What happens after death? The three stages

Watch this video to learn all about the three stages of death and beyond!

Death has always been an enigma, a mystery, an unknown. And yet it is very much an integral part of life. Anyone that takes birth takes the risk of dying. And so life itself is a big risk! However, when we can look into the face of death and see it for what it really is, we won’t fear it anymore and that is when we won’t fear life anymore, either! Do you see the correlation between death and life? If we are so afraid to die, then we are also afraid to live. And when we live a life full of fear, then we don’t really live, we just exist. We die many deaths in all those fearful moments. But if we can perceive death as just a part of life, we can indeed live our lives fully and richly during our time here on earth, instead of spending all our life fearing the ultimate, the unknown. And now it is not even unknown anymore. Our consciousness has evolved beyond the unknown where we intrinsically know the truth. So I am not here to tell you anything new. I am just here to re-mind you of your own higher self and eternal essence that can never ever die. The word death has a very derogatory connotation. It means something that ceases to exist. And yet we never cease to exist, ever! It is an impossibility in creation.

Everything is energy. And energy matters! Depending on the frequency of the vibrations of energy, it physicalizes. Energy produces mass and mass produces energy, as the famous theory of relativity by the father of Physics, Albert Einstein has proven. We have all studied that energy can neither be created nor be destroyed; it can only be transformed. So all that is, IS. Everything that exists, EXISTS. Including the stars, the planets, the satellites, the meteors & meteorites, the galaxies, cosmic dust and living matter in the universe already exist. What happens is that one matter transforms to another matter or energy and vice versa. So essentially the stars and we are made of the same thing! The death of one thing causes the birth of another and the cycle renews, rejuvenates, recycles, refreshes itself again and again and again in this never-ending game of life and death within the cosmos.

If we call our time here on earth as “life” then when we finish life, let us say we enter the “afterlife” phase. So now the mystery is what happens to us in the afterlife? When we are existing in one form we naturally won’t know about the other form, because we haven’t gone there yet, we haven’t transformed yet. Death then is nothing but a transformation. It primarily involves three stages that occur parallelly at the instant of death bringing us to the realization that…

we are not our bodies
we are not our minds
we are not even our souls

Then what are we? Where do we come from and where do we go? What happens when we do the thing called ‘die’?

The three stages

Stage 1: At the first stage, immediately after death we leave the body and float above it. When this happens which many call an Out of Body Experience (OBE) we instangly realize that we are not our bodies. Not all OBE’s lead to death; sometimes an OBE can be triggered in an accident, in a dream state, in comatose or terminally ill patients, under the influence of hallucinogens and drugs, or even many people can leave their bodies at will. It is also referred to as Astral travel. No matter in what situations an OBE can be triggered while alive, at the moment of death it is the first thing that happens.

Stage 2: Once someone leaves the body at death, they immediately go to the next phase where they experience the residual mind. At life we constantly create our realities with our minds. Thoughts create things, literally. And so at death it is no different. In fact creation is instantaneous. While here on earth, it takes some time to manifest things from thoughts into the physical as the energy vibrations are denser, at death it is instant. The moment one realizes he/she is dead, depending on the belief they have held about death just prior to leaving life, they may meet Jesus, or Krishna, or Buddha, or their deceased loved ones, or even have an experience of heaven or hell if they believe they deserve punishment for their sins or that they deserve heaven, etc. Each individual will have a unique experience at this phase colored by the brushes of his or her perception of death during the lifetime they just left. And if a person believes in nothing, then they might have no experience here, even skip this phase and move directly to the next. This stage occurs for us to eventually come to the realization that we are not our minds.

Stage 3: The next phase which may happen simultaneously with the previous two, some call it a light at the end of the tunnel experience where they seem to move through some kind of darkness which leads them to merging with a huge burst of light. This light is indescribable. It is like an overwhelming sense of divine love, pure bliss, unconditional acceptance, joy, approval, truly heavenly! Once one merges with this essence, they become one with All That Is. This when we can see ourselves as the whole, not just part of the whole, the essense with which all that is created in the universe. And hence the realization dawns that we are not even our soul, we are essentially all one… one soul! Our individual soul is part of the whole and there is no place where one soul ends and another begins. It is all connected; we are much bigger than we know!

The choice: Many people choose to come back to life after this phase is experienced, when they are given the choice to stay in the afterlife or return to the life they just left. If they have even an iota of a feeling that they are not finished yet, they will be immediately sent back, an instant before they died (because time* doesn’t exist on the other side, so it can be adjusted in the physical plane), and it would seem like they never died in the first place! This is what many describes as a Near Death Experience (NDE) here on earth. But if one chooses to stay on the other side, with the feeling that they are complete, done with the life they recently departed, this is when death is final and they actually cross over, to continue onto other wonderful journeys, be it in another physical life or even a spiritual life where they may serve as an angel or spirit guide to help others in the physical plane. And so like every choice we make in life, even death is a choice, and although on a conscious level we don’t know this, at a supraconscious level we can perceive it. Many people in a dream state or in deep meditation may be able to achieve this state of consciousness where they get a glimpse of their own higher selves and eternal essence.

In the absolute sense, we are all one and there is no separation between us. But in the physical realm we are a three-part being: body, mind, spirit, and although in the spiritual realm all three are one, in this physical plane those three are distinct entities and each has its role in defining our realities on earth. Although all our souls are connected at a higher dimension, but in a body the same soul has individuated into separate selves to have unique, multitudinous experiences of itself, by dint of which it gains knowledge about itself, which you may call self-realization. The soul intermingles with other beings in other bodies to fulfill its purpose, and when its agenda is complete it leaves the body and returns to the oneness once again. The soul is the driver of our vehicles here on earth and uses the mind to steer our physical lives in the direction we came here to navigate, which some call destiny. We are all made in the image and likeness of God, having a multitudinous individuated experience of ourselves here on earth.