As our spiritual nature unfolds, we begin to experience things that appear eternal. They appear unbounded in time. At its highest layers, creation is a nested series of infinite virtual space-times, each in a self-aware bubble.
However, as I touched in Dying Awake, some things that seem eternal can turn out not to really be. When we transcend the space-time dynamics of self-awareness, we discover that all of those infinities eventually “sleep”. Awareness steps back from being self-aware, space-time collapses and creation ends. The Divine Mother sleeps.
Even the sense of eternal existence is dependent on awareness. We cannot say that something exists or doesn’t exist unless we are aware of it. When awareness ends, so too does all qualities, all expression, all sense of being.
This may sound like a barren place but in fact it is the opposite. We find ourselves in Brahman, in the Totality of wholeness. All expression arises within and is as-if contained by Brahman. Brahman is inherently alert and lively, leading to awareness and creation emerging again. Brahman also contains a memory of its “history” of experience, called Smriti and expressed as the Vedas. We could say Veda is eternal, though it may or may not be expressed.
But what does eternal mean if there is no time, no “now”, no before or after? The language for this gets very tricky as language occurs solely in space-time. We could say that everything at essence is eternal and nothing is eternal. Both are true in some ways, and neither.
Never say ever. 😉
Davidya
Ah, the land of paradox. My favorite place!
The last two sentences were like mahavakyas for me. Thank you…
Thanks for the feedback, Share.
Eternity is a dream in timeless awareness.
well put, Kristopher
have you had a look at http://www.near-death.com ?
it is a amazing source of information on near death experiance.
I had a near death experiance in 2003. I fealt infinitly more alive then ever and for a moment I was one with all. From that experiance I know, that I am you in another point of view. And this life is as close to being dead we will ever be; contracted and unaware with a seed of truth/awareness.
Hi Raz
I’d not seen that site before but have talked to a few people with such experiences. Looks quite comprehensive. I recently listened to an interview with Mellen-Thomas Benedict. What struck me most about it is how our tendencies lead our response and thus how life is experienced.
Something I talk about here is what I call “personalization”. Basically, subtler realms are more pliable, like dreams. Thus, there is the experience and process itself. And there is what we bring to it by our expectations, culture, and so forth. Seeing angels as having wings, for example. Nothing wrong with that but to understand what is taking place, its good to be able to recognize the different aspects.
In your case, as the body was compromised, the mind disengaged and with it the “ego construct” of a personal self. Usually that only happens in deep sleep. You were left with the spiritual self behind it. On this blog I mostly explore spiritual awakening – the shift from personal to spiritual self. In that process, the experience you have is cultured as a lived reality rather than a brief experience.
The main difference is that in an awakening, it is a change in who we are. In an experience, it is, like all experience, something that comes and goes. You have a good sense of why its called an awakening.
Part of your experience was also the distinctive contrast of it. And your own response to the experience. In awakening some people have a distinctive, contrasty experience somewhat like you describe. And some shift more smoothly & gradually. When it’s lived ongoing, its experienced as normal. We can even forget how “dead” we were before, until someone else reminds us with their drama.
Hi Raz
I had a chance to go back and take another look at the NDE web site you mentioned. From a general browse, they’ve done an excellent job of cataloging typical experiences, reviewing skeptics main issues, and so forth. I did see a little confusion around reincarnation though.
The most egregious was an assumption that a bunch of the enlightened must have been Jesus in another life due to similarities in their circumstance. That’s actually a bad criteria to use. For example, Krisna was an avatar of Vishnu. What this means is God descends in human form to help awaken humanity. Their nature and form have been described long in advance. Jesus on the other hand was a human who rose to a very high state of awakening. “All this you can do and more.” He became a helper of humanity. While Jesus clearly had a history to reach this level of development, does it make sense he’d have to repeat this over and over? Perhaps “son of Man” means awake, not an honorific to indicate the same person. There’s a documentary that listed 25 historical figures with the same life-quirks as Jesus. I could go on but suffice to say, the site looses a bit of credibility when it jumps from documenting experiences into projections.
I’ve actually looked at a project to do something similar but for the awakening process. What is the common process and what are the varieties in ways in which this is experienced? This is not well understood in the west leading to poor support for people having this experience.
I’ve written about death here a few times. I supported (and followed) a couple of friends through the process a couple of years ago. I wrote a little about that here, if that would be insightful at all:
https://davidya.ca/2009/11/10/on-death/
Certainly not comprehensive, but initial impressions.