could hear music that other people couldn’t hear and see things that they couldn’t see. Once when they took me outside for some fresh air I began to hear this remarkable hum. I looked around to see where it was coming from and around every blade of grass there was this radiant light and I realized that I was hearing the sound of the grasses. Then I looked at this tiny sapling and I saw the same light glowing around the tree and the leaves and I could distinguish a beautiful sound as the sap was rising up and as the sun was entering the leaves and going down the tree. Then a small breeze came up and as the leaves twisted and turned I could hear a pure crystalline sound like a chime.
Denise Linn has extended her vision of the eternal nature of spirit to the world in the form of healing workshops, books and lectures. It brought her in touch with her Cherokee heritage and helped her to understand the vision of life held by most tribal peoples throughout the world. She considers her near death experience a special gift:
When I had my NDE I wasn’t given something which I did not already have: it just allowed me to remember who I am. It is as if inside each person there is an ember of remembrance and there are ways to allow that ember to become a flame, a flame that says we are infinite and immortal. That we are spirits.
RITUALS AND RELEASE
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am a diamond’s glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there.
I did not die.
Anonymous
The ancients grieved over death and yet their belief in death as a positive transformation when the soul begins its journey to the afterlife led them to create rituals as a bridge which the soul could use to move between worlds.
As a child, Aggie Richards, a nurse and member of the Spiritualist Church, would find herself drawn to funerals, where she would see the spirit of whoever had died shimmering above the mourning guests. Sometimes she saw something which resembled an umbilical cord trailing from the spirit into the coffin; as the coffin was lowered it would slowly dissolve. She knew that no one else could see this and would always say a prayer for the spirit as it disappeared. Her vision corresponds with the spiritual belief that the souls of the dead attend their own funerals and even as the living are saying goodbye they too are preparing to take their leave.
The religious custom of reading sacred texts and prayers at funerals reminds the soul that it wishes to seek reunion with God and the European custom of keeping candles burning around the coffin light the way for the dead to the invisible realms. The clothes, food, gifts and messages which are often buried with the dead reassure the spirit through lingering memories of their earthly existence and stop them feeling lonely on their journey.
From ancient Egyptians to Buddhists and the many tribal peoples of the world, many cultures have considered the newly disembodied soul to be at great risk, not simply from external forces but also from its own fear and confusion. The living are also held to be at risk at this time.
Many rites have grown out of the fear of the ghost of the dead returning to haunt the living as the gateway of death opened from the visible to the supernatural world. The original reason why mourners, pall bearers and undertakers dressed in black was to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible in order to protect themselves from the ghost and any other spirits hovering near. Even today undertakers will take the coffin to the house of the deceased on the way to the cemetery to make sure that the soul accompanies the body, and the corpse must always be taken from the house feet first, otherwise, looking back, it will beckon one of the family to follow it into death. In Haiti the cortège will break into a run as if being chased to the cemetery. Twisting and turning through the streets, it takes the most circuitous route, trying to make the soul lose its sense of direction so that it can never find its way home again. Gypsies pile thorn bushes over the grave to prevent the soul rising out of it and in the past would always burn the possessions of the dead so that they would have nothing to return to.
THE FUNERAL
The funeral ceremony is the final and most sacred rite of passage on the wheel of life as the body is returned to the elements and the soul is released. Funerals serve the same functions throughout the world: to dispose of the body, to ensure the safe passage of the soul and to comfort the living. The prayers, rituals, magical incantations and celebrations help to divest the soul of emotional attachment and empower it to continue its journey toward the light.
THE SOUL THAT WAS MINE IS NOW YOURS
The Indian custom is to let the soul go and not to hold on to it, so we set aside 13 days for mourning, for it is thought that it will take that number of days to heal. In Hindi the word for 13 – thera – also means ‘yours’ and on the thirteenth day we release the soul that we love back to the keeping of Baba, God, our spiritual parent.
Mainly I help the mourners to let go of the person who has died and allow them the freedom to go on. I teach people that by our distress we may be blocking the soul’s path and not helping ourselves to heal. There are many people who never heal from death but there are others who come to the understanding that their soul connection to the one who has died is eternal. That we never perish.
By sharing our spiritual knowledge, helping the mourners to meditate and make connection with their own God, we teach them how to help the spirit to go, which heals their own spirit at the same time.
On the thirteenth day the mourners will put oil in their hair, change their saris. They will prepare all the favourite foods of the soul that left the body and invite their friends and family to enjoy the feast. One of our sisters will sit in meditation and powerfully remember Baba as the food is being blessed and then we will feast. When we have given to the soul one more time, all that they desired in life then we let the soul go to Baba.
It is a time of freedom and release and energy. Everything changes after this ceremony: attitudes, thoughts, sadness. You often realise that until the thirteenth day you have been holding on but on that day you can feel that the soul has moved on: We can finally say: ‘God, the soul which was yours, I offer back to you.’
Sister Jemini of the Brahma Kumari Organization
Messengers from the spirit realms invoked during funerals to guide and protect the soul include angels, deities and the souls of the ancestors. In Christian rites it is the figure of Christ in particular who brings hope of life after death. He is the aspect of Love into which the soul is safely commended. In Catholic tradition the requiem mass is believed to have the power to ritualistically bring the soul to repose and peace in immortality. Requiem literally means rest and the rite divests the soul from the sins of life so that it can release itself into the arms of God.
For
