Today I’m excited to interview her here. Whether you currently think physical immortality is possible or not, please take note because she has a lot to offer for our spiritual development — which is tied to our physical being.

Dr Janni Lloyd’s background

Akemi:  Janni, I am honored to have you here at Yes to Me for the interview.  I am also very excited to learn more about physical immortality.

Well, first things first. I wrote about you in my article about death and immortality, but I guess most readers don’t know you yet.  Will you introduce yourself to Yes to Me readers, please?  I heard you were a medical doctor before you turned to alternative health.  What is your background?

Janni: Yes, I was a medical doctor in general practice then I moved into Aura Soma therapy. I was always very interested in the psyche and emotions and how they were involved in dis -ease. I have been giving seminars on physical immortality philosophy for several years now, have written a paper entitled Physical Immortality – the mass possibility and am currently writing a book called ‘The Fun Way of Physical Immortality Philosophy’. I also love raising awareness on the internet and connecting with people all over the world, so thanks for this opportunity.

Is death inevitable?

Akemi: I guess most people see death as inevitable.  But from the medical perspective, are there reasons we must die, except in situations like disease, accidents, murder, or war?

Janni: If we take out disease, accidents, murder and war – all we have left is ‘aging’ which is a very vague collection of symptoms…  Gerontologists have not been able to determine the precise markers that define biological age.  We tend to put into the ‘aging’  symptom box things like memory problems – read Harvard psychologist Ellen Langers book Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility and you’ll think again about that one and most of the others you put into that category.

Gerontologists have developed several different theories of aging.  However they are just that – theories. The human body is amazingly complex. The life intelligence that orchestrated your development from a single cell into a baby is still operating within us and is AWESOME. What if that life intelligence responds to our desires? If we desire our body to rundown and decay, then maybe that’s what we get. What if we are running on a program we can change?

My feeling is that what we call ‘aging’ is actually a chronic dis-ease that we have accepted. Because we believed “death was inevitable” we created a way of fading out of life slowly – “aging”. If we liken our life force to a fully open stream of water – we turned the tap off slowly. Maybe it’s time to challenge this chronic dis-ease by releasing the ‘decay’ program.

Awakening to physical immortality

Akemi: When and how did you first get the idea of physical immortality?

Janni: My deep interest in the psyche and emotions led me to commence meditation in 1992. In October of that year , I had an inner awakening to ‘physical death is a choice’ and chose physical immortality almost immediately. Then the synchronicities began and it wasn’t long before I found How to Be Chic, Fabulous and Live Forever by Sondra Ray. And the synchronicities haven’t stopped, and still take my breath away at times.

Ways to physical immortality

Akemi: In your view, what does it take to achieve physical immortality?  Are there certain requirements physically (such as diet, exercise, lifestyle, etc.), mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?  Or is this about special medical procedure?

Janni: I feel there are many ‘ways’ of physical immortality, each will be as individual as our fingerprint. In my paper ‘Physical Immortality – the mass possibility’ – I share what I feel has enhanced my life force and my knowing.

There are probably some common steps – I certainly feel praise, love and gratitude are important to move to an open, unconditionally loving heart.  As always, I feel the pioneers will use a lot more techniques etc – once the path is more visible to people it will be a lot easier for those who make the choice in times to come.

I feel the medical science pathway is an important one for our awakening. Will we need medical procedures? maybe –  however with the speed of our awakening it’s unlikely.  We’re all in this together and all have valuable pieces of the divine jigsaw puzzle to share – the co – operative whole will bring in greater levels of life for all of humanity.

Immortal body

Akemi: And what does physical immortality look like?  Does our physical body remain basically the same?  I personally tend to think of it as lightbody.  Do you think we will still eat, excrete, sleep?  Will we have reproductive function?

Janni: I feel most of those will remain for a while. And we will only release those things if it is our choice and our joy to do so. I feel in time we will learn to teleport and maybe flit from dimension to dimension – we have eternity, there is no hurry and I love plane travel! …..although a somewhat quicker plane from Australia to just about anywhere would be nice.  lol

Reversing aging

Akemi: You also mentioned about human ability to rejuvenate.  Will you tell us more about this, please?

Janni: Rejuvenation is linked with letting go of the ‘aging’ chronic dis-ease – although some may choose a mature looking body that is flexible and vibrantly healthy. I feel this is the place where I would like to share a wonderful study. This study was done in 1976, by psychologist Ellen Langer and her team at Harvard, it demonstrates the power of the mind to reverse aging. Deepak Chopra describes this study in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old.

“The subjects, all 75 or older and in good health, were asked to meet for a weeks retreat at a country resort. They were informed in advance that they would be given a battery of physical and mental exams, but in addition one unusual stipulation was placed upon them; they were not allowed to bring any newspapers, magazines, books or family photos dated later than 1959. The purpose of this odd request became clear when they arrived – the resort had been set up to duplicate life as it was 20 years earlier. Instead of magazines from 1979, the reading tables held issues of Life and Saturday Evening Post from 1959. The only music played was 20 years old, and in keeping with this flashback, the men were asked to behave entirely as if the year were 1959. All talk had to refer to events and people of that year. Every detail of their week in the country was geared to make each subject feel, look, talk and behave as he had in his mid 50’s.

During this period, Langer’s team made extensive measurements of the subjects biological age. Gerontologists have not been able to fix the precise markers that define biological age, as I noted earlier, but a general profile was compiled for each man using measurements of physical strength, posture, perception, cognition and short term memory along with thresholds of hearing, sight and taste.

The Harvard team wanted to change the context in which these men saw themselves. The premise of their experiment was that seeing oneself as old or young directly influences the aging process itself. To shift their context back to 1959 the researchers had their subjects wear ID photo’s taken 20 years before – the group learned to identify one another through these pictures rather than present appearance, they were instructed to talk exclusively in the present tense of 1959 (“I wonder if President Eisenhower will go with Nixon next election”); their wives and children were referred to as if they were also 20 years younger; although all the men were retired, they talked about their careers as if they were still in full swing.

The results of this playacting were remarkable. Compared to a control group that went on retreat but continued to live in the world of 1979, the make believe group improved in memory and manual dexterity. They were more active and self sufficient about such things as taking their own food at meals and cleaning up their rooms, behaving much more like 55 year olds than 75 year olds (many had become dependent on younger family members to perform everyday tasks for them).

Perhaps the most remarkable change had to do with aspects of aging that were considered irreversible. Impartial judges who were asked to study before and after pictures of the men detected that their faces looked visibly younger by an average of three years. Measurements of finger length, which tends to shorten with age, indicated that their fingers had lengthened, stiffened joints were more flexible and posture had started to straighten as it had in younger years. The control group also showed some improvements (Langer explained this by the fact that going on a trip and being treated specially made them feel younger too). But the control group actually declined in certain markers such as manual dexterity and finger length. Intelligence is considered fixed in adults, yet over half of the experimental group showed increased intelligence over the five days of their return to 1959, while a quarter of the control group declined in IQ test scores.

Professor Langer’s study was a landmark in proving that the so called irreversible signs of aging could be reversed using psychological intervention.”

This result was achieved in under one week!

Pioneers in physical immortality

Akemi: Do you think there are already people who have achieved immortality?

Janni: Yes.  I feel our body has always had this remarkable potential, we have just been asleep to it. When you remember the awesome and miraculous life intelligence that orchestrated your physical body from a single embryonic cell, that life intelligence is always there and has always been there and just KNOWS how to give us ongoing healthy life – we just needed to wake up to what was right in front of us.

So there will have been those who have woken before. However physical immortality is non hierarchical – most of them would probably not have said much. And humanity as a whole was not ready to wake up – my feeling is that humanity as a whole is now ready.

Is there a dark side to physical immortality?

Akemi: In my home country, Japan, there is a legend of a priestess who lives 800 years (I guess that is pretty close to immortality.) But the legend is a sad one.  She survives all her loved ones and is very lonely.  Life is like a pointless repetition for her.  Do you think there could be negative sides to physical immortality?

Janni: People are always coming and going in our lives, we quite often feel sadness when we are seeing people off at the airport – often tinged with excitement of the stories they may tell us on their return!  Life is always about the filter we interpret and perceive our life through. My feeling is that with many people choosing physical immortality and also how easy it is to make new friends now from all over the world , I don’t feel physical immortality will be lonely or sad.

My experience of physical immortality philosophy in my life has created much interesting creative flow, certainly not pointless repetition. Being the powerful creative beings that we are, if after a couple of hundred years, we did find ourselves ‘bored’ we could always create physical death again! My feeling is that the choice never gets taken away.

Check out the vision of a physically immortal world that I’ve shared in my paper – all feels quite joyful and interesting to me. Your readers may also like to check out my thread in the Oprah community ‘Do you choose life?’

Akemi: I totally agree that life is what we make of it, and we each have a filter. With dark filter, anything can look negative, and the opposite is equally true. I see huge amount of untapped possibilities with life that goes on just as long as we want it.

Physical immortality and Ascension

Akemi: Okay, here is my last question, and for this question I need to explain what I do.  I read people’s soul records (called Akashic Records) and clear the energetic interferences.  I take clients from all over the world because distance doesn’t matter.

Earlier this year, I noticed some people are receiving new souls.  Their vibration rate rose so much that they receive updates from their Higher Self (oversoul).  The new soul is the same kind with the old, but is brand new, with no past lives, and therefore no negative energetic issues carried over from past lives. I call this evolutional phenomena “Ascension soul shift”.  Some people had Ascension soul shift before this year.  And I think this is related to the Earth’s change.

I feel that the mass interest in all things spiritual, including physical immortality, is related to this Ascension.  What do you think?  And do you have any opinion about reincarnation?

Janni: I feel using praise, love and gratitude energies is bringing in GRACE so karma is being transcended. Grace simply erases any ‘baggage’ and grants new perspectives. Maybe what you are seeing is part of the ‘clean slate’ that grace produces.

I feel re-incarnation may well have been our previous way of ‘re-inventing’ ourselves. We can now re-invent ourselves, have many different life experiences and bring out different aspects of our personality without needing to drop our physical body.

Akemi: Interesting. That is how I feel, too, that death and reincarnation had its place and function in human evolution, but we are getting into a new game, to a mostly uncharted sea of possibilities.

Thank you, Janni, for this inspiring and informative interview.

Janni: Thank you Akemi. It’s been an interesting and very enjoyable exchange.

Akemi’s takeaway
I’m impressed at the clarity and empoweredness of Janni. I gather that, if someone chooses physical immortality from the place of fear, like the fear of death, it’s not going to work well, because you’d be caught up in the illusion of duality. Choosing life and immortality is an absolute choice, not a choice on comparison, I think.

I also find it so encouraging that she comes from science background. It’s refreshing to hear ideas that resonate so well from someone with different background.

So what do you think? Please share in the comment.

The time is ripe for this discussion as we, and the Earth, progress in light ascension. (Photo credit)

What is life?

To know death, we need to know life.

A few decades ago (I’m writing from my memory of advanced biology course I took at school, so please excuse the lack of details), scientists wanted to find out what makes a life form different from a non-life form. So they simplified and studied the single cell creatures. They identified only two factors that distinguish single cell life forms from mere bubbles.

1. Life forms have cell walls that differentiate the inside of their body from the outside fluid. Life forms “know” what is me and what is not. This makes it possible to take in outside stuffs as nutrition of the inside and excrete what is not necessary. (Biologist Dr Bruce Lipton maintains cell membrane is like the brain that plays central role to sustain us.)
2. Life forms have chromosomes that enable them to replicate, or reproduce, themselves.

So they made an artificial life form with cell wall and transplanted chromosome. That was easy with genetic technology. But the “life form” was not alive. They gave it electric shock, etc, but just couldn’t bring it to life.

Conclusion: There is something invisible that makes organisms alive. Let’s call it life force.

We now jump to a more complex life form, humans. I say “jump” because I think there is a bit of a discrepancy somewhere along the line of biological evolution. We, too, live on life force. But with humans, I recognize the driving power as our souls. Our souls direct the intake of the life force. Is a soul made of life force and the two really are one? I don’t know.

What we can learn from this experiment, however, is the idea that death is the end of everything doesn’t make sense. The idea that everything about you is over when your heart stops beating and your brain stops giving electric waves is limited to the physical, visible function of the body. There is invisible part about you, the life force and the soul (or whatever you want to call it).

What is death?

Now you know there are macrophysics and microphysics, and scientists are trying to come up with the Theory of Everything (TOE) that explains both. So I can explain the relationship of the soul (spirit) and the body in two ways.

On the macro level, we can observe the soul and the body as separate beings. A soul gets inside the body at the baby’s first breath of life and leaves the body at death (spare various cases of soul shifts). So on this level, death is about our soul leaving the body.

On the micro level, the soul and the body are one. The soul is energy, and it can take a dense form of body, which is also energy. Death, then, is the resolution of this dense energy body to another form of energy. Think of the transformation of ice – water – steam. They are all the same stuff, but they look different and act differently. None is better than the other. If the ice puts down the steam because the steam is invisible, it would be ridiculous. So physically incarnated souls are no better than spirits without the body after their “death”.

How these two views can be reconciled neatly, I don’t know at this time.

But in either case, I see the essence of me, the soul, doesn’t die. “I” can leave the vehicle I’ve been driving (macro level explanation) or I can dissolve / transform the body to some other form of being (micro level explanation).

What matters is if I do it consciously or not.

Conscious vs accidental transition

In conscious transition, the “I” knows what I am doing. Despite the appearance of “death,” my consciousness keeps on seamlessly to another form of being.

But if the transition happens without your awareness, it would feel accidental, and you may feel like a victim. While you are on this side. (I believe that once the transition happens, we all get to figure out we are “okay”.) (I’m using the word “accidental” meaning not fully consciously controlled. It doesn’t mean the death is caused by accidents.)

Just to be sure, by conscious transition, I don’t mean suicide. What I mean is the conscious opting out. The majority of death is accidental and not fully conscious no matter how old the person is or whatever the cause of death is.

What happens in afterlife?

As Akashic Record Reading specialist, I am the expert in beforelife. I can tell you about your past lives and the place we go in between physical incarnations. Again, this is the macro level explanation.

What happens after this life is an interesting question for all of us alive today ^_^. Do we repeat what we’ve been doing, that is, cross over to the other side, review our life, rest, and come back later? (If you are interested in more details of the process on the other side, please check Dr Michael Newton’s “The Journal of Souls”) Can we choose not to incarnate any more? If so, are there any requirements, like a certain level of “enlightenment” or vibrational rate?

Our souls can keep going beyond physical deaths. But is physical immortality possible? If it’s possible, is it something you want?

How do you want it?

I’m opening up the discussion here because I think this is up to our free will. Let me sum up the possible options:

1. To die (most likely accidentally) and reincarnate, like we’ve been doing for eons of time
If you choose this option, why? Are there something you want to keep doing in the next life? Is this present life not long enough to do it? Are you postponing something? Or is it about helping others in this world and you can best do it as incarnated being?

2. To die (most likely accidentally) and not incarnate again
Again, why? Is your choice based on hate of this life and the world? Or is it simply because you’ve had plenty and even the good stuff is enough after certain time?

3. To consciously transition or transform your physical body to some other form of being
One of the other form of being is called lightbody. This is what I aspire to do. If you are into continuity, one thing we want to check is we are not choosing this out of fear of death.

4. To keep going in the same physical body
I guess this is what Robin at Let’s Live Forever! stands for. The physical body is just a form of energy, so rather than transforming it to another way of being, keep healing and mending it forever. If it involves temporary death, this may mean resurrection.

5. (Well, as I wrote, I don’t support this view, but if you still like it) To die is to die, the end, period. Death means end and there is nothing after that. Because this view doesn’t acknowledge the invisible being (soul), the death must be accidental. 

6. To die  and go to heaven. Or hell. Depending on the judgement.  I don’t get this idea because God is love and we are God, so why do we judge ourselves to reward or to punish?

7. We lose our individuality at the transition and merge with God.  I guess this can happen both with conscious transition and accidental one.  It’s based on a different level of . . . well, what shall I call it . . . model. 

Are there other options?

Further resources:
Here is a movie about afterlife (HT: Evita Ochel)

Here is a discussion about physical immortality on Oprah’s website, started by Dr Janni Lloyd. 

And is our perception of life and death “real” to begin with? Here is my own post of the nature of reality.

So let me know what you want in the comment. Also, let me know if thinking about life and death give you clarity about the meaning of life.

But let’s look at it from a different angle. They had me for four years. And I’m sure I was a beautiful and smart baby. Was it good having me as their child?

Or would they rather not have me at all if they knew they would lose me soon?

Shortly after I posted that article, I received the news that a friend of mine passed away. She was hospitalized when her health suddenly deteriorated and she chose not to be kept on tubes. She was in her early sixties.

She was the kind of person who vaguely remembered past deaths. I once talked with her about her Akashic Records, and she acknowledged she wasn’t so afraid of death. She knew it was essentially a transformational process.

Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, died at age 47.

Okay, before you get too depressed and click away, let me ask you: Is longer life better life? Many people seem to think so. But I think each of these lives are complete in their own right.

If a laundry machine breaks during the warranty period, we have the right to complain. It’s supposed to last at least for that period. But life is not like that.

Am I bringing up the cliched teaching of Carpe Diem (Seize the day)? No. That phrase carry the pessimistic and destructive energy. I’d say “Cherish the day.”

If you are blessed to have a child, enjoy that gift today. Their presence in your life now is a miracle. And of course, this is not just about a child. You don’t really know if your friends, family members, casual acquaintances, or your job, house, etc. are going to be here tomorrow.

You don’t really know if you are going to be here tomorrow.

I’m going to make this post deliberately short. It’s definitely the shortest post here at Yes to Me.

Does it make this post worthless?

In this post, I’d like to share one of my past life (again, the one before my Ascension soul shift) in which I died at the tender age of four. Perhaps it sheds some light about this sensitive issue about dealing with death, especially death of a young person.  (Photo by sugarmonster)  

Choosing birth setting in the cycle of reincarnation

I don’t remember exactly how I died. The point is I opted out early from that life because it wasn’t what I, as spirit, expected.

What went wrong? Was I abused and couldn’t take it any longer? Was I so ill that I chose to end life earlier than expected? Was I poor and starved, or was there a war?

Nope. On the contrary, I was born to a loving and affluent family. I was their precious only child. They wanted to shower me with all the love and care, and whatever money could buy. I think, by the time I was a four-year-old girl, they were dreaming up of my big wedding.

And that was the problem.

There was hardly any challenge.

We all choose our birth setting prior to life. Often, we dare to choose difficult situation to be born to because we believe it offers better learning opportunities for our life lessons. This is not always the case, however. Spirits honor our free will, so if we insist on being born to a certain setting, they let us do so. They may say something like, “Honey, you may not like that situation. It doesn’t align with your learning process.” but if you insist, they will let you do that. We have the right to learn by trial and error.

So evidently I chose this rich and loving family. I guess I was tired of tough life like the one that ended up with cruel persecution.

. . . and I quickly found out the advice of the counseling spirits was right. Again, this life as the only child of an affluent family was . . . boring. Perhaps the only way I could learn something in that setting was to run off with a guy from a different race and social status. But I didn’t like spending more than ten years growing up just to get to the point of potentially doing something like that. So I opted out. Sorry my mom and dad of that lifetime . . .

Is Lamborghini for everyone?

Let me explain by analogy. Do you want Lamborghini? It’s a nice sports car, isn’t it? Would you like to drive that if it was up to your choice?

Me choosing that rich family to be born to was like me choosing to drive a Lamborghini. The spirits told me I may not like it, but I insisted because it looked nice. And my friend Hunter told me it’s nice. So I wanted to try.

Now in real life at the car dealership, something would happen that would prevent me to actually buy a Lamborghini. Perhaps I’d notice it makes horrible engine noise as I test drive. Plus I’d notice I was getting unwanted attention. (I don’t like getting attention for the car I drive. I want attention to myself). So I’d walk off without buying it. Good grief.

In reincarnation, however, there is no test drive. So I dived into that experience. And quickly realized I messed up. Again, my mistake. No one did anything wrong.

The lesson

Does this mean all the children who die are choosing their own destiny to opt out? No. Does it mean it’s no good to give love and material gifts to children? No.

What I’m getting at with this story is that there may be a hidden meaning. Again, I know losing a loved one is tough. It’s essential we take good care of ourselves in such times. And, when you start feeling better, maybe you can regain the trust that things are working fine.

Here is another story I heard from a friend. Her friend gave birth to a baby who had birth defect. Doctors told her to institutionalize the baby because he wasn’t going to do anything and would die soon anyway. She was determined to take care of the baby herself and to prove them wrong.

The baby did achieve some development and surprised the doctors. Then, one winter morning, she was driving her kids to somewhere, and another car slipped and hit her car. The other car hit right to the side where that baby was seated, and he died instantly. Magically, she and her other (normal) kids didn’t get hurt at all.

After grieving, she realized that the baby caused the accident himself to leave this world. It was time for him to go — he appreciated his mother’s love and care, but he also knew he wasn’t going to be much more than he already was, and wanted to leave so that he could have another fresh start at some point of time later. The mother was sad, but she came to accept this.

I hope this article offer some help and release for those who suffer from the loss of their children and those who are perplexed with the issue of children’s deaths. If you know such person, please email them the link to this article.

What is this thing called life? What is the real nature of it? Why can some people walk through life with joy while others suffer?  (Photo by feintnate)  

I wrote about the true nature of reality in the Light part of Creating The New World series, but I suspect not many readers got it. So let me explain again. This is very important, foundational concept.

You in the movie of life

Have you watched a good movie in which you were so immersed that you felt like you were actually living that story? Or have you read a book that put you in the same kind of state of mind?

You identified with one of the characters, perhaps the leading character. His or her feelings felt like your own. When the situation changed, you felt their surprise and confusion. When they had to make a difficult decision, you struggled, too, as if it’ll affect your own life.

Only when the movie was over and the titles started to run with the music, you came back to yourself, sighing, “Oh, wow, what a story. . .!”

This life is like that. Your Higher Self chose a certain setting and jumped in to experience the story. Like you watch a movie.

You as the actor and audience of life

Actually the analogy works even better with live theater play than a movie. Your Higher Self chose a role and jumped in to be part of the play. At the same time, your Higher Self is the audience of the play. This is what I mean when I say our Higher Selves split part of themselves to incarnate in the physical bodies.

Most of us are so immersed in this life theater production. It feels all so real. Only when we die, we come to realize it was a play, or a movie. Some people call this condition “we have the veil” on us that hinder us to see the true nature of reality.

Is sad movie a bad movie?

Do you like sad movies or stories? I guess many of us do. Sad movies are not necessarily bad movies. Sad movies can be beautiful and we may learn a lot from them. It’s okay to watch sad movies.

Do you like action movies? I’m personally not a big fan, but I guess many of you like them. In those movies, bad guys play critical roles, right? You hate them, but then, the movie’s plot is impossible without them. That’s what those people who have hurt you in your life have done. They played their roles.

By the way, my favorite movies are romantic comedies — not the slapstick “I’ll make you laugh by all means” kind of movies but the ones that look at life with lighthearted humor. Like Lost In Translation, Love Actually, and The Birdcage. A bit of mind-bending, like Eternal Sunshine or Closer, is good, too.

What are your favorite movies? Now is that how you live or wish to live?

You as the director of life

The amazing point is you are not just the actor and the audience of this play. Your third function is to direct it. Well, I mean, you can direct it if you so wish. This is what I mean you have the power to create your life and the world.

While you are so immersed in the life play, it’s easy to forget you are also a director. But you chose your character, and this play is made spontaneously as we go. If you don’t like the story-line, then change it. Make the adversity to a rags-to-riches story or glory by overcoming the challenge story.

Being the director of your own life play doesn’t mean everything will go the way you want. Your awareness as the actor is different from your awareness as the director. (Do you think those actors really enjoy playing the scene where they get tortured or getting dumped for stupid reasons?) The life theater is dynamic and fun But it does give us a clue how we can live better.

The fun is in the process

Now let’s say there is a new movie you are interested in. Would you just read the synopsis, see the last scene, and be done with it? No, you want to spend two hours in the theater watching the movie, right?

Knowing all the outcomes of the story ahead of time spoils the fun. The fun is in the process. We took the trouble of being born in this physical world to experience all these ups and downs, excitements and serenity, interesting twists, etc.

I wrote about victim mentality and slave mentality in the Power part of the Creating The New World series. In it, I explained the telltale sign of these disempowered mindsets is the word SHOULD.

My friend emailed me saying, “I think we ask what we should do because it’s a big shortcut when we don’t know everything.” True. I’m not prohibiting the use of should. The point is we accept the uncertainty of life, to be empowered to the point that it’s really fine to go with the flow with all the unknown. This is what I mean the fun is in the process.

The secret of life

Life is a story or movie. Or a virtual reality game. (I’m not familiar with video games so I didn’t use this metaphor, but I guess it works, too. Perhaps this is why those games appeal so much to some people.)

Does this mean we don’t need to take life seriously? Absolutely not. We took the trouble of incarnation. (And oh, what a trouble it was!) We want to enjoy this fully. So live well.

At the same time, your life will be a lot easier when you notice we are only identifying with the character of this life movie, or identifying as the actor’s role. We can still enjoy the sensations of this movie, but don’t be buried in them. You are actually someone outside the movie, and you can even direct the movie the way you want it.

When you realize this true nature of life, you also notice that there is no reason to stay resentful to those who have harmed you. It’s fine to get upset at them when they harm you — that is the intention, the plot. But you don’t need to remain resentful or run to the spiritual cop to out their wrong doings. They just played their role to contribute to your life story.

I dreamed I was a butterfly. . .

Another way of saying the same thing, that life is a movie or a theater play, is “Life is a dream.” I believe this is what 4th century B.C. Taoist Master Zhuangzi (also spelled Chuang Tsu or Chou) meant by this story:

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Both in the eastern and western worlds, a butterfly is often a metaphor of a soul.

You will wake up from this dream when you leave your body. However, just as some people can do lucid dreaming, you can become aware of the true nature of this life and “reality” while you are in it.

From a butterfly dreaming it’s Akemi, with Love ^_^