Is there life after death? If so, what is it like? People have been debating this issue for thousands of years and coming up with all sorts of answers. Is it like a dream? Is it like deep sleep? Is it more awake than waking? Integral Deep Listening assumes that, regardless of whatever else life after death is, our awareness of it is mediated by our perception, which is itself conditioned by our social and cultural contexts. Consequently, if we want to understand more clearly we need to suspend both our beliefs and skepticism and simply interview the people, objects, and contexts that appear in near death and life after death experiences.
Why would we want to do so? Because such suspension of our biases and prejudices, in favor of simply listening to what this or that aspect of our greater, cosmic identity has to say is a fundamental act of respect and receptivity. The result is that we are more likely to experience what wants to be heard instead of simply hearing what we want to hear. When that happens, our waking biases are reinforced and we unwittingly confirm our own prejudices. When, on the other hand, we experience what wants to be heard, we overcome the limitations of our previous worldview and grow into a perspective that transcends and includes it. The result heals, balances, and transforms our lives.
The following example shows how you can work with someone else’s after-death experience as if it were your own. That’s because it is yours – it is part of your waking dream, and spirit makes no differentiation between waking and sleeping dreams and between my experiences and yours. To the extent that you take the experiences of others and internalize them, they become yours.
What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?
1. Getting and staying clear.
2. Getting Integral Deep Listening to children and those who support their growth
3. Continuing this work in my next lifetime.
My near-death or after death experience:
When my mother was dying, Annette, one of my two sisters, saw a “being of light” appear in the room at the foot of her bed, with outstretched arm. At the moment of my mother’s death, she saw her rise up out of her body and go with the figure.
What do you make of this experience?
Annette is intuitive with a long history of experiences and memories of before birth and past life experiences. They make her take the long view of life, which is a very good thing.
Choose a character, object, or context in this experience to interview…
The Being of Light
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Being of Light, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I am coming to greet and accompany your mother Grace in her birth into my world.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
I am tens in all six of your core qualities.
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
I have no weaknesses or limitations myself, however the nature of my reality is that it is rarely clearly disclosed to humans. The openings between these two realms are infrequent, fleeting, and fragile, from a human point of view. Otherwise, more would see the world and themselves very differently. This will change as humanity evolves. Our culture is not human culture. But it is “humane” culture and it does embrace all humanity.
Being of Light, you are in this person’s life experience, correct? They created you, right?_____ What aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?
I am that part of yourself that does not die, that is spirit, and that embodies the six core qualities.
Being of Light, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
No.
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 10 I cannot be hurt or die. I have no fear.
Compassion: 10 I give myself completely and receive without reservation.
Wisdom: 10 One with the source of all, what is there not to know?
Acceptance: 10 What is there not to accept?
Inner Peace: 10 Nothing can disturb my beingness and presence.
Witnessing: 10 I am like the sky; I witness everything.
How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?
He would incarnate my consciousness and the consciousness of my realm (they are the same), which is a major purpose of life and evolution.
If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?
I would redouble my efforts to embody those six core qualities.
If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently? If so, how?
1. Getting and staying clear: More meditation being the sky breathing you.
2. Getting Integral Deep Listening to children and those who support their growth: Continue to generate light in people, without regard to its source or consequence for you.
3. Continuing this work in my next lifetime: Lifetimes are stories, like dreams. Spirit doesn’t do lifetimes or dreams. Just focus on maximizing your experience of the six core qualities now.
What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?
1. Beingness. Bringing it forward, into the forefront of awareness.
2. Continue to suspend assumptions and ask questions.
3. Enjoy life!
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?
Only when you want to live!
Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?
To help him wake up, to help him think outside of the box and to remember that there will always be contexts, realities, and dreams that transcend and include his puny understanding.
How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?
Go back to sleep! Stay addicted to his normal viewpoint, frame of reference, and life dream.
What would you recommend that they do about that?
It’s a work in progress! Everybody is in the same situation, which makes life a tragicomedy. Just laugh at the absurdity of it all to keep yourself from being overwhelmed by the poignancy of all the needless suffering.
I think this person had this experience because…
his sister told him about it. Because it is a statement of the reality of life after death.
I think this event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…
Anything that is external is objective and therefore seems more real and more powerful, partially because it is experienced as less controlled and less known. Anything that is internal is subjective and therefore seems less real. It is experienced as more controllable and more mundane. All of these assumptions are incorrect, in that they are partial. They are seen to be illusory whenever they are questioned. On one level I came to provide comfort and direction. From another, I came to demonstrate that the dream of life never stops. From my perspective it is seamless.
What have you heard yourself say?
That such experiences come to wake us up out of our complacency regarding what is real and true and what is not. That we have to be careful about drawing conclusions about whether such experiences are real or true or what they ultimately mean.
If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?
Wake up! Become the six core qualities! Become beingness!
What experiences have you had with near death experiences and life after death? Interview them! You can find the format here. Please send me a copy and I will anonymously post it on this site to help others!
