Excerpt from "The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife"

When I finished Jordan’s life review, I was led to a passageway of light. Other passageways branched out as intervals as I began to move, but they didn’t feel familiar. Hallways leading to city-size collections of soul families flashed by, and sometimes I had brief curiosity about where they led.

A passageway to my left, appearing exactly like the others, nonetheless had a familiar energy pattern. It was like a place on Earth that has a familiar, unmistakable smell. I turned. Now there were other souls going in the opposite direction. I knew I was close to home.

If you think of each soul as a point of light, the spirit world is a vast array of such lights. It has far more lights than the population of Earth because souls reincarnate to so many other planets and dimensions. And there are souls who have never incarnated, souls who have completed their incarnations, and souls who cluster to create, who are the source, who turn knowledge into energy and matter. You might think of the spirit world as a gigantic brain, with each cell (soul) located in a particular place and performing a particular function. This brain contains all of consciousness, all of thought, all that has been learned, all creativity, and all love. This brain--the spirit world--is collective consciousness, all that is.

I was now heading back to my region--my town and my family. And as I drew closer, the familiar energy and vibrational patterns were like the rooflines and storefronts on Main Street of one’s home town.

My soul group, the farm, appears to live in an old Victorian house. This isn’t a physical house, but energy we project--by agreement--to resemble a house. We create the image that is comforting to us--much the same as souls who incarnate as water creatures might project a quiet lake or bay.

They were all waiting for me, just outside the door, appearing as they looked in our most recent shared life. Eleven of them, and I make twelve. There was also a scattering of souls from nearby families--souls with whom I’ve experienced significant lives.

Each caressed me with a particular expression of love. Though my incarnation was expected to be short, I was held in a kind of group embrace to soothe the sudden loss of my Jordan life. They were telling me it was a good life. A life well lived. Each soul with a signature and unique energy, looked at me, saw the true nature of who I am, and offered a love that can only come from such knowledge. All the loneliness of my life on Earth was suddenly gone.

I was home. But all that I had loved and learned as Jordan was still alive in me.

From Chapter 2: Jordan Describes What’s at the Gate

The landing place lies at the gateway to the world of spirit. It’s not an actual location, like on a map, but an energy field reserved for calming and instructing incoming souls. It’s like orientation when you go to college, but in this case the focus is on adjusting to being discarnate--no sensory or nervous system, no functional limbs. While you often still have the residual shape of a body, it is made of energy vibrations, not matter.

The problem is projection. In spirit, whatever you think or feel or believe can show up as very real-looking images. Remember my experiences of seeing everything I thought about--elephants, waterfalls, monsters? That’s typical. Souls can get stuck for periods of time in bardos thinking they are still on Earth, hallucinating their house, work setting, and friends. They can make up whole dreamlike scenarios with elaborate plots, dramatic crises, and surges of intense emotions.

Meditation to Prepare for the Landing Place

We suggest recording this, with pauses where indicated, and listen daily.

To begin, select a talisman, a small object that connects you in some way to the feeling of love. It could be something that represents or belonged to a loved one on the other side. It could symbolize God or infinity or a higher power or the love of all there is. Choose the object and you can use it whenever you do the meditation. Here’s the meditation:

• Touch or look at your talisman.

• Notice your breath. Say to yourself, “In” on your in-breath and “Out” as you exhale.

• Continue to watch your breath, keeping your attention there as much as possible. (Long pause)

• Now and then briefly check your thoughts. Notice, whatever they are, that they exist in your mind. They are not real in the world. Acknowledge whatever you’re thinking as a thought - “There’s a thought,” you can say to yourself.

• After briefly noticing your thoughts, return to your breath. Go back and forth: thoughts - breath - thoughts - breath . . . Accept the thoughts as something your mind needs to do and then just let go of them. Return to your breath.

• Now become aware of your feelings. Notice any emotion you have right now. Just observe it. It may feel strong or not so strong. After a while it will change.

• Go back to your breath. In and out.

• Notice your thoughts, they are in your mind and not in the world.

• Notice your feelings.

• Watch the in and out of your breath.

• Your thoughts

• Your feelings

• Your breath. In and out.

• Again be aware of your talisman, your connection to love. Bring love into awareness-of a soul or God or all there is. Hold the love as best you can. Listen to the love as you would sound or picture it or feel it in your body. Feel you are part of the love, one with it. Feel it connect you to all. Let yourself expand to be love, to be part of all.

Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, cofounder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and coauthored more than 40 books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook and Seeking Jordan. The publisher of New Harbinger Publications, he lives in Berkeley, California.

The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife by Mathew McKay, Ph.D.© 2021 Park Street Press. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com

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