Jimmy Buffet has moved on – gone to some great Margaritaville in the sky. Consciousness is eternal, of course, so nothing is ever truly gone. But the Avatar that was the physical “Jimmy Buffet” is gone, never to return. I had thought that if any of us would live to age 90 or more, that would be Jimmy Buffet. So, his passing got me thinking about death, and reflecting on what I believe I know about death. I concluded there is reason enough to allow a lightness to that reflection; hence the title “Musings on Death”.
Any perspective on death should begin from an understanding of what it means to live, i.e., to be here within what I call “Earth Game”. To that end, I invite thinking of a lifetime in terms of the metaphor of a day at a “theme park” (or “amusement park”, if you are more familiar with that expression). To that end, imagine a multi-themed park. One with too many rides to go on all of them, too many sights to see them all, so many attractions that one necessarily must pick and choose. All with a wonderful variety of music, food, gardens, and natural beauty. With interesting people at every turn.
If my metaphor of life as a day at a theme park seems to you just too rosy, relative to the harshness and difficulty encountered in the lives of many, then perhaps cut away to my article “Earth Game and Horror Stories”, posted on this blog on October 24, 2021. And only then perhaps take a fresh look at the notion that life on Earth can be, and for the most part was intended to be, an adventure and a joy ride – i.e., something akin to a day at a theme park.
Admittedly, a day at a theme park is not a long time compared to a lifetime within Earth Game. But the length of a lifetime here is only a blink in the context of the timespan of our physical Universe – and less than a blink in the context of the timeless infinity that lies beyond our four-dimensional Spacetime.
The first part of your day at the theme park (i.e., your childhood in this metaphor) is a bit of a blur. It seems so vast, so full of sensation. But, you make your way, and you gradually get your bearings. All the while vaguely remembering that you had carefully laid out a plan for the day – even though that plan seems now to be strangely veiled in mist and fog. As you traverse the theme park, you begin to map it out in your mind, all the while sorting out which kinds of attractions you find most appealing, and which don’t seem to do much for you.
Now, imagine the day at this spectacular theme park beginning to wind down. The sun is sinking low. The array of thrill rides and attractions has been stimulating almost to the point of being dizzying. A slower pace to the explorations now seems somehow more suitable. You somehow don’t know what hour the theme park closes at, but you know it surely has a closing time. Despite a bit of fatigue, you check in on your “bucket list” of attractions you were determined to see but have not yet gotten to. Perhaps you move some off the list – transferring them to your list of things to do when you come back to the theme park another day (i.e., in this metaphor, your next lifetime). As the light begins to fade and you think for the first time about returning home, you may take a moment or two to recap in your mind the delights you have experienced during the exciting day you have had.
When it is time to leave, you exit the theme park. Ideally, with high fives from your companions, as you celebrate the adventures you have shared. On the way home, you talk about the experiences, the best parts, even the scary parts or any regrets (think “life review” in this metaphor).
Physical death is a lot like that: you exit the theme park, and go home. That is, you exit “Earth Game”, and return to the “More Real” (more on that realm in a soon-to-be-posted article) from whence you came. Your “Avatar” – i.e., the physical you – does not make that return journey. But that is not who you are, not really. No, you are a tiny speck of God / Consciousness / All That Is / Source; it is that speck who returns home. No longer with any amnesia, no longer under the illusion of separation. Let’s use here the shorthand “Conscious You” to describe who “you” actually are, i.e., the “you” who returns home. (Very important it is, in this context, to let it in that you are the “Conscious You”, experiencing Earth Game through a physical Avatar – rather than thinking of yourself as being the physical Avatar.)
The point is that your day at the theme park necessarily comes to a close, wraps up, ends. Would you really want your day at the theme park to go on forever? You would not. I mean, would you really want an infinity of adrenalin-rush roller coasters or things jumping out at you in haunted houses? Or listen endlessly and forever to a series of theme park earworm theme songs? (I call that one the “Eight Track to Hell”.) Besides, the theme park is an artificial reality, albeit a fun, exciting artificial reality, filled with sensations. But there is a more real reality for you come back to. And a home to return to. A very nice home at that; also replete with sensation – albeit none of the scary stuff encountered in our physical realm of density and polarity.
You can of course come back to the theme park another day. That is, the Conscious You will be free to return here, to experience another round of “Earth Game”. Not with the same Avatar (i.e., physical body), of course; that vehicle was one-and-done.
First, though, there is a process to be followed upon leaving the metaphorical “theme park”. Since no physical Avatar actually dies and comes back in full physicality, no human account of death is presently available. However, there are many channeled (i.e., from various entities in the “More Real”) accounts of what happens when one dies. The striking thing about those accounts is how similar they are. That alone suggests a veracity to the accounts; if those relating them were simply making them up, one would expect the information to be all over the map.
Some corroboration of the channeled accounts can be found in the myriad of “near death experiences” (“NDEs”) that have been variously compiled (including many accounts related on the Next Level Soul podcast hosted by Alex Ferrari). Again, it is the remarkable consistency among NDE accounts that is striking. However, it seems logical that the NDE “program” is similar to but distinct from the program for what happens when you actually die, i.e., exit Earth Game. A universal theme of NDE accounts is a decision not to die. An NDE is thus a “wake up call”. Yes, those experiencing NDEs are often presented with a choice whether to go back to their bodies – or, conversely, to go home to the light. Of course, those who choose to die have a Death Experience and not a Near Death Experience. The common theme between those two kinds of experiences is that one touches the More Real, and delights in it. In the one case to return there, in the other case to go back, changed, to Earthly reality.
I will provide here a synthesis of what the channeled accounts have to say about what happens when you die.
Firstly, it doesn’t hurt. Even if your moment of death is a horrific one, the Conscious You will be lifted out contemporaneously with that moment. You will not “feel” death; you will simply emerge.
The “Death Experience” program immediately kicks in. Many have described it as a “lobby”. Not in a physical sense, of course, but rather as a way-station that you must pass through as you exit Earth Game and re-enter the “More Real”.
One purpose of the program, or “lobby”, is to calm you down, relax you, avoid any sense of trauma arising from the realization that you have passed on. To that end, if you have a spiritual bent, you will be met by the holiest ambassador in your belief system. If that is Jesus, you will see Jesus. Or it could be the Buddha. Or any Saint or Ascended Master. And no, I would not characterize that reception as a “cheap trick” or a deception. Consciousness beyond the veil is not limited by time and space; I think they actually do show up for you.
You will also be met by those you care about who predeceased you. It won’t actually be their Avatars as such; those are long gone, merged back into grander Consciousness. But the Universe absolutely can and does reconstitute those parts of Consciousness. Again, all for the purpose of easing your transition.
Perhaps my favorite part – again, per multiple channeled sources – is that one will be greeted by one’s beloved pets who have passed on earlier. I will look forward to that.
Then comes the time of reflection. The Life Review. Including (and as discussed below), any alternative lifetimes that one wishes to explore. All for as long as one wishes.
From there, one returns to the “More Real”. Which involves fully re-merging with one’s Higher Self. Following which, hang out there in the timelessness for as long as that merged you wishes. Doing all the things that one does in the More Real.
Until, that is, the re-merged Higher Self you is ready for another day at the “theme park”, i.e., another round of Earth Game. Then, with all the perspective and wisdom garnered from your last lifetime (and every other physical lifetime your Higher Self has spun), you begin to make a plan. When that plan is ready, off you go; passing through another kind of “lobby”, then emerging in the theme park (via your physical birth), once again within Earth Game.
Some aspects of the above are corroborated to some degree by own personal experiences. I remember as if it were yesterday the day that my father-in-law passed. I had been fond of him. We rushed to the hospital when we heard that his passing appeared imminent. My mother-in-law took one look; “He doesn’t look right”, she observed. I wondered if he was already gone, and scanned for his energy. In that moment, I heard his disembodied voice inside my head, clear as a bell: “Tell them I’m fine! I should have done this a while ago. Tell them it’s all good!” What struck me was not his words, but rather the boundless joy that radiated from them. He had struggled with physical disabilities for several years; I could feel his joy at being released from those limitations. A few minutes later, I tried to listen for him again, but nothing came to me; I surmise that I had earlier managed to catch him just as he was entering the “lobby” between worlds.
On another occasion, a friend asked me if I could check in on a mutual acquaintance who was thought to be “at death’s door”. When I scanned for his energy, I had an immediate sensation of the individual’s Soul coming to bring him home. The tenderness, the poignant and rich love, that I could feel emanating from that “seventh face” of Soul was a spectacular thing to be privy to. Yes, the individual passed about that time. What I garnered from the experience is that the “Grim Reaper” who is said to come to harvest a doomed individual – with a scythe, for crying out loud! – could not be further from the truth of who comes to guide one across at the moment of physical death.
I also vividly remember when my mother was close to death. As I sat alone with her, I found myself strangely sounding a series of tones that were unfamiliar to me. I don’t know what they were about, but I felt a unique poignancy, and even a beauty, to the process of dying.
And, on two occasions, I said goodbye to beloved pets who had lived their entire life with me. I don’t think I have ever cried more than that. And yet, I would not have wanted to stem the flow of tears and love even if I had somehow been able to. No question, there is a poignancy to death, a unique beauty.
So, should we be afraid of death? Plainly not. We will all, in time, experience that poignancy and that beauty in our own right. As noted above, it won’t hurt. And we won’t be judged. Or condemned to somewhere nasty and brutish. No, we will be welcomed home – no matter what horrific events were experienced (or caused) within what Mike Dooley calls “the jungles of time and space”. Clearly, nothing to fear.
Of course, for those still stuck in the fallacy of regarding themselves as being nothing more than their physical Avatar, some fear might emanate from the permanent annihilation that death would appear to be. But, anyone can step beyond that fallacy and that fear.
I suppose if one has trepidations over the “Life Review” process, that could cause one to have some fear about death. But any such fear would misunderstand the Life Review process. No judgment is involved; not even self-judgment. Rather, it is about perceiving, and understanding, and learning. I suppose there could be some wincing along with all that, but even that pain will be at worst transitory. Or perhaps no wincing at all, because the Life Review is experienced from a different and significantly more enlightened perspective. Yes, you will see where you went off the rails, but in the same moment you will entirely understand why you went off the rails. You will immediately forgive yourself for doing so; there will not be even a moment of self-judgment – no matter how heinous some of the reviewed episodes may be.
Similarly, if there are regrets for roads not taken, opportunities not seized, or growth not dared, those will be experienced from a knowing perspective that simply catalogues the information for future purposes. There will be no ruing, no wringing of hands, no gnashing of teeth. Just learning. Sort of the way one might look back at how one’s Avatar in a video game came to its demise. No point cursing that Avatar either, and you would not do so.
It seems the Life Review also allows you to experience the coulda-woulda-shoulda that is not available within Earth Game. That is, you can play out alternate lifetimes, in as much detail as you want. Since the Life Review is experienced within a realm of timelessness, you can run those experiences in as much detail and for as long as you like. The Universe has the capability to run those scenarios for you – albeit presumably with facsimile characters. That is, I suspect that all others you interact with in alternate lifetimes are NPC’s (Non-Player Characters), constructed by the Universe based on its encyclopedic familiarity with the actual Conscious players whose Avatars interacted with yours during your lifetime.
Do you have a predetermined “death day”? Maybe. Some (channeled) sources say you do (albeit sometimes with one or more earlier “exit ramps” should you decide to take them). There is also the notion that your lifetime will carry on as long as it is furthering its intended purposes. The flip side of that is that if your Soul recognizes that all forward progress is irretrievably at an end, it may cancel the show and turn its attention to a replacement show, i.e., your next lifetime. I don’t know which view is the correct one. Either way, though, you will be here until the theme park closes for the day. For myself, I don’t think I can know when that will be, and I don’t want to know; rather, que sera, sera.
So, is my long-held focus on healthy habits and longevity a reflection of a predetermination that I will live to a ripe old age? Or is that simply a choice I made through my exercise of free will? Again, I don’t know. What I do know is that obsessing over health and longevity could mask a shadowy fear of death. And, as noted above, there is no good reason to fear death. Better to pursue longevity based on the joy of being here, rather than a fear of leaving here.
Another obsession that can be a tell for a fear of death is an obsessive focus on creating some sort of legacy – and thereby presumably achieving some small measure of immortality. But even the most enduring legacy will eventually be eroded by the sands of time. No, immortality is to be found in the “More Real” beyond Earth Game; it is not to be created within Earth Game. That does not mean, of course, that you shouldn’t want your life to matter. By all means, play whatever part you can – however large or small – in the grand Story of Earth. But do that for the fun of it, not so that you can somehow take it with you when you go. Yes, you want to get into the game; you don’t want to be a bench-warmer here. But you don’t have to hit the game-winning home run. Just participate in whatever way calls to you.
In the end, Jimmy Buffet’s music lives on – as will your “music”, whatever that may be. Every ripple in the fabric of Spacetime is recorded. Every moment of every lifetime is catalogued, forever. Nothing is lost.
With any notion of fear of death removed from the equation, we are free to live life to the fullest, and to live in the now. To delight in the “theme park” that Earth Game is. To enjoy one’s day in the sun, fleeting as it inevitably is. I’m pretty sure Jimmy Buffet – i.e., both the departed Avatar and the Conscious and eternal being from whom Jimmy Buffet emanated – would raise a glass to all that.