Ep 017 - The Myth of Death: There is Only Life | Guest: Betty J. Kovacs

Have you ever wondered if there is a part of you that survives the death of the physical body? 
Julia Marie welcomes a pioneer in consciousness studies Betty J. Kovacs, PhD to Evolving Humans for an in-depth discussion about her experiences with loss, grief, and the realization that there is, indeed, only life. Betty details the loss of 3 family members (mother, son, then husband) in a span of 3 years - all of them in auto accidents.
Her stories about how these events forever changed her perspective on the purpose of life itself and on whether there is a part of us that lives on after the death of the physical body can give us all hope and comfort.

This wide-ranging conversation explores the science behind how this kind of after-death interaction with our loved ones is possible, the brain hemispheres, the power of the heart, and a 17th Century philosopher's visionary ideas.

In this episode, you will learn about

• the power of intent
• why the heart is the most powerful brain component
• what Betty has to say about grief and the grieving process

There's so much more to learn about from this conversation, and you will want to stay tuned for the story of how we are all living life in snakeskin boots!

SPECIAL THANKS to  Pixabay's PrabajithK's piano-endless-by-ParabajithK-118998 for the bed to Betty's dream.
RESOURCES:
For more information about Betty's work, please go to her website: https://www.kamlak.com where you will find videos, podcast interviews, articles, webinars, and the links to both of her books.
Or you can click on either of these links: https://www.kamlak.com/the-miralce-of-death/ or https://www.kamlak.com/merchants-of-light/

To reach Julia Marie, please visit our website here. If you are looking for an experienced Guide to help you navigate your Path no matter what stage you are in from awakening to moving into the awareness state, then know I have been where you are, and look forward to being of service.

Transcript

Ep 017 The Myth of Death - There is Only Life (Completed 10/08/22)

Julia Marie (00:02):
Welcome to Evolving Humans. I'm your host Julia Marie. And this podcast is for visionary people who are
exploring the true nature of reality and want to contribute to the global awakening. You seek to deepen
the connection to your multidimensional self so that you can live a more conscious life.
Betty J. Kovacs (00:23):
I'm so excited to introduce you to the incredible work of someone I consider a true pioneer in the field
of consciousness. She's Betty PhD. Betty, I've been looking forward to our conversation today, and thank
you so much for the opportunity to hear from someone I consider my spiritual oh and introduction. The
program for the podcasts we're she's international speaker and professor received and comparative
literature and the theory of symbolic mythic from the university California Irvine. A period Betty
experienced the and three separates, was struck a car and died instantly. Almost a year later. Her son
was in an accident. He lived for 13 days and died a year to the day and hour after Betty's mother had
been struck and killed for the next two years after his Betty, and experienced the ongoing presence of
theirs. Consciousness writes about all of this in her first book, The Miracle of Death.
(01:48):
There is nothing but Life. Betty, can we start with how the title for your book came about? Yes. I had
written the book and I wondered, I was wondering what did the title be? And I was looking over a
couple of the dreams and Kim, my editor, was here. And suddenly I said, Well, it should be called Miracle
of Death because these are what to our conscious mind today, we miracles what ish and I had
experienced with, and it was so funny because it was in California in August, and when I said that it
started thundering, which is unusual in California, least on for about. I think we the right, the in a that
the, and we continue our out this particular body step into spirit. And then I can make a choice when I
come back in a very different suit.
(03:11):
I totally in the, I don't wanna this particular alive a na <laugh> it, it'll, it'll outlive its purpose and then I'm
ready for a new experience. Exactly. So what does the book offer to people who are dealing with? I think
the most important that experienced and that the book relates is that we are immortal, simply
immortal. We do not die in terms of who we're, and all my life I had, I had had that question I simply
didn't know when I was very young. I, I just wondered about things, but I had no way to figure it out.
And I went to nursery school and there I heard wonderful stories about a man who was very ethical and
beautiful and loving, and that was a wonderful to grow up. But I, I wanted to, but I didn't know to. And
so when out school I decided to go college and what I wanted to do is study.
(04:23):
Could I college, could had know things. And of course when I went, I pretty much heard about the
western worldview, which is scientific can't question, and is there's nothing, but there's a fluke of
nature. There's no meaning, no purpose. When we're dead, we're dead. And that was horrifying to me.
But at the same time, there was the religion story. So I still hope that that was true. And I studied with
religions. I studied mythology, which is the root or the expression of religions, and then shamanic
traditions, which is actually based on direct inner experience of the other side. And so I finished my
doctorate really Peru to workmans to see if I experience something there.
(05:20):
Sure, sure. I, I think it was a start, but it really wasn't until our son died that we experienced his
consciousness and that changed everything. So the most important thing in the book is to express the fact that I now know I have no questions, that we are immortal and that we continue to and create.
Thank you so much for that. And that part of combination of experiences that your entire family had is
what we're really delve. There are a lot of books out there that share stories similar to yours. But the
reason why I wanted highlight your story in particular is that a, the entire, and I think it's important that
people understand your background. You spoke a little bit about it as a framework or a foundation for
our discussion, how those studies impacted your experience of what came. Well, first of all, I was open, I
was always open hoping that this scientific view was not the whole story, but not able, the religious so
was, and a young man dated young man just becoming Lutheran minister.
(06:51):
And his party to celebrate his first parish was with other young men and their girlfriends who had
trained at Andover Newton Seminary. And they were just full idea. And that I sat and to, and psychology.
I had never heard of the Swiss psychiatrist, and they talked about mathematics and, and I just sat there.
I didn't know anything, but I was open. And then after everyone left, he took me into his study and, and I
chose two books that I wanted to read. The most important one was Modern of the Soul. And so I think
it was really Carl who brought these two world together, the scientific and the spiritual direct
experience. And I think my opening, my openness to all of that helped. And I think that's what happens
to us. People come into our lives who help us to answer those questions as we come into other people's
lives to help them answer questions.
(07:54):
And so I was open to it and, but my studies, I chose comparative literature because I, I didn't wanna go
into any of the sciences because here I could with human lives. And, and that was a wonderful thing. But
then I went into psychology and then archeology. Cause I was trying to find out these things. So would
say this studies after, Well, no, it was in my master period that I really became interested in mythology.
And of course I had been listening to my dreams after I had met Young's work. And so my dreams
helped me for years. So I would say it was the studies and my own experience with that kept me open.
But I still long for direct inner experience. The thing that I like to remind people is, is that what we desire
to experience will come to pass eventually in some way.
(08:56):
Iting brought you some incredible experiences. It did. And when I was in South America, there was
always the talk of leaving the world of common space and going into the spiritual world. I think they
talked about it as leaving the to and the, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right. That's my memory of
it. And knew that there was this other dimension and there were certain triggers that would help us to
that. But remember one of the Amazons, one of the shaman from the Amazon said to me, You will
experience it because you're longing for this so much. But I felt by that time I just finished my doctorate,
that I was so disciplined in the left brain that it was hard to open up to the spiritual visionary experience,
even though I had always listened to my dreams. And there was a part of me that just felt like, Oh, yes,
but when, you know, and I hear people say to me, Well, you can do this, but can't all the same have we
to to that and our heritage?
(10:13):
To he, he, he insisted that I would <laugh> and even though I doubted and time I did, and there's our
experience. Oh, exactly. Well, I believe it's also important to have a brief discussion about imagination,
the role it plays, and also a little bit about symbolic versus conceptual language that almost touches on
the, that to whole brain. Oh, and this one that the university actually helped me with because I was
introduced to the various schools of study of imagination or symbolic consciousness. And some of them
didn't appear to me at all. They were too brain influence. But I really, of course, through other studies I had come to have some knowledge of the left brain and the right brain. And I also knew that in the west
by the time of the French enlightenment philosophers who said, Oh, we've reached the apex of
intellectual development, We're the best in the world.
(11:33):
And everything that came before nonsense, the myth, all of that is nonsense. And so for so many, that
was in the 17th century, so many years, we lived with just a throwing away, just missing the dream or
the vision, whatever. Just give me the facts, you know, that was just, we need the facts. Well, when one
of the theorists, and he's one of the earliest symbolic theorists was Batista also in the, was in 17. And
the enlightenment philosophers were also still powerful in the 17 began in the sixteens lates. So was
writing at the same time that these French enlightenment philosophers, who knew it all were
influencing western culture, but no one paid attention to him. But what he said was absolutely brilliant,
and he talked about the fact that we have both of these hemispheres, the left and the right, although he
used other language, but he said, the symbolic mind is it gives us our first language, which is symbolic
language.
(12:44):
This is our first language. And by the way, it does not logic, poet logic. And it is this logic that feeds the
left brain. And the left brain has its own abilities of sort of dissecting, taking apart, analyzing, but it must
always go back to the right brain to get its wholeness. And so he, I thought he said it so beautifully, he
said, There must always be a dynamic and integral movement, a continuum of movement between
these two hemis because we need both of them. Each has their unique function, but they need each
other. It's a different way of looking and experiencing the world. And we experience through the right
brain, which is profoundly connected to the heart, which is most powerful brain component. And so it's
to all this information and knowledge and experience feeds the left brain. We, the left brain analyze and
so on.
(13:54):
But we can't be sure of anything until it goes back into the right brain. Its own wholeness, as said so
well, for the mind to experience its own wholeness, this continuum must exist. And I think this is
brilliant. I think that no one is really gone beyond that understanding, except Ian mcg gilcrest has
written about these two hemis beautifully and in much more detail because scientifically and medically
we've been able to know much more detail about this. But it still still stands that we must or own
wholeness. We cannot live just in the left brain. And that is what the western culture has done. It's just
thrown away the significance of the right brain. Didn't even know that the heart is brain C until the 20th
century and lived in the left brain. What we know, we cannot really think logically if we're not connected
to the right brain, to that poetic logic of feeling and experience our left brain, when I'm teaching about
the hemispheres of the brain to students in my intuitive class, I tell them the left brain in many ways is
limited by its logical function.
(15:18):
Yes. And it's only through allowing the right brain to have a little input that we can actually perceive
what we need to. I have also always said a heart has a mind of its own, but I never actually put together
that it's probably a component of the brain. It's the most powerful brain component. It gives more
information to the brain components that we know usually of the brain components than the brain gives
to the heart. And it's in kind of a tourist shape. It can be many feet beyond us, this, this powerful energy
field of the heart. And you know, if we sit by someone, we begin to secret our heart rhythms and or
when we embrace someone. But there the heart is so powerful and the mystics, the ancient mystics know that the heart is, it opens us to the spirit dimension.

(16:20):
And so they teach a meditation that focuses on the heart to realize that that's the portal. And then that
goes into the right brain and then into the left brain. And then it's that circulation that's so, so
important, that continuum of movement. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. And it's a beautiful to feel
the flow of the, through those parts. They're not, yeah, not separate. And when, and this is always been
the problem, especially in western culture, but in many other cultures, when we lose an understanding
of who we, and we, we then will be who control. And the way you over others is that you scare them to,
if you make them fearful, then that energy flows backward into the reptilian brain because that's our
wonderful brain to protect ourselves. But if it keeps flowing back into the reptilian brain, it's not flowing
forward through the right and the left and the heart.
(17:31):
And we don't think logically. When I look around today, I, I hear socalled experts saying things that are
totally irrational and people don't seem to realize there's no connection there. But that happens when
there's an attempt to us, it's hard to be rational. So we need, we need that flow from through the
reptilian brain and various brain components and the heart, heart feeding those brain components.
Otherwise we, we make nonsense like we get short circuited somehow. So wonderful way to put it in.
We do so need to be aware of that so that we don't allow ourselves to be controlled by others because
this needs freedom to be whole, needs freedom. Well, we just need to be in this world, not necessarily
of That's true. Well, earlier I summarized the loss, experienced book of spans.
(18:40):
Stories stood out from, it seems almost as if the universe was preparing all of you for what was to come.
So can you tell about that time, your current perspective about that's for two years before's death? I
had, and sometimes would, that would message that was, and there was something in my psyche
couldn't accept it. And so I would then think, Oh, was I, I so many, many dreams? And I thought, well, it's
symbolic also. He wasn't involved in this way of life until Peach's death, but he had two weeks before's
death. He was in his office here at home working, and suddenly he saw Peach's body super imposed
over his car on the side of the freeway. And he knew immediately that he was dead because it was two
different dimensions. And then he heard himself say, Oh, that's right's time to, And that shocked him.
(20:03):
And that's for he completely it until the phone call came in. That had been in an accident. We both
happened to be here that afternoon. Usually we weren't at the same time in the afternoon. But then
those were the two years. I realized later that I realized the pattern later after he died, but also well had
dream, powerful dream almost 12 of his death and his being on the other side. And then he had another
one in the year just before he died. And the interesting thing in that last dream was that there were
candles lit everywhere and there was chanting. And he said to me in the dream, Mom, can you hear our
chaning? And was something that chanting that was so powerful and so spiritual, he felt, and it's
interesting, the first experience I hadi's death was this native chan was just so incredibly beautiful.
(21:19):
That's chaning energy and frequency exists. And I, I knew that, that we were being prepared, you know,
earlier that we had, I said we heard it in our sleep in the dream. I think we did. I had the dreams, had the
dreams, my husband had the vision. And then not long before death had that, that sense of the chanting
and the, and I think that was a powerful preparing us. I think all of it prepared us on an unconscious
level because I looked at it symbolically, which is great because we living but there was on a spiritual,
deep spiritual, we were definitely prepared for it. I enjoyed that you included that in there because sometimes I understand we can only see with clarity when we look in hindsight at our experiences. So I
appreciate that you put the preparatory in there. Yes, we see the pattern.
(22:24):
I also have in of dream I had, when I was pregnant and I dreamed that I was in the country and my
mother's, I saw an old one room schoolhouse with an upstairs, which I had never seen. And I don't think
it was structured that way. But I went in and I went up the stairs and there was an old man smoking a
pipe. And I also saw like Chinese lanterns. And one was filled with light and was vibrating. And I knew
that that was the child that would be born to be, and that we had all made this agreement. And then as
he smoked his pipe, a painting appeared facing me so that I could see it. And I saw a young boy, of
course, in those days we didn't know what the gender was of the child, but it was a boy.
(23:15):
And he came in from down below and was walking. It was kind of in darkness. And he was walking very
quickly and had a pack on his back or a bag of some kind, carrying it, not much. And he then came to a
gate that on his side said, death. And on my side it said Life. And he passed through that gate, and then
suddenly he just walked a short distance and then quickly went straight up the mountain. It was there
and out the top in which it was different colors of light and then totally white light. And he was gone.
And I didn't understand that dream at the time. Now the old man was still there, and he came toward
me and it was interesting. There was a table of food suddenly and I all, and he said, No, I cannot eat of
this dimension's food.
(24:04):
It was, I couldn't understand that at the time, but when I looked back, I saw so clearly it was showing me
he was going to be born as a, a boy, a young man. And his life would not be long. His work, he a small
bundle on his back and that he would walk then straight up and out, back into the light. And that meant
so much to me later, you know, after he died, the feeling of these dreams became very real when I
began to see the pattern I tell people attention to of healing and our, and giving beautiful examples of
the power of someone who lives a dreaming life. And I appreciate that. And I was grateful to my
knowledge to that young minister <laugh>, who introduced me to Carl because he really was a mentor
for me. And I really did start paying attention to my dreams. They guided me for years. They were
powerful dreams. And of course there were those that I couldn't make sense of, but I wrote them down,
tried understand them. So really profound. And that's we, well, I did of the, this world, it said, and I have
been contemplating lately how it must be because when I communicate on behalf of those that are on
the other side, they to be joyfully welcoming their loved ones home. So what is on our side of the gate is
life to and vice versa.
(25:54):
And always on the other side experiences I had, that's we realized we were all here because we wanted
to work for the earth. That there was a love that brought us here in whatever small or big way we could
help it. We don't measure it in that way. It's that if there's love and compassion and you respond, then
that's what is important. But that there was just such understanding and wholeness on the other side.
And I think we choose characteristics, having given ourselves or achieved those abilities in whatever
way. And each of is necessary. It's like a piece of puzzle. None of is in all, all about.
(27:01):
In chapter four, you tell of how your son's death shattered your husband's paradigm and how after that
experience, he said he was never able to look at the earth in the same way again. Oh, that was such a
powerful experience. That first visionary journey with, with, and lasted quite a while. It was totally changed him. And he was beginning to change because he had that experience before death. And then
in the hospital, there was a time when the doctor said he may die within the hour. And Han and I stood
there, there were people who were there for us all over the hospital. We stood there alone outside the
trauma center where they were working on him. And I took his hand and I felt this shock almost coming.
And I looked at him and I thought my, he could die with a heart attack.
(27:53):
I could feel that energy and that I said to him, which was strange for me to say, I said, If we're called to
do this, we can do it. He was the strong thing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But he needed that. And it came
and afterwards he told me that he had a vision that he saw sit up in and a dove. He had dove with a ball
of and mouth and he it in his heart and lay back down. Then he saw him at, on the smaller mountain,
and he had one arm up the left, arm up and the right arm down tota. And he said, I, he said, I didn't
know that whether was gonna live or die, but it wasn't an issue because I knew that he was, and that
our love was a between these dimensions that would always connect us. So he'd had some experience.
(28:50):
And so when he had this experience, he saw that he and were twin souls. They were that sometimes
they were born as two people as in this time, other times they were born as one person. And he had the
experience of that in which he saw all of these souls. He, he called it, see sometimes there were two,
sometimes one. And when they were two, explained to that. So that was a profound experience. He
never that there were twins. He also saw how important coming into the world is to sometimes become,
to always regrow and can grow and develop and we can also bring gifts for others. He knew, he had no
doubt. He also, he saw a light at the end of a tunnel and then gradually, gradually, gradually that got
clearer and clearer until he saw that it was holding the earth in such a loving way.
(29:51):
And that's on the actual front of the book that looks just like, and when I saw that icon, I couldn't believe
it. I bought it immediately and we got permission to use it. But it absolutely was ish said that he
experienced like respect for the, and respect for himself. He said, I had never felt like that. And then he
said that, and we respect the uniqueness of other, and that opens us to love. He was a, and when he sat
up on the side of the bed after he said, I never look. The didn't transformed by that beautiful hear you,
you recounted. Now you do say that our view of every aspect of our life. So how so when we know that
we are understanding of we're here, but if we think there's no meaning, we're gonna be dead. That's it.
People have terrible fear.
(31:11):
I have friends who are even older than I and some as old as I. And some of them fear, they don't know.
They haven't had that direct experience. They're very much in the consciousness of the world, western
world paradigm. And I think it affects anxiety, the anxieties they have, the illnesses they have, the way
of perceiving the world. If we directly experience that we are eternal beings. It changes aion of
everything and there is no fear of death. So I think that everything we do is changed by that. For so
many years when I was teaching and teaching mythology, I would say that there's also, there are many,
there are three phases really of this, of the younger and in coming into self consciousness. And then the
mythology show us a third, which is a Christ consciousness, cosmic consciousness, much higher sense of
unity of all things and connected with the of love.
(32:17):
And I would say experienced that it's throughout mythology and many people have, I am open to it as a
reality, but I haven't experienced it. And in the last two years of my teaching, then I could say I have experience it now and we all can experience it, know it's reality and even experience's death had these
events in our lives and that they were for a reason, a purpose. And that while as a mother, a parent, you
miss a child, you life is changed forever. But when you see the it, everything changes and we can it not,
not become what way? Oh, and I discovered that grief itself is created and that if we allow ourselves to
just get on that boat and let be what it, I think I was going these experiences, it was like swimming. I had
to survive on the swim.
(34:01):
Then there was a time when I had been to I think it was a 50 year celebration of a marriage and all the
young children were there just beautiful. I came home and that's when I really felt totally into this total
grief that felt like it could never be healed. And the next day I just as though I had had been on a
journey. But, but let it happen. In day by day went by, the joy began to come back in the wholeness of
the grief not keep us in one place. If we let it take us. And to see it in its wholeness, grief to experience it
is an incredible journey. And it will then show its wholeness if we let it. And I was, by the end of the
week, I was in good shape because I let the wholeness come back in.
(34:56):
But in that one night I let the mother, the grandmother, I would never be, you know, that was just, and
his presence. I had to experience that in the physical world because that's real. We do experience that.
But the of grief is that there is a to it and there is, I acknowledged the depth of certain parts of that pain.
Oh yeah. And I think for a while I, I did, but I knew I had to survive with the three deaths and, and then I
had all these experiences, so I had the gifts so that I could, but there was still that of the parent, of the
mother of the, the wife and that that was in this dimension. So yes, I think we do have to acknowledge
that then we be able to experience the other of it. I appreciate the fact that you're alluding to the, the
human aspect to the process because we've talked mostly about the metaphysical experiences you were
having. And I by no means want to leave the impression that oh, she had these experiences and
therefore it was easy peasy with this tremendous loss she experienced in her life. No, it wasn't one's, life
has changed forever. It's very different life. If you don't snake boots.
(36:37):
I was lying on the bed and I felt him, he was like a bar, an ancient bar dancing. And he came into the
room, say dancing, and he, it was like the totally in sync and he was mom dance life in snake boots when
he was a little kid. We got him a pair of boots. He wanted so much snake boots. And I remember he
went next door that three little girls next door, good friends. And when the came to the door, he was
best in these. He was so excited about them. And he had in brought home rattles, dance life and snake
boots. We must die to the old structures that were beautiful and or not. Whatever these old structures
were that we've moved and created beyond, then we lose. We release that skin and we have a new skin
and we, that's a way we dance life constantly allowing the old structures that now are no longer
necessary, no longer however beautiful or horrible they were, we those skins and we dance life a new
and I, yes, that's a good, I, as I older too, I think I see so many differences in my own body and I think
that's the way it works.
(38:23):
The skin is loosening up and it'll go and I will dance life in snakes. I will go into the spirit world with,
there's a new skin there and I have no fear of death. Of course, nobody wants to be and suffering and I that as goods.
(38:44): That's you'd like to leave with us. Yes. That the western of but is incomplete. Its limitations. Every single
one of has the used to say, all come to create our own medicine. And it's that medicine that we give to
the world. Its, and we need to give it to the world whatever way. Sometimes we never known, but there
is someone or people who are by that, saved by that medicine that every single person, no matter what
the life has been, is here for a purpose and has a gift to create and to give. And never should we demean
our own gifts. It's easy to do to say, Well, I'm just this and I'm just doing. No, no. It's a gift that you came
to give and it should be respected and loved and given you. Before we close this show, I'd like tell the,
listen how can get a of you, and that would www, that's website. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
You can find on that website, articles, podcasts, videos, webinars, Betty's beautiful. They're also
available Inbook. Wherever you subscribe to the Cadillac Center newsletter, you'll receive a sample from
her newest book, Merchants of Light. Betty, it's been an absolute delight.
Julia Marie (40:45):
I will leave you with this message from Betty because everyone can use a reminder about our purpose.
We all come to create our own medicine and it is that medicine we give to the world. Every single
person, no matter what their life has been, is here for a purpose. What is your gift? What is the
medicine you've brought to this world and how can you begin to share it? Thank you for continuing to
listen and support this podcast with your ratings and reviews. We are grateful that you continue to
share these episodes with two friends so that we can expand our presence in the world and reach more
people.