life after the first death

"He who is victorious cannot be harmed by the second death." Revelations 2:11

What is the first death? Understanding the first death is key to understanding this passage in Revelations which John said came from God to Jesus to an angel to him. A marvelously strange book, Revelations, no matter how you look at it.

To know what is meant by the second death, we must know what is meant by the first death. To know what is meant by the first death, we must know what is meant by "victorious." In this context (the spiritual), victorious means one who is born again, a concept which is spurned and often maligned as a flag waved by nutty fanatics misaligned with reality and the true world of McDonald's and the Donald.

Born again. First one is born of water (the amniotic sac and its fluid) and then of spirit. One's consciousness opens to a reality that is wider and deeper, a reality that is eternal since it is forever present, the Ground and Source of the eternal unfolding of Being, the Wellspring and the springing of the life-force (spirit).

When one opens to this higher, wider, deeper awareness, to eagle consciousness in addition to mouse consciousness, one dies the first death. One's old self falls into the underworld, is dismembered, then re-membered into unforeseen understandings. One sees and knows. One's eyes are open. The second death, that of the physical body, cannot and does not harm one. One is already born into "the other side." All one's treasures are already "laid up in heaven."

In this world today, folk, hardly even believing in the lint in their own belly button, hate this kind of language. But one can only speak of these things with poetry and metaphor.

When you have died before you die, death cannot harm you.