Read an Excerpt
Temples on the Other Side
How Wisdom from "Beyond the Veil" Can Help You Right Now
By Sylvia Browne Hay House Copyright © 2008 Sylvia Browne
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4019-1745-6
Chapter One
The Temple of Orientation
One of the things I love about being a Gnostic is that we're constantly finding and receiving fresh information and learning about new things. For example, I've always put forth that when we cross over to the Other Side, one of the first things we do is go to the Hall of Wisdom. Well, Francine has informed me of a slight change: Before we visit that particular building, we actually go into the Temple of Orientation.
Going through these first few halls helps us get accustomed to being back Home. My spirit guide says that the only ones who don't seem to need this process are the entities who die very young (before the age of six) because they were on the Other Side so recently that they have total recall. The longer we're incarnated on Earth, however, the more we need a full orientation. Even more important, we find that although we want to get "back in the groove" as quickly as possible, we're not really able to do so on our own.
You know how it is when you've been on a long trip and can be overwhelmed with what to do first when you get back: Do you unpack, water the plants, call your family, do the laundry, or just collapse into bed? Thankfully, on the Other Side it's all laid out for you in a well-organized plan. And everything does come back to you fairly quickly. It's much like when I traveled back to my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, to visit my loved ones. It had been many, many years since I had been there, so I thought, How will I get from the Plaza to my house? But as my son and I drove down the streets, it almost immediately unfolded right before me. All of a sudden, it was, "Oh, I remember! Take Rock Hill Road to Gillam. Now go up Charlotte."
So you can see that getting around on the Other Side would be even more familiar, since you've spent an eternity there. It brings about a feeling of touching base: "Of course ... this is my Home. I've lived here for an eternity and was just away for a while."
The Temple of Orientation glows with a soft and beautiful white light (much like the tunnel we pass through to get to and from the Other Side) and is Romanesque in design, yet it's not as ornate as you'll find some of the other halls to be. It also isn't very elaborate inside; in fact, you might even say that it's somewhat spartanly furnished compared to the other buildings we'll be exploring in this book. Its furnishings reflect its purpose-everything is all business, for this temple's very important purpose is to lessen the trauma suffered by all souls going in and out of life.
There are two large sets of double doors in the front of this edifice: one with the word Incoming above it and the other with the word Outgoing. Both sets lead to the main portion of the temple, which is very large and divided into two distinct sections: again, one for incoming souls and one for outgoing souls. From Francine's description of this central space, it seems to me that each area is like a type of auditorium, with many seats and several aisles; however, there are also small cubicles lining all sides.
If you're an incoming soul, you sit down with your guide until a counselor (orientator) comes to escort you to one of the cubicles. While you're waiting, you might notice a huge board with blinking and solid red and green lights on the wall facing you. This board is actually an indicator of incoming souls who have either passed or are close to passing: A blinking red light means that a soul is about to pass, while a solid green light notes that a soul has indeed passed over just moments ago. You might even notice your name and that the green light next to it is solid.
While the Temple of Orientation is always full, amazingly there's plenty of room for everyone, along with enough orientators to meet everyone's needs rapidly and efficiently. So your counselor quickly appears to escort you to a cubicle, where he or she, your guide, and you all sit down in utter privacy. Your orientator begins to talk softly to you, answering any questions you might have and reminding you that you're safe and back Home. You may still be somewhat disoriented, but memories are flooding back to you of the life you just lived and how you died. (Only a few of those who pass don't remember such details at this point.)
The counselor assures you of many things: "Yes, you did complete what you needed to learn," "No, you didn't go too soon," "Your family on Earth is all right," as well as anything else to make you more comfortable and relaxed, thus orienting you back Home. He or she knows that you may still be tied to your just-passed life and have some disorientation or confusion, thus explaining, "Remember that you'll now go to the Hall of Wisdom. You've done a good job, and it's good to have you back Home."
You find that you're much more relaxed, and the first wonderful rays of realization that you're truly Home begin to form. You suddenly feel an overpowering love that is permeating your being, and you remember that this is the love of God (which we all feel on the Other Side), which is so much more powerful than any earthly sensation. It's so magnificent-almost overpowering-and it fills your soul with such compassion that it practically shouts, "In you I am pleased!" All the last vestiges of stress and anxiety about leaving life fade away and are put to rest. You see again how young you are and how good you feel. Your body seems so much lighter, as all the gravity and heaviness of your earthly shell is gone, much like the contrast of coming out of a swimming pool and becoming aware of how heavy your body truly is.
I think it's important to mention here that the counselors who work in the Temple of Orientation have to study long and hard to prepare for this role so that they can help with an individual's chart (this is the life plan every human being plots out before incarnating on Earth). Outgoing souls have their charts pretty much set when they go to the Temple of Orientation, but counselors give them tools to help them get through it and remind them to rely on their angels; guides; and, of course, the Mother and Father God.
The orientators usually perform counseling as their only vocation because there are always souls coming in and out. What they do is crucial, for they not only have to be experts in all kinds of therapy, but they also have to know about the nuances of life and how they can affect a soul. They have to be able to pick up signs of any problems through body language, speech, behavior, or what have you. They're also the ones who decide if a soul needs to be cocooned because of trauma (I'll talk more about this later on).
While the Temple of Orientation is ever ready to help any outgoing or incoming soul, Francine says that almost all those coming in are arriving from their last lives on Earth. So are these counselors in danger of losing their jobs? Never, for there will continue to be some souls who want to go to other planets. All of these orientators can also become teachers.
***
After Francine described this hall in a trance in our salon, several attendees remarked, "I've seen that place!" One woman said that she knew she was a counselor. Yes, counselors or orientators do incarnate because the experience gives them a greater understanding about life on Earth and the various charts that people can create for themselves.
Another lady later told me over the phone that she'd had a dream that was akin to an astral state (which it actually was) where she was in a cubicle with low glowing lights, and a beautiful entity was explaining what she'd gone through and why. Francine says that she had definitely been in the Temple of Orientation, where she'd received some counseling.
I also had a man basically report the same thing to me, but he added that he remembered being advised about going in to life. He remembered the counselor holding a scroll and reading off what he called "significant bullet points" about his upcoming life: He'd have a hard entrance and a predilection for drug addiction; and he wouldn't get married until he was 30, after which he'd lose his first baby but then have a little girl. He said that the counselor had gone on and on, but he didn't remember the rest. Then he told me that in this incarnation he had indeed been a premature baby and almost died; had a bad bout with drugs in his teens; got married in his early 30s; and watched helplessly while he and his wife lost their first baby at the age of eight months ... only to have a little boy (the only difference, it would seem) a short while later. The man said that he so wished he could remember the rest of what his counselor had told him, but I don't think he was supposed to know anything else.
Speaking of outgoing souls, after meeting with their orientators, those who are about to incarnate then go into a state of seclusion with an angel known as a "Virtue" (which I'll talk about later in this book). After that contemplative period, they're led to a glass room that's beautifully scented and illuminated by a soft purple light that then turns blue. Outgoing souls don't stay long in this room before they literally become infants, as their bodies change from those of 30-year-olds to those of newborns. This is done so that the souls can acclimate to the tiny vehicles they'll have when they come out of their mothers' wombs on Earth.
As outgoing souls are helped into waiting wombs, they begin to lose most of their conscious knowledge in the process. This happens because if they could clearly recall what the Other Side was like and what they've chosen for themselves, their test of learning would be minimized and not be as effective. Yet there's almost always some knowledge that leaks through to a degree, which explains why so many young boys and girls distinctly describe past lives or what it's like on the Other Side.
For example, when my granddaughter, Angelia, was four, she came to me and said, "Bagdah [her nickname for me], I was in this lovely place with lights and I saw all these babies who were leaving. I wanted to go in, but a pretty lady [her guide, Ariel] said, 'You can't go in there because those are souls getting ready to go into life.'" Angelia was very upset because she wanted to go into the room and play with the babies, but I let her know exactly what she'd seen. If we explain such things rationally to children, they'll understand because they've been to the Other Side so recently themselves.
Cocooning
Regardless of how we died, as I said earlier, most of us do make it to the Other Side. However, some who come over don't immediately go through the orientation process and are instead "cocooned." You see, if they've suffered extremely violent passings, some souls may become traumatized in the process, so the orientators will wrap them in warm blankets and place them in cubicles with comforting music or even soothing lights and colors. It's almost like being back in the womb but still on the Other Side. Extreme cases may be put into a deep sleep, almost like a coma, during which the orientators will deprogram the trauma incurred and give these individuals' minds some intense healing.
Most entities who are cocooned are only in that state for a month or so, but the extreme cases can be kept as such for a year or more. (Of course there's no time on the Other Side, so I'm referring to this according to our calendar.) I'm convinced that's why people often tell me that they haven't heard from passed-over loved ones who experienced a horrible demise. Interestingly, my father didn't contact me for ten months after he passed, much to my aggravation. His was not a terrible death, but Francine said that since he and I were so close, he may have carried so much grief over with him that they cocooned him. I often wish they could cocoon us down here when we're faced with the raw, dragonlike grief of losing a loved one.
(If you'd like to reach the Temple of Orientation through meditation, please turn to page ___ after reading the instructions on pages ___-___.)
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Temples on the Other Side by Sylvia Browne Copyright © 2008 by Sylvia Browne. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
