Big decision
I was talking to a man who, Michael tells me, is preparing to leave this world. I’ve never talked to someone I know to be in that situation before.
He seems torn. He feels dutybound to stay but he’s tired and wants to leave. So he’s in cognitive dissonance, torn this way and that.
The universe usually does not respond to a divided mind, but only to complete and solid intention. (1)
Recently I had a conversation with him in which I reminded him that I’d written a book on life after death, New Maps of Heaven.
And I’d been outside my body and on the other side. I knew what it was like.
Until now he’d spoken only in a confused manner, but suddenly he stopped and became clear.
He confided that he’d spent some time on the other side and knows it’s great. He often doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead these days – that is, if he’s in or out of his body.
He very nearly left a few months back. It was only his daughter’s urgent response that had him stay.
I had no preference either way apart from putting his mind at ease no matter the decision.
I remembered Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s story of the young boy who was lying dying on a bed in the family’s living room. He joyfully departed after his younger brother asked him when he planned to go because the younger boy wanted to watch TV again.
I took the opportunity to ask him if he knew that it was OK if he stayed and OK if he left. Life would go on either way.
He seemed to like that.
But I also shared with him what a wonderful time it was to be alive (Golden Age of consciousness) and how much work there is to do. (Here I am, jigging the line.)
Since he’d worked in the foster-care system, I told him that it had in many places been subverted and the corruption had to be undone. There was work to do.
I can’t say my gambit worked. But there was a glimmer of interest in the talk of a Golden Age. And lots of great sharing followed.
What an unusual conversation to be having.
I know death to be simply stepping outside the body. I’ve been outside mine. For him this is probably just another decision and yet one with serious and irreversible consequences.
And yet it really will be OK whichever way things work out. Life will go on either way.
Footnotes
(1) “Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
“All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occured. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour
all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way.
“I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
“’Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.’” (W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.)