Being sent to Sunday school with the best of our parent’s intentions at the very least was distasteful but my brother and I attended nonetheless. I can’t remember how long we had been getting up early each Sunday morning, getting dressed in our ‘Sunday best’ and attending religious lessons that sent me into a world of desolation. It frightened me because of what I was learning but never discussed with anyone.
It was apparent that God was powerful, impatient and would become very angry if we did the wrong thing. It meant he would probably send me straight to hell if I ever crossed him and subsequently I began having nightmares about death and dying. I didn’t want to go to hell!
One particularly bright spring morning, my brother and I decided we would get ourselves to Sunday school. We fed and dressed ourselves, left a note on the kitchen bench for our parents and walked the miles together enjoying the sunshine and the aliveness of our home town. We chatted animatedly and felt proud to be independent, saving mum the drive to church. The church stairs were crowded. Like ants, people had begun descending them as we arrived. Still others gathered in small groups upon the verdant lawns to chat and others began to walk to their cars. My brother and I looked at each other. We were late! Not only were we late but had completely missed the lesson. I was secretly thrilled as we turned around and walked home again.
I remember mum and dad smiling as we told them what had happened. They explained there were two sessions, one for the Methodists and the other, the later session for the Protestants. In fact we had arrived on time for our Sunday school lesson but because it had taken us almost another hour to return home, we were definitely late for church now.
Never mind, I remember my dad saying. There’s always next week. The opportunity to tell my parents how I felt about going back arose. I told them as each past misdemeanour flashed through my mind how frightened I was that I would be sent to hell because the Sunday school teacher had told us so. We never did attend another lesson after that, but the nightmares would consume me.
My beliefs about religion and spirituality would remain uncertain for many years and as those years travelled onward, I began to research death in an attempt to give myself some understanding and peace. I knew death is inevitable for all of us, what however we should expect was out of my realm of comprehension. Was there really a heaven and its opposite, hell?
My research has revealed thus; death is actually a rebirth into a greater life of pure understanding and knowledge. Communication does not occur through conventional means and the closest one has to define such conversation is through telepathy. Given that feelings and thoughts are communicated from spirit to spirit in such rapidity the process is passed over as pure knowledge.
Through a space blacker than black, we move forward incredibly fast encased in a cocoon of tranquillity and peace, however with this eternal peace, one has a choice to remain in that state in the space until they feel ready to move on. Other people as well as animals travel with us but at a distance. It feels wonderful to know our fur babies are en-route after their time to leave the earth plane has arrived.
The space reveals a pin point of light and takes on the shape of a tunnel through which we advance at an even greater speed. We are, like moths to flame, attracted to the light. Once there we are met by a spirit whose light is more golden and more brilliant than that of the sun. The unconditional love emanating from this spiritual being is immediately reciprocated as we are from and a part of it as it is and always has been a part of us. There is no question as to who this Being is.
It is explained that each of us is at a level of understanding and that we may feel discontentment with the teachings of our present church. We may then seek a different church or philosophy to fill the void. When this occurs, we have reached another level. Ahh, I thought. I was not wrong by leaving Sunday school. I was simply leaving a particular level of understanding to pursue another that would answer my questions. I’ve since learned we were given the ability to obtain great joy or choose that which will bring sadness. The choice is ours through one thing, our decision.
Life is lived most fully in the imagination. Ironically imagination is the key to reality. Sunday school taught us to fear Source, to fear God and yet they, the teachers had fallen prey to negative energy and had taught through fear. Because of their own fears they were using it to control others. In other words, they taught us fear God or go to hell. Fear is the opposite of love and is therefore Satan’s greatest controlling tool.
Negative self talk is another. Positive self talk begins the healing process of any ailment the body endures. Once the illness or problem is identified we then have to verbalise the remedy. Removing thoughts of illness from our mind and concentrating on its cure is the sure fire way to overcome the tools of bodily destruction – if indeed it is right that we be healed. We cannot deny the presence of the illness but rather by denying its power over us, we have attained all right in our own given power to dissolve it. All healing comes from within. All things of importance are created spiritually first and physically second.
As I continued to quench my thirst for knowledge, for I was still in an unsure state as to why I focused on death and what I could never imagine it to be, I then was able to comprehend that when we die we experience nothing more than a transition to another state of ‘being’. Our soul slips from the vessel we see as our body and moves into a spiritual realm. If our death is traumatic, the soul leaves the body very quickly, sometimes even before death occurs. While the body may appear still alive for some moments thereafter, the soul will have already left and is in a state of peace.
I learned from sources far removed from Sunday school that there was a place in some religions known as purgatory, a kind of limbo in which one resides before moving north or south. In the blacker than black space, before the tunnel, some souls will linger. They will remain there as long as they wish in its love and warmth where they can accept its healing influence. Eventually however, they learn to move north for there is no south and in doing so, accept the greater warmth and security together with great peace in the next realm with Source.
It is profoundly relieving to understand and even come to look forward to death when it calls to us in its own time. I no longer suffer from nightmares and have come to realise we as human beings have absolutely nothing to fear. While here on this earth plane though, it is wise to remember that once we have asked for something with sincere desire, doubting nothing, we will receive it.
Simply put, every waking day is a time to feel gratitude for what you already have in your life, for what you are about to receive and for what you will eventually become once your time on this planet has ceased.
Joyous Connections 