Death is the most ordinary of life’s occurrences. It happens all the time, every nanosecond, all across the globe. So why are we so afraid of it? The truth is, our society thrives on the fear of death. Most of today’s institutions not only produce it, they exploit it. Our government keeps us in perpetual vigilance against life threats — an anti-Western nation, a failing economy, terrorist attacks. The defense department’s kill-or-be-killed policy, which extends to gun control, not only produces fear but causes more death than it forestalls.
Science warns us of all kinds of coming global devastations. And because it claims that competing to survive is the primary instinct, it too endorses a kill-or-be-killed rationale. Education marks human history by wars and instances of mass death, fostering science’s take on humankind as murderously competitive. Religions teach that humans are innately flawed. Since we believe it, we fear eternal damnation or suffering in a next reincarnation. These fears inflict incalculable damage on human potential.
The medical industry’s absorption with disease, its view of death as an enemy and the body as a time bomb have eroded our trust in our inherent capacity to heal and have turned death into the ultimate failure. The health and beauty industry amasses billions by selling ways to fight aging and death. Even worse, the news and entertainment industry daily reaches into our homes and hearts with a steady feed of the most gruesome fatalities. If a cutthroat survival instinct were true, if humanity really were flawed and our universe really unsafe, none of us would have survived.
A basic truth underlying all spiritual messages is this: You create your own reality. Because we believe so strongly in an unsafe world, we create an unsafe world. Fear of death has crushed our inborn audacity to live up to our own ideals and has turned the natural act of dying into a nightmare. When people lose the fear of death, whether through near-death experiences, meditation, divine revelation, or communicating with the afterlife, they simultaneously rediscover their authentic selves. That rediscovery unleashes enhanced intellectual, psychic, and creative abilities. It also deepens the sense of life purpose. The desire to compete cannot survive in such a psychological climate. These people have no doubt that the universe is benign. They also know that death is deliverance into a realm of ineffable love and dazzling possibilities.
You can rid yourself of this fear by learning about the miraculous side of dying, the orchestrated phenomena that occur around the deathbed to prepare for passage, and about what really happens afterward. Research based on testimonies from genuine afterlife encounters and near-death experiences rather than on tradition or doctrine is already on the shelves and on the Internet. A composite of these accounts portrays death as a glorious homecoming and the afterlife as an arena of profound understanding, compassion, and mind-bending grandeur. Just reading about it can change forever the way we live and the way we die. Exploring the afterlife is guaranteed to amaze you.
To liberate yourself more directly, try fast-forwarding to your own death. Lie down, relax, and imagine yourself in your own deathbed scene. As much as possible, mentally enter your future body. What are you dying from? Are you feeling pain? Who is there by you? Are you at home or in a hospital environment? What is the emotional atmosphere like? Do you feel fear or peace? Anxiety or wonder? Where do you imagine yourself going? Are late relatives or friends coming to escort you? If you are willing to go further, imagine yourself leaving your body, say somewhere from the top of your head. What happens afterward?
Sometimes people doing this simple exercise see vivid pictures of the life to come. Others even have life reviews. At the very least, this exercise will show you where fear has been holding you back. The good thing about fast-forwarding is that you can change anything you experienced that you found disturbing. You can, for instance, work on healing whatever illness you see yourself dying from, or change beliefs that kept you from fulfilling your potential.
Any brush with immortality will transform fear into revelation. You can connect with your immortal self through meditation, deep relaxation, self-hypnotism, or lucid dreaming. Help for working with these techniques is readily available. Then again, you can meet immortality face-to-face through an afterlife encounter. Communicating with people on the other side is an exceptionally common experience. And it can easily be learned. It requires only heartfelt desire and honest emotion.
Without realizing it, we are all in communication with the afterlife anyway, in our thoughts, in our prayers, and in our dreams. But since we have been taught that after-death communication is pure fantasy or the work of the devil, we dismiss instances when those immortals are indeed trying to reach us. The impact of an afterlife encounter never diminishes. It stands as a turning point from fear and uncertainty to awe and profound conviction that life never ends.
Death is not the problem with our world. Fear is.
