My Experience About Life and Death and Living Again

It was 1989, August. I was on a Mediterranean cruise - a fantastic holiday that I would strongly recommend it as the best travel I've ever done.

Anyway, we had already been to Venice and Corfu, and now we were going to Delphi to see the ruins of an ancient holy city. I had never been to Delphi, of course, and I knew very little about it except that that is where the original Oracle was. In ancient times, kings and generals would come from all over the known world to petition the Oracle with their questions and the oracle would answer them through her priests (yes, the Oracle was a woman). The priests would translate the Oracle's words into the languages of the petitioners.

That's all I knew about it.

Anyway, it was a long bus ride in from the coast where we left the ship to go on this excursion. There we were, bouncing along in this old bluebird bus like we use for school kids here, going through desert and rocks and such. I was sitting at the very back of the bus on the right hand side with my head leaning against the window watching the land go by slowly as we made our way into the mountains.

Suddenly the bus turned sharply left, and I immediately thought, "Why Did he do that? He should have turned right here" Then I thought, "How the hell would I know that?"

But as the back of the bus caught up to where the front had been when he turned I saw that the road did in fact continue on the right but because of a steep grade, the road veered left, then hair-pinned back to get up to the higher level - it was easier than blasting the rock level, I guess. But if you were walking, you would simply climb that little clump up the 5 or 6 feet and continue on to the right.

Anyway, the bus continues into the cleft between two mountains, one on each side, and straight ahead we were facing another mountain. Something on that mountain straight ahead caught my eye. It was nothing really. Just a little shack made of stone. Well it reminded me a little of the Flintstone's house. But the thing was, it seemed very familiar. Like I'd seen it somewhere before. The more I looked at it, the more familiar it became.

Suddenly, the bus swung to the left and we were there. Delphi is made on the side of a mountain. Mount Parnassus, in fact. I got out and stared. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and feeling. My wife looked at me. Our friends that we had made on the trip so far stopped to ask what was wrong. I guess my shock showed on my face.

I knew this place. Well.

I knew every building. Every road. Every path. It was like coming home to your neighborhood that you grew up in. Everything was broken down - but still extremely familiar. I told them this, and they seemed amazed. They pointed to some small buildings that looked like little
miniature Parthanons, and asked if they were bathrooms.

I said no - they were treasuries for the nation-states. That one is Athens, That one is Sparta, That one is Troy. I pointed to a large building up ahead on the right, "That is the public bathroom. Inside, it's one large room and everyone sits around the benches on the walls and dumps into the stream running underneath."

Then the tour guide just confirmed to the main group everything I had just said. I walked forward down the sacred way, and my wife and friends followed me, as I pointed out everything along the way. There is the doctor, there is where the priests slept, there is where the
temple of Apollo stood and within which was the Oracle and the Omphalus stone she sat upon. Then I came across one building that confused me. It was a plain building with a flat wall. I didn't recognize it at all. I turned away, and when Nada called me back, I turned around, and in the corner of my eye where I expected to see something is where I suddenly had a microvision memory of what it looked like.
I said, "Oh now I remember - it used to be a market there. It used to have an awning, and pottery and blankets, and cloths for sale and meats and all kinds of things for the house. It was always piled high with goods, so I didn't recognize it as just a plain blank stone wall. Again the tour guide came up and told the group, "Although there is no evidence you can see here today, there used to be a marketplace there up against that wall with an awning, and pottery stacked high ." etc. Everything I had just said.

Then I carried on ahead. I went to the temple and was disappointed. Partly because it is now completely destroyed. And partly because I felt nothing there. But then, while the others were looking there and absorbed by the guide talking about the Oracle, I went with Craig, my
friend, across the little street to the amphitheater and suddenly got very excited. THIS IS IT! THIS WAS MY PLACE!!! I rushed quickly to a specific spot on the speaking floor. MY spot. It was the junction
of four stones and my feet knew exactly how to fit to those stones and all at once I felt in the center of the universe again. I had come full circle. I knew this place. This was home - a very, very, very long time ago. I was a teacher of Some sort. I looked at the seats of the amphitheater and could see the faces of my students. I felt as if I had stood on that spot every day for 50 years.

My spot. Home at last.

There is more that happened after that, but it only serves to further confirm what you have no doubt already guessed.

Clearly, I had lived there before a long time ago. This was the first time I had ever had such an experience. When we got back home, I started reading books on reincarnation. On living multiple lives. And I found out some fascinating things. First, therapists that use hypnotherapy discovered past life regressions whenever they regressed patients back into childhood to find the root of an emotional problem. If they were not careful how they worded their instructions, often the patient would slip back into the previous lifetime, or even several lives ago. For example, if they said "Ok now, go back to the very first time you were every sexually abused." They may find the person is reliving an experience they encountered when they were 14 - in the 13th century or something. It is so common, that they had to develop special hypnotherapy techniques to keep people in this current life when being regressed. (even though the problem may be trauma from a previous life - but western therapists simply don't want to deal with the complexities and implications of that, if the realities of it happens to conflict with the dogma and doctrines of their religion, for instance).

I read many, many books on the subject and found out a number of things. One man, when regressed began speaking in a dead language that only was spoken between Norse fisherman between 200 AD and 800 AD. Only 5 or 10 people in the world would recognize it. No one could speak it fluently, yet this man spoke it fluently. They had to record it and send it all over the world looking for translations. One woman, when regressed, would suddenly speak - and write - in a very special language. Not only was it a dead language, but it was extremely rare. It was only ever spoken by the Royal family of Persia for a period of about 80 years - about 900 years ago.
They invented that so they could communicate without being betrayed by their underlings whom they did not trust. Only two people in the world could recognize that one. This common woman who was uneducated had no possible way in the world of knowing that language and couldn't reproduce it or understand it at all when awake. These WERE other people before. I WAS another person before. I researched it later and discovered that Delphi was populated from 2500 BC to 1800 BC. So that was about 4000 years ago.
That would make me 4000 years old. Or possibly even older. If I was teaching in THAT life, chances are I was around in previous lives before THAT even. Apparently, I am VERY old.

I had another episode later, in 1994 during the 50th anniversary of The D-Day invasion on the shores of Normandy, France, but I don't need to go into that. The point has been made, I think.

Then I read a most fascinating book called "Life Between Life" Some researchers decided to regress and research about 1300 different people into the state BETWEEN lives, called the "bardo" state. They wanted to find out exactly what happens when you die.

Well, I don't have the time to write out ALL the details here, but in a nutshell, this is what happens:

1) You die physically. Let's say you are in a hospital surgery.

2) You exit your body and float above it looking down at your body. Some people have described what the equipment looked like from the top looking down - and they were unconscious when they were brought into the surgery!

3) You can hear everything going on but cannot be seen or heard

4) There is a tunnel that you become aware of

5) For young children at this point, there is a woman with a kind, smiling face who comes to help them along to the next level(Yes, they all see the same woman. She has a kind, smiling face, blonde hair, and her name is Elizabeth. By the way - when my father had his heart bypass surgery, he said he saw a woman just like that at the foot of his bed looking over the shoulders of the doctors operating on him. He said she wasn't wearing surgical clothing or a mask. I asked where she was standing and where she came from and went to and he told me and I said, that was in the middle of the operation - you were asleep from anesthetic all through the operation. He just realized that when I said it.)

6) You see a light at the end of the tunnel. You move toward the
light

7) When you get there, you are surrounded by the light and love of your friends and relatives that have passed before you. They are
there to give you strength and encouragement and make you feel better.

8) You encounter a being of light - or three beings of light. It
depends on the person relaying the story later, and whether they had a
near death experience and went back to life from this point or whether they went on to the next life and are recalling this from regression back from THAT next life.

9) The most common form is that there are three beings of higher
energy, of light and love, who assume positions at three corners of a
square or diamond shaped "floor". You take the fourth position and face them. Some people appear in chains or cut or parts of them severed. Depending on their remorse and pain from their life just left. It's kind of a guilt-ridden self-punishment.

10) You go through a thorough life-review. Some consider this the
"Judgement". But it is in fact, more accurately described as a life
review. Everything that you ever did with everyone you every interacted with. It happens in 3-D all around you simultaneously, but yet you can follow everything. In this life review - this time you don't experience it as yourself however. This time you experience everything from the position of the persons you interacted with. If you punched someone in the face – then now YOU feel that punch in the face. If you insulted someone, then now YOU feel the sting of that insult. To feel every hurt you ever inflicted upon another soul is a horrible thing. On the other hand, to feel the love you have given, and the help, and the praise, and the understanding – these are equally powerful positive feelings you have given people.

11) Then, once you have re-experienced your entire life, and have seen the errors you made, you become aware of what you need to improve upon. You see what lessons you need to learn to be a wiser and higher and better being. And eventually graduate to become one of the higher beings of light.

12) So next, with the help of the higher beings who helped you see your flaws and areas you need to grow and fix, now you begin to design your new life. This takes different lengths of time for different people. But it depends on how many lessons you plan to learn, and how many people you have to repay your Karmic debts to. (If you harmed them in the past life you need to make it up to them in the next one.) Some people do a rough design and plan to be reborn in only a few months. Some take centuries designing their next life. It can be complicated because our events are tied to the lives of so many other spirits and their growth has to be considered as well. So you begin to line up your lessons. One by one to teach and test. Teach, then test. One after another. Most people seem to take about 40 years on average to do this.

13) Then you plan who you will be born to. The ones that can provide you the lessons you need.

14) Then you are re-born again - ready to begin class again.

So, here's the irony. When we seem to see an invisible hand guiding our lives - it is our own design. There are those on the other side there to help (called spirit guides) but basically your fate is your own, and designed by you, for you, for very good reasons. To teach you what you need to learn. That is fate.

This is what I learned.

Also what I learned is that we are all people with vast histories of good and bad. Of noble deeds and serious mistakes. Children are not children, they may be thousands of years old, but they are just currently at a growing stage of their current bodies - they deserve all the respect of an elder. In fact all people deserve great respect, always. We are not primarily physical beings. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience.

To learn to know others and to have love and respect and admiration for them and to encourage them and help them to grow - these are the attributes of a higher being. These are the true lessons in life. To love. To love someone is to pass spiritual power and energy from you into them. It is a gift of your energy. And that energy can be expressed in caring, giving, sex, intimacy, listening, doing work for, giving money to, giving a kidney to, making sacrifices for another person.
The difference between 'need' and 'love' is that love is the giving of that energy and ‘need’ is the taking of energy from others. There is always a flow of energy between people passing back and forth. Once we understand that, we can see it. And work with it. And we are amazed when it actually works.

These are among the most important lessons I have ever learned.