From the Land of the Dead to the Land of the Living

https://bookshop.org/books/1-000-books-to-read-before-you-die-a-life-changing-list/9781523504459

Preface:

Someone told me this story about an old friend who made a Youtube recently about his experience with a near death experience (NDE) and its after-effects. We were driving at the time and then had a sudden flat tire adventure so my memory of the story is a little hazy. It seemed to fit in nicely with the previous Articles coming up at the time on the blog about ‘the gods’ and immortality and suchlike.

What I am after here (seemingly) is pointing out various aspects of everyday experience that are universal, potent and yet often overlooked. There is an emphasis on material perspective these days which is not unusual with human beings throughout all our history but of late it seems to be increasingly hostile to entertaining any alternative types of view – unless it is to make large fantasy films whose prime purpose is to garner material profits. Anyway, here goes:

Story 2 From the Land of the Dead to the Land of the Living

F is a well-known telenovela actor in Latin America. Years ago he was involved in a small group of bruhos and students in the well-known city of Z in Central Mexico. They worked with dreams, power animals, transforming the sense of body, time, perception and so forth. Many of the group were mediums who can hear and talk to various different types of spirits, from the recently deceased to other types of beings living in non-physical planes. (I personally have no experience of such things nor any opinion about whether or not they are ‘true’ or ‘false’ – not an issue that effects me one way or another.)

For whatever reason, F drifted away from the bruho group, something which was not easy to do since they had many rules and warnings against it – curses, hells, that sort of thing. He had a seriously gorgeous wife – also a celebrity – who had introduced him to the group and who left him when he left them. He is still best friends with his ex-wife’s mother, herself a stunningly beautiful woman.

At some point a few years ago F became extremely ill with some sort of blood disease and one day in the ICU drifted out of consciousness with the machines indicating that he had ‘flatlined’ i.e. no more pulse – one level of physical death. Whilst in this state he had several visions or dreams, the main one of which involved meeting all sorts of people including real and imagined friends and enemies from his entire life. He gathered during these encounters, many of which involved conversations back and forth, that the entire purpose of life is to learn, that life is a journey between one place and the next. Our current life is not the entire story; there are things going on before we are born and there will be things going on after we die. The main value in the condition of life we find ourselves in now, in other words as living human beings, is to learn. And of course the best sort of learning is not data or information but how to be a good, kind, brave, noble person. That’s it. Every day, all of us encounter challenges, often in the form of obstacles but not necessarily so, presenting us with an opportunity to either grow or shrink in virtue.

After these visionary encounters, F returned into the body, the machines started beeping again, his entourage rejoiced and he continued with his life. Except now, along with still having nothing to do with the bruho group, he has made it his mission to counsel the terminally ill and dying and works with a small group of volunteers he helped create in so doing. In this way he feels he is making the best of the precious time he has, like all of us, between birth and death.

I suppose one could regard what happens before we are born and after we die as great mysteries. But maybe what we do in the great in-between bardo of the living is a far greater mystery. Most of us turn our lives into some sort of narrow prison whose bars are made of habitual conditioning, fears and sheer bloody-mindedness in pursuit of comfort, wealth or simply avoidance of conflict, heartbreak or any other challenge. Of course in fact every day has the potential to lead to no end of different outcomes; indeed every day is entirely open, unknown and unknowable in which no end of learning and development of virtue can unfold.

So that is the story of Celebrity F in Mexico.