What happens when we die?

Have you ever had an experience where you realize something that seems so obvious once you’d thought about it? Well, That happened to me the other day. I was meditating, having a conversation with my guides, and I asked what I should write about next. They said, “You should write about us, write about the truth behind reality. Write about why we incarnate, and what happens when we die. Write about the esoterica.” (I admit, I had to look up what esoterica means, it’s one of those terms that I vaguely knew, but felt like I didn’t have a good handle on.)

“Oh, right!” I thought, “Not everyone can just pop into a meditative state and communicate with spirit guides.”

Yeah, I know. Should have been obvious.

So, I’m starting a series of essays about esoterica, that truth beyond the truth, the “Great Mystery”. Esoterica is defined as “knowledge having an inner or secret meaning” but honestly, it’s no big secret. In fact, it’s right there in front of us, waiting for us to remember it. It can feel like a secret if you haven’t stumbled on how to communicate with it in your own life but it’s right there, waiting to be revealed.

In mystical traditions, it is one’s own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric.

The secret isn’t that you’re not being told.

The secret is that you’re not able to hear.

~Ram Dass

One surefire way to get closer to that Great Mystery is to listen to other people talk about their experiences or awareness of it. There’s something inside you that will recognize, remember and resonate with what you’re hearing, and it will open up a part of you that’s ready to know more of the mystery.

I’d like to be one of those guides, or mystics, and talk about my experience with the mystery, or the true reality of who you are beyond this human body and mind.

Are you ready? Good! Let’s explore the mystery! I’ll be your cosmic Nancy Drew! Or maybe I’m more of a Veronica Mars? (I’m certainly not a Jessica Fletcher, as much as I’d love to be.)

I’ll note that all of the following is information I’ve seen through my NDE, meditations, and channeling. None of this is new information, mystics, holy folks, and artists have been saying this same thing for eons, but I know for me, sometimes I have to hear the same message from different sources and in different ways, and each new perspective unlocks another aspect of the mystery.

Where should we start? I think we’ll begin at the ending, and start with death.

What happens after we die? My first encounter with what I now call my “guides” happened when I had a near-death-experience in the middle of cancer treatment. I was on the brink of death from the chemo drugs and I was given the option to die. I was so weak, miserable and in so much pain that I didn’t know if I could go on. I heard a voice say, “You can let go” and I knew in that instant I was being offered the choice — did I want to die or did I want to keep living? Since that experience, I’ve had additional downloads about what happens when we die, and what the dying process is like.

I’ll start by saying that there are some similarities for everyone and some differences. For all of us, there is an experience of becoming disconnected from or leaving behind our human body. There is a part of us, an awareness, that continues on without our body or mind to house it.

Some people have a similar experience to what I did during my NDE, where we suddenly are aware of being a part of this larger consciousness matrix that feels loving, accepting and all-knowing. There’s a feeling of relief there, too. For me, it felt like finally coming home after a long journey. I’ve heard others say it felt like finally taking off an uncomfortable shoe.

Once we have reconnected with our guides and all of consciousness, there is a period of reflection on this life. It’s sort of like if you were an explorer and have come back to tell your village what you saw and experienced while you were away. This is so that you, and all of consciousness, can process and learn of its experience of itself that was the “you” that incarnated. Since there is no time in this place, I can’t exactly say how long this takes, but there are differences. Maybe it’s more accurate to say some are more intricate and complex than others. Or that some are unravelled and examined piece by piece, rather than all at once, in order to be better understood.

After the period of reflection, we get to bop around as unincorporated energy of consciousness for a while. It’s a place with no time and space, no emotions, no beginnings or endings, just an experience of acceptance and oneness. How long do we do this? It depends! It’s until we decide to incarnate again or have another type of embodied experience. Believe it or not, floating around as all of consciousness can get boring after a while, so we want to incarnate again and spend some time as a “separate” being (I put separate in quotes because we’re never really separate, that’s just a handy illusion, but that’s a topic for another essay) who has highs and lows, beginnings and endings, and can forget their true nature at birth in order to go on the spiritual journey of remembering again, if they so choose.

I think that covers the basics, but as with all of these topics, there’s so much more I could write. I’d love to know what esoteric, mystical questions you have about life, death, incarnation, time and space, where we go between lives or anything else about the Great Mystery. Let me know, I’ll ask my guides and then write about it in a future post!

Xo Megan