Life Is All About Relationship
By David Sunfellow
One of the major themes that emerge in NDEs is that life is about relationship. Once we begin to understand what this means, a whole new world of understanding emerges. Whereas before we may have focused on some areas of our life and ignored others, now we realize that we need to pay attention to everything. Our relationships in the outer world with our bodies, plants, animals, and fellow human beings all become very important. Our relationships with ourselves and the unseen forces of life also become very important.
What we are being asked to do is to recognize that God lives in all things and to treat all things accordingly.
To take food as an example. The way unconscious people live their lives, is that they don’t think about where their food comes from, how it is grown, or whether or not pesticides, herbicides, and genetically modified organisms are used to grow it. They don’t care. They are hungry and they unconsciously move to meet this need without any thought for the consequences of their actions. As we become more conscious, we start to realize that our choices affect not only the health of our body, but the health and wellbeing of everything else. We realize, for example, that producing food using organic methods of farming are healthier for all concerned than using conventional methods. Whereas conventional farming focuses on making money and producing as much food as possible, organic farming tries to consider the vitality and nutrition of the food, the impact this food has on our bodies, how plants and animals are affected, what the impact is on the water tables and eco-systems, how everyone and everything downstream is affected, including future generations.
Ditto for factory farming. We realize that raising animals in factory farm situations is a terrible way to treat animals, who are conscious, intelligent, emotional beings in their own right. Insisting that animals are treated humanely leads to thinking maybe we shouldn’t eat them at all. So our level of awareness, coupled with the choices we make (which includes how we spend our money), not only makes a significant difference on the health (or lack thereof) of our bodies, but on the world at large. Some near-death experiencers report seeing the positive effect more loving choices have on the whole of life. These choices are not only good for their bodies, and the other beings they share life with, but they produce waves of love that echo throughout the universe.
And what is true of food, is also true of all the other aspects of our life. The more conscious we become, the more carefully we examine all the different areas of our life and attempt to bring those areas into greater peace and harmony.
In the end result is that our overall health, happiness, and sense of well-being increases. We not only become more godlike in our thoughts and actions, but we begin to feel more godlike in the love and connection we feel with everyone and everything. And the reverse is also true. The more self-centered, unconsciousness, uninformed, careless, and sloppy we are with how we live our lives, the unhappier and unhealthier we are; the more we visit hellish realms and states of consciousness that reflect back to us our disconnected, unhealthy, ungodlike thoughts and behaviors.
So the kind of food we eat and lifestyles we choose to live have both personal and far-reaching consequences.
The other thing that I think is very important to emphasize is that we all seem to have a tendency to focus more on some areas of our life than others. Maybe we feel a need to be more present and mediative… and find that focusing too much on food issues is distracting, or somehow beside the point.
What I would suggest is that while there may be times in our lives when we need to give certain things more attention than other things — and need to do this by drawing our energy away from other aspects of our lives — at the end of the day, it’s been my experience, that life always circles back to whatever aspects of our lives (and selves) we have temporarily left behind. The central idea is, again, that we are being asked to learn how to be in harmonious relationship with ALL the forces we share life with, not just those we might feel a special affinity with in any given moment.
It has also been my life experience that if we are truly seeking balance in any area of our life that that area will eventually lead us to seek balance with the other areas of our life that may have been sidelined. In other words, it appears that we are being asked to do the impossible: to love, honor, and be in conscious relationship with all the forces of life, within and without.
That’s my current understanding anyway.
For those who might be interested, “The Formula for Creating Heaven on Earth” talks about all of this in more depth.
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To read the very thoughtful discussion that produced this comment, go here.
