Two years ago, my favorite aunt was diagnosed with widespread cancer.  Doctors gave her six weeks, but true to her feisty spirit, she decided she needed more time. I told her I would care for her during this journey.

She lived for nine months.  I spent three to four days a week with her in hospice.  She seemed full of love, dying “consciously,” as she called it.  But occasionally, she was beset by fear.

Her Christian beliefs reassured her about life after death.  My aunt wondered what that really meant.  She and I discussed it often.  Over time, I began to tell her about Soul Travel.  

Soul Travel helps me anytime I need answers about work, health, relationships, or finances.  I can Soul Travel when I am awake—a sudden knowing or new information—or in dreams.  I practice special Soul Travel exercises taught in Eckankar, Religion of the Light and Sound of God, with the help of a Soul Travel master, the Mahanta, the inner and outer teacher in Eckankar.  

I also sing an ancient chant word, HU (pronounced like hue, and sung as a long, drawn-out HU-U-U-U).  Singing HU calms me and assists Soul Travel.  

My aunt’s fears grew as she got weaker. She would often cry out, “Mary, I am so scared!”  One evening, sitting by her bedside, I used a Soul Travel exercise to find out how to best help her.  An image came of her daughter, who had died not long before.  When my aunt woke, I suggested that she ask her daughter to help with her fear of death.  

A week or so later, my aunt began sharing vivid dreams and waking experiences.  Her daughter was visiting her in her hospice room.  “She is right over there,” she’d point, “don’t you see her?”  I did feel the presence of my cousin, a no-nonsense person.  Once she was telling my aunt to get a grip!  When I relayed that, my aunt laughed delightedly.  “That’s her!” 

I was also scared of losing this beloved relative I’d just gotten to know again.  I dedicated my spiritual practice to releasing my own fear of loss.  I began having experiences too—of my aunt’s new life in the other worlds.  In one Soul Travel experience, I got a tour of her new home, a beautiful mansion in the countryside.

 Towards the end of my aunt’s life, she slept most of the time.  Occasionally she would wake up and say something, but most of the time she was comatose.  On my last visit with her, she opened her eyes and reached for my hand.  “You are so beautiful,” she said, and I knew she was seeing her daughter in front of her. 

I’m grateful to have the teachings of Eckankar to help me via Soul Travel.  It’s a spiritual tool I can practice every day, which enhances my ability to move beyond fear and experience more love in my life.