We are afraid of death in our culture. A lot of tales from folklore tell us how dead man take away the alive ones, for example, mermaids (which in Slavic culture are the drowned girls with no fishtail) put chants on the strangers and drag them into the underworld. The cemetery magic based on myth that every dead man is ready to help your just for the piece of fresh meat. Death is all about mystery, and its scary.
You are scared because of lack of information. You are scared of unknown dead men, but you ok with your grandmother passed away when you were 10. Restless soul is something unknown, formless, some kind of devil, goblin or just dark figure. Boo! Cemetery is very scary at night. All the deceased are bad, they will drag you into the grave right into the hell and do scary things there with you. What a nice screenplay! And so untrue.
I got to tell you, life is even scarier. It all depends on which dead man we are talking about. If there is a restless soul yes, we have all reasons to be scared. If there is a deceased not from your family you should be scared too. But if there is a guardian spirit everything could be fine depending on lifestyle of your relative, the way he died, what was he thinking, what was the conclusions in his head these factors determine the further journey of the soul.
There are several ways where the soul can go after death. Before starting reincarnation process, there are few stages person should pass through. Shortly, if you lived your life well and died well, then you will be free. Died well means the understanding that he is dead, he went through burial rituals with prayers, where applicable. Everything was performed in accordance with rules and the person is gone to the Other side. If something was made wrong the soul may get stuck between the worlds.
Frankly speaking, rules are also not applicable sometimes. If the person was not very religious, all burials procedures will not affect him on energy level. It is just the following the rules. If the person was true Christian, the rituals matter. If he was atheist, his spirit will be indifferent if the body was buried or cremated with prayers or in silence. The most important thing is to calm the soul of the person youve known rather than following the rules.
Where exactly is the afterlife?
I would like to tell you the important thing. When one asks, where the soul is going, it is supposed that there are two ways out heaven, up and hell, down. Sorry. Neither heaven nor hell. Neither up nor down. The souls are right here in our space, in our everyday life just before and behind us we just dont see them. As we cant see the air, so we cant see dead souls. You can break down air into molecules and alike the space has tiny cells for restless spirits, our beloved ones, etc. It is very important for understanding. And yes, just in front of you there is your dead grandmother. She has another form and structure now, thats the difference. The older the death, the further the spirit and weaker the impact. As soon as you focus your attention on it, attract it, the energy will be activated. Its not magic, its science, the quantum physics which states that object is changing when observed. All worlds and dimensions are around us, right here, we just cant see them because of our minds, because of what we consider as reality, because we dont want to open up our consciousness to light energies. Im not saying about freeing your mind by any and all the ways like yoga, meditation, drugs (in some cultures this is the way to enlightenment, too), I mean the expansion of your perception to be mindful and sensitive. Training your intuition and sensibility to flows of energy is useful, it gives the feeling that you are not lost, that you live your own life, not someone elses. These skills are not just for talking to ghosts. Believe me, though in media and in movies we see the romantic vision of mediums life, in fact and in real life it is not easy at all. An there are a few real mediums, not only tv stars of psychic shows.
Afterlife is not the cemetery either. The cemetery is a spiritual storage of dead bodies, storage of energy of death. But is not afterlife. If it was, the connection with dead spirits would be possible on the cemetery only, but in practice to connect with the dead soul I dont have to visit the place of his bury (it is very hard when the body is cremated). Afterworld is like Internet. Its everywhere but it is accessible only if you duly connected. Any information of past or future is in the internet itself, you just surfing to find it. Where is the Internet? Somewhere here around us. Everywhere and nowhere. Just like that the dead souls and not bodies, they are souls. And soul is completely different energy.
Transition stage
I see the world as layers of information. When the person is sitting in front of me, on the left above I see his fathers side, on the right mothers side, I can see the family of my client (both alive and dead). Late grandparents are above and a bit further. Overhead I see the divine channel and sometimes this channel is much brighter and stronger than ancestral channel. This means that connection with the god, angels, whatever you call them, is stronger that connection with family. In that case my clients often say that they feel they have a mission more important that build a family, build a house and grow the tree very often its all about creativity, art, poetry, music, become a star, mission like serving people in any field. The deeper I go, the more I see and feel. All these layers are felt different.
Dead people are seen near the client and I see them as alive. Usually, they are dressed in clothes they were buried in or some other clothes recognizable by my client. Sometimes I see then younger (for example, the man died in his 80s, but I see him as he was 50 years old this means his spirit still feels himself as 50-years-old man). Usually he tells me all information he needs to tell, all offences, desires, all his thoughts concerning why you come and dont come to visit him in the cemetery.
~ Case from my practice ~
Once at mediumship session the soul of the dead husband told his wife Svetlana that she did all right on the funeral. Svetlana made very unusual and extraordinary funeral with piano and she was worried if his soul liked it. He did. Thank God. Moreover, he said some words in French, and Svetlana said that they are from his favorite song. I dont know any French songs so it was definitely his message from the Other side.
The space of dead souls I call the Transition stage. At this level they tell me how long they are going to stay there. The Transition stage begins right after the physical death, but first 40 days they are closer to the edge separating the living world from the afterlife, therefore it is strongly recommended not to disturb this soul it could just be stuck between the worlds. Based on my practice, 40 days are very approximate period, the departure may take 2 days less or 5 days more after that period.
Sometimes dead souls tell me why they are here on the Transition stage and give information how long they are going to stay there before they move to another level of transformation. Usually the transition period takes 7 years or more within that period the person frees himself from his personality, ego, his memories, etc. The Transition stage is for everybody but not like the room for party where all dead souls meet and greet each other this is special space same for everyone and everyone sees it differently. Everybody has to go through this but alone. Its like apartment building where everyone has his own apartment but there are thousands of apartments and the building is one.
The moment of transition itself from the physical being to non-physical, when the person exhales for the last time, is quite painless, sometimes people have a dream the night before death or have some mystical experience where they understand by heart that death is not painful, not scary, that the Other side is bright and good. Dying is not scary at all.
The suicides are in other space and while on the Transition stage the dead one can join to his family and ancestors, suicides have no such opportunity, they are isolated. The ghosts and negative spirits are located between the transition stage and our world. They are connected to both worlds.
Transformation stage
After Transition stage the soul goes to the Transformation stage to connect with higher levels of being, to meet Spiritual guides or to become the ancestral Guardian spirit or to go to the Bank of Soul for the next incarnation. At this stage the person is absolutely free from his own ego, he becomes a pure soul, best Self, Deeper self, Spirit. The Soul can become the Guardian spirit for the descendants and only after that go to the Bank of Souls or may go to the God directly. This is what called nirvana, free from samsara wheel, and this is individual process. At the Transformation stage it's quite hard to catch the soul and there is no need to do that since the soul rests in peace and you can feel it and you know it and you talk peacefully about that person, no pain felt.
Reincarnation stage
After Transformation stage the soul goes to the Bank of Souls to decide whether it will be reincarnated or not. The soul itself chooses the path to go but it still needs final approval on this stage. Here the further destiny of the soul will be decided where to go, which body to be incarnated in or to go to the higher levels of being. Moreover, if you ever tried regression therapy, you can find out whether the soul was good or bad and what to do with it and there are Spiritual Councils who make that decision in a manner of spiritual report. Sure, it is not all that bureaucratic as it sounds but it is the space-between-worlds, rest place before the next spiritual journey. The place full of unconditional love, mindfulness and deep understanding of all divine processes. The place of decisions. I have to say that the human perception sees the energy as Councils, Guides etc in anthropomorphic expression of Global spirit which may be understood by every human, where in fact there is no form at all. Maybe there is Higher self who speaks to the soul, maybe, the God maybe not.
Here the soul may be reincarnated to somebody else or to ready to be gone to the God. By God I mean not religious idea of God, but Cosmic, galactic energy, ocean of consciousness, incomprehensible, limitless and eternal energy.
Stage of liberation
When all tasks of the soul are done and solved, the person is free of endless chain of reincarnations and disappears in huge and incomprehensible Ocean of Nothing, endless eternity, embraces serenity and happiness and becomes a god himself.
Whether a person aware of his own death?
If death occurs as a result of disease or as a result of natural causes, then the person is aware that he is dead. The family will grieve but the soul free from ego and body in most cases feels a great joy and anticipates journey back home. Some people feel that syndrome they want to go back home without knowing where this home exactly is in spiritual terms. Its a sadness in heart when you dont feel connected to your real home, your family, to Earth at all. One can feel it sometimes when staring the stars, one embraces the Universe and feels lonely missing the home, the origin Home where we are all from. We miss the divine selves, miss the stardust which is still in cells of our bodies. Soul misses its home. This feeling testifies that by being busy in everyday life person misses something very important and even lives someone elses life and goes the wrong way. Therefore, when a person dies, his soul finally comes back home and dives into Divine ocean of being.
Call before death
Its not uncommon maybe youve heard it or experienced in your own family that right before death the person has a dream with his late ones calling to go after them. In this case the person realizes that the dream is about dead relative calling into afterworld directly. No misunderstandings. Usually the call comes two-three days before physical death, probably, providing time to be prepared to this serious spiritual journey, pay all debts both physical and psychological, to free oneself from decisions and unfinished business, to change thoughts and beliefs, to forgive someone or to be forgiven. The dreams like that are very good sign, since the person has time for preparation which means that the person lives mindfully and now has a chance to complete incarnation peacefully and be finally free.
In some traditions the third party comes to take the dead one, the Reaper. This Reaper may be the dead soul having such mission to take the other souls away.
The dreams about death are quite clear and you cannot confuse them with regular dreams when your late grandmother asks to follow her and you dont want to do it. When in dream you realize you cannot follow after her, these dreams are still bad and may lead to illness, financial problems etc, but not death. The Calling is very different and you just know that time has come, time to go.
~ Case from my practice ~
My client Tatiana had a dream where her dead father just stood and stared to his daughter with accusation. No words, just discomfort, almost physical. Next day Tatians son killed himself.
The death is predestined. You should put a huge amount of energy or strong will to change the course of events. In case of success, we say someone defeated the death.
What happens after death?
As we know, all life systems, including brain, fails. Biologically and legally the death of brain is the moment of death. Interesting that yogis of higher levels of practice can stop their breath and even modify the brain activity so no supersensitive technology may fix it and go back to normal state of mind. Its not that simple and the death of brain is very questionable. But sure not every yogi can do that so science considers the death of brain cells as the irreversible death of body and end of the physical presence.
After that the person cleanse himself from all his bounds, personality, ego and mental affection to himself, to the form, the body, thoughts and everything surrounding him. Affection to what he called himself and his life. Reality is different for everybody. All thoughts and energies about age, appearance, life, feelings, senses, emotions everything he was when he was John Doe. Here is an example. When you meditate, at some point you stop existing and suddenly you realize that all your life including present moment and you in it is just an illusion and there is something inside you existed always and way before your birth and you have a strong connection with the god, with the Knowing self, guiding you both in very simple and global spiritual terms. Maybe you are a god yourself.
This erasure can happen in meditation and even during long monotonous work, long contemplation or eсstatic experience. Its a moment when you ask yourself: Who am I? What am I? and you know exactly that you are more than your identity card and reflection in a mirror and you are a spiritual being in cosmic space. Its a moment when you observe yourself and dont understand who is observer then? Where is the limit of you and the beginning of the Cosmos? Its a moment when you realize that all social roles, all stories from childhood, youth and maturity created by you are all an outer shell but not real you. Its just a part of you, the face but not soul. Personality not soul.