In some ways the last couple of months have moved rather slowly and quietly for me, at least as far as experiencing anything new or different related to my transition. But rather than feeling like nothing is happening, I feel like it has been a time of integrating my experiences, a time of conscious reflection so that I can more deeply understand the experiences and realizations that my soul is having.

Knowledge we have at an intellectual level, based on what we have learned rather than what we’ve experienced, is the beginning of understanding, but when what we understand at an intellectual level begins to move to an understanding at an emotional level we begin to really integrate the realization into our being, our soul. From my current understanding of how this works, I know of no way to consciously move one’s understanding from an intellectual to an emotional one. It simply happens over some length of time specific to the individual, the realization, and what it is we understand. These become our Ah Ha! moments where we finally know, finally understand and integrate something in such a different way that the only way I can explain it is that it is something that has moved from our head to our heart and has actually become a part of us.

For example, many of the experiences I’ve had specific to and in preparation for my final transition have also been an expansion of consciousness that will, of course, remain as part of my soul from now on, as Tayo explained to me. At the time I understood what he meant, and yet I also wondered how these experiences could be two seemingly different things.

Not long after I became so ill, which led to my diagnosis, Tayo told me that one of the core intentions of my soul was learning how to remain committed to and defined by God no matter what—no matter how difficult my circumstances became. In relation to this he explained, “The last part of this life is very much intended to be like Gyanamata. Yogananda expanded the consciousness of Gyanamata because of her condition and acceptance of it. So, too, for you, Adina.” (Sri Gyanamata, one of Yogananda’s most advanced women disciples lived the last 20 years of her life in continuing service to her Guru at the same time she was in constant pain).

I clarified this with him, “So, Tayo, did you also mean that Master both can and will expand my consciousness relative to my own condition and acceptance of it? So much has been happening within my consciousness in spite of my being unable to meditate like I used to because of problems with my body, is that how at least some of my expansion of consciousness is occurring? His answer to both questions was yes.

It had taken several months for my intellectual understanding to move to an inner realization, an emotional understanding. But more important, I deepened my understanding of what God’s grace is through this help from my Guru, that continues as I move ever closer to my transition.

Last night I had a great deal of difficulty sleeping. I had a sinus headache as well as a regular headache, which is highly unusual for me. But that alone didn’t keep me awake. It just seemed to be one of those nights where I remained somewhere between being asleep and being awake—not feeling sleepy enough to go into a deep sleep, and not aware enough to actually feel fully awake. While I’ve experienced this kind of thing before, I had never experienced what came next.

In this kind of “twilight” sleep I was in all of a sudden what appeared before me was a kind of swirling white and gray mist or haze. It looked like a super hazy day, but there was also a definite boundary around the haze or mist. I had a feeling that what waited inside this haze was absolutely wonderful, but that I just wasnt “allowed” or able to see a lot of what was in it just yet. As my spirit, my consciousness, stood outside the mist, but looking into it, I could feel the presence of my transition team (former relatives, my gurus, etc.) surrounding me, but they, too, stood just outside the mist with me. At the same time, it felt like we were all about to enter this mist, this haze.

As I stood watching this swirling haze, I remember thinking that this felt like it was the astral plane that Sri Yukteswar described, but I still couldn’t see much detail of it except for flitting, twinkling lights that I thought must be the fairies of the astral plane. And I got really excited about that because I have a real affection for the fairy realm. And then it all seemed to evaporate without me even realizing it did. It was just gone. But I was left with such  sense of awe and of peace and calm, and yet excitement at everything  the astral plane will contain.

The difference between this and other experiences I’ve had of the upcoming actual transition is that until now I’ve only seen the possibilities of what may happen during the actual journey from the material plane to the astral plane, whereas this was the first real glimpse of the astral plane–of where the soul goes in between one incarnation and the next. And even though it was brief, it was very profound and very comforting, especially since my “transition team” was right with me. And it provided me with a new and different vision of what will happen as my soul transitions from one way of being to another. What a gift from a night I originally thought was going to leave me feeling nothing but tired for the rest of the day.

Even when I try to be mindful of each moment, each hour, etc., I still cannot sustain it on the constant level I’d like to. And one thing that had been bothering me lately and that I voiced to my hospice nurse a couple of weeks ago is the fact that I used to feel so ready for my transition, so excited for it, actually, and now I don’t feel it that way like I used to, and I feel rather sad that the feeling of anticipation is gone. I am still ready when it’s time, but the excitement I once felt isn’t there.

Over the last few years I have felt so well taken care of by God and gurus–and many times so quickly when I asked–that it really blows my mind, and the day after the discussion with my nurse was no exception. Late the next afternoon as I was in a kind of meditative state and listening to Leonard Cohen’s song, “Hallelujah,” I started again to feel the continuing separation from my body. And I was feeling it in a different way than before. It was almost like I could feel the “essence” of ‘me’ starting to flow out of my body; it was like seeing dry ice evaporate into the air.

So I began to RE-realize who and what I actually am, rather than being identified with the body, which was what had been happening lately as I had to focus more and more on my breathing. Then my guru, Yogananda, and his guru, Sri Yukteswar, and an advanced disciple of Yogananda’s, Gyanamata, made sure I knew (once again) that they are there and ready to help me when the time comes and that it will be a totally beautiful and freeing experience–the ‘real deal,’ so to speak, not the illusion of this form and this time/space reality. Like Tayo had advised me some time ago, I started saying silently, “I’m ready, Lord, when you’re read to take me home”–repeating it over and over again like a mantra. And as I did this, my joy, my peace, and my excitement all returned and began to expand and intensify. So I am once again looking forward to my transition. And although I have realized it before, I am realizing  at a deeper level that I’m going home, not leaving home. This seems to be a lesson that I need to learn over and over again until it’s really etched into my soul at an emotional level, not just in my mind at an intellectual level.

I feel so blessed and more peaceful than I have in quite awhile. There are days like today that my heart bursts and tears of joy run down my cheeks for all that I’ve been given in this life–especially my former spiritual teacher, Wolf Green, my current spiritual teacher, Tayo, and my gurus. What more could I ask for? What more could any of us ask for?

I am becoming aware of my “welcoming committee” on a regular basis–more and more times a day on a nearly daily basis:  family members who have passed, along with my teachers and gurus. All there, all ready to usher me into and through the transition to a different way of being. Oh the joy!

The further I travel toward my actual transition, I more I realize that each moment, each day, each week, etc., simply leads to the next moment, day, or week. We are all in a constant state of becoming, and so each of these moments MUST give way to the next—must die, so to speak—for the next moment to be “born.”

For the most part, the majority of us get so caught up in our day to day lives that we miss the unfolding of these moments—moments that are born out of the ones that came before, moments that simply exist right here and now as we experience them, and moments that are ‘born’ out of that ‘here and now experience.. And yet we hardly notice, hardly bat an eye at all these moments that slip by, quietly or otherwise. It’s the Law of the Trinity, as Wolf used to explain it. And yet, past, present, and the future as the Trinity also reflect the ONE behind the trinity and as it supports and metamorphoses the Trinity. For when we think about it, each of those moments is so brief that it is almost gone before it can manifest, meaning that there must be something underlying them, some kind of thread of continuity that holds each of those moments together so that we can experience them to their fullest.

And if we choose to really be mindful of – pay attention to – each of these moments, then we have the biggest chance of living each of these moments to it’s fullest. And if we live each of these moments to the fullest; then each moment HAS no beginning and no end….no birth and no death. They simply ARE.

I think much of what my last couple of years have been about is increasing my understanding of end-of-life issues as they relate to the final transition and what that means in the context of the current life. I wrote some time ago about death being simply the giving up of the physical body as the soul once again returns to the astral plane where those of us who still have to liberate from the material plane stay until being reborn once again. Wordsworth says it beautifully in this excerpt from “Imitations of Immortality” –

“Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting,

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

Hath had elsewhere, its setting

And cometh from afar.

Not in entire forgetfulness

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come,

From God who is our home.”

I realize that most people (especially in the Western world) think of birth as the beginning of one life only—a life that ends in death of the body and the soul or spirit going to “heaven.” I’ve found that even those who believe in reincarnation tend to look at life from the point of view of where they sit now, i.e., in the material plane, following a birth (from the astral) and at some point a return to that astral plane, that we refer to as death from the viewpoint of the material world.

As I pondered this passage from Wordsworth’s poem I not only intellectually understood what he was saying, but also emotionally understood the concept that our birth into this life, and this life itself, is the “dream” that most of us normally think is “reality,” and that the astral plane or “heaven” is, instead, the “reality.” For as Wordsworth also points out, our soul has set somewhere else. In other words, it “sets” into the astral at the point we call “death” here in the physical, or material, world. And yet, on that other side of the veil, the “setting” of our soul from the material world becomes the birth into the astral world, or ‘heaven.” And back and forth, back and forth, we go: Our souls transition from one form in one reality to another form in another reality and back again, over and over, until we become liberated from this plane of existence. I found this a simple and beautiful way to explain reincarnation as it’s taught in the Bhagavad Gita.

I have a special love of poetry and have for years considered it the language of the soul, and this stanza, I think, reflects that in a way that even the explanations of the Gita cannot. I can understand Paramahansa Yogananda’s translation and explanation of the Gita – as much as possible for any of us since it actually takes years to grasp it’s true meaning even WITH the explanation of a master. So adding the understanding of a poet adds another layer to the explanation as well as the understanding. To me, it brings a deep down soul understanding, a feel for what this evolutionary cycle of death and rebirth is rather than just an intellectual understanding.

Wordsworth’s words can—if I close my eyes and ponder them—actually carry me into that other world, even if briefly. These sweet and gentle words can sooth the soul that’s about to embark on another leg of the journey and help it realize that it, too, is but a ‘dream,’ but one that points to our immortality and our home in God.

Both the Bhagavad Gita and Evolutionary Astrology discuss how the Soul creates the ego it needs for each life and how that ego then creates the personality necessary to function within that life. And yet that personality doesn’t remain stagnant throughout one’s life.

In the parable that Chopra threads through his book, Life After Death, spiritual teacher Ramana points this fact out to the about-to-be-widowed Savitri as he introduces her to the “ghosts” of her own past, i.e., her personality at different ages. The point of this knowledge is that death is with us every moment of every day. We experience the death of old cells, old emotions, old thoughts and even old identities, as it were. We are not the same as we were 20 or 30 years ago, or even yesterday or this morning. And yet there is something within that does remain: the Soul.

Most of us who believe in reincarnation know that our Soul provides the continuity from life to life; although it changes form, puts on a new overcoat, as Yogananda used to refer to it, the Soul maintains itself as the continuing consciousness whether in a body or form or in between incarnations. I think that most of us probably have thought about death in this larger image, as a transformation of consciousness out of a body to the astral plane, or heaven, or whatever term we’re most comfortable with. And yet, as Ramana points out, we have a taste of this ‘death,’ this transformation throughout our life.

I had never really stopped to think about it this way, but as I read this part of the parable, it made complete sense, a sense that was very comforting. For when I looked back throughout my own life, and saw my own “ghosts” of past personalities, it strengthened my knowledge and understanding of the Soul as the continuing thread throughout this and other lifetimes, and how the consciousness that I refer to either by the pronoun I or by my name is still in tact even though my personality is not in tact the way it was earlier in my life.

As I continue to grasp what this parable means and how it points to a larger reality, it also gives me increasing comfort and understanding of the ‘death’ or transition I am approaching that will end this body, this incarnation, but not the journey of the Soul that inhabits the body. If we look at these “ghosts” of ourselves from time to time and integrate what they have to teach us and then release them, we take another step in our preparation for letting go of that final personality of this incarnation.

And while I won’t know for sure until I arrive at that point, it seems as if it will be much easier to let go of one or a few of our latest personalities at the final transition  than to have to release all of them at once. Perhaps we can think of them as practice for the final transition, or “little deaths.” It’s one more thing we can do to make our transition as easy as possible, since at the time of our transition we also have to overcome our survival instinct, the strongest instinct we have. But when we realize how much we have actually given up before this time, then we can better understand how this thing we call death is truly a transformation, as energy – the Soul – cannot be destroyed; it can only change form.

I find myself with really mixed emotions lately–mixed thoughts and feelings about the lengthy transition I am in. When I started having experiences that are typically thought of as occurring within weeks or days of one’s transition, I never thought I’d be here two years later still experiencing some of the same things, and I have to admit that each day that I find myself on the planet, I sometimes wonder about this lengthy transitional process.

Sometimes it feels like I can see the beach after a very long swim, but it’s always a few strokes out of reach. As the cage—the body—continues to break down more and more, the transition out of it becomes ever more appealing, and yet still being in it has brought inner ‘treasures’ I wouldn’t have realized had I made the transition sooner. While this time has been such a blessing—a real gift—to spend in closure with my family and friends and continuing realizations about the meaning of life, the actual evolution of the soul, etc., it also sometimes feels like the time just drags. And yet I am not the one who determines when that transition will actually occur.

A few days ago I started reading Deepak Chopra’s book, Life After Death and am finding that it not only reflects and supports what I have learned from my teachers (Wolf and Tayo) and my guru, Yogananda, and what I’ve read in the Gita, etc., but it also is beginning to help me understand and flesh out my own experiences of this process. Just a few short chapters have helped me to start weaving the threads of my individual experiences of the last couple of years into an ever-larger tapestry of conscious that has no beginning and no end. According to a quote by Rumi that Chopra includes in his book, “Death is our wedding with eternity.” And I started thinking that just as we make lengthy preparations for our earthly weddings, so too, this blessing is a lengthy preparation for my wedding with eternity.”

In my last post I talked about how our intentions and efforts are what’s important, rather than the outcome. And this applies to anything we do. My own main area of concern has been the effort to meditate in spite of problems with positioning my body and the challenges I have with concentration, both due to the COPD. Even though I felt I had a good start with how to look at the problem and deal with it, I ran it by Tayo, who did confirm that, indeed, relative to these problems, the value is in the effort. But he also offered more in the way of dealing with meditating, with expanding my consciousness in spite of the challenges:

“Given the state of where you are now, the best thing to try to do is to simply concentrate as best you can on the third eye itself, using the full force of your will to concentrate your ENTIRE being into the third eye, so that whatever position you find your body in makes no difference—the concentration does.”

I certainly understood what he meant and have focused on the third eye as part of other meditation practices, but this method was a bit different and new to me; i.e., bypassing all the other techniques to use the full force of my will to concentrate my ENTIRE being into the third eye, to paraphrase Tayo’s direction. And I still had to concentrate, something I’d found to be so difficult with all the other things going on in my body, so I wondered how on earth I was going to make that happen.

Well, what did happen was as close to a “silver bullet” as I think I’ve ever come to solution to a problem or challenge. Without going into details, because these experiences are so private and precious to me, by the grace of God and gurus, I found myself able to actually do what Tayo had directed: I was able to concentrate my entire self into the third eye. And I felt the presence of my Guru very closely as he supported my efforts with great strength and compassion.

I am able to do this concentrated effort while sitting still or lying back on a stack of pillows, in as much of a meditative state as I can manage. But placing the intense concentration in the third eye while doing other things is a process of practice, practice, practice in all situations, and especially when that’s the only thing I have to do. Then at some point it will no longer take effort; the more I practice, the more it will lead to being able to do it in all situations.

In relation to this, and as I understand it, until the center of gravity of one’s consciousness is centered in the soul rather than the ego—i.e., while we’re in the process of moving from ego to soul—the concentration into and on the third eye will naturally dissipate into whatever task we are involved in, until we consciously bring our attention back to the third eye. Then when we do become soul centered, our consciousness will automatically stay in the third eye.

What a joy it is to work with this technique in this particular way and to feel once again that I’m actually able to do what my teacher is directing so that I can still progress as much as possible before my final transition. There’s always a way to work with whatever our individual parameters require.

One thing that has become increasingly difficult as the COPD progresses is finding a comfortable position that keeps my spine straight so I can meditate. Simply sitting straight is not an option with the physical changes due to the disease, so meditation itself has been difficult these last few years because of that, as well as the effort it takes to breathe, and the difficulties I’ve experienced in trying to focus and maintain my concentration. Low levels of oxygen, along with some of the side effects of necessary medications have affected my thought processes as well as concentration.

Still, with Tayo’s guidance I kept plugging away and yet was not quite able to get it all to come together the way it used to. I felt very frustrated and inept, as well as sad for what seemed to be a loss. And then something that Wolf taught for years and that I first heard in the original School of Evolutionary Astrology correspondence course tapes snapped back into my immediate consciousness: “The value is in the effort.” Even though that phrase seems to be nearly etched into my brain at this point, for some reason, I hadn’t applied it to this particular situation.

“The value is in the effort.” It’s another way of saying what all the great spiritual teachers and gurus have said about anything we do, i.e., to do it for God only and not to be attached to the outcome. To let whatever come, just come. It’s a simple concept and easy to understand, but can be harder to do. For some reason, I find it easier to let go of the outcome of whatever endeavor when I place the emphasis on the effort itself. For I’ve found it nearly a universal experience that when we tell ourselves NOT to think about something (as being attached to the outcome), then it seems that’s where our mind wants to go – to the very thing we’re trying not to do.

“The value is in the effort,” helps me stick to my efforts to meditate, to use mantras and/or techniques I have learned, no matter how well I can carry them out now. I keep plugging away in much better spirits than before. For I have found through some other personal  experiences that at some point there IS an outcome, and it’s almost always better than what I could have asked for.

Whether we experience the “results” of our effort in this lifetime or a future one doesn’t matter, it’s our effort and intentions that matter. “The value is in the effort.” Whenever I hear those words in my own head, I can hear Wolf’s voice as he originally spoke them, and that, too, is both a comfort and an encouragement.

I started through a really rough period right after my last entry, making it extremely difficult to think, let alone write coherently. The disease itself was not the cause of the difficulty but rather some huge problems with a couple of allopathic medicines, specifically as they were prescribed for me by my primary care physician (PCP), and then his refusal to change to a different medication in spite of the severe reactions I was having.

In many ways, I feel like the last six to eight weeks or so weeks are nothing but a blur—lost time when I have little time left. My hospice nurses fought hard to get the right medications for me, but on their suggestion, I finally had to switch to a different PCP who is more geared toward the hospice experience as what it’s supposed to be; i.e., what is called “comfort care,” making the patient as comfortable as possible, and helping them attain the best quality of life possible within their limitations due to whatever disease and/or conditions they have.

The switch to a different medication and a new doctor made all the difference in the world and put an end to the devastating side effects of the drug, as well as the stress of dealing with additional symptoms and the feelings of being manipulated and controlled by a doctor who couldn’t or wouldn’t treat me as a whole human being and not just pieces and parts.

As tough as this time has been, even this is part of the “testing” of my resolve to stick with it, so to speak, until my final transition to the astral plane, based on prior lifetimes in which I didn’t rise to the challenges. So, I made it through once again, and in the end have an even better doctor than I thought to hope for.