Death & Beyond
Where do we go when we die? (Kent Smith)
During the evening we transition from daylight to darkness and from being awake to dreaming. Isn’t this transition a beautiful reminder of the natural cycle all living systems go through? Each and every day we move between growth (daylight), and renewal (night). Every night when we close our eyes, we let go and walk in the shadows of the unknown. Yet, we still struggle intellectually with the idea of attachment and letting go. Funny, huh? What allows us to let something else take over us when we are dreaming? What is it that takes over? Where do “we” go when we sleep? These are the same questions that mystify us about death. Join us this week as we deepen our understanding about death and go on an exploration with our NASA-employed Kent Smith, who is author of Love Promised, as she shares her answer to our question “Where do we go when we die?”
Blog Post from our Upcoming Guest
Humans—Let’s Explore! Are We Multifaced Beings?
by Kent Smith
By now, whether or not you’ve been involved in metaphysics, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, yet we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” When I first heard this statement, I got so excited…Brilliant! I thought, whoever said it.
Have you ever felt yourself lying in bed at night, so still and relaxed that you can’t feel your own physical body? Most likely, your brain waves, the electrochemical activity of the brain, are cycling at 4-8 cycles per second, or what we call “theta waves.” At this point, before drifting off into a deep sleep, you may have felt this intense but subtle vibration all over your body. Our physical bodies are very dense matter—yes, it’s vibrating too; after all, everything is—because it’s all energy. But our soul vibrates at a much, much higher rate. It’s etheric in nature and doesn’t consist of the denser matter. It also doesn’t sleep, so there is no need to stay in the body when it is asleep. Only the body requires sleep for its own health. The body of our soul operates under different laws of physics—which science is still trying to discover, understand, and define. And, whether or not they will someday call this collective energy of the body a soul really doesn’t matter to me. As mentioned in my Intro to Love Promised: A Future Life Revealed, Berkeley physicist Charles Townes said:
A revelation and an idea are essentially the same thing; for religion, it’s a revelation, for science, it’s just an idea, but both are one in the same.
So, possibly the term “soul” will always be the language of religion while science looks only at the collective energy of subatomic particles. However, they may very well be one and the same. And, it’s very exciting that science keeps researching to find the most fundamental particle in nature that some have referred to as the “God particle.”
You may have also heard the phrase that the body is just a “vehicle of expression.” It truly is…No different from how we get into our cars each morning to go to work, we get into our bodies even earlier than that before we awake fully to live each day—to carry out our role in this life. When you get out of bed to start your daily routine, still in a relaxed mode or if you meditate, your brain waves then may be cycling at 8-16 cycles per second, or what we call “alpha waves.” On the way to work you may still be in this relaxed frame of mind (depending on traffic, of course). However, if you are participating in a meeting or driving a bulldozer, your brain waves will most likely be cycling at 16-32 cycles per second, or what we call “beta waves.”
So it seems that as the soul, we do use this physical body to express ourselves and have a human experience. The physical body cannot operate without the soul that inhabits it or stays connected to it—no more than the typical car can truly operate on its own. When it’s activated by the key, the engine turns on and it’s ready to go. When we awake in the morning, our soul has reentered the body, the “key” has been turned on, and we are ready to start our day. (Unless it’s your internal programming that wakes you up too early on Saturday morning and you deliberately reprogram yourself to go back to sleep! And, quite possibly, it’s a dream you don’t want to wake from, or this parallel universe you were in—a subject that science is seriously now looking into. But that’s a whole different subject, for a future blog)
The physical body and the soul are always connected with an etheric cord, much like the heart of a fetus in the mother’s womb is connected to the mother’s lungs that give it the breath of life. (I might also add—it’s my belief that the soul who has claimed this body, which is respected by all other souls, is free to come and go and, during this fetal period, spends more time outside of the body than in it.)
Most times, the human is not aware of the key being turned off, or being turned on. One night, I felt myself rolling off the side of the bed. The sense of falling awoke me suddenly and I wondered about being closer to the edge of the mattress than what I remembered. I quickly braced myself for the impact of hitting the floor only to discover, seconds later, that I was not even in my physical body…because it doesn’t bounce back off the floor and start floating! Ah, another OBE, but this time I didn’t remember the intense vibration of separating from my body, nor was I aware of it.
Why it is that our physical bodies require sleep and our soul never does? Yes, we have so much to learn…for eons we have studied and learned about this material world where we consciously exist. Don’t you think it’s time we begin to learn more about this non-physical world where we also exist—the one we’re in before we get into our physical vehicles each morning?
As the Bible (King James Version) says in Proverbs 4:7, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding.” Yet it is implicated that we humans only have a finite mind, so why bother trying to really learn anything about the infinite—until we die? So most of us just wait. But, if the soul who inhabits our bodies each and every day never dies, then why wait until the physical death to know? If we are truly multifaceted beings, then I want to know about as many facets as I can before I shed this physical body! And, quite possibly, this knowing and understanding could help me now.
Can we become more aware? Can we raise our awareness to understand that if each of us is truly more than a finite being, maybe it’s possible to learn more about the infinite, at least more than we’ve been told by those who have tried to educate us in a scientific and religious sense? The things that cannot be explained by those in authority may be kept hidden for various reasons. However, ponder this—just as the medical profession is now emphasizing more every day that each individual, not the doctor, should be responsible for their own health. Should we also be responsible for our own beliefs about science and religion? No longer do we have to rely on these two authorities alone and be told what to believe. Furthermore, we are not living in the Dark Ages. No longer is it a crime to look outside the box when the answers we seek are not readily available. After a multitude of years living on this planet, in this one evolution of mankind on Earth—I think it’s time. It’s time that we begin to understand especially, that which we do not know. And that’s why it is called…exploration.
About our Guest
Kent received a Bachelor of Science degree from Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky, in 1976, with an emphasis in Social Work and Psychology.
As a NASA contractor for 22 years working for United Space Alliance (USA), she held several technical support positions within the Mission Operations Directorate. While at USA, she coordinated flight operation review meetings for space shuttle flights; supported flights in real time as a backroom flight controller; and, coordinated flight crew procedures for International Space Station (ISS), expeditions both domestic and abroad. Currently, she works for Wyle, who is contracted to NASA, to provide support in the Human Heath and Performance Directorate. As an Operational Psychology Coordinator, she supports astronauts and their families prior to, and during, International Space Station (ISS) on-orbit crew expeditions.
On a personal note, Kent’s involvement with metaphysics started at a very young age when she started having out-of-body experiences (OBEs). With a curious mind, she has always questioned the reality of life itself and this experience we call “death.” Since her teenage years, she has sought answers about life through many sources. Upon finding that she could communicate regularly with her deceased loved ones, she set out to learn as much as she could about life from their perspective. Amazing answers were revealed and a story that should not be left untold.
Kent has three grown children and one grandchild. She lives in the suburbs of Houston, TX.
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