Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have experienced the afterlife. You wouldn’t know it to look at me. But there you are. I’ve said it.
Incredible? Impossible? What is your immediate response? Simple disbelief? Or is it possible you too have had a similar experience?
Just look at how many questions that one simple statement I began with has already raised. And all this before whether or not I’m telling the truth has even been called into question yet, either.
Well, whatever, let me tell you this, then, that the statement is entirely true for me. In all honesty, I can say I have experienced the afterlife, firsthand. More than once. And the person who first took me to the other side and showed me what it’s like was my own father.
Bear in mind, however, that my father committed suicide when I was 16 months old. So maybe it’s only fitting it should have been he who acted as my guide in this respect.
It’s getting pretty surreal about now, isn’t it?
But it didn’t feel that way at the time. Believe me, I was experiencing my own personal nirvana. This was the peak experience of my life. All I had ever wanted in life was to meet and talk to the father I had never known. And here he was, guiding me to the edge of the great cosmic honey-mind of souls that awaits us in the afterlife.
Welcome to Breathwork. Because, if you can believe it, the above description pretty much encapsulates my own first introduction to the alternative therapy practice previously known as rebirthing.
“But what is it?” you ask.
Ok, it might help if I tell you another name for it is “conscious connected breathing“. Simply put, one joins the out-breath to the in-breath, with no pause in between.
And that’s it. Within roughly 10 to 15 minutes you too could be experiencing your own altered states of consciousness, although to be fair it is ultimately best to be in the presence of a Breathwork practitioner when you do it.
I myself was so amazed by the whole experience, I even started training to become a Breathworker/Breathwork practitioner myself. Really, I guess, my impulse in regard to this came out of an almost evangelical urge to share what I had experienced with others. Or more, precisely, to help put people in touch with their own personal experience of nirvana.
But I’ve put my training on hold for a while. Because essentially I still fall into the category of being a wounded healer. My own sense of self and well-being, I find, is something I need to work on. Yet if this weren’t the case, trust me, I’d be rebirthing anyone and everyone I could lay hands on.
Now, I’m not saying you’d have the exact same experience I did, if you went ahead and tried Breathwork for yourself. But I am saying the transformational healing power that was unlocked in me by my own experiences is unlike anything else I have ever felt.
Moreover, the results have been extremely long lasting. And, in fact, the all-encompassing atonement I felt when I first realized I was in the “literal” presence of my father has stayed with me ever since, absolutely indelibly. We made our peace with each other that day; I really and sincerely believe this to be the case.
And so, in conclusion, while absolutely nothing could have prepared me for this incredible experience and my first ever taste of Breathwork, all I can say is I sincerely hope the same holds to be true for you too…
Missing Zero 
April 8th, 2013 at 6:18 pm
My first thought to your opening statement was “Yeah so?” lol as my mind trailed back to my own memories of the afterlife, something I’ve experienced a couple times in a group meditation.
What I wanted to comment on is the conscious connected breathing. Is it similar to a yoga technique that I believe is called fire breath? Quick bursts of breath done over a short period of time. It’s meant to help wake you up.
April 8th, 2013 at 10:33 pm
I’m not familiar with fire breath, so I can’t answer whether the two are similar.
Breathwork isn’t intended as being a way of “waking you up” so much, as rather awakening you to a powerful transformational process based around sustained connected breath patterns.
Still, the origin of Breathwork is from other related yoga techniques. ultimately.
I’m intrigued to know what your own experiences of the afterlife were like, however. Do you care to share?
April 9th, 2013 at 5:33 am
Oh I get it. 🙂 I brain relaxes when it’s focused on patterns, whether thru breath work, frequencies or lights, I think it’s one of the rare times when both hemispheres are actually working together. 🙂
As for my experiences, I’m not sure where to begin, what sort of information do you want? I’ve had experiences while awake and in meditation.
The experience I referred to was a group meditation with a little bit of guidance. The memory your post triggered was the time I saw heaven, or passed it, lol. I just remember seeing Roman like pillars, and a group of people dressed in white watching me as I floated past them.
I do not remember what was above them, maybe a peaceful darkness, but I do remember seeing them again as I came back down. IDK. it’s been a while, I haven’t been able to get to group in years. 😦 What about you?
April 9th, 2013 at 6:08 am
I like the Roman-esque setting of what you describe. It’s also interesting that you mention passing heaven. Because that was kind of what I experienced to, as I astrally travelled past a great seething sphere of all recently departed souls, which I took to be heaven.
I suppose, I would probably be less impressed overall with what occurred with me, if it hadn’t also resulted in quite a profound sense of healing as well. And, ultimately, that is what I have consistently found with Breathwork, unlike other therapeutic techniques, it’s not just a head trip or an opening up of a nebulous sense of spaciousness. It’s somehow a very grounded experience while also being transcendental.
Speaking of group work, I largely wrote the piece, because there is a group shamanic Breathwork session coming up this weekend near where I live. And I was trying to discover how I felt about going, and so tried to write it out longhand, you could say.
Is Breathwork more generally something you think you might get around to trying, at some point?
April 9th, 2013 at 6:16 am
Maybe, I’ve done Om’s and frequencies. The thing is I’m out of practice, I have not meditated in a while, but I still get “hits” from my guides, which is probably why I do not meditate as much as I should. I really should get back into it, thanks for reminding me. 🙂
Do you think you will go to the shamanic event? I have been told that the current age we are in (Aquarius) is about group work.
April 9th, 2013 at 6:51 am
I tend to find Breathwork more intense on a one-on-one basis. That said, other people in a group setting can sometimes trigger other experiences for you, so I am not ruling out going yet. The word “shamanic” is what’s got me intrigued this time. Also, I sort of feel the need to kick myself out of a bit of a rut I’ve got stuck in lately. So who knows?
Hey, you mention having guides but also (earlier on) you commented about your having non-meditative experiences of the afterlife. What’s the deal there?
April 9th, 2013 at 4:16 pm
I”m a bit of a medium. It’s not something I broadcast to much, but I do get the occasional visitor, and a few regulars that help me out from time to time. It comes and goes so I don’t claim to be able to speak to the dead because I do not make a practice of trying to contact them, they come to me, when they feel that I need them, rather than the other way around.
April 9th, 2013 at 10:50 pm
I’m starting to get that feeling Bruce Willis must have felt in the 6th Sense…
But seriously, is being a medium something you were born with? Or did it develop later on?
April 10th, 2013 at 12:31 am
Not sure, it’s been coming and going for years.
It wasn’t something I tried to do. I call it my imagination, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.
April 10th, 2013 at 1:28 am
I’m a firm believer in the powers of the imagination, personally. And I am in complete agreement with the Sufi philosophers, who claimed that “the imagination is the seat of the soul”.
You’re Willy Wonka quote would seem to indicate you hold similar views about the imagination, too?
Hey, I would have thought your psychology degree would mean you could explore some really cool parapsychology angles, to do with all this?
April 10th, 2013 at 2:06 am
Yes you could say that. 🙂 But I also believe that there are different types of imagination. There is the kind that comes from creativity, the characters we form in our minds and play with like marionettes, than there is the imagination that comes to us, in daydreams, that may be products of our subconscious. This type of imagination we are merely the spectator. Then there is of course the artistic that seems to be a combo of both. It’s funny I hadn’t thought of these things until just now. Lol. What do you think?
April 10th, 2013 at 3:47 am
I think you need to check out my blog articles about spiritual alchemy, they are all about exactly these distinctions within the imaginative realm!