Last rites

Here's something a friend of mine sent me, concerning a Buddhist ceremony for her late mother-in-law, Jane. (Names have been changed for privacy.)

I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but I was very impressed yesterday evening when the Buddhist monks came. There were two of them, and one was clearly the accomplished famous monk.  Of course Jim, Gary and I made many jokes about the monk coming – Monks R Us, we might need a back-up monk, are there monks on the bench?  But this was really good.  There were about fifteen of us in Susan’s living room.  One wall is all glass, and she has a huge mirror that reflects the outdoor garden.  We were sitting on the couch where I could look straight into the mirror and it was incredibly beautiful, because the late afternoon light backlit some fan palms so they were bright green, against a background of blue-green-gray oleander that moved wildly in the wind.  It was gorgeous. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, except to look at the monk in his dark red robe.  And the monk explained what he was doing. He was matter-of-fact and made a lot of sense, talking about how life was only completed by death, and this is not a sad thing.  He had a way about him that made me feel Jane really was going on up the path to enlightenment. The monk wasn’t trying to convince anyone. It just was. There was no self-consciousness in any way – he wasn’t the arrogant Top Monk, and he wasn’t plaintive.  I was moved by his presence.  We were to give her her favorite foods by throwing them into the fire, as well as water and tea.  He told us Jane was present and her consciousness was there, but in a different way. She lay on a gurney and had been dressed in a beautiful midnight-blue tunic, she looked like a monk herself.  He said that he hoped everyone would let her go on her path and not try to keep her from it, that this was a part of life.  He embodied acceptance of the way things were, and acceptance of what could be done to help Jane on her journey.  He helped her reach up to a higher consciousness.  I was deeply moved. 

If you ever get a chance to participate in a ceremony like this, it’s worthwhile.  Especially since you are interested in death and the afterlife.  The chanting can be a bit onerous, but I left thinking I don’t know everything.

Comments

[Hope Rivers]

Nice send off it benefits those left behind immensely.

Its interesting when I hear people say they are not really a spiritual person, what do they define as spiritual?

Here's my definition everyone, everything is spiritual.

[Art]

I've listened to the Tibetan Book of the Dead a couple of times read by Richard Gere. It's really interesting. There is a free site on the internet where you can listen to it for free.

http://www.thelightingere.com/TheTibetanBookoftheDead.html

It's excellent. The last time I listened to it while I surfed other stuff on the web. I like the parts that sort of parallel what near death experiencers say. That's my thing.

[Michael H]

As I read this it occurred to me that I've really never investigated the funeral rites of the Eastern faiths. In any case, this is a touching account.

It must have been especially powerful for the narrator, who didn't see themselves as 'particularly spiritual' to write, "He had a way about him that made me feel Jane really was going on up the path to enlightenment. The monk wasn’t trying to convince anyone. It just was."

It's a beautiful account, Michael. Thanks for sharing.

And Hope, your definition is correct of course, but there's no convincing others. All you can do is keep pointing. We'll all get there eventually. In the meantime, maybe all of us should try to remember the closing words of the main post, "I left thinking I don’t know everything."

None of us do.

[Ross W]

Thanks for the tip about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Art. That's one for my holidays. I'm such jolly company!

And on the subject of company - Hope - If everyone is spiritual, how come you didn't keep your promise (yet).
"Read my lips. I-did-not-have-spiritual relations-with-that-woman."
I wouldn't forget...would I?

[william]

“Here's my definition everyone, everything is spiritual.”

Precisely this is an accurate statement but:

Everyone everything is a manifestation of the spiritual and this manifestation of the spiritual lacks perfect awareness and understanding (i.e. realization).

For the creation and manifestation of perceived unique manifestations to occur there must be this lack of perfect pure awareness.

We were created from the perfection of infinite oneness but perceive others and ourselves as less than perfection. Why is this? If we had perfect pure awareness and understanding there would be no creation and manifestation of perceived unique identifies. I.e. humans.

Can infinite oneness (God) express itself in any other way than imperfection?

How profound are these unique manifestations? I have read that every snowflake and every grain of sand is unique.

[Art]

Some things are positive and some things are negative. We usually know the difference. The secret to a happy life is to maximize the positive and limit the negative. Some negative people can really be a downer. I try and limit my exposure to such people.

[william]

"I try and limit my exposure to such people."

I hear you art but I wonder if those so-called negative people have more to offer us in opportunities for soul growth in such areas as kindness and compassion.

Example last September when I went to head start program to do my volunteer work the director I usually work with had been transferred so they had hired a new director.

To say she was rude and course is an understatement. She said such things as you are not their grandfather and you are not to pretend you are their grandfather they may need a grandfather but that is not your job to be their grandfather. And because you are a man you are not to hug or touch the children etc etc. i.e. hidden message there.

From my point of view she belonged as a prison guard and not at a woman’s prison but a male prison. Course and rough and to think she is going to be teaching 3 and 4 year olds.

For one she had no right telling me because I was a man I could not touch the children if she allows the women staff to hug the children and allow the children to sit on their laps as this is a federal program and I am certified to teach these children just as the staff is certified and that is sexual discrimination to single me out as a man.

My point is she upset me and I wanted to strike back and talk to her supervisor but a much more loving approach would be to respond with compassion. This woman has some real issues with men for whatever reasons I do not know. And you can bet those issues work on her mind every day and the karma associated with that type mentality has to be on going. We have no idea what her experiences have been with men in her childhood and as an adult.

That experience with a very negative harsh person had much to teach me but I could not work with her and listen to how she talked in a harsh manner to the parents and the children. Too upsetting for me to watch these children being treated like that. Besides I am a hugger and the children love sitting on my lap. Most of these children’s grandparents are still living in Mexico and I doubt they ever see them.

Happy ending to the story from my point of view I now work with my original director and she is a delight to work with and these kids are so authentic and loving.

[Hope Rivers]

And on the subject of company - Hope - If everyone is spiritual, how come you didn't keep your promise (yet).
"Read my lips. I-did-not-have-spiritual relations-with-that-woman."
I wouldn't forget...would I?

Ross, I take it you've been to the blog, just so you don't get confused, one blog is the past (22yrs to be precise, so keep that in check) the other is me today.

Alot of stuff happens in 22 years ;-).

The other thing about blogs is that when people read them it becomes like fixed cement in reader's minds.

I write stuff I'm feeling or am thinking at the moment it comes. Its not unusual for me to backflip and change my ideas as they are always expanding and growing.

As the saying goes a its a women perogative to change her mind. If anyone has their moon in gemini they would really relate to this.

Also what I do/did in ignorance and niavety is one thing but what I do with full knowledge is another.

[Ross W]

Hey, Hope I was talking about your astral travel. I was only joking.

[Hope Rivers]

Ross, I know you were talking about my astral travel. I know you were joking, as was I. I also thought you read about one particular astral experience at my other site which ties in with your comment ;-)

[Ross W]

Ohhh, I seeee!

[Hope Rivers]

well its great you can see,because you wouldn't be here if you couldn't.

Ohh by the way if you want to keep me as a figment of your imagination, go ahead.

[Art]

I hear you art but I wonder if those so-called negative people have more to offer us in opportunities for soul growth... ... That experience with a very negative harsh person had much to teach me but I could not work with her and listen to how she talked in a harsh manner to the parents and the children. Too upsetting for me to watch these children being treated like that. - william
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Yep, your soul was imprinted with something all right. Duality and separation. "I am not you." What it means and how it feels to be a separate, unique, individual, which is something it can't learn in heaven due to those overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness that so many near death experiencers comment on.

excerpt from Joann's NDE:
"I was part of all that has occurred, and all that will occur. It was like I had no sense of self, that I was everything and everything was me, including God."
http://www.nderf.org/joann_m's_nde.htm

[william]

“which is something it can't learn in heaven due to those overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness that so many near death experiencers comment on.”

Well we have had these discussions before. Not sure any comments will make a difference in our opinions about the other side but since many people read this blog here goes.

I agree that many NDE’s do experience these feelings of oneness but many entities that come through mediums consider themselves as an entity. I do agree that most of these entities have increased feelings of this oneness but also a feeling of being and having a separate consciousness. Some even state that they live in houses “like” we have on earth and the beauty of nature around them to enjoy.

I do agree that this physical world has much more duality and harshness then most experience on the other side. This duality (feelings of separation) and harshness is I suspect more conducive to soul development. That was the point of my describing my encounter with this director of this nursery school. An opportunity for myself and maybe her to learn compassion for self and others.

From my point of view NDE’s are a brief encounter with the other side and not as good of an indicator of the astral worlds as entities coming through mediums and telling us what the other side is like for them. It appears that like attracts like on the other side, which also appears to be so in this physical world. Example evangels hang out with evangels, Muslims with Muslims, atheists with atheists, ultra skeptics with ultra skeptics, etc.

As far as this blog a lot of people must read this blog and not comment because a website Michael P just put on this blog when I contacted this person he said the next day he got several hundred more hits. And I thought the only people that read this blog are the folks that comment on here. Whoops.

[John]

William, it's very common that sites will have many times more readers than active contributors.

You guys should be more vocal!

[Art]

The reason I believe Near Death Experiences and the "holographic paradigm" are correct is because they parallel, collaborate, and support one other. No one has ever been able to adequately explain away to me how it is that NDE's and the holographic universe parallel one another, why they say the exact same things about the Universe. Like two witnesses in a murder trial who give the exact same testimony, but neither witness nows about or has ever heard of the other one, yet they both say the exact same thing.

"I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously." - excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE, http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html

"If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order."
excerpt from online essay about the holographic universe, http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html#zine

I don't believe we "lose" our identity after crossing back over into the Spiritual Universe by the way, only that it may be impossible to learn what separation, time and space, mean without first having spent some time in the physical universe. Mark Horton says, "I was unique yet I was the tiniest part of the whole." We come here to "become" separate, but once we are separate, we are not "re-assimilated" upon crossing back over into the Spiritual Universe. We come here for exactly the opposite of becoming a Borg, instead of being assimilated, we come here to become "un-assimilated."

[william]

Maybe off topic maybe not. Just saw on the news that a young teen playing lacrosse was hit in the chest and his heart stopped beating. He would have died but the coaches had a fibulator at the practice site and they brought him back to life.

Now here is the story. When john Edwards asked which one of his readings he considered most impressive he stated the tweedy bird reading with parents that lost their son while he was playing lacrosse. At that time schools were not required to have fibulators at practice or at games. The parents of this boy set up a national fund and information site to provide schools with fibulators and encourage schools to purchase them.

This is a case where a medium doing a reading with parents where so impressed with John Edward’s reading they set up this fund. The tweedy bird part of the story; well that is what john saw as a movie character in his head and it turns out the son of these parents pet bird which he took everywhere with him was named: You guessed it tweedy bird.

Interesting that a medium’s reading can save another’s life because the sitters were so impressed they responded with beneficial action from the mediums readings. The parents of this son that died because no fibulator was on the scene have to feel very good today as these parents whose son’s heart stopped beating yesterday due to being hit in the chest will not have to go through the grief they did with the loss of their son.

One has to wonder how the ultra skeptics would spin that story I suspect the responses I get if any will be who cares how the skeptics will spin such a story. The universe works in mysterious ways.

[Art]

One has to wonder how the ultra skeptics would spin that story I suspect the responses I get if any will be who cares how the skeptics will spin such a story. - William
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It's pointless to argue with people who have all ready made up their minds. Sort of like beating your head against a cinder block. Like the Robert Heinlen quote about not teaching a pig how to sing. “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” We'll see who was right when we get there. It seems to be coming fast enough. I'll be turning 55 years old in 5 more days.

[Ryan]

@ Art

>It seems to be coming fast enough. I'll be turning 55 years old in 5 more days.

Nonsense, Rambo is older than you.

[Michael Prescott]

>And I thought the only people that read this blog are the folks that comment on here.

The blog gets about 1200 page views per day. This is not the same as unique visitors, of course. I don't have stats on them, but the number would, of course, be much lower.

Popularity-wise, this is still a pretty small blog, but the number of page views has grown steadily over the years.

[william]

1200 people reading others and my comments. Wow. Just thought it was about 15 or 20.

I am still reeling from the fibulator story because when Larry king asked john Edwards his best reading I knew what he was going to say. The tweedy bird story was great; had to see it to see the emotions from the parents..

One has to wonder how many lives will be saved due to one family making a fibulator at every lacrosse practice and game their cause. Things appear to happen for a reason. Reading one person’s views once and this person claimed even Hitler was a benefit to the evolution of consciousness in the world.

When john not only described how their son died but the name of his pet bird the parents started crying. Very emotional.

Does it prove that their son was communicating with john? No but after watching crossing over for two years it appears he was doing more than reading sitters minds.

[Art]

My absolute favorite John Edward Crossing Over reading was when he told two people he was reading that he was seeing a Victrola. They replied that a Victrola was their deceased Grandmother's favorite possession. My other favorite reading was the guy that he was seeing the name Fernando and had a connection to Portuguese. Turns out the guy's father had gone to Brazil and learned Portuguese and lived on an island called Fernando. Crossing Over was a great show. John Edward is so charismatic and fun!

[Hope Rivers]

William, you are so right with what you said regarding compassion. I disagree with Art regarding separation as the way to growth. Avoiding difficult people just keeps you from growing into a more evolved spiritual being.

Your story is a perfect example of how we should all remind ourselves that in every person we come across there is brokeness and as a consequence are playing out "their pain" by how they cope and act in life.

If we were to have a bird's eye view as opposed to an ant's view we would be more compassionate and forgiving and tolerant.

So maybe stepping back once in a while and contemplating is going to benefit us all far greater and those around us too.

If everyone was to go about there lives in this fashion, eventually the brokeness of others will be touched and eventually healed.

[edna]

The whole concept of "healing" and "spreading love" and similar New Agey paradigms irks me because it assumes there is no intrinsic value in the negative emotions.

If this "super consciousness" was to learn and grow, inevitably, it will have to experience "bad things", otherwise, it would deprive itself from a good chunk of human experiences. I do not believe we need to "heal" anything from this perspective. Perhaps some people chose the path of "being broken" because that's what the collective needed in order to learn something new. Perhaps, there are two paths which are tied to one another: what we learn as individual souls and what we bring to the collective from our individual learnings.

[Hope Rivers]

I dont know if you've heard the concept of Original Sin Edna, but basically negative emotions/experiences is what we all are going to experience regardless. I don't see any choice in it for anyone, I can almost guarantee none would choose it if it weren't required.

Why do you think when people have NDE's they come back changed after experiencing the universal love, maybe its the taste of truth and the freedom that brings.

Negative emotions is a reflection our wounds, brokeness can lead to growth and healing or staying in pain (your personal choice).

Yeah and if you want to improve the collective......LOVE.

[william]

“The whole concept of "healing" and "spreading love" and similar New Agey paradigms irks me because it assumes there is no intrinsic value in the negative emotions.”

I agree there are a lot of new age ideas out there that stretches the imagination. But lets look at Jesus would he be considered new age 2000 years ago. Wow! absolutely. His teachings would even be considered new age today. I believe that if Jesus were to come back and preach in America most people that profess to be followers of him would reject him. I suspect he would be called a new age radical and naïve.

I smiled when I heard a priest state that when Jesus comes back we will know if it is Jesus if he accepts us as his chosen ones but if he denies us then we will know that person is an imposter. How’s that for making their god in the image of man.

[Hope Rivers]

William I reckon your on the money with that comment, Jesus was and still is radical, his teachings still goes over the top of most people's head's, even his most devoted followers as you clearly pointed out.

I also agree with your second point, a spirit of love as described in Paul's epistle - Corinthians 13, describes love as forgiving and enduring. It also says

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged."

One would expect this to be modelled in the spirit of God.

I don't see anything in love that would punish or deny one's own creation.

[Hope Rivers]

The only punishment there is, is the one we inflict upon ourselves, by denying ourselves God's love and choosing to stay stagnant.