I just finished reading William Buhlman’s book, Adventures in the Afterlife, inspired after Buhlman faced his own mortality through cancer. Having explored out-of-body states for more than 40 years, his experiences and insights are fascinating. He is passionate about training others to have out-of-body experiences, believing that they can provide us direct experience of our deeper spiritual nature and answer our questions about the nature of reality and the afterlife. For his keynote presentation at the Monroe Institute in 2014, see his website at http://www.astralinfo.org, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2j8Vh3UzJI.
Death does not fix ignorance!
Buhlman says that we are powerful, immortal, multi-dimensional, spiritual beings who have had many lifetimes, all with the goal of spiritual evolution. But after death we have no sudden expansion of wisdom and knowledge. Instead, we are the same personality with the same addictions, unhealed wounds, issues, fears, prejudices even bigotry as before. Where we end up in the afterlife is a direct vibratory correlation to our state of consciousness, our open or closed mindedness, and beliefs. As Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” (John 14:2). Buhlman says that there are multiple ‘heavens’ to accommodate every faith and version of same that has ever existed on earth including those to his surprise still preaching ‘hell fire and damnation’.
Souls use thought to create an after life ‘reality’ that is comfortable to them.
They do this either individually or through collective consciousness with other like minded souls. This consensus reality appears as real to them as ‘real’ life does to us.
Wherever you go, there you are!
Buhlman found that people seemed to continue to live in the afterlife much as they did when alive. They dwelt in the same sort of buildings, landscape, even eating the same ‘food’, following their interests, and leading the same, even mundane existence as before. There were even bars where alcoholics congregated, and also gambling casinos. Is seems that wherever you go, you take yourself with you including after death. If that idea is not appealing to you, than do something about that now because it is now that you are creating your future experience.
Whether in neat little houses with white picket fences, or high rise apartment buildings, souls create or are drawn to what they knew while alive, perhaps what they expected to find, but, fundamentally, what resonates with them. One deceased soul was spending some of his eternity in a replica of his easy chair with sports playing on the television, and a can of beer in his hand. All of these ‘heavens’ were on the lower, astral realms.
Yet, Buhlman says that there is so much more to explore and experience! The upper spiritual realms require a more open mind, more loving, less judgmental, more curious mind, a soul that has learned detachment. Getting there means a broadening of our mind by dropping or loosening of our fixed beliefs, and dropping our identification with our physical body, even our identification as ‘human’ and the world of form and things. Attachment, as Buddha warned, is a trap.
What about the near-death experience?
The near-death experience is also an out-of-body experience, but one caused by physical trauma. It can and has made people more spiritually minded because they find a continuation of consciousness beyond death.
Near Death Experience versus Out of Body
While personally I listen to the reports of near-death experiencers with great interest, I am also skeptical. No matter how profound and life altering, a near death experience is usually just a single event, and very brief. Especially am I suspicious if such an experiencer draws global conclusions or intones religious implications of the nature of heaven, God, and the after-life based purely upon their highly subjective single event. Also suspect is turning their brief experience into books and a vocation through the lecture/media circuit to tell others what is, or claiming to have met “Jesus” or “God” when coming across a loving presence.
While reading the reports of many near death experiencers is better than just listening to one or a few, if those people were from a similar culture with the similar beliefs and expectations, that is still not as good as hearing about those from vastly different cultures from very different periods of time to rule out the effect of culture/religion/beliefs/time frame upon the experience.
If Buhlman is correct in that you go to the reality (heaven) that most matches your own particular vibration, then any one experiencer does not see the whole picture, the vast variety of realities that Buhlman has found to exist. You will be drawn to what reflects your beliefs and experience, perhaps your fears, or, as Tom Campbell says, what is comfortable to you. Campbell is a remote viewer, long-time out-of-body experiencer trained by Bob Monroe of the Monroe Institute. He is also a NASA physicist and author of My Big Toe, the Theory of Everything.
Campbell also says that other beings will adjust their body or form to match one that will help you to relax. This idea was presented in the movie Contact. Here the actress Jodie Foster was met by an alien being who has taken the physical form of her father by scanning her memory banks. He did this because his group thought this familiar form would make her feel comfortable. So much for meeting Jesus. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pfOFCUjmEU
I give more credence to the reports of those doing out-of-body explorations versus near-death experiencers because the former can return again and again, and over time get a better idea of what may be true. Still, their experience is their experience and their interpretation of it. Buhlman urges us to have our own direct spiritual experience rather than relying on any book. And Campbell urges us to be continuously skeptical and open-minded about what we find.
What’s the point of doing out of body experiences?
Buhlman says that all of us are tasked with growing spiritually. For spiritual evolution to occur, regardless of how much time and incarnations it takes, mental and emotional healing has to occur. He urges us to start right here and now with addressing our fears. He claims that learning and practicing out-of-body states will jumpstart the growth process. We will also learn the full extent to which we create our reality because ‘reality’ quickly responds to thought in the out-of-body state.
Furthermore, when we are at the point of death, by focusing on going to our Higher Self, we may bypass the lower worlds of the astral plane to move into the higher realms. While the Tibetan Buddhists have developed a practice of priests chanting directions to assist those on their deathbed, our loved ones can provide the similar instructions to assist us on the ultimate journey as well. Or, if we are conscious, we can focus our intention on “Higher Self now!”
I look forward to your comments.
Copyright by Roxanne Louise. However, this article may be shared in free online sources only if this copyright notice and link to http://www.roxannelouise.com and http://unlimitedpotentialhealingcenter.com are included with the content.
Jun 02, 2016 @ 21:45:39
I love your article and your blog. I had a profound near death experience after a traumatic car accident, and I can still leave my body on occasion during meditations. Someone just told me about the Monroe Institute today, and I would love to visit soon. The light on the other side instructed me to come back and teach. I’ve taught at many levels and now at the college level. I’ve only recently started writing about my NDE which happened several years ago while I was in college. https://triciabarkernde.com/2016/03/22/excerpt-about-the-angels-from-healed-a-memoir/