THE FIFTH UNIVERSAL TRUTH

The funeral ceremonies are under way and the body of your loved one lies in the casket. Where is your loved one now? In heaven? At peace? Can your loved one see and hear you?

 

Does he or she know your pain?

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Or is it all a myth? An illusion generated by the biological impulse to survive?

In the past, mankind had little problem with this. It was simply assumed that when the body dies, the spirit lives on. The only debate was in what happens afterwards.

The great exception in human history is our modern, techno-based society. For at least three hundred years, science and technology have transformed our lives. At a price. And one enormous cost outweighs all the rest: uncountable millions absorbed the message—passing it on to their descendents—that ‘real’ means physical; that reliable physical matter generates unreliable consciousness. So, many of us carry an extra burden of fear: that when our body dies, we die.

And yet science itself is poised to correct this mental disease. Physicists have discovered that the behaviour and existence of subatomic particles depend on what’s going on in the mind of the experimenter. In other words, that consciousness generates physical matter. That’s an astonishing discovery, because it turns science’s most basic assumptions upside down. A major science law (the first law of thermodynamics) says that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and can only change its form. Soon, mankind will adopt a new wording: consciousness can be neither created nor destroyed, and can only change the form of its expression.

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The fifth universal truth is that you will live forever.

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There is no death. Your body will dissolve away, but the essence of you cannot cease to be. Earth life is a dream from which you wake, and when the time comes, you will look back at your body and know you are not your body, but that dreamtime being which shaped and used it. Think of a jacket that you make for yourself and wear every day, in spite of its flaws. Some day, you will lay that jacket aside.

You are that essence which made your body and is changed by the experiences of your body. So, when it’s time to move on, there’s an attachment to be dissolved. And in the afterlife, as well as on Earth, attachment keeps you poor, while releasing attachment enriches you. Which is not the only thing that remains unchanged when you lay your body aside.

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Unchanged? Surely everything changes.

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No. In fact, all five universal truths transcend death: On the other side, you still create your own reality, your life is still your mirror, you are still connected to all things, you are still in your spiritual home, and you are still, and always will be, alive.

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The first, for example. After death, you remain the director of your experience, the creator of every event, detail and nuance of your existence. And how else could it be? The energy of ten thousand beliefs does not pop and vanish like a party balloon.

There are a multitude of different journeys through the afterworld. And in the past, many chieftains had no time for the idea that you can’t take anything with you. They took it all: weapons and armour, trappings of wealth, and slaves thoughtfully slaughtered for their post-Earth convenience.

 

Viking warriors turned up at Valhalla on the horses buried with them. Others battled much anticipated diabolical forces on the way to the promised land. Some paid the ferryman to carry them across the Styx. Many waited by their graves for the day of judgement and the sound of trumpets.

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You think I’m speaking metaphorically?

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I’m not. After death as well as before, what you most fervently believe is what you get. Consciousness has an excellent props department.

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Millions now believe in the light at the end of the tunnel of death, so they must travel through a tunnel. Millions will not be convinced until they see Lord Krishna, or Jesus, or Mohammed and the virgins in paradise. If your beliefs demand a thin Buddha, a beardless Mohammed, or a blue-eyed, straight-nosed, pale-skinned Jesus for credibility, that’s what you will get.

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Sounds like theatre, doesn’t it? If some separate deity were directing, you might call it ‘smoke and mirrors’. But hold your judgement a moment longer. Imagine that the time has come for you. Do you long for a magnificent being to take you by the hand, to lead you into the next phase of existence, to overwhelm you with more light and love than you thought possible? Well there is such a being waiting for you.

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It is You. Your whole self will merge with your fragment self, adopting the most agreeable form to help with the transition.

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So when does illusion stop and real begin?

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They are the same thing and it is not a contradiction. After death, as before, there is no fixed reality—only what you create: what you think becomes you, what you feel follows you, what you believe builds around you. The only difference is that once you lose the illusion of time, what you think and feel and believe, is so immediately. The props department offers an instant delivery service, which is not available on Earth because of our construction of time.

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Science now concedes that time is a human invention.

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So what happens if you believe you will be punished and go to hell?

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There’s no such fixed place. But you can create a very convincing facsimile for yourself. Many do. If there are any left who deeply believe in fire and brimstone, leg irons and red-hot pincers, devils and horns, then that’s what they will create for themselves—until they realize they can move on.

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The same applies at the other extreme. If you believe you deserve heaven, then the admission tickets are printed. If you build vivid, alluring visions of choirs of angels, buttercup meadows and babbling streams, figs and sweetmeats and virgins, then that’s what you get. And if you believe that your church or religion has the only key to heaven, you will only see others of your persuasion there.

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But it won’t last. Nothing about the form of heaven or hell or any other part of the afterlife, is real or lasting. And so you will pack your bags and move on to create new adventures.

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Let’s backtrack a moment. If you can create your own facsimile of hell, is there pain and suffering?

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No. Now, here is one fundamental difference between life before and life after death. After death, you’ll find yourself effortlessly observing your own body. Then you’ll observe your own Earth-derived personality the way you might watch your own hands at work. If that personality takes any belief in suffering through to the afterlife, you’ll see it going through pain and suffering—from a detached distance without pain or suffering—until you understand that it is no longer necessary. Think of it as an echo of suffering. Or imagine it like a hypnotist who knows that you can burn yourself with a cigarette without suffering.

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You have already released your body. Now you begin to release your attachment to the gestalt of beliefs that made your personality. In other words, you release your mind. You will look back at your mind and know you are not your mind, but that which dreamed it and gave it the subconscious power of a creator.

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You are that essence which made your mind and is changed by the experiences of your mind.

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Understand the full extent of I. Your true I am is much deeper than your thoughts normally reach. Your thoughts create your personality; your personality evolves your I am like a wave that stirs the lake to its very floor, but has no separate existence in its own right.

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What happens, then, if you believe there’s nothing on the other side but oblivion?

Yes, if you believe dying will be the death of you, that’s what you get—at first. But after the lights go out, you’ll be aware that the lights are out, which will raise an interesting question mark floating in the dark. Who is this thinking I’m dead? You might like to try this mind exercise: try to imagine the universe without you.

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What about suicide?

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Suicides vary. But suicide to escape, escapes nothing. How can it? You still take your self with you. And when the time comes to choose the next incarnation you will eagerly choose another that re-creates the same type of challenge.

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Let’s backtrack again. What about judgement? Surely people who lead sinful lives will have to pay for what they’ve done.

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First, there is no sin. Nor is there a bad-tempered external deity to pronounce what is or is not acceptable. Such a deity would surely have found a way to put the matter of right and wrong beyond debate. No, there is no sin, no right and wrong. Consciousness is not offended. Eternal existence is not conditional. In fact your after-death fragment self will soon discover the unconditional love of the whole self—Consciousness. Which is a discovery we can make right here on earth, we don’t have to die to make it.

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Even someone like Adolf Hitler? Where’s the divine justice? If you inflict terrible suffering on others, surely you’ve got to be punished.

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No. There are no exceptions. Even so, you can expect perfect, divine justice. You will go through a life review, rather like a documentary with prodigious production values. You will experience your life from the point of view of everyone who was involved: everyone’s feelings, attitudes, motives and beliefs laid bare, including yours. You won’t just observe through their eyes and ears, you will experience what they experienced. Did you steal from someone? You will experience his hurt and outrage. Did you give food to someone who was hungry? Then you will experience her relief and joy. Of course, your Earth personality could not cope with this review, because the ship of your mind would founder in the emotional typhoon. Do you see the significance of this?

Instead of judgement, you will literally experience being One.

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Which means that you will reach a place not only beyond your body and your mind, but also beyond your individual soul. Yes, after many incarnations you will know that even your soul is not a separate entity. You’ll see that all souls, combined, are like a great rock, which has a trillion moving atoms, yet is still and silent.

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Here, finally, is where you know yourself as Consciousness.

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You are that essence which made your soul and is changed by the experiences of your soul. And you are that Being which longs eternally to answer the question, What am I?  You long to know yourself in your own experience.

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Created by the passion of that longing, galaxies wheel, stars wink in and out of existence. Dust clouds spiral inward, implode and are re-born as suns, with planets waltzing in the ballrooms of space. Suns blossom and turn themselves and their attendants to dust which gathers once more. On Earth, mountains spew fire and tumble to the sea, forests thrust high and die away, rivers flood and spill. Whales dive, dolphins weave, falcons sweep and soar, lions roar and hunt, and humans laugh and cry and project around them a billion adventures which are both the asking and the answering of the question.

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For each incarnation, your essence says, How shall I ask the question this time?

So in one country, one town, one street, one house, you burst forth in new form, to create another experience, another adventure. You look out of the eyes of a baby, locking onto the loving eyes of your mother. Once again, you are human and even with your human flaws you are exquisitely what you are.

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You are perfect, and perfect again.