Death and Dying
*Death and Dying
By Hope Bradford CHt, the Official Guide To Spiritual Growth
Aug 2, 2007

"Again. Again! The spirits will try to find and connect with family members. He (the soldier) connected with you in your dreams. This is one of your gifts, to help those passing over to connect with loved ones, to complete the process." Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, Kuan Yin, speaking to trance-channel Lena Lees in the book: The Living Word of Kuan Yin:

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Word-Kuan-Yin/dp/1419646400




From early childhood, trance channel Lena Lees has, in dreams, experienced souls coming to her for assistance: out of body energies that had suddenly and unexpectedly passed over. Following the Rhode Island nightclub fire debacle, for example, Lena’s dreamscape was inundated with souls beseeching her to console their relatives and loved ones. Requiring assistance in passing from the earth plane, disembodied spirits have requested Lena to inform those left behind of their safe arrival.

A dream here! A defining life moment there! In our lives, we experience every day life experiences and dreams that are not tied together in a neat bow. The sequence we experience while here on earth is not spelled out for us. Nor is the enigma of birth and death understood by most. However, weaving a tapestry of ever increasing complexity, Kuan Yin explains how each of us has the power to reassemble the disparate jigsaw that is a “realistic life”.

While not as well known in the West, many in the East have sought and found Kuan Yin's loving and comforting visage and words. Her many forms have been immortalized; elaborately sculpted and painted in temples and pagodas throughout the eastern hemisphere. It is said that this deity is capable of assuming thirty-three distinct forms and that seven of them are feminine. Infinite font of wisdom, Kuan Yin seeks to unsnarl the cosmic web of beliefs entangling humanity. Teachings from the earliest of Lena Lees' channeling of Kuan Yin wisdom, flow into and merge with more advanced Kuan Yin theories. Integral to the puzzle of life, each piece fits perfectly.. A profusion of shapes, Kuan Yin draws upon her vast repertoire of archetypes demonstrating the plasticity of the soul. Beautiful young maiden, mother or wizened crone! Death and rebirth! Undulating rock formations and fathomless galaxies! These are but samplings of her clever and boundless transformational powers. What Kuan Yin is attempting through her mind-expanding teachings and metamorphisms is to show how to put the pieces together into the meaningful mosaic that is our Authentic Self.

Almost always encountered near bamboo, water and beautiful rock formations, during the weekly hypnosis sessions with trance channel Lena Lees, Kuan Yin effortlessly becomes her surroundings. During a memorable passage, she manifests as the center of an atomic bomb so to demonstrate her (and our) indestructibility. Witness to this integral process, how could Lena or I have guessed that those initial trance encounters would sow the seeds for such a life-altering event, Lena’s epiphany of the goddess, Kuan Yin?

“I’m seeing not pie-shaped but straight slivers coming from this central ball of light,” depicts Lena. “These straight slivers of light become a person who plays out adventures from his or her beliefs."

“There are those who would rather God was thought of as a person, a man with a white beard,” elaborates Kuan Yin. “However, for purposes of this manuscript, I will continue with this ball of light analogy of the God force. Those who object to my use of the word “God” or “God force” will just have to deal with it for now,” explains Kuan Yin.

“Humanity, then, is misunderstood. It’s a powerful place to be when it is fully experienced. However, it is often underestimated. Unless one fully experiences one’s humanity, one will have to experience earth again and again. One will have to repeat the lessons offered here upon the earth. It is possible that one need not have to reincarnate. Many don’t live up to their full potential because they’re afraid of death. I want to emphasize here that only the body dies. People get too attached [to physicality]. But, they have to. One’s consciousness must be fairly strong in order for the soul’s desire to continue. The more we feel our humanity, the more help we can give and the more joy we can create.”

“Kuan Yin is showing me a person running with sandbags. She’s telling me that when the person finally lets go of the sandbags, he or she is faster, stronger. Oh. I get it! That’s what the earth existence is like. In many ways living on earth is an “artificial” burden. Once one is free of her body, she is not only lighter—she is also stronger, more powerful," delineates Lena.

Birth and Death Are Choices

Explaining how it is we who direct our reality, Kuan Yin explained the purpose behind the eternal cycle of birth, death and soul evolution in the following passage:

“A lot of spirit energies are “coming in” all the time," states Kuan Yin. "Soul evolution is linear for some, non-linear for others. Some jump around experiencing a variety of lifetimes. It’s a way for the soul to develop compassion,” informs Kuan Yin. “While Americans have acquired many material things, they’ve lost something in the area of spirituality. Geographically, China is a place that “holds” elements of my energy. Don’t look at the government. It is but a thin, paper veil, indeed a “front-drop” for a greater energy. Overlook whatever government is presently in power. Mexico is another geographical location possessing a similar energy to mine. I feel a sadness for your culture. Overly engrossed, invested in the birth, death cycle, people don’t understand that birth and death are choices.”

What might influence a soul incarnating on earth? There are those who believe there are two main reasons: either one has karma or one wants to return to earth to develop compassion, helping those who are suffering or in need. In an interesting passage, Ms. Lees saw herself in another incarnation, she exclaimed:

“Wow. I’m seeing myself comment: ‘Look at how they, the earth energies, suffer; how they die. Emerging from even the most tragic death, their energy still keeps on going. What is it like to die? To feel pain?’ I guess I believed I wouldn’t be real unless I experienced being human. Furthermore, I couldn’t seem to stand my own curiosity."

The Indestructibility of One's Core Being

Addressing suffering and death, Kuan Yin insists we are indestructible, that our core being knows what is necessary for our evolution and that death is but a doorway to a new life: “I neither created it nor am I destroyed by it," decrees Kuan Yin, while standing in the midst of disaster. “You forget that this life is just one picture out of the entire reel of the movie. You’re frightened of the pain because you don’t know when it will end. But it wouldn’t be so painful if you didn’t fear it.”

Expounding on the subject of one's core essence, Lena said: “Kuan Yin is showing me a Middle Eastern woman crying in her hut. I see layers and layers of, not mist, but more like different shades of thick and gooey gray lacquer. I see layers of murky stripes, smoky and jellylike. They have been clinging to this woman for hundreds of years. Underneath all of these layers is the woman’s pure soul essence, the part of her that knows the processes it will take for her to be released from her karma, that which knows everything. This is the element of self that agrees to suffering and which knows the woman cannot be destroyed. And though this woman’s reality may “look” unjust some “unjust bomb” cannot blow her up. It cannot destroy her essence, her core being.”

Hearing Kuan Yin’s explanation of one’s “core being”, I suddenly understood a dream I had experienced years earlier. In the dream, an individual I’d known quite well while growing up was behaving in a threatening way. Considered a bully throughout most of his life, his words and demeanor betrayed inner turmoil and a sense of inadequacy. Finally confronting him in the dream, I asked, “Why must you behave like this?” Quite unexpectedly, this simple question triggered a complex and mysterious series of events. Feeling myself “traveling” through his forehead, clouds and mist surrounding his core being, I continued to penetrate thick layers of confusion and anger. Seeing a beautiful and bright light ahead, I intuited that this light represented his true self. I came to realize that this supposed “lost soul” was not only not lost, but divine. Antithetical to the “naughty children of God”, “original sin” and “fallen from grace” beliefs, my dream illustrated how at the center of each individual’s karmic layers is true divinity and oneness. From this dream, I gleaned it isn’t helpful to have pity upon others. Rather, seeing and acknowledging another’s divinity from one’s place of power, having true compassion helps others realize their own truth. In retrospect, I cannot help but wonder if this had been another dream sent by KuanYin.

Transfiguring herself again, placing herself at the center of an ominous mushroom cloud, Kuan Yin demonstrates her and, indeed, our immortality, how she is not afraid to merge with the most fearsome creations. Disputing those espousing doomsday and apocalyptic theories, she pronounces: “Your precious earth cannot be destroyed!"

Besides beliefs in unworthiness and death, Kuan Yin’s lists other examples of prevalent limiting mindsets influencing our contemporary world: “Wars and every other dilemma focusing on hate, fear and murder is based on the belief of not enough and the illusion of survival.” Utilizing extravagantly fanciful environments, unnatural distortions or fantastic combinations of elements: her upaya-kaushalya demonstrates that there are only moments upon moments to be lived. This truth is further illustrated by her appearance as known archetypes: the playful and joyous young woman, the nurturing mother and the wizened crone. In this way she shows how (as our Authentic Selves) we are genderless and ageless:

“It is important to accept that the human condition is temporary, fleeting. It’s filled with pain and suffering, beauty, strange tastes, odors of death, everything that exists in the universe. Problems are created when one is so obsessed with his/her own death, when one is too attached to their life. This attachment to a single incarnation causes the species to play out gruesome deaths. If you knew you were more than just this life, you would not plunder the land, each other…Death is like giving birth. Birth can be painful. Sometimes women die from giving birth. However, once the baby is born, all the pain vanishes in an instant. Love for that tiny newborn makes one forget the pain, the fear. And as I’ve said, during other exchanges: love between mother and child is the highest experience, the closest to divine love. You might wonder about the parallel I’m making between birth and death. But I say to you, the fear and pain accompanying an awful death is over quickly. Beyond that portal one is suddenly in the light, in oneness and bliss. Some women are powerful teachers. However, even women can be afraid of death, forget how the pain vanishes. Just as a woman heals rapidly after childbirth and then is able to fall in love with her baby, those who pass over also are able to fall in love with a new life.”

“Human Existence And Tendencies Are Wrapped In Karma.”

“There are many invested elements—elements that can affect the outcome. Ultimately, the outcome depends upon the individual’s free will. Everyone wants to know the outcome, the end. However, there is no end, only seasons of life. We’ve all heard it said before. Certain events, for example a move or a divorce, can be like a death. There are other examples, of course. Rebirth, flowering, wizening and then dormancy: the springs, summers autumns and winters of our lives represent one’s full cycle of seasons…Don’t be too harsh on yourself concerning the choices you’ve made during your life. When one subtracts from the equation of life physical birth and death, one can regard lessons learned as forming an infinite line. Then one can say to himself, ‘I’m learning this right now’. Try to crystallize the components of the lesson, excluding as much as is possible gender and financial factors. Repeat to yourself: ‘this is the lesson I’m learning right now, at this exact moment in time’." Kuan Yin

“I’m seeing a beautiful beam of light,” responds Lena. “It represents the oneness of human consciousness.”

“You’ve already lived any future lives, all of your lives!” Kuan Yin enjoins. Implying only parallel existences, she emphatically proclaims: “There is no such thing as time. I want the theme of this passage to be that humans need not take everything that happens to them and around them so personally. Such an approach to living creates pain. People believe that death is a punishment from God rather than a natural progression, a doorway to other realities. By having such a grim perspective, they make it a fearful and painful experience. I repeat. Just don’t take everything so personally. In fact, if humans didn’t cling to events in their lives, every experience that ever was could be lived in an instant."