Read Online The Afterlife of Billy Fingers: How My Bad-Boy Brother Proved to Me There's Life After Death by Annie Kagan - Free Book Online

Presence. This Presence—the limitless light that fills the Universe everywhere—its personality contains every good quality imaginable. Perfect wisdom? Yes. Tender compassion? Of course. All-encompassing love? Definitely. Whatever qualities come under the heading of benevolence, thatvirtue is right there in the light. It's different with these Higher Beings. They're more specific, more personal, like the Divine Presence is focused through a prism. And the colored rays that come through the prism—these are the Higher Beings.
    Anyway, as the lightning-type Being came closer to me, it radiated an electric kind of energy right through its phosphorescent arms. I compare it to electricity not because it was painful in any way but because it gave me a jolt. The kindness and understanding from the Higher Beings now comes to me from myself. I love myself as I never could have when I first arrived in the afterlife. I guess that means even the soul changes.
    If there's one thing worth doing on your planet, it's discovering self-love. I say “discovering” instead of “learning” because learning implies you're starting from zero; but the truth is, you already love yourself. When you're born, when the amnesia happens, you forget your magnificence, and think you have to earn the right to be loved. How can you earn what already belongs to you?
    My encounter with the Light Being began a new phase of my journey, the phase I'm now in: becoming the Universe. That electric jolt made me rise up, spread out, and expand across the cosmos. I've got stars and moons and galaxies inside and around me. There's some kind of processing happening, like there's a giant pinball machine of light waves inside me, and the sensation keeps getting better and better.
    The thing about becoming the Universe is—and I'm going to say this but the words aren't really going to do itjustice—the more I let go of my so-called self, the better I feel. As I blend more and more into the Universal energy, I think, “This is it, I'm going to lose myself.” But it feels so good I don't care, so I let go and blend. Then, lo and behold, I'm still myself, but more blissed out. That's why I sound so dreamy.
    Becoming the Universe is how I understand the incomprehensible nature of this otherness, how I venture into a dimension of what you may call the Source. And I can say, most inadequately, that at the center of everything is an energy, an immaterial material that for lack of a better word I'll identify as love. Wow, baby sister, and how I love and how good it feels, this love. You can't imagine it. You really can't. There is no way for you to.
    I guess that ordinarily someone going through this isn't talking about it, just experiencing it, but who knows? Who knows why you can hear me? After I died, I could see you and I could see all that pain in you, and I started to talk to try to make you feel better. It was a big surprise that you could hear me. I'm as surprised as you are. And speaking of surprises, one is coming.
    I was having a hard time hearing Billy. He sounded like someone slowly coming out of anesthesia or waking up from a deep sleep. Although his voice was faint, the euphoric feeling that his words carried with them was stronger than ever.
    I took a blanket and some pillows and spread them on the deck outside my bedroom. It was a breezymorning, and the moon was still visible. Could what was happening to Billy up there happen in some way to me down here?
    I wanted to become the Universe, like my brother. Staring at the vast, cloudless blue sky, my confusion about what to do with my life began to dissolve. Maybe I didn't have to be a particular someone or something. Maybe I could let go of all the ways I define myself. Maybe it was okay for things to be just the way they are.
    My reverie was disturbed by the phone ringing. It was someone asking permission for my meditation teacher to use two of my songs on a program to be aired around the world. Years ago,