Life after death: Going towards the light

Most of us have heard about the concepts where a person feels like they are in a tunnel and that they are moving into the light at the end of the tunnel. This visualisation acts as an analogy which represents the feeling that the person sees a solution or a happy ending at the end of the ordeal they are going through.

We decided to examine what the phrase ‘the light at the end of a tunnel’ meant from a spiritual perspective. Most often it is used spiritually in the following two instances:

1. When a ghost (demon, devil, negative energy, etc.) affects a person or a house, then quite often a spiritual authority like a priest or a medium is called in to help remedy the situation. A common spiritual technique that is used by them is to ask the distressing entity to ‘go into the light.’ The entity could either be an ancestor who is earthbound and has not been able to move on or it could be a ghost. Therefore the intention of the priest or the medium in telling the entity to go towards the light is asking him to go towards God or Divinity or to higher positive planes.
2. Sometimes when people have near death experiences (NDE’s), they too have a vision of traveling through a tunnel with a light at the end of it.

We investigated both these events through spiritual research to ascertain what the ‘light’ was that people could see. The following were the findings:

• The Divine Light in actuality is definitely seen by people who have a genuine desire for God–realisation. Those above a spiritual level of 50% ( samashṭi) or 60% (vyashṭi) are actually able to see Divine Light either due to immense merits or very little ego. As they are above the 50% (samashti) or 60% (vyashti) spiritual level they don’t just see the Light but also finally reach the Divine Heavenly Light. A person at a lower spiritual level, such as 40%, may see a Divine Light when they die if they had an intense desire for spiritual growth towards God-realisation. In this case, while they may see the Light, they don’t actually reach the region of Heaven (Swarga).
• The rest of us, at the point of death, are not able to see any light. Instead as soon as we die, ordinarily we see darkness. Even though the ‘Region of the Dead (Martyalok)‘ that we go through immediately after death is purplish in colour, most subtle-bodies journeying through it see only darkness. The reason is because the subtle-body has a black covering of impressions of unsatisfied desires, personality defects, ego and in many cases a covering of black energy of ghosts. Hence it is as if they have their eyes closed and thus cannot perceive the actual colours of the Region of the Dead.
• Those people without a genuine desire for God-realisation who see a light are in fact seeing the light generated by an illusion-creating subtle-sorcerer (māntrik). Subtle-sorcerers, due to their high spiritual strength, can create illusions of light as well as feelings of peace and happiness radiating from the light. These illusions are created by their spiritual powers and their black energy. They use this as a mechanism to lure subtle-bodies into the light and trap them into slavery. Earthbound ancestors are generally of a lower spiritual level and with a lot of attachments and unfulfilled desires. This means that they ordinarily cannot see a Divine Light when they die. By telling them to go into the light, what one is effectively doing is telling the departed ancestor to go towards the illusion creating subtle-sorcerer.
• The tunnel that is reportedly seen is in the Region of the Dead (Martyalok). Due to a highly activated sixth sense (ESP), seekers of SSRF have been able to see not only the tunnel but describe its details too.

So what is the solution to ensure that one sees true Divine Light? The best way is to utilise one’s time on Earth in doing spiritual practice. This spiritual practice needs to conform to the six basic principles of spiritual practice else it could lead to stagnation or even deterioration in spiritual growth.

^ Top