We Need Our Subtle Powers

To successfully navigate the “other side” means mastering the powers that are needed there. If the “other side” isn’t merely an imitation of this side, those powers must be different from willpower, physical strength, and the other familiar supports of life in the material world.

Yet our subtle powers, being part of ourselves, can’t be totally foreign, either. For most of us our primary world is physical, of course, but we are using subtle powers all the time, and these may support us in the afterlife.

If the rishis are correct in saying that everyone inhabits the Akashic field, both in life and after death, then subtle powers of consciousness unite both. The powers you need are:

SELF-AWARENESS: The power to know yourself. This power keeps you centered. WILLINGNESS: The power to open your mind. This power allows reality to be seen despite old conditioning and beliefs. INTENTION: The power to manifest desires. This power connects you with your purpose. DISCRIMINATION: The power to make fine distinctions. This power guides you in the subtleties of understanding. ACCEPTANCE: the power of nonresistance. This power enables you to integrate reality into yourself.

To truly know something as deep as what happens after death, your mind must call upon these powers. That’s the only thing, really, separating us from the Vedic rishis: they used their subtle powers to the fullest; we call on them to a much lesser degree.

We are postponing the soul journey until we die. Yet our subtle powers are needed every day – for ourselves and for those relationships that expand our horizons. Substitute the word “soul” for “relationship.” All the things that make a relationship work apply to your soul. Those skills will be crucial if the afterlife brings you into the soul’s domain, as every spiritual tradition says it does.

Adapted from Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2006).