The Guild of Pastoral Psychology
Awakening to a New Reality both after our Death and in the Here and Now
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In this talk, in which I draw on my own personal experience, we explore the continuity of consciousness after death and the expanded reality that await us on the ‘other side’. Some of the “conversations across the horizon of death” in my latest book describe a reality that may well be a foretaste of what is possible in the here and now. This leads us to consider the possibility of our ongoing connection and communication with loved ones who have passed over as well as the more subtle aspects of both the natural world here on Planet Earth and in the wider Cosmos.
Today a growing number of people are awakening to an increasing universality of Spirit and a new set of ideas about God. Science is now telling us that “Consciousness is not something that we have, but that which we and the whole world are.” And more people are experiencing the primacy of love as the connecting glue between all life and that which aligns with an evolutionary pulse – a pulse which is propelling us towards a new vision of what we mean by “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” In discovering a greater depth of meaning in such a saying as “The Kingdom of heaven is within you”, a fresh vision evolves of a new heaven and a new earth in which all is sacred and alive.
It takes an open mind and an open heart to journey form a past, which has been leading us towards a cliff edge of destruction of all that we know and love, towards a future that is expanding the way we perceive life today. It is calling us towards a journey of discovering the Tao – the Way, which the founders of all faith traditions have discovered well before us. If the possibility of awakening to something more, to something beyond feels somewhat scary, then you can continue to focus on the past and take the expanding of consciousness at a slower rate. On the other hand, as Kahil Gibran says in ‘The Prophet’, it may affirm “that which already lies half-awake in the dawning of your knowledge.” We progress best when we share our ideas and experience.
We have the potential for taking a step further into the rediscovery of our own divinity and our own soul purpose at this time. Christianity tells us that “The Light of the world is within each of us”; the contemporary poet Ben Okri says that “The greatness we need to reach for is love.” The Dalai Lama has given us good advice, to live with compassion for all life, and he has also encouraged us to be able say ‘My religion is kindness.’
Image: ‘Vesica Piscis’ from Euclid’s Elements, created by Bcrowell at English Wikipedia. – GNU General Public License.