Soul Rescuers: A 21st century guide to the spirit world. Natalia O’Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ we visited a Hindu temple filled with icons and paintings of Krishna. We received a blessing from the priest, who anointed our brows, reminding Terry of the elation he felt at his first communion as a child. A great light touched us. It taught me that there is no difference in God, whatever faith you are led by.

      We journeyed further into India and arrived in the north, in Kashmir. Here we realized we were surrounded by earthbound spirits, even at the mosque. Kashmir is a place of political and religious struggle. There are frequent outbreaks of war between various factions and this is reflected in the atmosphere and the number of earthbound spirits.

      In Ladakh, at 12,000 feet, it was easier for the spirit to soar. The atmosphere was conducive to peace and the Buddhist lifestyle. It was Buddha’s birthday the night we arrived and there was a procession of pilgrims going into the hills to the local monastery. Each held a lighted candle. This was a spectacular sight and an inspiration. It enhanced the beauty of the landscape.

      During this trip we were invited by a high lama from Dharamasala to participate in a Kalachakra ceremony for world peace. We were the only Westerners in attendance apart from the Dalai Lama’s official photographer, an American. This two-week ritual took us to the limits of our patience and egocentricity. We had to sit from 6 a.m. through the whole day chanting, singing, praying and meditating on top of the roof of the world. We had to walk down mountains, wade across deep streams, burn incense and seeds, rice and paper, purify ourselves in water and withstand hours of prayer and ritual to become initiated in the Tibetan method of liberation and peace. By the end of the first week, we were different people, the light shone from our faces and we had offloaded so much anger, rage and mental anxiety that we literally flew down the mountains back to Delhi and home.

      Our next journey was through the Americas, meeting our Native American cousins who taught us the work we had to do with the land.

      This book too is a journey, offering the opportunity of understanding the realms of spirit and the deep connection that we have with our ancestors. The physical and the spiritual co-exist, as beliefs throughout the world since the beginning of time confirm. Physical death is but a rite of passage into the liberation of the spirit, into the light, and the world of the in-between, the land of earthbound spirits, ghosts and ancestors...

      Through the many years we have worked together, we have laughed and cried, shared stories and advice with many people. This is their story as well as our own journey.

      Enjoy.

       Terry and Natalia O’Sullivan

The JOURNEY OF THE SOUL

       PART ONE

      You would know the secret of death.

      But how shall you find it unless you seek it at the heart of life?

      The owl whose nightbound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

      If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

      For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

      In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the Beyond;

      and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

      Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

      Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

      Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

      Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

      For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

      And what is it to stop breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and see God unencumbered?

      Only when you drink from the river of Silence shall you indeed sing.

      And when you have reached the mountain top,

      then you shall begin to climb.

      And when the earth shall claim your limbs,

      then shall you truly dance.

      Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (William Heinemann Ltd, 1926)

THE SOUL

       CHAPTER ONE

      As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts one that is new.

       The Bhagavad Gita

      The Bushmen of southern Africa say that a star falls for the death of every human. When the hammerkop, a marsh bird of the Bushmen regions, sees the star fall into the water, he cries out. So whoever sees a falling star and hears that cry knows that one of his own people has fallen. A soul has started its journey to the kingdoms of eternity.

      The soul represents the deep mystery, the universal connection that we all have with the divine, the Creator, the Great Spirit: God. The idea of the soul cannot be confined to any one religion, for it is simply the energy that animates all of life.

      There is so much fear of death in the modern world because there is so little understanding of the soul as separate from the body and the mind. It is not that we have souls; we are souls born to fulfil a unique purpose or destiny in the physical world. Within the soul lie the qualities of peace, purity, love, wisdom and power which resonate with the never-ending spirit of the universe. Through meditation and prayer, breathing and listening quietly, we are able to touch this sacred space within. Spiritual energy work like yoga and tai chi further enhances our links with our inner soul. Soon entering this space becomes like entering a flowing river and, gradually, as the ability to go inside gets easier and easier, it brings with it a sense of extraordinary connection with the universal spirit.

      The soul is our individual link with eternity. There is within all of us a silent knowledge that a part of us never dies. This understanding that the death of the body does not mean the end of the soul’s journey has been common to all of humankind since the beginning of time. This deep knowing is expressed through religion, ritual and prayer as the living seek ways to communicate with the beyond and the origins of immortality.

      The butterfly emerging from the chrysalis has served as a metaphor for death since Celtic times. More recently in a concentration camp in Poland where 300,000 people were put to death, hundreds of butterflies were found all over the walls, etched in the stone and the wood. In the same way that the butterfly struggles to leave the chrysalis to emerge into its brilliant exquisite self, so too the immortal soul leaves the mortal body and the dark mystery of eternity draws the spirit away from the cocoon СКАЧАТЬ