When I had my own very brief "near death experience" as a five year old child; I experienced an out of body experience as my little body was "drowning" in a pool full of people. I remember so clearly that one of the most striking things about the experience was the realization that not only was I "out" of my body and looking down on the scene; but I was also "out" of time. I was in a timeless place and a timeless state. It wasn't long after this realization, as I watched my uncle pull me out of the water and put me on the side of the pool, that I found myself "back" in my body choking and gagging. This experience; remembered in detail as if it were yesterday; has helped me understand something about the nature of "time". I know it only exists for us here; that it is artificial....and that it does not exist in the spirit plane. The other thing I realized in those seconds/moments when I had this experience as a child; was that there is a part of us that does continue; that we do "live" on after death; and that we are still very much ourselves. I had an English teacher in High School explain to me that: "Time is an abstract entity; though it's effects are manifested in tangible and concrete ways." What we perceive as "concrete" are the cycles of life and nature. We actually live in the eternal present; though it seems we are "traveling" through time as we go through experiences that seem to happen along a linear lifeline. I've read many NDEr's (Near Death Experiencers) stories and they all talk about the fact that time did not exist when they were "out" of their bodies. Instead of talking about time passing during their NDE; they explain that everything, all experience and potential, seems to exist in that "place" all at once. The talk about going "deep" into the experience; where more and more of the truth and light of it is revealed to them; rather than describing it in terms of time. It's more of an unfolding.
I hope this makes some kind of sense to those of you who may someday read this. If we live in the eternal present; something that we can't perceive as mortals; (though we get glimpses of that paradox once in a great while) wouldn't it make sense to think that our deceased loved ones have never "left" us and exist in the same "Present" and and are all around us? I believe they not only live in the "eternal present" as we do; but they are also eternally present; we will see them when our true eyes are opened at death.
There is an old Helen Reddy song that I sometimes remember when I am thinking about the time when I will have my spirit eyes opened as my mortal eyes are closing. Some of the words go like this: "Time hurry by, carry me home, don't wait too long, knowing I'll travel much freer this time. And when I go home; my heart like a stone; he'll call me his own, when I go home."
I don't know why that song spoke to my heart when I was just out of high school...but it has always spoken to me of that time when I too will be going "home". I do not fear death; but I know that I have to fill up the "time" I have left here doing my best; and loving to the best of my ability to love, the ones who are still here in this time and place.
