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Death
Excerpts from "Only Your Thoughts Can Upset You"
By Terry Winchester

What about death?

            Surely this is a real problem that we should all fear? There is no death as such. There is just a transformation from one form to another. In fact, death is something to look forward to, as it represents a graduation from this heavy, illusionary, three-dimensional world into the lighter, dreamlike fourth-dimensional world. Death is just like going to sleep at night. There is not a single human being on this planet that does not cherish the deep sleep state. Therefore, although life is to be enjoyed, death should be longingly awaited.

            The only real difference between death and sleep is that you don’t return to the body in the morning. In the Eastern traditions sleep is called the ‘little death’. Those people who have had near death experiences all say that it was so wonderful and that they didn’t want to come back. They have a much more enlightened approach to death in the East. Their firm belief in reincarnation affords them the peace of mind that life is eternal and enables them to enjoy on the way to the burning gatts on the banks of the Ganges.

            I’d witnessed this one morning from the ledge outside my cave. I was awoken by a strange smell and chanting voices. I’d peered out onto my private beach and seen a whole bunch of people dancing and celebrating a few metres away. I was about to chase them away when the reality of the scene had sobered me up. The sickly smell was in fact burning flesh. A party of about twenty mourners had set up a funeral pile on banks of the Ganges a few metres from my cave. The fire was raging and the mourners were dancing around the burning body. It was difficult to tell if their chants were cries of joy or sorrow. I just sat and watched totally  transfixed.

            After a few hours the relatives and friends dispersed leaving one man to tend the fire. He sat quietly on a rock, stoking the fire. Every now and then you would hear a pop and some body part - like an arm - would fall out. He would  put the charred appendage back into the flames with a stick. When the fire had eventually burnt out, the body was indistinguishable from the wood ash. I saw the man scoop the ashes into his hands and throw them into the Ganges, brushing the remains of his relative off his clothing before walking off into the night. Just another day in India.

            People who fear death only do so through ignorance. We always fear the unknown. This fear which is created by your ego veiling Truth causes the ego to go on the war path. It sets up an elaborate structure of defences and strategies to maintain the illusion of its existence. It sets up a society where its citizens must continually live off the sweat of their brows to try to keep away the dreaded enemy called death. After a lifetime of continuous struggle to stay alive, the battle weary ego lays down its exhausted body and dies.

            Certain scriptures will instil images of hell and eternal damnation, which is enough to scare anyone to death. But when you look for the true meaning in these teachings you will see that there is nothing to be afraid of, because what is real can never be threatened. It is only the ego, which is a bundle of misperceptions bound by the illusion of time and space, which can suffer eternal damnation. It is damned whether you are dead or alive, because it is an illusion that doesn’t even exist in the first place.

            So what the scriptures are warning us about is that if we sin, which means to identify with the ego and its quest for sense gratification, we will suffer the consequences of buying into an illusion. You could also call the ego the devil if you wish because it is the ego in you that veils you from the God.             Once you have been possessed by this devil the damnation is eternal because you only get out of it when you transcend time and space. You can save yourself from this illusion by transcending time and space. This can be done at any time of your life by simply remembering the Truth and dissolving the illusionary ego. You are then born again into the Spirit.

The ego deceives again

            As usual the ego must twist this Truth around to save its borrowed skin. It gets you to believe that ‘it’ understands what it means to be reborn and deceives you by forming another layer of illusion. It gets you to believe that your salvation comes from outside which is obviously re-enforcing separation. You now end up worshipping the messenger instead of hearing the message. The ego now fervently claims that it has found the answer to happiness, in spite of the fact that the fear created by separation, still persists. This continuing misery is consoled by the belief that ‘when I die then I will be happy.’ As nothing, in truth, can ever die, the ego condemns itself to eternal damnation.

            It can now be seen how the ego or devil uses religion to trap you in the illusion. The preacher will be saying all the right things until that point where it is implied that you are separate from your Source or God. You are told that in spite of the scriptures reminding us that ‘I and the Father are One’ you must fight the misperception that you have left your Source and destroy the devil or illusionary ego.  As soon as you fight something, you give it strength and assume that it exists. This approach will assure your belief in the false notion of separation and further dis-empower you.

You have never left your Source
-ACIM

            You seem to believe that you can be saved from your misperceptions by creating another one. One illusion accepted as true makes all truth meaningless and all illusions appear real. The ego remains apparent and continues to deceive. It is only when you choose to turn the ego around and say get behind me Satan that the Truth is reinstated in your mind. You are reborn into Truth, which has set you free from the illusionary ego.

The Bible gives clear instructions

            We need to see that if we ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘resist not evil’ we would realise that ‘the devil knows not who he works for.’ And ‘To love thy enemy’ and say ‘get behind me Satan’ you have ‘let go my will and allowed Thy will to be done’. This turns the ego around and ‘all things are made new’. This is ‘the only way’. ‘The Truth has now set you free’ and you have been ‘saved’ from ‘eternal damnation’ created by the illusionary ego or devil.

The only choice you have is the time it takes
-ACIM

            The way to make sure that your ego does not use your religion to trap you in the illusion, is to remember that the Truth is already within you. Religions are roadmaps to show mankind the way back to who they really are. Once the Truth has been found, the destination has been reached and the map can be thrown away. The religious precepts and rituals are only there to help you break the hold the ego has on your awareness. Once the ego has been transcended, there is no need for the structures of religion. That is not to say that religion cannot be a beautiful and comforting focus of expression for the many souls that choose this path.

Words exist because of the meaning
Once you have the meaning you can forget the words
-Eastern Master

Suicide

            Suicide is nothing more that a foolish attempt to escape one’s karma. It only retards further spiritual growth. If you commit suicide, that anguish that led you to committing the act will replay over and over again in your mind. This is because you no longer have the benefit of having a body in time and space, separating you from your thoughts and feelings. You cannot switch off your thoughts and feelings or retreat into restful sleep because you do not have a body to slow everything down. If you don’t have a life-raft of truth to hang onto you will only find relief when you reincarnate. When you reincarnate everything slows down, a veil drops and you can begin to sort out your misperceptions or ‘atone for your sins’ day by day, step-by-step.

            If, however, you make this transition called death with good thoughts in your mind, you experience peace and happiness until you reincarnate to work off any residual karma or misperceptions. At the moment when Mahatma Gandhi was shot he was chanting the name of God and therefore could only experience heaven when he died.

            The day on which you are going to die has already been set by your thought patterns, either consciously or unconsciously. All major teachings tell us this fact:

      Ø      Your days are numbered—Bible

Ø      It is written—Qu’ran

Ø      Your breaths are numbered—Bhagavad-Gita

Ø      No one dies without his own consent—ACIM

             There is no time and space in Truth, so the day you die has already occurred. It is only in the three dimensional world that things take time to unfold. You can liken this to a movie, where the beginning, middle and end exist simultaneously. It is only when you place the film in the projector that the illusion of time can be experienced. The projector allows the patterning on the film to be experienced on the screen, frame by frame, in the same way that the body allows your thought patterns to play out moment by moment in the physical world.

            Einstein gave us an image to illustrate how time is an illusion and how we limit our perception by taking a very narrow view on life.

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