Through the Tunnel
A Traveler's Guide to Spiritual Rebirth
by Diane Goble, MS
Click on the BoomBox below to hear the multidimensional soundscapes of Visionary Music while reading this page
Music from Visionary Music
CD: DNA Activation #1
To read the following chapters, click here to order your own paperback copy of Through the Tunnel or to read the entire eBook online.
Paul | Henry Ford | Walt Whitman | Giodano Bruno | Benjamin Franklin | Victor Hugo | Dante Gabriela Rossetti | Robert Browning | Dame Edith Sitwell | Origen | Seneca | Carl Jung | Immanuel Kant | Voltaire | Aristotle | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | General George S. Patton | Salvadore Dali | Jesus | Lucan | Plato
Appendix
Akashic Record | Anubisist | Bardo | Chakras | Clear Light | Etheric-Astral | Karma |
Key to Life | Kundalini | Reincarnation | Salvation | Savior | Seed Atoms | Silver Cord | Thought Forms |
My joy comes from sharing the Good News that 90% of the things people worry about are not worth the time or the energy they put into them. The Big Picture is that "life" as a Human Being is a learning experience that does not end when the physical body dies, and is only a brief episode in the infinite life of a much greater being who is both Human and Divine. Not God, but a great Spiritual Master. Human Beings are the physical manifestation of a Spiritual Being who is on a Path back to Ultimate Reality, the Godhead. Our personal life dramas are meaningless distractions from our higher purpose. This isn't to discount our personal lives as human beings, but to put them in logical perspective. Relationships and societies are our means to express ourselves. It is the way we chose to express ourselves that creates and solves problems.
The only thing that really matters in our physical lifetimes and personal lives is that we learn to reflect and express God's Love, or the Christ-Spirit, in our daily lives by balancing the Physical-Emotional-Mental-Spiritual Nature of our Whole Being. It is the atomic balanced with the Cosmic. As it is above; so it is below! We are waves of light and we are particles of light. We are learning to simultaneously exist on all levels as fully-awakened, God-centered Beings. We have the Free Will not to reflect and express this unconditional love, this compassion for ourselves and each other, in our physical life-- either way it is a growth experience for our soul. But, if we don't also return to our soul having expressed some compassion, it matters to our soul's higher purpose.
It will take many "lifetimes" in the physical dimension for one of a Soul's human "children" to grasp the full meaning of the preceding concept and to accept that each of us is Divine and has equal rights in all earthly matters, before one of those children reaches that one final lifetime as a fully-realized Divine-Human Being. Not as a saint or a martyr, but as an ordinary person who loves and helps others and enjoys living, no matter what the circumstances of their physical life. And, when that physical life is over, the Spirit no longer needs or wants to project into the world of matter -- has graduated from the School of Life -- and seeks greater knowledge and wisdom in the higher dimension of God. It is our greater developmental process, and you and I are in the midst of ours!
Each of us is given the opportunity to accelerate our spiritual growth by expanding our consciousness to accept the down-pouring of God's Love (to accept a spiritual teacher to guide you, if that's what it takes for you) and by opening our hearts to that healing energy of unconditional Love and Acceptance. I wish I could find the words to convey what I felt during my near-death experience (NDE) to help you relate to the overwhelming feeling that swept over me after leaving my body and while traveling through spiritual dimensions at the speed of light. Try to imagine the most intense feeling of being loved that you can and multiply it by the National Debt, and you'd have some inkling of what it is like when you are able to let go of the physical world and experience higher states of consciousness in the less-dense spiritual worlds beyond the physical dimension.
Skeptics may call a description by an NDEr a hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation, but, for the individual, the intense feeling of complete Love, the mind-expanding realizations of the multi-dimensional universe and the continuity of conscious-life, and the life-transforming effects on the person following an NDE, are less easily explained away . . . though Science may never find convincing evidence. The veil between the physical and the spiritual dimension cannot be penetrated by our limited physical senses. It is only when the Conscious Mind leaves the body-brain (during NDEs, out-of-body experiences, trance and dream states) and joins its ASTRAL body that we can perceive our environment in the spiritual realms-- and it is very much, and more, like the physical, at least as far as the ASTRAL plane.
At the time of my NDE I considered myself an atheist and had no expectations of anything beyond death. But, in an instant, my mind was changed for me! And I didn't just believe something, I "knew" it from first-hand experience. In fact, it felt more real and natural than this world ever has, before or since. Now that I know so many others have had a similar experience, I feel safe in coming out of the closet, even though many people around me don't want to hear about death or can't imagine looking forward to it.
The message I was given is that it is time to make death a part of life and not the end of life. We need to talk about it, get comfortable with it, and we need to prepare ourselves and our loved ones for our departure, as well as our reunion at the end of their physical lives . . . for we do meet again, many times, in many places.
And so, I offer this knowledge, which I brought back from my NDE and is corroborated by many others, as a contribution to world peace. It is my hope that, by recognizing we are all here to help each other along our spiritual paths, we will turn our attention away from our ego-centered desires and fears toward compassion and sharing and caring for each other. There are a lot of things to do on this planet that are meaningful and fun; why waste anymore lifetimes creating more KARMA by using physical aggression against others to gain control over them or get what they have or because they are different or don't give us what we want. The karmic lesson for Humanity is concern for the welfare of generations to come, as evidenced by the state of the world and the environment today. Each of us is presented with opportunities to perform unselfish acts of love in our daily lives and with choices between right and wrong. It requires a change of mind, of attitudes and intentions, to develop one's character and spiritual nature, to develop the Spiritual Nature of Humanity.
Each person will comprehend the information in this book at their own level of understanding and, hopefully, each time you read it over your understanding will increase. Many Souls in body at this time will have the opportunity to make the quantum leap to higher consciousness in their present lifetime and achieve spiritual heights at their death time. This book is offered as a tool for those who are ready and as something to get others to start thinking "what if . . ."
Use whatever information in it that fits into your current belief system. Use it to expand your consciousness. Use it to become a more loving being. Use it to improve the quality of your life, and the lives of others, and to find joy and fulfillment in living a meaningful existence on this beautiful planet.
Whatever you do . . . I wish you love.
What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived,what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
(I Cor. 2:9-10)
We come into this world blindly, without an instruction book or any guidelines, and simply have to muddle through a lifetime as a human being without knowing who or what we are or why we're here or even where here is! We have parents, relatives, friends, teachers and preachers to look to as role models; history books to show us how people have lived in the past; religions to teach us the rules of living morally; governments to help us learn to live together; and the Free Will to do anything we darn well please! Somehow, amid the bitter and the sweet, the sorrow and the joy, the tears and the laughter, we get through life only to come up against death. And, once again, there is no instruction manual.
We are as unprepared to die as we were to be born. That's why death scares most people and why some stubbornly cling to life or try to ignore death. They may be more secure with what they know, no matter how miserable it may be, than with death-- that Great Unknown.
A great many people today are rushed to hospitals as death approaches, and their dying becomes lonely and impersonal. They are treated as a person with no right to an opinion, as a non-person. No one asks if they want the heroic measures the doctors and nurses are determined to perform. If they rebel, they are sedated. He may cry for rest, peace and dignity, but he will get infusions, transfusions, a heart machine, or tracheotomy... (11) Medical technology has replaced religion in the dying process and changed our attitudes about death. The dying are isolated and deathbed rituals have been abandoned. (18)
But times are changing. Science and religion are finding common ground and attitudes toward death are going back to acceptance of death as part of life.That person is bound in the chains of death, his fears of his own death, and the grief over the death of others, who tries to ignore death. That person is freed from the fetters of death and all its attendant anxieties, who meets death as a companion to life, in the spirit of rational and tranquil acceptance, without clinging to or fleeing it. (12)
Don't waste your life fearing death! Death is simply a change in vibrations, a rearrangement of your atomic structure, a transformation of molecular substance, a shift in consciousness. We are energy and, as scientists proclaim, energy cannot be destroyed-- it merely changes form. Are not water, ice and steam all the same thing? Your physical life and death and your spiritual rebirth are all parts of your experience. There is no separation. After you die, you are still you. Everything you experience after you leave your physical body is a continuation of your "whole" life experience. Consciousness is continuous, eternal. What you now see as the material world, the world of ordinary sensory reality, disappears and you vanish to it as the spiritual world, the fourth dimension, appears before you with you in it. And you are still you.
In the fourth dimensional world, one can view everything from all angles simultaneously. The interior of a solid is as visible as its exterior. The eyes can magnify or reduce objects according to one's will power or desire. All objects seem to be enveloped by an aura, constantly shifting form and color. (5) In this realm, you will experience having all knowledge; all past, present and future will seem to coexist in a sort of timeless state. (16)
If death is no more than part of "growing up," then all the fighting amongst, and within, ourselves is, sadly, a waste of another brief opportunity to live a lifetime as a physical being to accelerate your spiritual growth.
Once you really understand that death is merely a stage in the developmental process of your whole life, for you are both a physical and a spiritual entity, you can shift the focus of your present attention to exploring the potentials and opportunities your current lifetime has to offer, even if you are terminally ill. Life will not be fraught with frustration, pain, sorrow, guilt, struggle and regret if you concentrate your energy on attaining spiritual awareness and put the material world in its proper perspective. Once you can accept that death is not the end, but merely a transition from one state of being to another, that you may face temporary unpleasantness but there is no eternal damnation, and that, no matter how badly you have bungled this life, you will have other opportunities to get it right, you can overcome the fear of that Great Unknown and get on with the important questions-- such as, since you know you are going to die someday, is there a right way and a wrong way to go?
The automotive inventor believed that genius, including his own, resulted from long experience gained in the course of many previous lives.
There are many wrong ways to die-- wrong in the sense that you may remain stuck in the Cycle of Birth and Rebirth longer than need be. "Young" souls, in their first several incarnations, go through many short, brutal lifetimes in various physical bodies and spend many brief periods between resting unconsciously in lower spiritual dimensions because they haven't expanded their consciousness enough while in-body to realize that they are both human and divine. Each lifetime provides the opportunity for the human being to connect with their Spiritual Self, or Soul-- to recognize that they are not merely a body, but a Soul wearing a temporary coat of skin in order to experience the physical world first hand. One cannot directly experience the physical world without a body. From this realization of your True Self and your spiritual nature comes the acceptance of the after-life as a spiritual being through knowing that your consciousness goes on after your physical body dies, in some less solid form, in some less dense dimension. It's like putting away you winter coat when Spring comes, you know that the coat is shabby and you don't want to wear it anymore. That's virtually what death is all about. (13)
Dying the right way is with full consciousness, knowing exactly where to go and what to do-- before and after you leave your physical body behind to release your Soul to its highest potential. Once you know and incorporate the art of dying into your consciousness, you will be able to live your life more fully. You will be free of fear of death and this life will take on deeper meaning for you. The ultimate moment of your life is your death! Make the most of it!
The great American poet believed in the essential divinity of humankind, and that we would eventually become gods, having already risen through the ranks of creation from rocks and trees.
It is time to take the mystery and the fear out of dying by creating a position for an earthly transitional guide and writing a book of instructions that people of today can relate to on how to die well ... with joyful awareness!
The Ancient Egyptians called him Anubis, the god who led the dead to judgment. The Greeks gave the honor to Hermes, and the Romans, to Mercury. In many religions and belief systems, there is a concept of an Etheric world angel, guide or intelligence whose function is to assist the dying person during their transition from the physical to the spiritual plane. The Japanese have a name for the act of making one's transition with ease and comfort, anrakushi (1), which is possible if one has been given the proper instructions, amshi-jutsu (1), prior to death. In Latin, the craft of dying without pain and suffering in called ars moriendi (1). Eastern religions had their own Book of the Dead (8,25) containing instructions for departing earth life and journeying to the Etheric realms. Most of this information, however, was hoarded by their priests and lamas; kept secret from the general population who were not deemed worthy of receiving it nor capable of comprehending it. Native American tribes had Shamans who became channels, through their personal death-rite initiation, for healing as well as helping tribesmen make their transition to the Etheric world during their real death process. To Christians, Jesus is the Savior who promised to lead them to Heaven. Contemporary religions use rituals performed by priests, rabbis or ministers to prepare the dying for their transition while the more secular-minded simply rely on the local funeral director to send them off.
Over time. the concept of life after death has been bandied about by theologians and scientists, scholars and students, priests and lay people, TV talk show hosts and their guests, to no conclusion. It has not been a scientifically-provable thesis; therefore, it is left as a matter of faith. One either believes it or not. It seems that faith is necessary when we don't know. We may gather all the information and come to understand to a certain point, and then we have to make a leap of faith before we can accept something as fact. But when you have the experience, up close and personal, no leap of faith is required-- you now know and you know you know. There is no question or doubt in your mind. Reverend Parrish-Harra wonders how many of those who say they believe in life after death have the courage of their convictions, or just hope? She calls this the true test of facing death. (20)
The only time one finds out for sure the true nature of reality is after death where the secret is safe from those who would abuse the knowledge. At least so thought the priests of ancient times. But times have changed and human beings have changed, and soon life after death will be proclaimed a scientific fact (by quantum physics) and instructions to prepare oneself for one's transition and life hereafter will become common knowledge. The majority of the life wave of human beings now on earth have evolved enough to truly comprehend the benefits of preparing for the transition to life after death as the precursor to living life on earth more peacefully-- once they have the necessary information.
The real experience of life after death comes from those of us, especially children (17), who have died and come back to describe our experiences on the other side. In ages past, only the highest initiates of the temples or the initiated shamans, got to experience "near-death" and receive instructions for helping others make their transition easier. Now everyday people all over the world, millions of us, are being anointed as way-showers for those who are ready to achieve their highest developmental potential. The wonderful thing about having a near-death experience (NDE) is that you get another chance to change your life in the same lifetime; whereas final death requires a whole 'nother lifetime to get it. Once you have experienced the overwhelming Love of God during an NDE, you cannot go back to the mundane world you lived in before, or, at least, not take it so seriously!
This guidebook will not mean anything to those who are not yet ready to receive their heritage as divine-human beings, but many more will pay enough attention to be able to get it right in their next lifetime. Most important are those who are ready to prepare themselves now for the most significant event in their lives.
The reason I didn't "die" when I drowned in a white-water river accident 25 years ago was because I had a mission to accomplish on earth before I could remain permanently in spiritual realms, and my life up to that time was way off my path! This I was told by a Being of Light as it showed me about spiritual life after death during my NDE. I was given the Key to Life and sent back to become a teacher helping others prepare for their transition and guide them through the process until they meet their Etheric guide on the other side.
Core NDErs are people who know, but they do not merely have a certain knowledge of matters... they have become what they know, their knowledge lives and grows within them. It is as if the core of the NDE becomes a cherished memory that people may later take comfort in. It is not even just an experience that "changes one's life." It is one's life. And it becomes the source of one's true being in the world.
Unless this is understood about NDErs in general and core NDErs-- that is, those that have experienced this spiritual radiance most deeply-- in particular, what is most essential about them will not be grasped. And what they are capable of teaching the rest of us will then be lost. (22)
For lack of a modern term to describe a human being who functions as a guide on this side, I defer to Anubis and call us Anubisists.
This is not a sectarian religious book nor does it require belief in an afterlife to be useful to you. Its significance will become clear to you only when you die. It is based on the real experience of a human being who died and came back in order to let others know what they will experience during their death, which is actually the process of spiritual rebirth. This is not being written by one who adheres to any particular religious philosophy, but by one who has considered the thought of many doctrines and teachers and found there is some truth in every religion. The information in this guidebook many be used by any person of any faith, or of no faith-- anytime during your transition when you realize the real illusion and remember something of the instructions.
There are a number of concepts used in this book that are little understood and open to various interpretations. These terms are capitalized throughout the book and defined in the Appendix. Whether or not you are familiar with the concepts, you might want to read them over before going on to the next chapters to keep things in context, and then refer to them as needed later for clarification. These concepts are an integral part of the death-rebirth process and must be considered in order to begin to comprehend the experience before you die. What may not be clear to you now, will become very clear when you find yourself in the experience.
This 16th Century Italian philosopher taught that a soul passed from one body to another and could ultimately attain perfection. He was burned at the stake as a heretic.
There are three important reasons for you to have knowledge of the death process beforehand, besides the obvious one that everyone, prepared or not, dies:
Everyone is offered the opportunity for Salvation, or Liberation from the Cycle of Life and Death, at death;
This opportunity may be missed due to ignorance or fear of death and the unknown; and
The opportunity won't come again until after you incarnate and face death again. (3)
You have a choice (you always have a choice): This lifetime, or the next, or the next... Mastering the techniques of dying makes this death a certain opportunity for Salvation or, at the very least, valuable time in the higher spiritual realms rather than an extended Bardo journey and rebirth relatively quickly.
Franklin was originally a printer by trade. He said that he looked forward to a second edition of himself, in which he hoped that the errata of the first edition might be corrected.
The death-rebirth experience will vary from individual to individual in specific details although, generally, it is a similar experience, one of only two shared by all human beings. Just as the embryo passes through evolutionary development in the womb and emerges the product of its inherited genes and Karma, consciousness goes through a similar evolutionary process during death. The physical body is the womb of consciousness. Death is the rebirth of the Soul from the womb of the body-- like the butterfly emerging from its cocoon as it flexes its wings and flies away. The brain is the generative organ for the Soul at death. The Crown Chakra is the vagina which expands to allow the Soul rebirth into the spiritual body. (3) During this journey to rebirth, memories of its lifetime are relived and the Soul emerges with the attributes and Karma it acquired during that life experience. Although the Bardo experience is determined by your Karma, you still have Free Will. The choices you make will influence the end result. The more knowledge you have now, the better choices you will make then.
The French novelist wrote that when he died it would be as if he had merely finished a day's work-- which he would resume the next morning.
What determines the course of your death experience?
For one thing, how you die.
If death follows a long illness or extreme old age, you may have established contact with the other side during this time. You may have visited or been visited by deceased loved ones in full consciousness. You may have spent some time preparing your spiritual house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Cor. 5:1) You may have made plans for your future life in the spiritual domain. As your physical body has deteriorated, you have been building your beautiful spiritual form. When your physical body dies, you may simply move from the material to the spiritual world with full awareness.
If you die suddenly, unexpectedly in an accident, you may be thrown out of your body into a world you cannot comprehend and it may take sometime for you to realize what has happened and to accept that you are dead. If you have a heart attack or are electrocuted or drown or are murdered, or have an accident for which you are hospitalized for a time before you die, you may linger over your body for a while, watching the scene of your death from above, before letting go.
The English painter, poet and member of the pre-Raphaelite movement, which revived a medieval style of painting, was a believer in reincarnation. In his poem Sudden Light, he wrote: I have been here before . . . You have been mine before. He also wrote: A light there is in the beyond which makes the creator visible to the creature, who only in beholding him finds peace.
If you suddenly find there has been a drastic change from one moment to the next, as could happen with sudden death, but you still feel alive though everything around you seems familiar but different, try to touch something-- if your hand goes through it, you are dead-- or having an NDE! Immediately call out the name of someone close to you who has already died. . . if you see them before you, you will know. Everything around you may seem the same-- and it is, only that you're experiencing it in a different way. That's the main difference between life and death. One of the problems. . . in between lives is familiarity and the apparent ordinariness of the situation. (10)
When you notice you are observing your body from somewhere above your body, you realize that even though you are no longer part of that body, you can see and hear and are conscious of everything that is going in around it. You find that if you think about a loved one or about being some place special, you will suddenly be with that person or in that place. To your dismay, you find that people cannot hear you, do not even know you are present; that you are able to pass through solid walls; that the physical world no longer exists for you and you no longer exist for it. When you recognize that you are indeed dead, you may choose to say silent good-byes to your loved ones-- if it occurs to you that you may do so. If you are unable to accept that you have died or to let go of emotional ties to the physical world, you may wander aimlessly between two worlds; unable to get back into one, unwilling to go into the next.
The English poet and husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote in his poem "Evelyn Hope" that two lovers will be reunited after one has died, though "delayed it may be for more lives yet."
What enables most to release their attachment to the material world fairly quickly is the overwhelming sense of peace and love which pervades one's consciousness upon leaving the body. There is no sense of loss. All pain and fear, sorrow and guilt fall away. If you had any handicaps or disabilities or disease, they disappear and you become "whole." You feel free and completely alive. All your senses are heightened and sharpened. You see all that you were blind to before.
. . . but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away . . . now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. (1 Cor. 13:10,12)
You feel drawn toward the love which manifests as a tiny brilliant light far in the distance. As you release your need to be back in your body, you find yourself rising higher and higher above the trees, above the earth, until you enter a black void. You feel yourself moving faster and faster as if reaching the speed of light, which gives you the sensation of speeding through a tunnel. Ahead you will see the Light, coming closer and closer.
The English poet often remarked on her striking resemblance to the Tudor English King Henry VII and his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth 1. Dame Edith suggested that she may have been Henry VII in a former life.
Going "through the tunnel" is the interpretation of a mind which has never shifted from one state of consciousness to another, as can be experienced during deep meditation. The gap in time is experienced as movement, but is actually a change in frequency domain, or the movement of awareness from one level to another. What is thought to be a tunnel is a transitional zone between states of consciousness. (21) The Light is the opening to a new state of consciousness and when one breaks through to that level, it appears as an explosion of White Light breaking into all it rainbow colors. Once the consciousness becomes adjusted to the new frequency or accustomed to the Light, you begin to perceive your experience in a new way.
To the literal-minded we teach the Gospel in the historic way, preaching Jesus the Christ and him crucified. But to the proficient, fired with the love of divine wisdom, we impart the Logos (the Word).
© 1993 Diane Goble
To continue, click here to order your own paperback copy of Through the Tunnel or to read the eBook online.
