smoke like, the outer sign the rising moon,
And the thirty-three concepts deriving from aggression subside.
Bless us that, at this time,
We remain clear, alert and determined.

33 vertebrae of the spine, and the 33 degree freemason. David Wilcock said something about these in his Source Field intro vid.

[TraineeHuman]

We are heavily conditioned to believe that death is the ultimate tragedy, the greatest evil. That conditioning comes from Christianity and Western culture, and some other religions – though I don’t think the Tibetan ones should be included.

It seems to me the truth is, death is the most misunderstood subject of all. Because the conditioning that shouts in your ear that death is the ugliest thing of all really is so strong, I hesitate to say my next sentence. And maybe some people might think I’ve gone off the deep end for saying this. But death is the most beautiful thing of all, once we really understand what it is deeply. I appreciate you might easily not agree with me on this point for years to come. Still, it’s worth my saying this, because you will experience physical death at some time in the future. And liberation as I understand it means not having your experience of death at that time cluttered with any delusions of ugliness or terror at all.

Here in Australia the Aboriginal peoples regard funerals as primarily a time for full-on rejoicing. Partly also for doing some mourning, but I understand that is a modern addition. For Western influence has weakened some of these people’s ability to stay with the traditional understanding (and the telepathic experience of what is happening to somebody as they die and afterwards).

How can death be beautiful? For one thing, we happen to be eternal (actually, both in time and beyond time). So our dissolution can never be into nothing. Actually, there is no such thing as nothing (except in the world of theory, where we have the zero). So, death is really just a kind of sideways movement of life. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating suicide.

And I guess this is a secret to some people, but ultimately, death is the same thing as deep meditation. And I do mean literally, in many ways. Not physically, but in the sense of letting go of all, of accepting all, forgiving all, of leaving everything behind you. Look at the verses Tony has translated. After verse 17 the text is describing the process of re-conception and re-birth. But before that, we have the detaching of the physical senses, and the willingness to leave everything behind for the sake of the jewel of greatest price.

Death is also a little like space. Without space, we would have no room to move, and no free will because all our possible choices would be tied to each other. Death is rather like the out-breath of life. Without it, we could have no in-breath, no life. Proper meditation is really the art of dying, of deeply understanding and experiencing and enjoying the glory of peace and oneness.

[ROMANWKT]

Wonderful stuff Tony, I am working on something like that now, very good, thank you.

regards
roman

[Tony]

In the text it talks about six types of humans, six types of characteristics: Gods, Jealous gods, human, animal, hungry ghosts and hell beings. I'll just give a quick description of each one.
We all have one or more of these characteristics.

Gods – people who have it all, but will suffer much when it goes. = ignorant.
Jealous gods – people who build defences around themselves, are competitive. = envy.
Humans – desire. = passion
Animal – no humour, no feeling, serious. = stupid.
Hungry ghosts – greedy. = Pride.
Hell beings – frozen. = anger.

But as usual there is the other side – They also represent the Five Buddha families!

Gods- Wisdom of all encompassing space.
Jealous gods – All accomplish wisdom.
Humans – Discriminating wisdom.
Animals - Wisdom of all encompassing space.
Hungry ghost – Wisdom of equality.
Hell beings – Mirror like wisdom.

This bring us to the coloured lights we spoke about a few weeks ago. The first week after death, each day, beings of brilliant light will come towards us, inviting us to recognise our true nature and the Buddha realms. Together with this will come beings of dull lights inviting us to one of those six realms, spoken of earlier.

It's really to do with our psychological make up (the ideas we carry around with us =karma)
and our true absolute nature.

[Mark]

its never too early to prepare. no one knows the day or the hour ... im thankful that our memories are really photographic despite our beliefs to the contrary. what about the different lights experienced upon death? blue or white?

[Tony]

its never too early to prepare. no one knows the day or the hour ... im thankful that our memories are really photographic despite our beliefs to the contrary. what about the different lights experienced upon death? blue or white?

Funny you should ask that. At the end of the 49 days in the bardo, when we have to take an incarnation, blue is for humans, white is for Gods. I still haven't decide...I think I'll come back and muck around with you lot!

[Davidallany]

Funny you should ask that. At the end of the 49 days in the bardo, when we have to take an incarnation, blue is for humans, white is for Gods. I still haven't decide...I think I'll come back and muck around with you lot!
One of my teachers used to say when I would tell him about the vows of the bodhisattva. It not important, if I can not come back then I will not come back, desiring to come back is an attachment, I think the Dalai Lama have that attachment, that's why he keeps coming back. This same teacher talks to people every weekend about the vows of the bodhisattva, so when I ask him why would he not just tell people truth, he would say people are not true, only you and me are true

[Tony]

Funny you should ask that. At the end of the 49 days in the bardo, when we have to take an incarnation, blue is for humans, white is for Gods. I still haven't decide...I think I'll come back and muck around with you lot!
One of my teachers used to say when I would tell him about the vows of the bodhisattva. It not important, if I can not come back then I will not come back, desiring to come back is an attachment, I think the Dalai Lama have that attachment, that's why he keeps coming back. This same teacher talks to people every weekend about the vows of the bodhisattva, so when I ask him why would he not just tell people truth, he would say people are not true, only you and me are true

That's love for you...........:kiss::luv::luv:

[Davidallany]

This bring us to the coloured lights we spoke about a few weeks ago. The first week after death, each day, beings of brilliant light will come towards us, inviting us to recognise our true nature and the Buddha realms. Together with this will come beings of dull lights inviting us to one of those six realms, spoken of earlier.

It's really to do with our psychological make up (the ideas we carry around with us =karma)
Upon meeting a very powerful lama years ago, I was given two magic straws, one shorter than the other, the lama said put the shorter straw under the bed and longer straw under the pillow when you go to sleep, then tell me what you see tomorrow
What I saw was terrifying, if you have seen Tibetan dancing Lamas with those masks on them. That's what I saw, those beings with lions heads, they're 10 feet tall and very muscular, enraged and making terrible sounds, everything was aflame, burning red fire, eating at buildings doors and windows, there where blue creatures, green creature and red ones. Terrified,I attempted to flee, the red one caught me with one stride and pressed my head down to the ground where a gruesome human skull was lying there with one eye and some Flesh still one it, I thought I was going to die from fear.

The next day, the lama started by addressing everyone in the room, thusly
Do not worry if you saw hell like place, the lords are harmless they just want to show you your true nature, all you need to do is practice more meditation to be free

[Someoneson1]

Nice Tony and thanks. I to have come to the same conclusion the meeting of the first division and the end of suffering is hidden in the heart. Nice stuff thank you again.

[Tony]

Though what is being described may sound like jargon, this is only because of the source of the text.

In reality it is all down to our intention/feeling, nothing more elaborate. At the end of the time in the Bardo, if one does not have a 'practice' the text suggests that one invokes the Lord of Compassion. Now, from a Tibetan practitioners point of view that means Chenrezi. But, Chenrezi is only a reflection of your own compassion. Identifying ones own compassion is for one own benefit, not Chenrezi.

If you are Theistic the Lord of compassion would be God. If you are non-theistic that Lord of compassion would be basic human goodness. It's all the same. It is in the intention.

Some of us use middle management, some of us do not, some of us us a mixture of the two!

[Star1111]

its never too early to prepare. no one knows the day or the hour ... im thankful that our memories are really photographic despite our beliefs to the contrary. what about the different lights experienced upon death? blue or white?

Funny you should ask that. At the end of the 49 days in the bardo, when we have to take an incarnation, blue is for humans, white is for Gods. I still haven't decide...I think I'll come back and muck around with you lot!

Tony - I'm interested to know more about what happens during the 49 days in the bardo.
Then you say that we HAVE to take a reincarnation.
I don't believe we HAVE to I believe it is by agreement. Although I do believe that the majority of souls DO reincarnate IF they haven't learned ALL that they were meant to learn in the last reincarnation.
Your thoughts?

[Tony]

its never too early to prepare. no one knows the day or the hour ... im thankful that our memories are really photographic despite our beliefs to the contrary. what about the different lights experienced upon death? blue or white?

Funny you should ask that. At the end of the 49 days in the bardo, when we have to take an incarnation, blue is for humans, white is for Gods. I still haven't decide...I think I'll come back and muck around with you lot!

Tony - I'm interested to know more about what happens during the 49 days in the bardo.
Then you say that we HAVE to take a reincarnation.
I don't believe we HAVE to I believe it is by agreement. Although I do believe that the majority of souls DO reincarnate IF they haven't learned ALL that they were meant to learn in the last reincarnation.
Your thoughts?

I'm not sure who we make an agreement with.
The HAVE is the wind of karma which we create, it is happening now.
The learning is about realising ones true nature, and exhausting one's karma.

Most of us are blown around by our fixated ideas we carry around, creating more karma.
When the hurricane of karma is at full speed, there is no time to make an agreement- you just react!

[Tony]

Until we can break out of this karmic cycle, we will just keep going round in circles.

Karma is the result of cause and effect.

Let's say we are a bubble of pure consciousness, of no dimension. This pure consciousness just perceives = pure perception, as there is no reaction there is no cause for an effect. Merely pure perception. This pure knowing, knows that there is nothing out there that has any reality, as it is all impermanent, merely parts of atoms moving in out space.

Now, if we do not notice our pure empty nature, we are just left with consciousness, only one side of the equation. When this happens judgements are made, because instead of seeing ourselves and everything as empty of true existence, we now see everything as real, and we want to interact with it. Ego has been created. It now looks out, and likes what is sees, it dislikes what it sees or it ignores what it sees. It is now reacting, as if it were a permanent fixed state so we get very busy creating, looking for happiness.

Because we ignore our true pure nature, we get attracted and repulsed by things. These things that have no true existence have now been given a reality, because we are now reacting to them.

This reaction to temporary object 'out there' leaves an imprint in the bubble, let's make it a black spot. We have identified something, created a concept about it, which we now carry around. We carry on making speculations about things and self, creating more dots. This becomes a filter through which we see everything. That is the effect. The bubble gets foggy with dots.

Actually the bubble itself is as clear as crystal.

We have been collecting information and making judgments for a very long time. These concepts which we hold onto create effects which causes more concepts about the world we see. We interact with others and the world reacts to us because of our reaction. This is karma, the imprints in our bubble create karma, the world we live in.

The world we live in maybe different from your neighbours. As you sow so you reap. It is not punishment, it just is.....justice!

This is why it is so important to be at peace. As there are so many distractions out there, and in the mind, we need constant reminding.

[Dawn]

Thanks for this Tony. I have read 'On Death and Dying' by Elizabeth Kubler Ross. And I have spent a lot of time in very deep meditation. In addition I have had a couple of serious accidents in which I experienced death. In all of this I felt no fear.

One thing which came as an inner guide was to 'practice dying'. Later I learned this is an important exercise in India. The idea is to do a meditation laying down in which you imagine that your body is dead, as you do this you watch the flesh decay off the bones and then continue observing what happens to the body. It is and experience that is quite beautiful if you can overcome any aversion you have to the process. I imagine we have all had many many lifetimes where we have practiced various techniques and these come back to us when needed.

I have also been gifted with being with a number of people and animals at their death. This has been quite enlightening to me. My dog, for example, hung around for a week before she began to fade away and come only occasionally to visit. She seemed extremely real to me when she was here.

My mom's death was amazing. There was more bliss and joy in my being for the 6 months after her death than at any time during her life. I am certain that this came from her, as a parting gift. There was lots of magic in the house after her passing, such as books flying off shelves and falling on the floor open to a poem with her hand written notes beside them. Everyone in the family was visited by her once after her death in a deeply meaningful exchange.

My father knew he was going to die and called each person in the family to say good bye. Then he donned his mountaineering clothes and held his ice axe as he died alone at home this year. He had trouble leaving after his death, and his daughters, including me, all meditated with him afterwards to keep him focused upon his death process. He kept getting confused and coming home, where he could not find his body. This caused upset in the energy of the house as his anger at not finding his body would grow to a towering rage, which was felt as the air vibrating. He needed this help and support for about 30 days, however the 'events of rage' became farther and farther apart as time passed.

And, finally, there was the man who came to me repeatedly and would not take 'No' for an answer. He found me in a hospital in Mexico where I was attending one of my ill clients as her live-in healer. He could not figure out how to die, which he strongly desired. The hospital had his body was in severe pain and hooked up to all kinds of machines, which kept it alive despite the severity of illness. He kept trying to leave, however with his body still alive, this was not possible on a permanent basis. Weird! Anyway, he finally convinced me to approach his family, who were total strangers to me, and ask to help him die by using the touch of my hands. I was pretty concerned about the reception I would have, however the family was very relieved at my offer. The love that poured through me that day was so intense, I know I was being used as a channel for some beneficial work that needed doing. I told the body that it had done a marvelous job and was deeply loved, then I offered it enough energy to complete the dying process. I experienced brilliant white and golden light during this process. I never met the man, it seemed his body was empty when I got there, however the eyes were still open beseeching me over the various breathing tubes and machines. The body died peacefully 15 minutes after I left, (the family shared with me the next day) and about an hour afterwards, the being I recognized as the owner of the body, came to me to express gratitude.

I really like what you shared. I don't think things work intellectually for me ... it seems I am a very experiential person. These experiences in my life have removed the fear of death for me. I'm not sure I buy that coming back or not has anything to do with success.. or not. My personal understanding is that everyone has the experience that they resonate with and that they are ready for.... rather like apples on a tree that ripen in the order they do, and are simply ripe when they are.

After years as a Zen student, the one lasting effect it had was to create a deep sense of worry and shame. I was somehow 'not trying hard enough' and some part of me was 'not perfected yet'. It took a long time to lay down that acquired burden of belief. When I read the words above, I get a sense of not understanding their meaning and the same old sneaky 'judgement of myself' comes back in. Do you think that knowing these things intellectually will really help? I hope they do that for you.

Perhaps these words remind you of former times that you have died, and therefore stimulate a conscious awareness of the process??? I guess I have not practiced that particular path of understanding because they don't do that for me (yet?)

[Tony]

Hello Abundant Traveller,

It is not easy talking about oneself. I have been given the direct pointing out instruction of the nature of mind several times, and it hit home. The only thought that came to mind after was...”Is that all!”

I cannot even call it a practice, it is merely resting in the view, meditation is just that continuity or conduct from that. I do quite a bit of analytical meditation, this helps the review the logic of every aspect. It also helps when trying to explain things to others. Close investigation also clears any doubt.

Intuition does plays a large part in the process, but yidam practice seems to open up...hmm I'll stop there! We all have different temperaments and paths there is supposed to be 84.000. Whatever I am doing really helps me and I hope others, I am totally satisfied.

All the best to you,
Tony

[panopticon]

G'day All,

I once asked Geshe about the imagery depicted in the Bardo Thodol.
My question was related to how non-Buddhists would perceive the "passage" (after death process).
He explained that the experience is still based on illusion and as such the perception is uniquely that of the individual.
So while a Buddhist/Hindu may perceive the "passage" as depicted above, those of a Judeo* background might first see the clear light and then saints, demons, etc (think Dante's 'Divine Comedy') while those who held different beliefs would see as their illusion perception dictated.

My point is that self realisation during the passage can lead to liberation and this is non-dogma based.

Tony is completely correct when he says there are at least 84,000 paths.

Reality ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Kind Regards, :yo:
Panopticon

[Davidallany]

David Icke has been attempting to show people the illusory nature of mind, thought, existence, etc. I think it's working. Keep doing what you're doing Tony. I think it's working.

[Fred Steeves]

We are heavily conditioned to believe that death is the ultimate tragedy, the greatest evil. That conditioning comes from Christianity and Western culture, and some other religions – though I don’t think the Tibetan ones should be included.

It seems to me the truth is, death is the most misunderstood subject of all. Because the conditioning that shouts in your ear that death is the ugliest thing of all really is so strong, I hesitate to say my next sentence. And maybe some people might think I’ve gone off the deep end for saying this. But death is the most beautiful thing of all, once we really understand what it is deeply.

Perfect. I feel that our perception of death in the western world is amongst the biggest of lies drilled into our heads since we are little children. Right down to our sobbing at cold granite grave markers, as if THAT is where our loved ones are. It's tragic, and yet you are right on, to voice this observation is to be seen as cold and uncaring.

Also, one of the most important things I've learned from Buddhism, and other experiences to boot, is that how we act and feel during our time of dying, may be THE singular most important thing we ever do in our lifetime.

My wife and I have already promised each other that we are not going to be buried, or have a funeral. Whoever goes first, the other is to have a little private ceremony of dumping the other's ashes into the river that we have both spent so many happy years enjoying togeter. Afterwords, if I go first anyway, I've made my wife promise to have everyone we know get together, and have a big party. A grand send off if you will. I want to see laughing, joking, drinking, and hear everyone's funniest stories of the times we shared.

Yes indeed, a celebration of life!

Cheers,
Fred

[NancyV]

I had one major near death experience when I was 37 and died from loss of blood in childbirth... a home birth. What a great way to die! It was very easy. Since I had been meditating and leaving my body for the previous 4 years, the death experience was somewhat different than any of the stages mentioned in the Tibetan bardo. When I died I immediately went to a place where I was a luminous "bubble" and although all the consciousnesses existing there were in constant communication and connected, we were still slightly separate in that we were separate luminous bubbles.

I knew I had died but my earthly existence meant nothing to me and I had no thoughts of loved ones. It seemed like I existed there for millions of years, because that's the only way I can explain "no time" or timelessness. The other beings communicated to me that I was being sent back. I said NO, I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK!!! The next thing I remember is waking up in the car on the way to the hospital which was 45 minutes away, and I was saying NO NO NO....and laughing. I laughed for hours and often during the next few days. I was in a state of bliss.

This experience differed from leaving my body during meditation in that I did experience many of the stages in the Tibetan bardo while traveling on other dimensions. I went through the stages of seeing gods and goddesses, fighting with demons, being pulled down into a burning red "hell", feeling tremendous fear, merging with beings, and finally totally surrendering to love and merging with the Source. The first few times I left my body while meditating it FELT like I was dying because in the transition as the soul is exiting the body it can feel like suffocating. I guess it's because I could no longer feel my body breathing... and that scared me at the time.

I thought of what Sant Kirpal Singh said: "Learn to die so that you may begin to live". I didn't realize that it was meant literally! So when I finally let go and allowed myself to "die", I then popped out of my body and my years of out of body travels began. I was immediately met by a glowing godlike being of light and love in that first experience. It felt like my long lost true love! I began to follow the Sikh practice I was an initiate of and chant the words we had been given to say upon meeting a godlike being..... but this being laughed. Since we had total telepathy I understood that I was loved and that these practices of "protection" were not needed. In fact they were considered quite amusing in a loving way. I did know enough to not worship any godlike being. There are many beings who like to gather worshipers, so those who are inclined to fall into their traps may get stuck somewhere for quite a while... which is fine.

It still took me several months and many out of body experiences to really understand that "no protection" is actually the greatest protection of all, but I had to go through many scary situations to learn about and totally tap into the power of unconditional love. Love is more powerful than anything and needs no shield. It can transmute any negative being or situation into love. Of course it doesn't work as well or as quickly for most of us on this physical plane so we often need to use other tools for protection and to combat negativity.

I don't know why I was sent back and would not have chosen to come back, but it felt like someone else, or my higher self knew that I needed to be here for some reason. Being here is great and I've been enjoying this life, but I'll also be thrilled when I finally die! I'm definitely looking forward to it. As far as reincarnating I used to think I would not want to reincarnate. When you merge with the Source and participate in the Creation you finally realize that it doesn't matter if you are within the Source or within the Creation. It's all One, there is no time, there are no "places" and it's all good fun. We are here playing in density and I'm enjoying it no matter what level or density I perceive myself to be temporarily inhabiting.

Nancy :)

[EileenCookies]

Death is a journey, just like living moment to moment is one for me and could be for anyone that chooses to perceive reality directly. Whether there is a three days and a bardo is a perception and another idea.

...
So this just came in, 24 hours after I wrote the above, the bardo exist here. It is the perpuatual state of non-existing we experience as aging.

Further explaining:
I perceive the bardo, from outside of duality, as a key to understanding the process of living as present human beings. If we are not present with ourselves, we glow negatively and that changes the cells into half death aspects that can be perceived energicially.

If you are unawares of your dark features, your negative out-pourings, then you are perpuatually glowing in the dark forces and those will be represented as half dead cells in your human form. Which 'age' and look brown (energically).

I see this dark area in the brain of myself last evening and kept my focus on them till they lit up (if you like to see them for yourselves let me know and I will see if I can 'send' that intelligence to you....ps. might need a few personal emails to get me to 'know' you).

eh

[another bob]

Greetings, Friends!

It was about 10 PM, and I was commuting from Boston to New York in late September of 1984. It had been a bumpy year, so to speak, and I was on the brink of a rather complex career turning point. Earlier that afternoon, I had just retrieved my car from a Boston body shop after a damaging encounter with a runaway bus in Cuban Harlem. This had been my second visit to that particular sheet metal doctor, who was kind enough to remind me, as I drove away, that "the third time is the charm". In retrospect, I must admit that these little clichés, floating around in the vast collective consciousness, sometimes have an odd way of validating themselves.

I was overly familiar with the stretch of highway that I was currently navigating, and so monkey mind had slipped into semi-automatic, entertaining the random road musings about life and work and love and mortgage payments, pasts and futures vying for attention, even as the present was rushing to itself with arms wildly waving. Glancing up, I noticed that I was approaching my designated exit along the Saw Mill Parkway. It had come up sooner than expected, punctuating my reveries. I checked the rear view mirror to see if I could move into the right lane to exit, and saw a pair of headlights in what seemed a good bit of distance behind me in the right lane. I felt comfortable about the lane switch, but as I began to cross over, I was soon rear-ended by the on-coming car, which had been moving at much faster speed than I had calculated. I was pushed into the guard rail to the right, then lost control and swerved through the rail on the left, plunging over the side of the hill.

As I plummeted down the hillside, my visibility was thwarted by the darkness and the strobe-like streaks from my headlight beams as they bounced wildly off the onrushing landscape. I knew with complete certainty that "this was it." Not only was I about to die, but it was actually going to be quite gruesome. An enormous fear raced through me on the wings of adrenaline – the primal survival response crushing up against sure knowledge of sheer ruin. Suddenly I hit the bottom of the hill, but I did not explode in a blazing fireball. Rather, my car catapulted up through the air, flipping over and over as it crossed the oncoming 2-lane highway. It continued air-borne across the service road, finally slamming into the side of the hill on the other side, where it proceeded to roll down a bit until it hung, teetering, on the edge of an embankment.

It must have been while I was in mid-air (although my recollected sense was that I had literally been lifted out of time itself) that every shred of fear was swallowed up by a great silence. This silence was deeper than I had ever known and certainly beyond my feeble adjectives, and yet curiously "familiar", as if it had always been here, just behind the chitchat of everyday mind and imagined identity. Spontaneously, there was a "knowing" that I could never be implicated by death, but more to the point – it was obvious that there had never been, nor could there ever be, such a thing as "I" – that smoky bundle of thoughts and memories that had just dissolved in mid-air like a magician’s trick. There was no car, no accident, no trace of ‘the world’. There was no narrative or story line of "my life", any life, any personal or collective history, any past or future. Alone, yet with no sense of lack or incompleteness. Awareness, boundless and inexpressible, vastness with no center, brilliant and motionless . . .

Suddenly “I” was back in the crushed driver's seat. My left foot, which had pierced through the floor board of the car, was dangling shoeless in the air over the embankment, shattered. People were milling about, sharing their disbelief that someone could have survived such a disaster, especially considering the condition of the car itself -- now a total loss. I was engulfed in tears, but these tears had nothing to do with the accident, or survival, or relief to be essentially in one piece. These tears were tears of gratitude for what I had been shown, even though it would take years to even begin to understand the real implications of that moment.

An interesting postscript to that event was brought to my attention later. Several of my friends reported intense experiences of Presence timed to that very night. Another, who was sitting hospital vigil with her husband in the final stages of his terminal illness, reported that -- at around 10 PM that night -- she was overwhelmed by a brilliant streak of light which shone through her heart and into and around her husband for several minutes. By the next day he had recovered completely from his illness, much to the bewilderment of the medical staff.

Blessings!

[Davidallany]

To be honest, I am not sure what awaits me in the time of death. Some people experience physical discomfort, confusion and fear. It's why Tibetan lamas (not mere monks) have special practices daily. It's difficult to know how one would react to scenarios. It's like dreaming and not knowing one is in a dream, let alone remembering vows, instructions or methods. It is of utmost importance to practice being conscious even when sleeping, I've done it, it's very difficult as the mind tends to drift and hallucinate, but it's very much doable and gives a person gradual control over reality.

[another bob]

To be honest, I am not sure what awaits me in the time of death. Some people experience physical discomfort, confusion and fear. It's why Tibetan lamas (not mere monks) have special practices daily. It's difficult to know how one would react to scenarios. It's like dreaming and not knowing one is in a dream, let alone remembering vows, instructions or methods. It is of utmost importance to practice being conscious even when sleeping, I've done it, it's very difficult as the mind tends to drift and hallucinate, but it's very much doable and gives a person gradual control over reality.

Greetings, Friend!

There's an apt saying:

"While alive, you make mind. When dead, mind makes you."


Blessings!

[Davidallany]

"While alive, you make mind. When dead, mind makes you."

Hello, who said that? I am not sure if mind can exist without the body though without a frame of reference :)

Pleased to meet you my friend.

[another bob]

I am not sure if mind can exist without the body though without a frame of reference :)

Greetings, Friend!

The 3D body is a fabricated prop, and so is that bundle of thoughts, memories, and fantasies of interpretation on perception which we typically take to be the mind. Moreover, there are other imaginary bodies, other provisional minds -- many with far more expansive capacities than this little ensemble we've taken out for a spin. Some forms we still identify with, some we are yet ignorant of. What matters is, none of that is ours, none of it is who we are or what we are. If it is born, it is subject to destiny. What we are is birthless, deathless. Having never been born, there is no body, no mind. Because no birth, therefore no death. This is the absolute truth -- no frame of reference, no reference to frame, no creation, no destruction, no path, no bondange, and so no liberation, nothing to be liberated, saved, redeemed, improved, or discarded. Amen.

In the relative sphere, of course, we can examine whether there is any evidence of mind existing independent of the body. The cumulative research in this area (such as provided by Michael Newton) certainly points to that possibility (not to mention nde accounts, like the one recently posted here about Anita Moorjani), but it's one thing to read about the ocean, and quite another to be tossed in. When Dogen Zenji informed his master of his awakening, he said, "Body and mind dropped off, dropped off body and mind." What remains? There's a good koan for ya! ;)

To more specifically address your inquiry, however, I'd point to testimonies that indicate one's experience of the so-called "hereafter" is determined by one's belief structure, so that Tibetan Buddhists might encouter Buddhist beings in the bardos, while Christians might encounter angels and Christ, etc., which again lends substance to the quote originally offered about the mind you made during life making you after physical death. An excellent example in this regard can be found here:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html




Pleased to meet you my friend.

Likewise!


Blessings!

[TraineeHuman]

The day when a person dies, from my observations they go through a “lightening” or “shedding” process, in the following sense. Parts of their personality, their character, drop off, as it were. They leave. These include most of the petty attachments to issues that many people tie up most of their energy being irritable or worried about. Even only one day after death, what remains is mostly all the positive qualities of the individual. But these are no longer cluttered by neuroses and conflicts that never really were of any consequence. And so what is left behind is a much stronger, happier, internally unified individual, with positive qualities that are heroic in comparison to what most people are like when they are alive in the physical world.

You could say that the person has “ascended”, in some sense of that word (probably not quite the sense people are concerned with lately). Of course this is a highly joyous experience. For many people, their death is the happiest experience of their entire life, so to speak. Not for everybody, though. As far as I know, the ones who don’t feel the glory and beauty they are shining in at this point are those who have persuaded themselves in advance that death is something to be greatly feared and very depressed about. These people are then sent to “hospitals in the sky”, sometimes for a considerable length of time.

So, let’s do our best to put an end to the disinfo that death is something to be feared. We need to do this, at least for ourselves, because such disinfo seems to totally spoil the death experience for many, to deprive them of the chance to go into an enlightenment experience at death that liberates them from returning to this vale of sorrows.

I’ll bet the Tibetan writer didn’t want it to sound scary. I’ll bet he wanted to encourage the reader that they were headed on the right track.

[Dawn]

I'd like to add to my earlier post in this thread. I used to read vociferously, and I was also a devoted student. "To what?", you might ask... "to everything I came in contact with." Eventually this led to my realizing that there are schools of through that have almost directly opposing viewpoints, yet they are both effective. When I started to see this across topics and in many, many areas I stopped trying to learn with such passion. I had finally realized that all thoughts are not true, but that they can point to the streams of consciousness from which they arise.

Simultaneously I also realized I could skip the lengthy mental learning, and simply go directly to the frequency the thoughts originated from. As long as I was in that frequency, the methods described worked and had validity. As soon as I left the frequency for another, the thoughts from the different paradigm no longer had validity.

Shortly after I wrote the post above this one, I realized how and where the Bardo information makes sense, and can be utilized. It makes sense from the consciousness stream referred to as Buddhism, which has been strengthened and enlivened for thousands of years by thousands of people. These people have made this stream a reality within this 3D world. In order to utilize the information it has and the power it possesses, Buddhists simply need to align with the frequency where this body of information resides. Focusing on the mental beliefs held there allows students of Buddhism to align vibrationally with the informational frequency of Buddhism, after which they will have full access to the underlying truths it contains.

I haven't been much in this stream (Buddhism) in this lifetime, so the words about it don't take me to the information readily. I could spend time connecting with the Buddhism reality in order to truly understand what you have written on a deep level if I choose.

Thank you again for the thread Tony.