Since 1975, when Raymond Moody published his book Life After Life, near-death experiences have become a household conversation. We know about going through the tunnel, meeting loved ones who have passed before us, and the Light. Yet many of us do not understand the deeper question: Why am I here? The medical profession has made such amazing advancement, almost on a daily basis, that it is understandable more and more people are having near-death experiences. Yet, even with our greater understanding many instinctively fear their own demise. Young people frequently have the feeling they are here for a reason, that they are destined for something beyond the daily events of life. Confused messages have been sent to us through the ages from generation to generation with lessons of how to get God’s approval and end up in the right place after death. THE WONDER OF YOU, What the Near Death Experience Tells You About Yourself frees us from those dictates. It is a provocative, book that digs deep to bring many of the answers we have been struggling to understand. It brings a new perspective and opens our eyes to our reality.
Here is an excerpt from the book to show how Lynn Kathleen Russell, has excavated the depths to bring about a deeper understanding to our eternal questions.
Seekers of truth have been delighted as the truth of our Oneness with all that exists spreads throughout the world. Some may see our relationship with the Oneness like beads on a string or leaves on a tree. Not so. We are the tree in all its parts; we are the string the beads are strung on. And it is not enough to have this understanding in our heads; we must also know it in our hearts and demonstrated as a part of our daily lives. It is not possible to comprehend the Oneness and then treat another person, place, or thing with anything less than the love and respect each person or thing deserves. The awareness of the truth of our being must be as close to us as our beating hearts and the blood pumping though our bodies. With the certainty of our existence, we need to know we are far more than just connected to one another by an invisible cord. It is imperative we realize we are the Muslim women behind their burkas and the homeless people in the inner cities of the world. In precisely the same way, we are multimillionaires living in luxury, and simultaneously the African dying of AIDS. The Oneness we speak of is much deeper and spreads farther than most of us have judged. We are One with the universe, all that exists. That planet on the other side of the universe with the strange life forms is as much One with you as your own heart. One means one and only one and there is nothing more; no pieces or parts, only Oneness The personalities we carry around during our lifetimes are simply temporary egos like passports into life. Whether good or bad, our egos are simply illusions we have created as useful tools to serve us while in the physical level of existence. The personality may be loving or hateful, yet at the spirit level, they remain as illusionary as an optical illusion. We truly are souls going experiencing a human life. Our egos or personalities do not live this life; it is the soul. The soul is what pumps our hearts and rushes blood through our bodies. Soul keeps our lungs working, our cells dividing, and our organs doing what they should. And, regardless of our developed egos, it is the soul living this life, not the ego.
Our souls sit down to eat, laugh with friends, and cry over our pains. The soul plays sports, gives birth, and goes to work every day. And our souls are the Creator within that is experiencing life; there is no separation. And even though we relate more strongly to our ego personalities, there has never been a time when we were not soul.
At eighteen I was an unemployed hairdresser desperate to find a job and willing to do just about anything to put some bucks in my pocket. Being the brave individual I was, I applied for a job to do the hair of corpses. (I had never seen a corpse in my life). On the day of my first job, I nervously followed the funeral director to the room where the body waited and was completely shocked by the mannequin lying on the table. That object lying there had once been a woman. A person who spent time with her family, worked, laughed, and cried. Now there was no person; nothing even indicated life had ever been there. A life-like doll lay on the metal table and nothing more.
That moment I discovered the soul. The instant the soul had left that body, she ceased to be a human being. The soul no longer ran the show, the lights were turned off, the doors had been locked and nothing was left. The personality or ego did not—indeed could not—jump in to carry on in place of the soul; that was not possible. It was the soul that had been working this woman’s life and it is that same soul operating our bodies as well. And when the job is done, the soul simply packs up its lunch pail, punches the time clock, and leaves to go home.
Those who have returned from death also tell us our existence in the world of the physical is an illusion. It is a dream brought about by God experiencing God. Like Pinocchio, we dreamed of being real, and—abracadabra—we gave ourselves the gift of human life.
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