The manuscript for a new book: The Great Transition: Bridges to the Afterlife is in its final stages of preparation for being published in 2012 - 2013. I invite readers of this blog to read the Introduction below and to make comments and/or ask questions pertaining to this topic. My intention with this book is to clarify some of the misconceptions around the subject of the afterlife, to bring some reassurance and dispel many fears regarding this topic.
The Great Transition: Bridges to the Afterlife
Introduction
Seven year old Edouard was dying of leukemia when he asked his mother to remove his life support. He said, "Mother, turn off the oxygen, I don't need it anymore." His mother honored his wish and turned the machine off. Edouard held his mother's hand and smiled a big smile, saying, "It is time." Then he left.
The story behind Edouard's philosophy began when he was three and a half years old and became associated with a local group that followed the precepts of Vedanta, a system of Hindu philosophy. By the time Edouard died, the Vedanta swami believed his tiny friend was the reincarnation of a holy man. The group's head nun commented, "He was not a normal little boy. He was so full of understanding of his suffering, full of understanding of God." It was Edouard's fascination with the Vedanta philosophy that gave him the belief that death was "like a passageway, a walk into another galaxy." He also shared, "If you don't hang onto your body and let yourself ease away, it is not so painful."
We all die to this Earth plane, physically. But do we really die? Or do we just take off our physical bodies and go somwhere else to live? Some say that dying is just a part of life that we continue living in other dimensions. If people were asked if they would want to live somewhere besides on Earth, I wonder how many would actually say yes. In fact, it is difficult to carry on any meaningful conversation about dying without revealing an underlying or even blatant fear of the subject. Why do we not have more curiosity about the thing that is inevitable to all life forms? When loved ones die, many of us wonder where they are going and if we will see them again. It does not seem fair that we spend a part or even all of a lifetime being close to someone, and then they are gone. We cannot see them, hear them, touch them, or communicate with them in any way -- or can we?
In Life After Death, Deepak Chopra, world renowned medical doctor, author, and spiritual teacher states, "the standard assumption is that no one really knows what happens after we die. But the rishis (Hindu adepts) asked the question, "Why don't we expect to know? Instead of being unknowable, perhaps the afterlife is something we haven't looked at hard enough. And if so, why not?' "
In his book, The Kingdom of the Gods, a treatise on orders of angelic hosts, Geoffrey Hodson says that "Man can know the facts. Faith need not be blind. Man is endowed with all the faculties necessary for complete knowledge both of himself and the visible and invisible universe. Extended vision is one of the required faculties. By its development and use, the boundaries of human knowledge may be gradually advanced until noumenon and phenomenon are fully investigated and ultimately known as one."
I believe that it is possible to learn to communicate with our loved ones who have slipped into perhaps another dimension. I believe that they want that communication with us as much as we want it with them. I believe that in most cases, we are missed by them much as we miss them. Perhaps they have a distinct advantage over us and can actually peer into our world much more easily than we can be aware of theirs. Anthony Borgia, author and medium, in the transcripts of his communication with a 'dead priest,' Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, has written, "It was never intended that the two worlds, yours and ours, should be treated as two worlds apart, never having at any time, communcation with each other. Why should not our two worlds hold regular and natural converse with each other? That intercommunication does exist, has always existed, and, moreover, will always exist. It may have been - and is carried on by the comparative few, that is true, but that is the loss to the majority."
Because enough people have wondered about this phenomenon, there is a growing trend of research available on the subject. Research to date includes different types of contact ranging from development of our own telepathic abilities and those of gifted mediums, to a more formal approach using sophisticated electronic equipment sensitive enough to register and identify subtle vibratory frequencies from the other side of life. Some of the better known names in the area of afterlife research include Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a writer, lecturer, and psychiatrist who has produced a monumental work in this field; gifted medium, Muriel Williams and Professor Ian Currie with their telepathic contact between dimensions; Robert Moss with his instructions on how to contact our loved ones in spirit via dream visits and inter-dimensional travel; George Meek and his development of electronic communication with highly sensitive instrumentation, and Dr. Gary Schwartz with his extensive research in the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of Arizona. This and other important research will be discussed in more detail later.
Many people have had the experience of communicating with those in other dimensions but dismiss it as imagination, not believing they have had a real contact. I have had such experiences all of my life, but it was not until recent years that I became aware of the possibilities for increasing my awareness of those subtle contacts.
As have many of you, I grew up with some vague idea of "going to heaven someday." But what is heaven like? Why do I want to go there? Why do I have to leave this life? These are some of the questions that came to me as a young child. I enjoyed spending time alone in the top of the maple tree in our front yard, or sometimes on steps far enough down the bank below my house that I couldn't be seen and have my cloud-gazing interrupted. On a particular summer day, I sat wondering about how we got here and why we spend time growing up and learning so many things and then someday we just die. In that moment, I felt a presence of such love and comfort; I felt I had been enfolded in the most gentle and magnificent arms. I heard a soft and kind voice speak to me, "Someday, you will know the answers to your questions." I was elated, and for some reason I told no one about my wonderful and extraordinary experience. The reassurance of that loving angel was with me through many future trials. It was only a short time later that I would have to say goodbye to my beloved father who died from a brain tumor one week before my eleventh birthday.
About a year before Daddy's death, I sat in his lap in the rocking chair while he read a book to me called, Seven Simple Sermons on the Second Coming of Christ. He finished the book, and I begged him to start over and read it again to me. He did, and we discussed it in great detail, in a child's language, of course. I was particularly fascinated with this elaborate description of heaven. I could picture the streets paved in gold, and the jeweled gates, and the kind people I would meet. This vision of such beauty and love did indeed make me want to be there someday. It helped me to establish in my mind a real abode for my father after his transition from this world, although there was something changeable about that setting, too. What was changeable was my own consciousness as I grew and matured.
We are told that our lost loved ones live on in our hearts. That is true. They do live on in our hearts, and we have our memories of them, and those of our personal relationships with them. We are also told that we will see them again someday, and for many that is a vague promise that requires a lot of faith in the unknown. The truth is many of us really don't know what to do or think about our loved ones who have moved on. Can we in some way continue our relationships with them? Are they still involved in our lives here? Can they help us through our earthly trials? Can we be helpful to them in some way?
It is my intention with the sharing of my own experiences that I might help you to discover new ways to approach the loss of loved ones in your life, and new possibilities for making contact on some level with those who now reside in other dimensions. Perhaps you will have a clearer understanding of what separates our dimensions and what you might do to remove these perceived obstacles to the communication you desire with those you love. Grief is a natural response to loss of any kind, especially in the loss of those who are so dear to us. When there is a better awareness of what is taking place on both sides of life during this time of grief, the sting is sometimes less severe. It helps to know that our goodbyes do not have to be so permanent. It is comforting to know that the connection may be enhanced, allowing a somewhat less painful journey for you and for your departed loved ones. It has been helpful for me to visualize my parents as very much alive - living in a beautiful new environment, brimming with youth, energy, and enthusiasm in their return to their real home. In a way, I have been able to develop a whole new relationship with them since their deaths, honoring them for their dedication as my parents but also anticipating a reunion celebration with them someday.
We can hold certain beliefs through an intellectual knowledge of them, but until we have personally experienced them, they do not become real truths for us. In this book, I shall share my own truths with you, truths formed from actual personal experience. I have stories to tell you about three remarkable women who, through their presence in my life, have taught me some of the most significant lessons I will ever know. My contacts with them took place during their lives on Earth and continue now from where they are living their new lives in other dimensions.
Ann C. Manser is a spiritual Teacher who revealed much to me about who I am, and why I am here. Pat Larson, my closest friend during our twenty-five year friendship, taught me the meaning of friendship at its highest level, where souls connect and love and support each other. My mother, Kathryn George (Frazier) Parrotte, showed me deep love and compassion, the courage to meet life and its challenges, and how to keep moving forward through all and any circumstances of life. When one finds souls like these on her path, she doesn't give them up easily . . . and so I didn't!
Some people stay in our hearts forever.
Blessings,
Ann
Blessings,
Ann
 |
| Ann Manser |
 |
| Pat Larson & Ann West |
 |
| Kathryn Parrotte |
