Dr. Neil's Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality
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You may have heard about spiritual awakening. Do you know someone who is living it? Join us as Dr. Neil Schuitevoerder describes the lived experience of an advanced stage of human consciousness and shares insight for seekers of all traditions. Dr. Neil will speak from the direct experience of Being, Brahman, Sunyata, or Pure Consciousness as he transmits Non-dual Reality to you -- non-dual space/time, non-dual thinking, non-dual love, the non-dual body, and his yogic abilities to travel the cosmos, move through the bardos and, at the same time, live as a psychologist, husband, father, and grandfather. His experience dispels many myths about awakening. He will be interviewed by his partner, Dr. Connie Zweig, author of Meeting the Shadow, Romancing the Shadow, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path, and the award-winning book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul.
Dr. Neil's Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality
The Illusion of Death
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Based on his direct experience, Dr. Neil describes his own journey through the stages of death (bardos). He also explores other peoples’ deaths, friends, parents, and his guru, as he follows them through the process of death and rebirth. Because his consciousness is everywhere at once—no near/far, no past/future – he lives here now and at the same time on the other side.
Welcome back to our podcast. Today we're going to explore where we go when we die with Dr. Neil. Um, people tend to have a lot of fear of death and misconceptions about it. What is your direct experience?
SPEAKER_01So I um I have spoken about this before, that I do remember dying in my previous lifetime. Uh, in more detail, I remember around about the age of 60 in India. Um, I passed on and moved through the astral plane, mental plane, buddhic and attic plane to the celestial plane. So um, why did I do that? I did that because I had spent a lifetime meditating and focusing on spiritual development, and I wanted to go to Brahmaloka, the um heavenly realms of bliss.
SPEAKER_00Is this what people mean by heaven?
SPEAKER_01Yes, heaven is um it's a place where one can actually actually get stuck. So, but there are many different levels of what we call heaven. Most people, when they pass on, um and I know this because I have direct perception of this, um actually have a fairly good time. They like it, it's a relief from the suffering at the of the end of life. Uh and um it provides a gateway to sense of being and bliss and joy and sense of freedom from suffering. So um some people leave their bodies and go to the lower levels, what I call lower levels, which some people interpret as hell or bardo's lower levels from which one wants to escape. Uh, but most people don't seem to do that. I had very little experience of connecting with people who have passed on uh that have actually got stuck in any place, and we're not pretty happy about dying.
SPEAKER_00So heaven, as in the popular conception, is actually a plane of consciousness that can be reached with spiritual attainment. Is that right? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, I think there's a lot of misconception about heaven and hell. Some people would say being here on this earth is hell. And some people would say being on this earth is heaven. Um, so it's not a simple matter of definition of what happens when you die.
SPEAKER_00But isn't that subjective experience of life on earth determined by the quality of our consciousness?
SPEAKER_01Yes, if you have a low level of consciousness, in other words, you haven't worked to develop beyond the instinctive uh aspect of human life. So you won't go very far when you when you die. You know, however, it might be um a more pleasant experience than actually being in the suffering of the end of life.
SPEAKER_00So let's go back to your direct experience, because this sounds abstract.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So you're you have the capacity to follow people when they die, as they're dying, and when they die and leave the body and go through the Bardos or the planes of consciousness. Can you describe that process with the few people you've observed that with?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So this week uh a client of mine called Susan, I won't give you any more details, uh, passed on. Uh, she was in a coma for about five days. And when I look at her now, um I am aware of where she is in terms of the transition. Um, she passed into the etheric level and uh is experiencing herself being healed from the last year or so of suffering. So the healing is conducted by many entities, angels, uh spirits that sort of deal with this as a kind of hospital, where uh spiritual hospital where people get healed from their trauma of death. And it's very pleasant.
SPEAKER_00What is the etheric level? What does that refer to?
SPEAKER_01Well, the physical body has two components to it. One is the gross level, that's what we know as the physical body, the feet, the arms, the legs, the organs, the um the liver, the digestive tract. So the physical body has that's one level. Another level is an energetic body. In other words, it's um it's composed of energy. And in the um Hindu tradition, uh they say there's 72,000, something like that. Nardis or um nerves, energy nerves, and seven major chakras or vortexes where they come together, and 49 minor ones where they come together. So this conglomeration of nadis, chakras, major and minor, going to make up the the um subtle physical body, which uh does not die immediately with physical death.
SPEAKER_00And that's what you're calling etheric.
SPEAKER_01That's what I call the etheric body because it's it's it's certainly not dead, it's very much alive.
SPEAKER_00So Susan still has her etheric body.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And she's going through a healing process on this plane. Is it a spiritual plane? What what level of reality is she on?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's the immediate one after one passes on. So it's um not highly evolved, but that might happen later for her because she does have some development. So it's a um it's an energy body that not everybody goes through or gets stuck in or spends time in it. But those who have a lot of trauma in their dying process usually spend some time there.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about my mother's death, because that was a different process.
SPEAKER_01Right. Um, so Connie's mother, uh, when I watched her and went to see what she was doing after she died, and how how do I do that? I do that because I'm conscious of the planes, all of the planes between the physical and the most esoteric planes, because they're all inside of me. Uh and Connie's mother was um an artist in her life. And when she asked me, What's my mother doing, I answered that she's she's painting, but not painting with a brush, painting with her consciousness, uh, which she's still doing. On the mental plane, on the mental plane, because the mental plane is very easy to express oneself on. And she was an abstract painter. Um, so that was kind of interesting to see her doing it and being delighted at the process of being able to create just with thoughts and not with uh physical instruments.
SPEAKER_00And why would that have been needed for her?
SPEAKER_01Well, that was their joy in life, and that was her probably her most subtle experience of uh spirituality, and so um, like most people who pass on, they go to their most subtle level ultimately. So my mother, who passed away um about eight months ago, went to the heart plane, the Buddhic plane, uh, which was a surprise to me because it was more involved, involved, and developed than I thought she was. But I could see her there and she could communicate with me from there. So, in fact, right now she's listening to this conversation and she's saying, get on with it.
SPEAKER_00Stop thinking about me already.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what are you doing here? So, and that's quite a common theme. Um, a friend of ours, Linda, when she saw me and I communicated to her, and she was on the astral plane, the second plane, she said to me, What are you doing here? This is uh you know, you're not dead. I said, Yeah, I'm not dead, but I'm aware of what's happening.
SPEAKER_00So let's describe a little bit more about how you have access to this experience, which most people don't have. So when you say all these planes are inside of you, we talked about how your body is everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_00Your consciousness is everywhere. So the duality of near and far or past and future, those dualities have been kind of transcended or it transcended and included, we like to say, in your consciousness. So when you have this experience of talking with your mother on another plane of reality that most people can't even conceive of, what are you directly experiencing?
SPEAKER_01So the experience with my mother, because she's on the Buddhic or the art plane, uh, is one of uh thought forms. When I say thought forms, it's kind of like a cloud of thoughts, uh, which um can be in any language, can be in any um dimension, but it they're interpreted by my consciousness in a clear thought, which is English. So uh, and and I know that she's there and talking with me. I'm talking with her, we're having a conversation. So, how come I'm experiencing this?
SPEAKER_00Um just like uh as if you're talking to me, as if I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_01Susan was on the etheric plane, and she's just waking up to being in the spiritual realm, and she's expressed to me right now that she's quite happy that I'm still her therapist. So uh, and then who was in on the next plane, um, was kind of surprised at seeing me there uh and wanted to know about me communicating, and how could I be communicating? Uh, and I did explain to her that I was conscious on this plane as well, because it's all inside of me. And uh my mother, of course, uh who is who is on the Buddhic or the heart plane, is a usual loving and somewhat critical self, and uh and engages with me in conversation and dialogue.
SPEAKER_00And of course, there are much more subtle planes than these and so when they travel to the subtler planes, you lose the connection with them?
SPEAKER_01Well, people will travel through these planes from the etheric to the astral to the mental plane. The mental plane is the next one up, it's where thought creates reality. And reality is short term, doesn't last for too long. Uh, and then the Buddhic plane is the heart plane, which is the compassion, kindness, empathy, that level of awareness. Uh, and then there's more subtle planes. Um there's a celestial plane where the gurus and the major spirits exist, and then beyond that, there's the Brahman plane, which is unlimited, and on that plane the higher spiritual beings exist.
SPEAKER_00And so can you communicate with the gurus on the celestial plane?
SPEAKER_01Yes, we had uh a spiritual teacher called Swamaji. He um he passed away about what four or five years ago. And uh I'm regular communication with him. He answers my questions, uh, gives me feedback, and has given me permission to talk about it uh in this process.
SPEAKER_00So he's still a guide.
SPEAKER_01He's still a guide, and there are many other guides uh that exist on the celestial plane. Um, these are beings who've achieved a higher level of enlightenment, and that doesn't mean that they're finished with their journey, that just means that they've attained a level of spiritual wakefulness, but they might have to come back, like Swamiji has to has had to come back and work on the emotional plane, uh, the astral plane, because he wasn't finished with it. In fact, he was kind of insulting to Connie at one point, and you know, and uh he he needed to do some work on his personality.
SPEAKER_00Well, he lived as a wandering monk in India and had no relational skills, correct. So so does that then mean that more? I mean, can can someone stop there with that level of enlightenment? Is it necessary to be reborn to develop other lines of development?
SPEAKER_01There are no limits to spiritual development, there's an error in thinking that one can attain enlightenment and then there's done. That's an error in thinking, there's no limit. So wherever you are, there's something more. And uh although many spiritual paths set limits, like uh Christian path, if you die, you go to heaven and you remain there. That's not my experience. My experience is one continues to develop, uh, usually by coming back into one of the planes and learning from that plane, you know, that what the experience is that you're missing.
SPEAKER_00So, what have you learned from communicating with dead people?
SPEAKER_01Well, one is uh a very low level of anxiety or stress about dying. Uh, because I have experience of having died before, uh, because I have connection with those who have died, because I have connection with those who are in the process of dying or in the process of being reborn. So, for example, my biological father died quite young, he was 49, and uh and that's uh quite a while back, and he reincarnated into a body, and I watched him do that in another country, not this country, and now at this point, he's the grandparent, which is kind of ironic because so am I. So we're doing this at the same time.
SPEAKER_00So, what is that connection between you then? Is that the soul level that keeps? I mean, there's no obvious connection between you, and yet it sounds like he's still your father in some way. Is that at the soul level?
SPEAKER_01Well, so we have many levels. When we're born, we take on a celestial body, a atomic body, a buddhic body, a heart body, a mental body, uh, an emotional body, a etheric body, and then finally we take on a physical body about three months after conception. So we have all of these different vehicles which develop over lifetimes. So, you know, people develop the capacity to think, to have emotions and feelings, and so people develop these uh these bodies, and when you die, the experience becomes very focused on that level uh without a physical body.
SPEAKER_00I'm lost.
SPEAKER_01So we you drop your bodies one at a time. Ah so you'll drop your etheric body. So Susan will be in the etheric body for about six months, and then she'll drop the etheric body and go to the astral body, and then she'll be there for about a year and a half. And this is different for different people, but that's my understanding. And then she'll move on to the mental body and uh and be there for a few years. Um and then at that point, because she doesn't have much higher development than her mental body, she hasn't gone to the heart body, she hasn't worked on that in this lifetime or in our previous lifetimes. So, because of that, she um she'll come back, and how that happens is she people tend to try to move into a high level of consciousness and fall asleep, and they get moved like a wave back into another body. The Indians look at this as uh a wheel, wheel of birth and rebirth and death, and so on. Can one escape this? That's the Indian goal is to try to escape this moving wheel of birth and death. So when one reaches that level of where you haven't developed your spiritual capacity anymore, then you come back. Now, it's some people who have reached a high enough level that they can choose to come back or be aware of the process of coming back and make some choices or some movement, but that's not true for most people. And can one escape totally birth, rebirth? It's impossible to escape it totally. However, there are certain higher levels where one has choices: choices to go to another planet, choices to be reborn in a specific culture or with specific people, choices of spending time in bliss consciousness for long periods. So there are some choices that happen with higher spiritual development.
SPEAKER_00So in our podcast, Living as a Soul, we talked about soul groups.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Can you choose to return to your soul group?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So the soul group happens uh after the Atmic Body, which is the best way to describe it is the throat chakra or the throat center. The Atmik body is is the transition. So as one moves into the head centers. Or that spiritual level, one may join your soul group, the group that you identified with uh because of your purpose in life. So my soul group is healing and compassion. And so I would return to my soul group, which is focused on that specific aspect. However, one doesn't necessarily stay there. My my experience of the soul group is it's kind of kind of like uh like being fused on a liquid planet.
SPEAKER_00Well, I remember you saying you chose your mother.
SPEAKER_01Correct. So when I was in this state called Brahmaloka, which the Indians call bliss consciousness, being bliss consciousness, I noticed that after a while the bliss fades and uh being becomes boring, and so one sort of wakes up to the reality that there's more, and for me, more meant I needed to come back into a physical body uh and do some growth because I had skipped from the mental body to the celestial body, I hadn't gone through the heart and the higher levels uh because that's the sort of journey that the uh Indian culture facilitates it.
SPEAKER_00Indian meaning Hindu, you mean not Native American.
SPEAKER_01Not Native American, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Is there any particular story of communicating with someone who had died and was going through these bardos that kind of sticks with you as a teaching story?
SPEAKER_01Well, I can I can talk about my guru, my spiritual teacher, who has been with me through seven lifetimes and guided me to these lifetimes, who I woke up to, who who is in another planet, in another galaxy. So, you know, space and time really dissolve when one reaches the subtle levels. And I'm still being guided by or her, because on that level, it's sexual identity doesn't there's no gender, there's no gender, or there's more than one gender, because one has been through many lifetimes.
SPEAKER_00And so, how do you communicate with this person on another galaxy?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, time and space dissolve when one goes to the subtle levels, so uh you know there's there's no such thing as another galaxy and another part of time or another part of space.
SPEAKER_00So there's no distance for you to make the communication, correct? And so what are you learning from this person?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's not a person, it's very subtle, you know, because it might be a whole lifetime, one lesson, and or it might be many things in a lifetime. So this is not something that I have permission to talk about.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, but can you talk about the mechanics of it? So, again, because your consciousness is untethered from local duality from Dr. Neil's body-mind. It's not limited, it's not traveling to another galaxy, it's not limited by that distance, or I'm assuming this group is not human.
SPEAKER_01No, not human.
SPEAKER_00So it's not limited by human communication. And so, how how do you connect with that being? Did it find you? Did you find it? What's the role of language? Is it images?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the when one gets to the subtle planes, one goes beyond speech, uh, beyond feelings, beyond thoughts, beyond compassion or connection that's heart-centered to these subtle levels of communication, which feel like download of entire blocks of information and thoughts. So communication is it's not easy to describe because it's not limited, it's not limited by the human form of communication.
SPEAKER_00So it feels like a download.
SPEAKER_01There's something direct about almost like one would call intuition, which means a whole block of information once uh it's transferred. Okay, or or a thought form that one lasts for a long time. Like um, one that I can't communicate is that I'm loved by this being.
SPEAKER_00Okay, how long have you been aware of that? That that you're loved by this being human time, uh probably five years. Okay, so this is not your whole life.
SPEAKER_01No, things unfold, you know. I mean, I was born into ignorance, like anybody else. Ignorance in the sense that when I was first born, I was just conscious of my physical body uh and a sense of being. So I was not conscious of all these levels because there's a something that happens when one is born. In Judaism, they say that an angel smacks you on the head just before you're born, and you forget all your previous lifetimes, or you forget everything from the past, and there's some fundamental truth in that. So one cannot experience and grow fully if you remember too much.
SPEAKER_00And so this awareness of this other being unfolded with your spiritual advancement. Yes. Okay, so the explanation for it feels the same as the explanation for speaking with people in the Bardo's. That there's no that your consciousness is not limited by ordinary human perception or communication speech. Uh it's not limited by the body, it's not limited by space-time, as you said. So, therefore, because as we wind down here, how are you left feeling about death, your own death, and when people you love die, what's your experience?
SPEAKER_01That's a complex question. How I experienced my own death. Well, I in some ways I welcome it because it's uh it's predetermined, and I don't know when it's going to be. And I think very few people know until they get close to the end. Um, because you're not meant to know, you're meant to experience life as fully as possible.
SPEAKER_00Um why do you look forward to it?
SPEAKER_01Because it's a release from the body and then the body's uh stresses and tensions and suffering, and you know, and there's no end. I'm not dying, I'm just moving to another plane, just moving my consciousness to another plane. And um, and this understanding is not that I'm growing somewhere or I'm going somewhere, I'm just dropping something off, which I don't need anymore. So I become more aware of what's left. So there's no death in reality, nobody dies. One moves to a more subtle awareness, sort of like um checking in on your own consciousness.
SPEAKER_00I remember when your client Susan just died, you said you were sad.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I experienced the human journey as anybody else does, because I came here for that. But it doesn't last long. So whereas most people grieve loss for a fair amount of time, could be years, or maybe even a whole lifetime. So for me, it seems to pass pretty quickly in hours or minutes. Seems to pass because that person is not gone to me. I can communicate with Susan, I can ask her a question, I can answer her questions, I can have a conversation, a relationship with her. Like I said, she says, I'm still a therapist.
SPEAKER_00So there's something illusory about the way we've defined death for you at your level of consciousness.
SPEAKER_01Well, there is. I mean, there is grief, but it doesn't last, and there's um there's some loss, but it doesn't last, and there's um a movement to another plane of uh awareness, which is useful. It's useful to actually uh experience Susan on the etheric plane.
SPEAKER_00I learn about that plane of inside myself, but so you're actually getting something from her process, getting awareness of my own consciousness in more detail.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, it's it's part of the lesson of being human.
SPEAKER_00So let's return to the present moment as we close today's podcast and ask you what you're experiencing in the chair next to me right now.
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm feeling like I am uh like a river. There's an awareness of a physical body, there's an awareness of uh physical body being non local, being everywhere. And it seems to move like a like a river flowing through itself uh to the ocean.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you, see you next time.