{"id":44574,"date":"2016-06-15T11:02:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T16:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=44574"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:59:09","slug":"when-we-experience-ourself-outside-the-body-we-understand-there-is-no-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/when-we-experience-ourself-outside-the-body-we-understand-there-is-no-death\/","title":{"rendered":"When we experience ourself outside the body, we understand there is no death"},"content":{"rendered":"

We freak out about death because we think it’s the end. We don’t know what comes after, so our thought is stuck on oh, no, death! They’re gone!<\/em> It’s like any other goal. If we’re to demystify it, we have to imagine ourselves on the other side of it. <\/a>This is what we do in meditation, it is a\u00a0daily separation of consciousness from the body.\u00a0We transcend our awareness of the physical body and brain and find ourselves, maybe just for a split second, in a place of clear consciousness, abundantly free and completely aware of our surroundings as an observer. As you continue to experience that during daily meditation, you lose your fear of “death” since you’ve discovered how to move between the worlds, so to speak, between being the one who is in the body and the one who exists beyond the body. \u00a0When this happens, you no longer weep for the death of the caterpillar — you’re excited for the butterfly on its way. \u00a0In the overall scheme of things, this one life is just a moment in time. Every loved one who disappears from it during your lifetime, you’ll see again, I assure you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite being married five times — three of them passed — I’ve tended to be a solitary person, learning to not let my happiness depend on another person. \u00a0The first deaths crushed me, so I asked Spirit to let me see it in a way that was free of pain. Asking within attracts answers.<\/em>\u00a0 I was always focused upon my own happiness, so I always had interests and activities outside the relationship. \u00a0The first time, one person had been everything to me for years.\u00a0 I was devastated and lost without him. \u00a0I never let that happen again. \u00a0I never let one person be my world again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, via meditation, a new world opened up and revealed itself to me. I began to find supreme satisfaction and joy in a lot of small, subtle things. \u00a0Relationship with any one person was less and less on the agenda as I began to feel “in relation-ship” with every thing and every one around me. \u00a0Deaths of loved ones affected me less and less as I came to understand that \u00a0“death” is not the end. <\/span><\/p>\n

I read books on “life after death” <\/a>and before meditation would ask to be guided to other people and books who could answer my questions. I read books by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Raymond Moody, Dannion Brinkley, Bill Guggenheim, now you can read\u00a0 Eben Alexander, Stephen Levine, and Annie Kagan’s The Afterlife of Billy Fingers. Knowledge is power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once I heard first person accounts of what came after “death,” I realized “life” did not stop when the physical body dropped. When I was able to envision what life “after” death was like, it stopped being this giant scary wall and I stopped freaking out when friends died. \u00a0I’ would later come to realize all that happened was that they dropped\u00a0temporarily out of my range, like a radio signal that would get clearer as I turned the dial via meditation. In meditation, I’d learn how to tune in to connect with them again.<\/span><\/p>\n

In meditation, I step into that easy flow of pure awareness that everything around me — very often despite appearances — is in perfect order and as it should be. \u00a0In meditation, I step into the awareness of the big picture, where although this life is a just a moment in time in the overall scheme of existence, it can be an immensely fulfilling and meaningful life. <\/span><\/p>\n

All I have to do is — via daily meditation — begin to step into it that stream by quieting my mind, breathing consciously, and asking for the experience of separating my consciousness from my body. \u00a0If you’ve had even a glimpse of the experience before, bring that experience to mind. If you’ve read of someone’s experience, bring that experience to mind. Imagine how it would feel to be\u00a0awake and aware in the moment, free of the body. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Making yourself think these thoughts and bring these things to mind is a visualization exercise that will make you begin to resonate in harmony with having the experience of separation of your consciousness from your body. \u00a0The moment you relax enough to release any conscious or unconscious resistance, you’ll have the experience. Keep breathing through it, slowly and steadily. Keep your main focus on your breath, no matter what other images or experiences flash around you. Maintaining your breath is what keeps you dialed into the frequency of that channel, so to speak. Lose focus of your breath and you’ll lose the signal, but bring it back and you’ll drift back into it. Here’s a process.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Sit upright in a position that allows you to relax without dozing.
\n2.\u00a0Recall in detail any prior experience you or someone else had of existing outside the body.
\n3. Breathe naturally, slowly and steadily, keeping your focus on your breath.
\n4. As thoughts and images rise and fall, stay focused on your breath while you observe them peripherally.
\n5. If you begin having the experience, the longer you can stay focused on your breath, the longer it will last.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Meditation Links<\/a>
\nThe Importance of Envisioning Yourself 5 Minutes After You\u2019ve Died<\/a><\/p>\n

Hard as it is, get used to death<\/a>
\nHer perception upon dying<\/a>
\nA Friend and I Talk About Dying and Easy Transitions<\/a>
\nRemember “we” survive after death of the body<\/a>
\nHow to forgive and find closure if the other is unwilling, absent or dead<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0
\nWhy pretend loved ones aren\u2019t going to die? Let\u2019s get over the fear<\/a><\/p>\n

The End of Death As We Know It: What The Crossing Over Experience Was Like, As Reported By Those Who Made The Transition<\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/a>Thich Nhat Hanh on death
\n<\/a>RELATED:\u00a0 <\/a>Rumi on Death<\/a><\/p>\n

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