Crossing Over (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

Crossing Over

[Ann]

Thanks Erin for sharing these insights. They are really interesting!

Now I know what to expect when I "cross over" and which level I want to be in

[wermejbmmelo]

Hi, it's great that this appeared today. Yesterday I started reading Phenomenon by Sylvia Browne, and it was very similar. I have found that much of what I read in her book was very similar. I feel that this is an event marker in my life, that I'm on the right track.

[Mnemosyne]

After reading the blog I was wondering what it would be like to cross over and go into the light, reconnect with my higher self.

(Not that I'm expecting to cross over anytime soon )

I was just wondering, in general, what the 'other side' is like, and I realized that I would never find out. The way I understand it, once you cross over and reconnect you lose your body (obviously) and your ego. But I'm not an expert so I could be very wrong! However, if my understanding about ego is correct, then I, this body I live in and the attached ego, wouldn't ever know what it's like the other side. My higher self knows what it's like, but I (a.k.a. ego) don't know what it's like.

I'm probably not making much sense, it's difficult for me to articulate. And I think I've just confused myself.

[Athena]

Beautiful article Erin!!


Melinda - YOU know what it's like if the 'I' you describe is spirit, the more everlasting part of you, rather than your body and ego, the more mundane and temporary part.

[Khristine]

This is absolutely in line with some items that have been on my mind lately.

Mostly it's the whole "Heaven vs. Hell" issue.

Everything that you say in this article makes perfect sense to me. So If we all originally are "spirits" now having a "physical" experience, then how does "hell" enter into it - or does it? And if there is no hell - Then where do all of these negitive entities come from?

[Erin Pavlina]

There's a big difference between human spirits/consciousnesses who choose to do low vibrational things while incarnated and demonic entities. The former are still allowed to enter the light if they choose, reconnect with Source, and continue their growth.

The latter (the demons) aren't part of our genus or spiritual species. I don't know where they come from but they don't have the same choices we do.

Hell does not exist in the biblical sense. Hell is what you experience when you cannot forgive yourself for the things you've done that hurt others. You keep yourself in Hell or purgatory when you feel shame and guilt.

[dECLAN]

These states called bardo have all been mapped out in Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the modern equivalent The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche both discuss these states in detail.

[Roxy]

Hello

This is my first post at this forum, although I read Erin's blog all the time.

I was just reading through the blog entry about "Crossing Over" when a thought came to mind, that I'd like to ask about.

Erin was talking about the different levels of being "crossed over" and how it's hardest to reach those souls who have already gone into the light.

What happens once a soul has been re-incarnated? I guess it's then impossible to communicate with this kind of soul, for say, someone wanting a reading. For example, if I asked a medium to try and contact the soul of my deceased Grandmother, but my Grandmother had already re-incarnated - would it not be possible to reach her?

Anyway, I could be totally on the wrong track here, I just thought I'd ask, as it was something that came to mind while I was reading the blog entry.

Thanks
Roxy

[Erin Pavlina]

I think we touched on this in another thread or I touched on this in a blog entry, but you can still communicate with the higher self of the deceased person who remains in the ether even while the next incarnation is going on.

When I first encounter a deceased relative, the come out of the ether looking all luminescent. Then they sort of coalesce into the form they were in when alive so the person I'm reading for will recognize them.

[Roxy]

Thank you Erin! That's exactly what I was wondering.

[Motherwren]

Hello Erin. I hope your holidays were good!
I think my Dad must be in the hovering category you describe.

Has anyone read "Journey of Souls" or "Destiny of Souls" by Dr. Michael Newton? He's a former skeptic who discovered accidentally while performing hypnosis that he could tap people's death experiences; death and beyond that...fascinating stuff!

[Matthew Shea]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

There's a big difference between human spirits/consciousnesses who choose to do low vibrational things while incarnated and demonic entities. The former are still allowed to enter the light if they choose, reconnect with Source, and continue their growth.

The latter (the demons) aren't part of our genus or spiritual species. I don't know where they come from but they don't have the same choices we do.

Hell does not exist in the biblical sense. Hell is what you experience when you cannot forgive yourself for the things you've done that hurt others. You keep yourself in Hell or purgatory when you feel shame and guilt.

Erin, what you're describing can indeed coincide with Christian, or at least Catholic teachings of hell. The Catechism teaches that:

The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

and...

To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice.

In other words, people put themselves in hell by the choices they make or, more accurately, fail to make (i.e. seeking forgiveness). If we interpret "mortal sin" to be anything so grievous that a person can't bring themself to seek forgiveness and replace "God" with "Source" it starts to sound very similar to what you're saying, does it not? Keep in mind that hell is defined as primarily being separation from God. The bible is notoriously light on specific descriptions of what hell is like. Most people's view of hell is colored by books like Dante's Inferno and other non-biblical sources. What is contained in the bible, however, can certainly be likened to someone who chooses not to cross over out of guilt, thereby eternally separating themselves from Source.

Your thoughts?

[Erin Pavlina]

Matthew, yeah, that sounds similar to my view of Hell. Interesting similarity.

[Matthew Shea]

Perhaps we all have more in common than we think we do.

[whawn]

But incomplete.

Hi Erin, I just read the post, so forgive my lateness here.

When my wife's body died of breast cancer last year, I was astonished to discover the soul survived as an entity. I had believed, with the Buddhists, that the soul energy simply dissipated into the universe.

First, at the moment she left her body, I was aware of a guiding spirit, helping her to cross. Even so, I was not convinced there was any more to the story. But two days later, she clearly and unmistakably hugged me, tightly. My sister tells me that she also got a hug at about the same time, and my wife's sister got one, as well, but was somewhat unnerved by the experience. The story goes on, with several moments of unequivocal contacts that I would not have believed before.

But, here's the crux: the state of purgatory (or 'sheol' as the Jews term it, and there are other references in other myth systems -- the river Styx and Persephone's dilemma among them) is very real. In our experience (that is, that of my wife and I), there are several levels to it, before fully crossing over, and each one takes the soul further from the material plane, and increases the difficulty of communication.

And, you were spot on with this remark: "They are still accessible, for sure, but they are less urgent about it. They’ve gone on, as it were, and are working on their own development (that’s right, “Personal Development for Dead People”)." It's something I was utterly astonished to discover, but it holds with the Buddha's essential teaching, that ignorance prevents nirvana. He was, apparently (although, since his disciples wrote 'the book' it's hard to say for sure), unaware that the unbodied could grow in wisdom.

My wife was reluctant to move on, wanting to help me and our daughter in this world, but I urged her to do what she needed to do to become integrated with the spirit.

Since then, it's harder to communicate, and her touch is much more 'thready' than robust.

I suspect that her time and mine flow at different rates. In the early days, she often spoke (to my mind) very slowly, like a 78 rpm record played at 16 rpm, and it took some doing on her part to sync up, sometimes with episodes of very rapid speech before things got settled down.

Thank you for some external confirmation. I'm certain I'm not nuts, but it's very hard to talk about this with 'ordinary' people.

[Erin Pavlina]

Great follow up post Whawn. Thanks for sharing your experience of the process.

[whawn]

Should have mentioned: Zen and several other varieties of Buddhism do not recognise survival of the self-ego (Atman) after death of the body. Many varieties, however, do, even though the Buddha, in The Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters, was said to say, "... there is no such thing there known as ego ... it is like unto a mirage." (s20, Suzuki, _Zen for Americans_, Open Court, 1974 p.13)

[Old Soul]

I'm thinking perhaps the reason I was instructed to pray for my dad upon his death was that perhaps he needed help to cross over, as I heard very distinctly and clearly a given instruction 3 times to "pray for your dad"... this was like an imprint voice that came into my mind, but quite vividly and the same voice.... so after I said a prayer to God , saying "God if you are there please take care of my dad"

that is when he came to me in a ball of light, I barely got the words out of my mouth and fell asleep and saw him in this huge ball of light...

maybe the Angels knew I needed this as much as dad needed the prayer i was instructed to give :-)

[Old Soul]

Everything that you say in this article makes perfect sense to me. So If we all originally are "spirits" now having a "physical" experience, then how does "hell" enter into it

I believe That is the key , we are spirits* having a physcial journey, of experience, And our physical journey now reflects our level of connectedness to the source, the further you are from the source, the more hellish* your physcial experience, your life choices , your thoughts, your actions. But this degree of connectedness is always always.. subject to change, sometimes we are closer than other times, sometimes we are far far from the source, (seperated from the connectedness) "Hell"

While in truth we are (all) connected to the source, at all times during this physcial experience, some have moved further away from the source,for various reasons durning the physcial experience so the transition at/of physcial death might be more difficult in terms of the light .... they may need help in the transition...

I think heaven and hell are as real as our physical experience

[absvan]

Erin,

I am a little confused now between spirit and higher self. Are they the same or different? I believe we are just a projection of our higher self.

What I mean is dont we really leave this "physical form" world and go back to where we came from? Do we really need help crossing over?

[Erin Pavlina]

Some people do indeed need help crossing over. It's not that the journey to other side is fraught with danger, just confusion sometimes. When people with very strong religious ideas get to the other side they either create what they expect to see (and that takes time to dissipate) or if they are open enough they see something they did not expect so it can take some time to adjust.

Some people cling to their lives here either because they are afraid of going to hell or being judged, or because the emotional tethers of their loved ones keep them here for a while until the pain dissipates.

Your spirit leaves this plane and rejoins the higher self.

[Lallymac]

I found it interesting recently that sometimes people who have passed over stay around us because they need to say things that they weren't able to say when they were alive.

I did a reading several weeks back for a friend who had lost her husband suddenly. My friends mother had passed away a few years ago. I'd met her mother several times and had admired her strength of character and had watched the care my friend had taken of her in the years leading up to her death. I'd assumed that there was a great deal of love between them.

When the mother stepped forward, she stood watching for awhile like she was waiting for something. Each time I looked at her, she just stood stoically waiting. I couldn't work out what she waiting for. I told my friend her mother was there and she didn't seem very interested. After I'd mentioned the mother was still there a couple of times my friend eventually sighed, 'Oh what does she want. I wish she wouldn't hang around. She makes me feel heavy and depressed.'

I must have looked surprised because she said, 'Look I made my peace with my mother a long time ago but we didn't have an easy relationship when I was younger. She made my life very difficult. I never understood what I'd done to make her treat me so badly but I did love and forgave her in her later years.'

Then I saw a little dog at her mothers feet. I described the dog to my friend and she told how much she'd loved it. She'd only had for a short while as a child. She said, 'You ask my mother what happened to it?'

Then the mother started to explain things that my friend only knew parts of. How her father had been engaged to someone else before he met her mother. The other lady was very beautiful. He had been in love with her and she had broken off the engagment to marry someone else. Her mother had always felt second best.

My friend said, 'But my father adored my mother and showed it all the time. My mother used to shrug him off.' Her mother would never allow herself to believe it and my friend was young she adored her father and they were very close. Her mother was very jealous of their relationship and sabotaged my friend wherever she could. Her mother became more resentful of her after her father died, when my friend was in early twenties, because she had shared a bond with him that the mother had craved. How sad that something like that can cause so much pain for both of them.

One of things I noticed while I was doing the reading was that several other close family members gaily flitted in and out with pieces of news and seemed unaware of the mother and she of them. There was interaction between a couple of them and as they moved away they travelled right past her.

My friends sister who'd passed away many years ago was so light she was almost transparent. Her energy filled the room with light and laughter compared to the mother who still very dense and physical in appearance. My friend had noticed the marked difference between their energies and said her sisters energy had been light since not long after her death.

Lallymac