Subtle Mind and the Other Side
Welcome to another issue of The Shamcher Bulletin, excerpts from the archives of Shamcher Bryn Beorse. Warm greetings to new subscribers! If this was forwarded to you and you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do it here.
Shamcher described his connection to the earth as:
“… quirks or pretendings or daydreamings about a pipeline to a personal Planet Earth.”
He was being modest, having listened to the Earth’s promptings during his meditations for decades, responding by applying his engineering skills and economic awareness wherever possible. And if something weren’t possible? He’d work to create an opening for that.
Phase-Out
Shamcher’s near-death experience was catalytic in creating his access to an even greater range of subtle mind. In this article, using the name “Jack”, he shares some of what he saw and felt on the other side. Of particular interest to Sufis is his description of the meeting he had there with Inayat Khan, his Sufi teacher, who he simply calls “a friend”. As Shamcher writes of these experiences he includes a deeper mystic awareness, something that had already been present before the accident.
The Yogi will try his last trick: Crossing the river of death! Can it be done? Well, involuntarily all do, in due time, but voluntarily? And can he be sure to come back? Even if he does, is there any proof he has been on that "other side"?
"Proof" is a word of this world, and it is losing its charm here, too. Modern mathematicians hold that even mathematics, the purest of the pure, has never proven a thing. People who want "proof of survival" are barking up the wrong tree. People who want proof of anything are barking.
What, then, can we have? We may have possibilities, probabilities. Beyond that, we may have more, something even better than proof. We shall come to that.
From among the thousands who have reportedly moved a stretch into that afterlife and came back to tell, your yogi-impersonator will first monitor a common specie, an accident-victim, with whom modern man can so easily identify. Let's call him Jack, a cover name for a real case. Every morning he drove to work through virgin forests, occasionally opening to breathtaking glimpses of the giant Olympic mountains. With a record of forty-five years of driving without a scratch on a fender or a parking ticket, he felt safe and secure and perhaps a bit insouciant.
On an October morning in 1965 he lost consciousness, either by falling asleep or being run into, and after unconsciously following the road for two more miles, turned into the woods. The car somersaulted an unknown number of times and he broke through steel girders and safety glass using his head as a ramrod and was found stretched out on the moss, losing blood fast.
Among those who found him a heated discussion developed: Some urged he must be brought to a hospital; others insisted was "deader ‘n a doornail". The argument was settled by an indiscretion on the part of the corpse: Jack talked, in a low-key measured voice, all of which he doesn't remember. After three hours he was picked up by an ambulance. At the nearest hospital doctors shook their heads. He was sent to another town thirty miles further on.
The medics at this second hospital set to work but also shook their heads and told Jack's children, "We will do our best but - we don't think your father has a chance."
Jack's own memory of this ordeal is altogether pleasant. He found himself cavorting about in a world of unworldly beauty somewhat like the cloudscapes seen from aircraft at high altitude at sunrise. Well, with his loss of blood and all, weird imaginings would not be unexpected.
Around him were his parents and several friends, all of whom had passed away long ago. This was not surprising either, at a time of shock, as the medics called his state. What makes one a little thoughtful is that Jack is just an average extrovert and sinner, not a sentimental type. He hadn’t thought about his parents or departed friends for years. What makes one more thoughtful is that some of the friends in his entourage had passed away without his even knowing about it. He was among “the dead” – the known dead and the unknown dead.
One of these departed friends was something special. Jack, of a scientific as well as religious bent, had never accepted the one-and-never-again theory of revelation. That the Creator of this Universe should have revealed himself, through a single “SON” once, about two thousand years ago, never before and never after, was so contrary to all good housekeeping, to physics, to natural history, to the concept of compassion, even sense, that Jack looked around for the corresponding revelations in this present time, his own time. While pursuing his career as an engineer and economist, he met and evaluated people reported to have prophetic qualities at this age. He found a good many sincere and kind and utterly deluded pretenders. He found a few rascals. He met some who stirred the deepest thoughts and feelings in him, whose feats were on the level of those of History’s greats. He became the pupil of one of them, one who said he had learned more from his pupils than they from him; more from his sins and failures than from his successes; and who passed away, to the surprise of all, before he was fifty.
This person now played a prominent part in Jack’s after-accident events. Jack felt closer to him than he had ever felt when he lived. And he told Jack that this was just a foretaste of afterlife, that he would go back and be a support and comfort to his children for years to come.
“You are almost playing my game now,” he said to Jack. “While I lived on earth I lived at the same time in this next world, you know, like an apple that falls to the ground while still being connected with its branch, not torn loose like other apples. This happens to a few and they become useful to their pupils and friends. Well, Jack, you are now here and you go back. That’s almost as good! You may tell about it if you wish. If you do you will be praised by a few and blamed and vilified by many more.”
It was then thirty-eight years since this person had passed away. In passing he had expressed a wish as to who should carry on his work. This had not been respected. His cousins and brothers had taken over, claiming his decision had been premature. Thoughts about this may have been in Jack’s mind for he received an answer: the first choice was the right one. Jack deeply felt his friend’s disappointment with the manner in which his work had been misunderstood and misdirected. This caused Jack to wonder about the early demise of his friend – less than fifty years old! If he could have lived on a little longer, would not things have come out right?
The answer to this plumped into Jack’s mind then as if by thought transference: his friend had fulfilled his mission, as he saw it. The basis of this mission, switching back and forth between two worlds, two worlds as different as two dimensions, such as space and flat surfaces – was exhausting. He was “beat”. He couldn’t retire to a quiet life, like other people. Continued vigilance was expected of him. As more years would go by he would lose more and more of his strength, his vitality. Besides, that other next world was calling him. He had a mission there, then, and no mission any longer in this earthly world, whatever some devoted friends might think. Finally his last words to Jack, before he passed away in 1927 became clear and meaningful: “Now I have no more interest.”
Jack went through other experiences during this time. He had a very close friend, still living, whose mind had come apart at the seams. Psychiatrists could not help. Jack had wondered his head off how he could reach her. Now, among his departed friends and surrounded by this eerie landscape, he suddenly saw her in full view. His mind became her mind. He reasoned or non-reasoned with her, saw and knew how hard and fast she believed exactly as she did and that she had to run her course. No one could “influence” her or bring her mind into the pattern we civilized egocentrics believe is “the right one.”
Then, lightly and gently, a whole host of minds passed review before him like soldiers in a parade: demonstrators, not sure of themselves but trying, trying and yearning; crusaders, introverts and extroverts, criminals – all seemed so in need of understanding, communication; all were steeped in their faith or fate, could not get out. And how we others fret! To no avail!
The American Indians had words for this: “Great Spirit! Grant me that I shall not judge my neighbour before I have walked a mile in his moccasins!”
As he frolicked in this wide, wild other-world with its trillions of impressions, thoughts, fractured thoughts and images, Jack recalled his friend’s one-time warning, just before his passing, so many years ago: Please keep clear of worlds you don’t know, or you may become heart-broken! He explained how, among the images and half-thoughts of that complex afterworld, some might appear as “departed souls” and seem to possess knowledge that only such “souls” could have. When, later, such illusions may be shattered, the confused observer may believe his “dear ones” have turned into mental dwarfs!
Looking around in this colorful world, Jack saw that these possibilities were only too evident. He remembered the embarrassment of those of his associates who had ignored the warnings and arrived at the Movement’s headquarters after the passing, claiming that some medium had told them they (each one in turn) had been chosen to become the governing head of the movement. These contrasting messages were compared. The bubble burst.
One is reminded of two young men studying for the priesthood and beset by curiosity: how is the next world? They agreed that the one who died first should come back and tell. Well, there was an accident and one departed. For a long time there was no message. Then one day the departed one came rushing in,
“Just wanted to tell you it is entirely different from what we thought … impossible to describe … well, I am very, very busy; must be on my way…” and off he rushed and evaporated into thin air.
Just like these two students of priesthood, many people are more curious than afraid of death. The psychiatric idea of a “survival instinct” being stronger than all other instincts is invalid. Even among animals, curiosity, duty, adventure, courage and all the virtues you can name are quite often stronger than the instinct of survival. This is why the world is so interesting and why there is hope, even though the leaders of our social and political world quite often are blind bats whose coarse perceptivity see nothing but earth life. Through their laws and rules and behaviour they often mar and blunt and torture the more perceptive but less privileged who are subjected to their “care.”
A social worker, in charge of mental patients, once held forth on the difference between dreamers and realists or (she said) between Easterners and Westerners. The former believe in a life after death while the latter know this is just a silly dream! And this from one in whose care were mental patients! No wonder there is no improvement! If she had ever been to or studied the East, she would have known, for one thing, that more people there reject a life after death than in the West!
In the strain and stress of war you open up. I had entered World War II at the age of forty-four with the secret thought that, after a good life of love and excitement and a little work, this was a good time to pass away so I sought out the most impossible missions, and without ever telling my secret thoughts, for would I not have been considered crazy?
Little by little I discovered I had company. For one thing, there was always an affluence of applicants for all those crazy missions, and why? For the same reason as mine, I discovered. When we hovered around the place of attack waiting to be dispatched into that other world, we were in a confessive mood, and communicated. We all thought we had lived long enough. We were curious about that other world. We were older than the average soldier and felt the young should have first chance of staying alive and have a bit more love and excitement. I wouldn’t be surprised if millions share this attitude.
Let’s look in on Jack in the hospital again. The medics were pushing their last trick trying to return Jack from the valley of the dead. As he burst into a brief glimpse of consciousness one morning, he saw before him the face of an angel, a female one. The angel laughed,
“I am Thelma, a student nurse. Have been assigned to you. Will work on you every morning from now on. We’ll talk and then I’ll write all about your case, your person …the works!”
So angel Thelma was now concerned that he return so she could write about him, have success, have good marks, so how could he refuse? So his friend who had passed away had provided the prophecy, but Thelma and the medics did the work!
Apart from Thelma, recovery was hard, uphill work that sometimes made him wonder whether a few more years were worth all that effort. When you learn walking at age two, it is new and interesting. When you learn at sixty-nine, prodded by a heartless PE instructor, you know what torture is. Jack left the hospital before he felt any confidence, started working at his job long before he thought he could manage, and after months of pain and anxiety it became routine, though still a hard routine.
After three more years, when he was past seventy-two, there was an awareness. He didn’t know if this was connected with his accident. Peoples’ thoughts and feelings became reflected in his own mind; not all their thoughts, only some that concerned him. Strangers produced immediate impressions. When he could check, he found that these impressions had been correct. The impressions did not reflect specific events but general trends. For example, a new acquaintance of his daughter appeared to him highly undesirable. It seemed to him that continued acquaintance could bring serious trouble. A little later this new friend was found to indulge in LSD and other drugs. Maybe any father would have had such true apprehension, though Jack had never before had such very definite warnings.
Jack had been concerned with international finance in his work. Now he received impressions in this field too. Something within or without him seemed to operate and function independently of his reason, his brains or logic. A spark appeared to have been kindled in him. He still had logic and reason but was no longer depending on them. His logic and reason seemed to be not quite so important as before, and could be relegated to a subservient function; subservient to what? To a new light and love that commanded it, played with it, but did not take orders from it. Now, logic and reason seemed to him tools that could speculatingly compose theories and doctrines to contemplate and compare, but to rigidize or even believe in such doctrines composed by logic and reason now seemed no better than superstition. What was this light or this love, that took command without seeming dictatorial: just a subtle set of imaginings?
Jack is reluctant to talk about it for it seems to him above and beyond any word he has learned, any term, any possible explanation. Besides, if he – such a mediocre and average person – could reach this world, it must be for everybody, if one only looks for it.
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Jack and I share similar interests and motivations.