Being ‘dead’ offered me two indelible insights into being ‘alive’: the only boundary between the two exists in our ‘minds’; and the purpose of our existence is to cultivate enlightenment.

     It is interesting that many people have come to the same understanding without having had a death, or near death experience. But this should not be surprising, since from all records of human existence, the matter has been considered by every culture, every school of spiritual thought and every organized religion. The almost universal conclusion is that there is life after life.

     My experience, related to anaphylaxis (a sudden and fatal allergic response to a medication) left me both clear-headed instantly and befuddled for explanations in the world of logic and consensual reality immediately thereafter. In an amusing way, the latter journey was not actually necessary, for what I knew in death is that all questions are answered, and in fact, none were ever really posed. Such is the remarkable bliss of being dead, although this is by no means the only route to knowing this, or experiencing it.

     Imitating the fish swimming in the river, who asks where the water is, I engaged in a great deal of reading to help me answer what I already knew. It was not a fruitless exercise and nor was talking to fellow pilgrims. It never is.

     I was introduced to a book entitled Synchronicity (Holland and Coombes) which had an intriguing reference to the term and concept, ‘hologram’, which is defined as thus in the Oxford Canadian Dictionary: 1) a three-dimensional image formed by the interference of light beams from a coherent light source 2) a photograph of the interference pattern, which when suitably illuminated produces a three-dimensional image

     This concept is explored in much more metaphysical terminology in Synchronicity and while it surely is a fascinating read, and was vitally critical in my being able to come to terms with what had happened and was happening to me, it remained insufficient, nonetheless, for my way of thinking and communicating.

     Being dead in my experience is to be, and to know to be part of the hologram, so to speak.

     Imagine you yourself being one hologram, in and of itself, and then being inside a hologram, in which all other beings (souls) are each in and of themselves also holograms.

     Taking that further, imagine you being able to meet all of those other holograms at the same time.

     So, what about that light that interferes to make the hologram three-dimensional, or with what I am more comfortable, multi-dimensional?

     Cosmic stew! I finally declared to myself in glee. That might be a better way to describe the ultimate environment in which we all exist. An environment in which while every ingredient is discernable, somehow ‘knowable’; the stew cannot exist without them. When put together, something meaningful can be identified.

     Finally I stumbled, in the course of a conversation, an even better way to describe what life and death are, or their relationship, because I remain convinced that they are one and the same. I got the analogy that would really work. It still does for me, because of the simplicity of it.

     A kaleidoscope!

    This is a simple device, constructed of mirrors and bits of coloured paper, or even coloured glass, which when turned in the encompassing tube, produce never-ending reflections. Every time a particle of paper encounters another particle of paper, it changes. In essence, it is still the piece of paper that was thrown into the tube. But it is never the same again, after each and every encounter with another piece, as the tube is constantly turned. It undergoes ceaseless changes, in form and therefore identity.

     Just as all sentients do, I submit.

     There comes a responsibility with that knowledge: knowing that what we do or how we react has an influence, no matter how small or apparently invisible that may be, means that we must make those choices in the context of consciousness. For the tube itself will never stop spinning. It exists for infinity. In eternity.

     One can of course make the argument that if we are all going to ‘get there anyway’, our actions and reactions are of no eventual consequence. That too is a choice, but not one to which I subscribe, knowing first-hand the bliss of our shared destiny: love. In other words, why waste the time, and the dance of life on anything other than cultivating enlightenment?

     The ‘heaven’ which has seemed so elusive to so many throughout history, is right on our doorstep, in the here and now. It is our choice to see it and live it.

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where are the atheists?...  By JDBourdon