Recently my dad passed away and I was able to spend the last two days of his life with him. In the hours before he died I could feel him leaving his body and when he died I remember feeling that dad’s body was not Him.
We took dad home for 3 days before the funeral and he lay in his coffin in the lounge of our family home. Many visitors and family came to see him and shared stories about his life. Often I would go and stand by his coffin and I knew that it was not Him.
When we were in the church and his coffin was centre stage and family shared memories about dad I remember looking at the coffin and I knew that what it contained was not Him.
At the graveside as we all stood around and talked about dad, the coffin was lowered into the ground and I definitely knew that it was not Him.
And now a few weeks later, as I visually try and hold onto my dad, I can feel the very strong attachment we have to the physical body and what it looks like and how this imprint is often what we hold onto in our heads and in the photos we keep and look at.
Yet dad’s body was the vessel which housed his soul (life force or his essence), and this body after death has no purpose anymore.
What I was feeling after he died was the departure of his soul from his body and I knew that without his soul, the body was not Him and was no longer needed.
When I connect with the soul of my dad I remember his hugs whenever I was leaving and that special kiss on the cheek. Dad was not an overly physically affectionate man, but when he hugged, I knew it was from Him.
When I connect to the soul of my dad I can feel the love he had for his family, not always shown in traditional ways, but it was felt by us all and we knew it was from Him.
When I connect to the soul of my dad I shed a tear as my mum reads some quotations from the heart, which she found in a drawer in his writing desk, and we know they are from Him.
For most of my life I have been told about the finality of death and that we go to heaven or hell. It has never felt true to me and I have never believed this explanation.
Serge Benhayon has presented death as a ‘passing over’, where our soul eventually comes back again into another physical body to live another lifetime. Our spirit is on a journey through many lives learning the lessons we need to learn on our journey back to be united with God. This makes so much sense to me, as I cannot believe that our life here has no purpose except a beginning and an end.
In my observations of my dad’s death I could feel the absence of “Him” in his body and know that this life was only a small part of his journey on his way back to God.
Published with permission of my Mum.
By Anne Hishon, Registered Nurse, Tauranga, New Zealand
Further Reading:
The Kingly Body – Building a Connection With Your Soul
Reincarnation: Does Everything Start and End?
My Mum’s Funeral: Celebration of a Life Completed
729 Comments
There is a view that I have come across from people who suggest that those who believe in something more to this life do so for comfort, a sort of not wanting to accept the finality of life. Yet, when you truly consider what it means to come around again and again, then you see the purpose in life and the huge responsibility we have in every moment. It certainly is not a cop out!
What an amazing experience showing that life is far more than physicality, we have a soul, which is our essence and it is this when expressed in full in life that makes everything joy fun, and connected like the universe. If we look at human life than it is quite a mess, but it’s obvious we all know something deep inside that is loving and divine, otherwise we wouldn’t know what is hurtful and abusive.
Its such a good idea to discuss death and the process of passing over to find out what peoples wishes are in relation to being buried or cremated. If they would like a funeral or a celebration of some type. Just to ascertain what someones wishes are for when they pass.
Thank you for this simply beautiful sharing about how the body is the vessel for the soul in this lifetime and how it is possible to feel the soul leaving the body prior to death. I know I clearly felt this with my father and through Serge’s teachings on ‘passing over’ was able to let go of my attachments to his physical presence in my life and deeply appreciate the truth he reflected to all which continues to live on in his family and others despite his physical passing.
So true Anne, when we let go of the physical presence of someone we love then we are free to hold the known essence of them in our heart.
It’s a great point you’ve made Anne about our attachment to the physical vessel that enhouses the being within that we love so much. We can really miss their physical presence after they have passed away, however the being simply moves on to the next cycle of life.
This is my understanding too, that it is our physical body that dies, ‘death as a ‘passing over’, where our soul eventually comes back again into another physical body to live another lifetime. Our spirit is on a journey through many lives learning the lessons we need to learn on our journey back to be united with God.’
When we understand that death is not the end, it can be, and is from my own experience a beautiful experience. To allow ourselves to pass from this plane in love and gentle acceptance without struggle or fear we open the door to a truly lovely homecoming. The more natural we see death as being, the more accepting we will be.
For me this is an ongoing process, something I felt I understood, until that is someone I know is passing over – there is so much stuff that comes up for that person, the family, friends, lots of things that may have been buried for years or gone unsaid, it can be quite a process for everybody. This has made me realise many things, one big one being we need to talk about death and dying and passing over and how it affects us all, not just immediate family. Sometimes it is like sitting in a room with everyone trying to squeeze past the big pink elephant pretending it’s not there.
Thank you Anne, this is a beautiful sharing about death and dying, it makes this often heavy topic light and simple. There is no end, life is just a chapter of many, and in each chapter we have many opportunities to learn and grow.
Having had my fair share of funerals and observing bodies when laid out in the hospital or funeral parlour, it is true the bodies feel empty and it is not like they are sleeping because we can feel that they have moved on.
A beautiful post Anne, when someone passes over, for me there is a knowingness that this is the end of a cycle and the beginning of the next.
In the recent passing over of a close relative, I too have come to filter out the differences between times when he was living and responding from the essence of who he is and the times when he was living in reaction to life based on the hurts he was carrying. And this exploration has brought me closer to a deeper awareness of the fact that what we leave behind when we depart from this world is the livingness of our lives which is the sum of all our choices. And there in lays a great responsibility, because imagine if what you leave behind is a life based on truth, love, integrity, humbleness, support for others and yourself. What if the life that you leave behind is so phenomenal and inspiring that those who are left feel compelled to write about it, so that the choices you have made can live on and inspire others to choose the same level of love, integrity, truth and humbleness and support.
I too know what it is to stand next to a body and know it isn’t the person we knew.
The body is not who we are. We are something so much grander than that, the body limits us, and imposes restrictions that we are free of when we passover. The key is to learn to live with our body, in a way that reflects the glory and the truth of who we are.
We are more than our physical bodies, we are all Souls in many different stages of returning.
For as long as I can remember I have always felt deeply that there is more to this life than we can see and that it just did not make any sense at all that we had this one life and that was it….it felt very limiting and most of all a huge reduction of the laws of the universe and the cycles of birth, death and reincarnation. Love this blog Anne in how simply you show us the bigger picture and I can feel how supportive it will be for many facing the ‘ passing over’ of their loved ones.
Re-reading your blog again Anne – so beautiful and we all need to have these experiences shared so that we can view and be around these times in a way that is supportive of all.
I had the same experience when I visited my grandfather’s funeral.
Sounds like in the end, your relationship with your father transcended beyond seeing him a flesh and blood but as a family member passing over.
Beautifully and tenderly expressed Anne, your blog is such a great support for anyone who has struggled with the passing over of a loved one. This is such an important conversation to be having so openly as we do not speak freely about death and dying and so there can be many fears and false beliefs built up around it.
I just love these words – ‘this life was only a small part of his journey’. I know there is so much more to life and the world than what we see. The way I see it, is if you look at the earth it’s all you see, but if you look at the universe and zoom out it just gets bigger and more beautiful – and it’s the same with our lives. If you look at this one life it’s all you see, but if you zoom out there are thousands of other lives and so so so much more than we consider when we just look at this life.
Thank you for sharing this. This is a beautifull truth, especially this: ‘Yet dad’s body was the vessel which housed his soul (life force or his essence), and this body after death has no purpose anymore.’ The teachings from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are invaluable especially for everyone to have a true knowing and understanding of Soul and spirit.
I have always found it strange how, particularly in western culture, people fear and will not talk about death. I have always felt that it is a natural part of life, as birth is, I have wanted to understand it and speak of it and I have often found walls have been put up to not discuss this subject. Great that there is a blog here about death and how it feels to observe it and be part of it. Death is as much a part of life as life is, it is part of the cycle of life.
I have had this experience with older people I have worked with and also family members. The body is not what makes us, it is our vessel, our vehicle for this life. I did not feel that what makes someone who they are stays in their body, when we die, our soul leaves. I have no doubt about that.
Thank you Anne for sharing your experience of the passing over of your father in a beautiful, respectful and honouring way, with a deeper understanding of what happens when we die, with another cycle ended.
Death and dying in our society is so misunderstood, in large part because we’re so conditioned to be frightened to talk about it that it’s shrouded in taboo rather than confronted and embraced as a a totally natural process that requires our full responsibility and commitment. But increasingly, particularly as we age, the question and urgency about what our true purpose is in being here grows ever louder.
I have experienced the same, a dead body is just that. Life, purpose has gone or better say the divine has gone and will come back in the beautiful cycle life is until we all are united in divinity, in God.
When I was a child I saw the dead body of some relatives. Although the adults expressed their sadness, I remember the clear feeling of calm into myself. I felt that everything was perfectly ok and I knew that there were no need to be sad. Of course, it was a bit shocking to me to look at my granddad’s body and confirm that it was completely void of him. But at that moment I had the immediate realisation of what death truly means. Now I’m grateful of having had that experience,when I was a child, because at that moment I still didn’t have any ideas and emotions associated to death, and this experience was a confirmation about my tranquility regarding to death, which has accompanied to me during all my life.
Anne, your experience with your dad and my experience with those who are dying shows that we are so much more than our body as you have shared. There is within an essence that we feel and know in addition to the physicality and personality of our lives. It is important to never forget this as we watch or support our elders pass on from this temporal life.
I have little experience of death, other than the recent passing away of my Mum… and like you, there was a point where the body was no longer the vessel for the soul within, and I found myself addressing her in a space around the body as it slowly gave up its long battle with Cancer. The fascinating thing was that while the body degraded, the other aspect remained exactly the same essence as I had always felt in her, perhaps a bit lighter and more accessible, but definitely the same feel.
Thank you for sharing your special memories of your Dad’s passing Anne. Having experienced both my parents passing , I absolutely know we are not that body but rather a spirit and Soul on our journey back to God, through many lives here on Earth.
Thank you Anne for sharing this deep and intimate experience of your father’s passing. Reading about your experience I can confirm of similar situations with my mother in law and other family members that I went to view before they where buried. Yes it was their physical body, but it felt like an object as opposed to a human being.
Death is often seen as there either being nothing on the other side, we go somewhere else or come back as something or someone else. But what if rather than just the end of a cycle there was so much more to death than we’ve currently adopted? From the presentations of Serge Benhayon this has certainly been the question posed that what if death was actually a blessing and that we are far more than the body we live in. That is what this blog clearly shows – that we are far more than the human frame because when we depart from it our beingness, our presence is absent. If we are far more than the human body then what more is there about us that can/could be discovered when the focus is removed from what we do in life as a way of identification? because we don’t do anything per say on death but who we are is noticeably missing after that event.
It makes so much sense to me that we come back again and again learning lessons we need to learn in order to return to the love we are all from, I feel blessed to know this to be true as when we know we come back we are seeing the bigger picture and feeling truth rather then getting lost in the smallness and illusion of finality.
True, when we are open to the possibility, or feel it to be true for us, that we return to live another life to learn what there is to learn, we open up the potential of feeling the big picture. This alters how we relate to life in all ways. Responsibility for how we live in this life has a whole new flavour if we are aware that we will be returning to the choices we have made.
I agree, Emma it would make no sense at all and yet so many people believe this is the case. If we were taught about true evolution from the start I am sure the world would be a different place to live in and we would all be living with a lot more self responsibility.
It makes so much sense that we will pass over and begin again, on an endless cycle of rebirth until we choose to evolve and re-unite with our soul and God. It would be a desolate feeling to think that this is it and that our life has no purpose.
Reading your piece, I felt the soul of my Dad and his love, through the gestures he displays in so many ways to his family. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Anne, your writing is a beautiful reminder to look beyond the physical body and feel the person who is there, whether alive or passed over. We get very deceived by our eyes. The clairsentience of our inner heart feels and knows everything.
“..this life was only a small part of his journey on his way back to God.” Deeply touching blog Anne. How healing it is when we see the bigger picture like you have Anne, thank you for sharing.
Losing a loved one can bring up much sadness and grief as we become so attached to the physical body. When my auntie died of cancer I found it very sad but it brought about much healing for the family. I am coming to realise that when we hold on to another it comes from self and that is not love and does not serve. Feeling what the body presents and letting them go is so freeing, knowing that it is one life of many, another opportunity to learn and grow on the path of return back to God. Thank you Anne for sharing a beautiful blog on the death of your father.
Yes, Caroline, to love without attachment is huge but very freeing. However this type of love is not valued or recognised by society- we need to be seen to be emotional and grieving in a very visible way or we are perceived as being cold and hard. . In understanding the true cycle of life this does not make sense!