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Inner Space (3)
More descriptions of The Life Beyond. What to call Heaven or Kingdom Come
Since this is a group for open discussion, perhaps some readers can suggest the best name for life after death, our future destination. We suggested that the term afterlife implies the eventual diminishing of experience, while inner space, or the life within implies or suggests enclosure and our being shut in - a claustrophobic feel about it. The Life Beyond suggests more openness, and I will go with that for the time being. Heaven and Paradise have religious connotations, or the sense of a holiday camp of fun and games, while Hell, Purgatory, Perdition and Limbo are temporary states of mind, from all accounts, and not actual places.
The brief descriptions of the life beyond mentioned in the previous article were from Stephen (pseudonym), an American soldier killed in the FIrst World War. Sixty years later, similar descriptions were made by the former Lutheran Pastor A. D. Mattson, coming through medium Margaret Flavell. Stephen mentioned that after death, the whole subconscious mind opens up, and all past experiences and forgotten memories are recalled, and from that point on, a soul can take advantage of the huge database of personal interests, skills, experiences and qualities of mind. Nothing is ever lost, and there is a sharing of feelings and projects as the spirit goes on to meet others with similar interests. As can be seen from the accounts, the Next World is as real to the spirits’ heightened senses as our earth is solid and quite tangible for us. Although travel is easy for the spirit. - It just has to think of a location, and it is there - spirits can also create a reality as a group experience, as in the following account. Here is a short review of what Alvin Daniel Mattson has to say about the grotto of expanding consciousness which he visited. :-
About a year after he had arrived in the spirit world, he joined a group of spirits who were taken on a boat trip to visit an underground grotto, or cave in a mountain. They travelled on a narrow river that was not more than mile wide at its broadest point. Their attention was directed to the hills that were on either side of them. He goes on to describe the glorious countryside in detail. As they approached the grotto in the mountainside, he saw a gnome, whom some of his companions could only hear. The gnome was whistling a short tune as he tended the plants growing amongst the rocks. Mattson said that the gnome then began to blend into the background, and he could see through him and look at the flowers and rocks behind him. Then they came to the entrance of the cave. Inside it was light, and a warm breeze met them.
They were divided into groups, and a guide came forward to be with each group. Mattson’s guide was a fair-haired lady wearing a pink and gold robe, glittering with sparkling coloured rays. She told them that this grotto had been prepared for their study and growth. There were all sorts of alcoves, and in the first which he was attracted to explore there were the most gorgeous flowers growing in water, within which were small iridescent sea creatures. Moving into a larger area with high domes, he found reproductions of sculptures and statues from different époques. There were many fragrant plants and trees in other areas he moved into, and as he awaited the rest of his group to catch up, he experienced a marvelous expansion of consciousness. Speaking through Margaret Flavell to his daughter, Ruth Taylor, he said:
“I was suddenly attracted to the other side [of the grotto] where there was a great deal of sound. I hesitate to call it music. It was a cacophony of tones. I walked across to it, and I could see nothing but coloured columns, similar to organ pipes. There were pipes of all sizes – great big ones with holes in them, and tiny little ones near the ground, and large ones up in the air – all forming an orderly picture and all emitting sound.
Never before had sound affected me as the tones from those pipes did. It seemed to me that each of the notes had a message. They were calling to me and starting to vibrate on and through my body. As they did, I began to feel very light, very uplifted and joyous. I could almost say EXPANDING in consciousness. I looked at a man near me, and the pulsating light that was coming through from his form was truly amazing. I then looked at myself, and I was growing and becoming. I felt that all the things that weighed me down at times were being dispersed. I experienced a tremendous exultation.
When I felt this exultation, I didn’t want to look at any of the others. I wanted to be alone. Suddenly, I sank through the floor, and I found myself inside a bubble of colour. I couldn’t see anybody else, and I wasn’t conscious of whether there were any chairs, or whether I was in a hall. I was just in this bubble. It seemed to be in the place where the sound had come from, as if the sound was being created here and was going up through the pipes so the people up above could hear it and see the colours it produced. But the interesting thing was that while you were on the floor above and looking at other things, you weren’t conscious of the sound. Only when you directed your attention toward it did you become aware of it.
Inside that bubble, I felt that I no longer had legs, arms, feet, or head. I became a sort of swinging or swaying vibration. My mind went back to a lecture I had attended on the negative and the positive – the yin and the yang. I realized that the forward and receding surges going through me could be called positive and negative surges.
Then I became aware of a voice, one that I have heard not only here [but when I was still alive on earth] - when I prayed and received instruction or help. This voice said to me: ‘Be aware of yourself. Find yourself. Be aware of yourself – use yourself – the true self. Be aware of the pulsating life and the God that is within you. Don’t feel that this is a discipline. Don’t look upon this as a rule or a regulation or an order or a command, but be AWARE. Know that you are part of this great, universal, creative force and power, this God. Know and be aware.’
Although when I was on earth there had been moments when I had sat quietly and been aware, the awareness I now experienced was magnified a thousand times. I began to feel that I no longer wanted to be A. D. Mattson. I no longer had any desire to think in the way I’d been thinking. I just wanted to KNOW. Somehow I understood that if I could KNOW, then there should be no doubts. I don’t think that I have been besieged by many doubts. Still, I must say that since I’ve been here, I had begun to think, - Well, now, what purpose can I fulfil while I’m over here? Am I growing? Am I just being the same person? And when I think back into A.D., am I bringing anything new to A.D.? Or am I just the same A.D. who had a physical body and walked around on two feet? - Suddenly I was aware that my searching thoughts had brought me to this point. Now I understand that this is one of the laws of the universe. As you think, so you are.
If you on earth say to yourselves, - I’ve come this far and now I want to be different. I want to change. I want to be better. I want to see clearer. I want to know more deeply. I want to have understanding - If you send out these thoughts, it may seem that nothing happens. However, there WILL come a time when a directive arrives. Perhaps you’ll experience it during a period of meditation.
And so now I have received my directive here: BECOME AWARE.
Reviewed from “Evidence from Beyond: an Insider’s Guide to the Wonders of Heaven – and Life in the New Millennium” by Ruth Mattson Taylor. Brett Books, Inc. New York, 1999. An excellent guide to the Life Beyond Death, as is the author’s previous book about her father’s return, “Witness from Beyond,” Foreword Books, 1980.
Further accounts of the Life Beyond from other sources to follow.
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