Somewhere around 2,500 years ago, a fellow named Plato wrote 'The Myth of Er."

Er was slain in battle. His body was laid to rest on a funeral pyre, a pile of material to later be burned. Twelve days later, he came back to life.

Upon revival, Er spoke of his experience in the afterlife. His soul had left his body and was greeted by a group of other souls. Then he traveled with the group through a series of passageways into another realm. 

Er was now in a gateway domain where individual souls were being judged by divine beings who were able to perceive everything the souls had done while in their carnal (earthly) dimension.

But Er was not judged. He was told it was not yet his time to enter the heavenly realm and that he must return to his body to inform the rest of the carnal word what was beyond their physical reality.

Having returned, Er told those present about witnessing the heroes of legend making choices for future lives.

Although considered to be a mythological tale, Plato was describing the phenomenon of "near death experience." And by the planning of future lives, he was also introducing an aspect of reincarnation.

In modern terms a near death experience (NDE) occurs when a person is clinically dead for a period of time and then brought back to life, sometimes through resuscitation and sometimes by natural circumstances.

People who have experienced an NDE generally have a similar experience and go through the same steps.

1) A sense of being dead, plus an overall feeling of tranquility and love.

2) The sensation of floating upward out of their physical body and witnessing what is taking place below.

3) Passing through a tunnel or narrow passageway.

4) Being greeted by deceased friends and relatives, as well as highly spiritual beings.

5) Encountering a divine bright light and being beckoned (welcomed) by it.

6) Going through a review of their entire life and comprehending how their actions affected others.

7) When told they were to return to their carnal body, they did so reluctantly.

8) After returning to their earthly existence, they had a new perspective on life and no longer feared death.

Past-life regression involves placing a person under hypnosis and prompting them to regress back through their childhood to a time before they were born. In many cases, the person is able to recall his/her life (or lives) before the present lifetime, as well as their experience between lives, including the planning of their present life.

This method is sometimes used to deal with a current health problem. The hypnotherapist is often able to "reconfigure" the past-life experience of the patient, causing the psychological or physical ailment to disappear. Many hypnotherapists specialize in past-life regression., including Dr. Brian Weiss who wrote "Many Lives, Many Masters" in 1988. It sold 1.5 million copies.

Dr. Helen Wambach, Ph.D. Psychology, had been a skeptic of past life regression. In 1975, she initiated a study on over 10,000 people to find out if there was any truth to reincarnation. Some of the results include:

1) 50.6 percent reported past lives as males, 49.4 percent as females. The exact biological percentage.

2) The variation of people within upper and lower income groups was exactly the same class distribution proportionality within historical time periods. And the incidence of "famous" people was extremely rare.

3) Recall of everyday life (food, clothing, shelter, daily life, etc.) was highly accurate according to historians.

4) In some cases, the person regressed begins to speak in an unlearned foreign language (old dialect).

5) In some cases, the person being regressed remembers details of astonishing accuracy which are verified by historians.

6) In some cases, the alleged cause of death in an immediate past life is reflected by a birthmark in the present life.

"I don't believe in reincarnation; I know it." she boasted, in 1978, after being dazzled at the results.

Dr. Michael Newton, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Counseling Psychology and is a certified master hypnotherapist. Some of his published works include "Destiny of Souls," "Life Between Lives" and "Journey of Souls." He specializes in explaining our immortal life in the spirit world.

While most of those who explore such things concentrate on hypnotically regressing people into past lives, Dr. Newton narrows in on the state of being between lives within a higher spiritual (ethereal) domain.

Based on over 7,000 hypnotic regressions of people into the life between lives region, Dr. Newton has documented a spiritual dimension consistent with near death experiences, but much more profound.

The descr i ptions of this realm have been highly consistent among the participants with a few minor individual differences.

1) The journey into this spiritual dimension begins by meeting one's spirit guide and soul group.

2) One then meets with a council of wise, elevated souls familiar with one's soul journey.

3) Universally reported by all participants is the selection of a future life (on an earthly plane of existence).

4) The selection of a future life is based on the uniqueness of the individual soul's journey.

5) This spirit realm is one of love, kindness and compassion, as well as order, planning and direction.

6) Souls are multi-dimensional. Soul energy is in the human body while the true soul remains active in the higher realm.

Life on this earth is full of pain, suffering and injustice. It's a plane of existence to cleanse our immortal souls.

When we enter the Great Beyond, we enter a glorious sphere of love and compassion.

Some might even call it heaven.

Either everyone involved in these studies is perpetrating a giant hoax or their subjects are having a mass hallucination or there is a phenomenon called reincarnation which involves the recycling of the human spirit (soul consciousness)  between another dimensional existence and our earthly reality.

In fact, a majority of the Earth's population believes in reincarnation (Buddhists, Hindus, Kabbalists, Gnostics, Jewish tradition, Mystical Christianity, Native Americans, Ancient Greeks, etc.). In one form or another, they believe we pass through this plane of existence, again and again, until we clear our karmic debt to the collective oneness.

Having spend many moons dwelling on this subject, including learning of several of my own past lives, the following 12 steps are my conclusions about the mechanics of this phenomenon.

The Purification of the Soul

1) There exists a supreme realm of oneness, consisting of all matter, space, time, energy, perception, intention and love. All is one.

2) The Supreme Oneness is made up of individual souls (eternal spirits within oneness), with each soul containing an individual awareness.

3) In order to insure purity of the Supreme Oneness, individual souls were given free will, thereby allowing impure souls to be cleansed.

4) A rebellious portion of the Supreme Oneness, eager to experience pleasure, brought the material world into existence through imagination.

5) Planet Earth is one of many three-dimensional illusions where curious souls project themselves (incarnate) to experience material pleasures.

6) When a fallen soul reincarnates into a three-dimension carnal reality, its divine soul (counterpart) remains in the higher realm.

7) The carnal world contains injustice and pain. Each fallen soul is forced to choose between good and evil (or indifference), and must suffer.

8) Fallen souls must cycle through a series of incarnations (tests) to obtain enough patience, grace and purity to return to the oneness.

9) Between incarnations into the carnal existence, souls must review their carnal experience and are judged, by themselves, on their righteousness.

10) Buddha, Jesus Christ and others were divine examples of purity.

11) Souls incapable of achieving divine wisdom become doomed to an endless cycle (eternal damnation) into the lower realm (carnal worlds).

12) The ultimate goal of each soul is to reach perfection through patience and grace, and reunite with its divine soul within the Supreme Oneness.

Like most men with a reasonably normal lust for those of the opposite gender, my life has been an endless search for female companionship.

Unfortunately, the odds of finding the perfect woman are about the same as the odds of finding the lost Arc of the Covenant in a dumpster in Bayonne, New Jersey.

When I was 12, I hoped to one day have a girlfriend. Unfortunately, I was very shy and often had a zit on the end of my nose. I made up for it with a Sears catalog behind closed doors and lots of imagination. But that soon got messy and boring.

So I decided to look for a real girl. Any girl would do.

When I was 14, I hooked up with my first girlfriend. She was real cute and giggled a lot. But we just didn't click. I spent most of the time trying to figure out my next move, while she spent most of the time reading books about horses.

So I decided I needed a passionate girl.

When I was 17, I found a passionate girl. In fact, she was so passionate she believed in sharing it with every other guy in high school and much of the rest of the world.

So I decided I needed a girl with stability.

When I was 22, I dated a very stable woman. She was highly organized. Her wardrobe was hung in the closet alphabetically by manufacturer, sub-ordered by descending purchase date. She had a goldfish named Goldfish Number 2. It was her second goldfish. Her sexual orientation was from page 44 of "Sexual Positioning for Maximum Results." Everything was so categorized, I yearned for a Sears catalog once again.

So I decided I needed a girl with some spunk.

When I was 26, I found a spunky girl. Perhaps a bit too spunky. She had a tattoo of a spider on her neck, drank Tennessee whiskey straight from the bottle and owned 19 cats. Her favorite pastimes were arguing and setting things on fire. One day we had a disagreement over which way the toilet paper should roll and she torched my car.

So I decided to find a woman who was laid back.

When I was 31, I found a woman who was laid back. In fact, she was so laid back, she rarely got off the couch. Her hippie pad tended to be a bit neglected. There was a large plant in the corner of the living room. It just started growing there one day. She dried it out and smoked it anyway. I think it was either a fern or a fungus. She didn't get very high but she farted a pungent green mist for three days straight.

So I decided I needed a woman with more ambition.

When I was 37, I found a woman who was ambitious. She had a bachelor's degree in economics, an MBA from a prestigious college and was a Senior Systems Analyst for a large corporation. Her townhouse was trendy, her car was a BMW, her music was New Age and her wardrobe was proper. Unfortunately, she had this peculiar notion that those around her should also be ambitious.

So I decided to find a woman who wasn't demanding.

When I was 44, I found a woman who wasn't demanding. She was quite easygoing and tolerant of my various quirks. I later found out that her other three personalities weren't quite as affable. Sometimes, when she ran out of medication, all four personalities came out at once and began arguing with one another about the origin of the universe and the optimal length of an orgasm while in the lotus butterfly position.

So I decided to stop searching so hard for the perfect woman and sleep on it.

Then one dark night (they're always dark; that's why they call it night), I had a dream about a woman who walked like a gazelle, sang like a morning dove, purred like a tiger and smiled like a hungry alligator. Not exactly perfection, I could do without the smile, but close enough.

A gift from another dimension.

At last, I've found the perfect relationship. I now reside in the best of both worlds. My daylight hours are uninterrupted by catering to someone else's needs and I get to spend every night with the perfect woman.

My lifelong search for female companionship has finally ended.

With my luck, a real woman will come along any day now and spoil the whole thing.

* * *

Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels.

Being lazy is one of the most underrated, misunderstood forms of human existence.

It may also be a more healthful way of life than performing high-energy activities. Dr. Peter Axt, a professor of health science at Fulda University near Frankfurt, has recently written a book titled "The Joy of Laziness" that makes the following claims:

1) Everybody has a limited amount of "life energy" and the speed with which it is consumed determines their life span.

2) If you lead a stressful life and exercise excessively, your body produces hormones which lead to high blood pressure and can damage your heart and arteries.

3) Lazy people produce less free radicals (unstable oxygen molecules that speed up the aging process).

4) Exercise and stress causes the body to produce the hormone cortisol which can damage cells in the brain and lead to memory loss and premature senility.

5) Late sleepers live longer than early risers because they conserve their energy.

Being a fairly lazy person myself, here are 10 steps I recommend to achieve the joy of laziness.

1) Maximize your free time. Free time is much more valuable than money or possessions. If your time doesn't belong to you, you are a slave to someone or something else.

2) Rely only upon yourself. Become self-employed or as close to self-employed as possible, preferably doing something you enjoy. You can't be lazy if your time and energy are obligated to others.

3) Meet the monthly nut. Make sure you have enough income to meet your financial expenses, including some extra cash to squirrel away for emergencies. You can't be free to be lazy if you're financially burdened.

4) First things first. Always take care of important matters immediately. You're never free to be lazy if you have pending business or chores requiring your attention. Procrastination is not laziness; it's irresponsibility.

5) Don't be a prisoner of your possessions. You don't need new cars, new clothes or new anything. Jewelry is for egomaniacs. Live wisely with what you have and only add more to it when necessary. 

6) Minimize travel. You don't need to travel half way around the world to find happiness. Live in a place you appreciate and enjoy your surroundings. The search for happiness begins at home.

7) Buy a home you can afford. Extravagance is for those who have low self-esteem and need the approval of others. If you have an overwhelming desire to show off, stand naked on a busy street. You'll soon get over it.

8) Pay cash. If you need a loan to purchase anything other than a home, you can't afford it. Pay cash for your vehicles and other high ticket items. Avoid credit cards. Being lazy means being debt free.

9) Don't exercise just to exercise. There is plenty of work to be done without making it up. Mow the lawn, wash the car, fix things, etc. If you're going to expend energy, at least you should accomplish something.

10) Ignore envious critics. Whenever someone looks down on you for your lifestyle it's usually because they're jealous. They've trapped themselves into a life of slavery and are working hard just trying to stay even.

The key to happiness isn't money or possessions; it's having the free time to enjoy life. Happiness comes from within. When you slow down and smell the roses, the joy of laziness will set you free.

Being lazy isn't as simple as it seems. I've spent a lifetime perfecting laziness, often interrupted by periods of excessive activity caused by inevitable external forces, such as school, a military obligation, marriage, divorce, employment, etc. But if you work at it long enough and hard enough, you can turn laziness into an art form.

We're spiritual beings born into a carnal world in order to cleanse our eternal soul. To spend such a precious slice of existence in this dimension working hard and stressing out is a foolish waste of time and energy.

Be lazy and enjoy it. You'll live longer and pay less taxes.

* * *

Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels.

I once stood in line in at Wal-Mart behind an attractive woman who had a tattoo of a dragonfly on the small of her back. I asked her if she knew the significance of the dragonfly whereupon she asked me if I knew the significance of minding my own business.

As relationships go, it was remarkably short.

Dragonflies, much like tattooed women, have their fair share of weirdness. They make themselves invisible to airborne prey by using a system called "motion camouflage." It tricks the victim's retina into perceiving the dragonfly as a stationary object blending into the background. Thus, the dragonfly becomes "invisible" even though it's moving forward. Often, the pursuing dragonfly will fly away from its target rather than toward it to maintain the disguise.

I had become familiar with the dragonfly years earlier when I lived in Arizona where a man who claimed to be a shaman gave me a reading using 44 Native American Indian medicine cards. He explained that as we come into the Earth Walk, there are seven directions, each aligned with a particular ability or challenge, surrounding our bodies: East, South, West, North, Above, Below, and Within.

Then I drew seven medicine cards representing the seven directions in my Earth Walk.

1) East - Wolf. The wolf awakens the teacher within to understand the Great Mystery of life.

2) South - Armadillo. The armadillo teaches us to define our boundaries or space.

3) West - Dragonfly. The dragonfly reveals the illusionary facade of physical reality.

4) North - Hummingbird. The hummingbird encourages us to enjoy the succulent nature of life.

5) Above - Bat. Bat medicine teaches that to become your future, you must die and be reborn. 

6) Below - Whale. Whale medicine people have the psychic ability to tap -into the universal mind.

7) Within - Antelope. The antelope empowers us to honor the gifts sent from the Great Mystery.

The West medicine card reflects the internal solution to your present life challenges and reveals how to reach your desired goals. In my case, this is represented in the dragonfly.

According to the shaman, this world is full of nature spirits. Dragonfly medicine indicates knowledge received from the spirits of the four basic elements of air, earth, fire, and water. Dragonfly medicine is the essence of the winds of change. Messages of enlightenment were supposedly being communicated to me, especially during the dream-time, causing a transformation where illusion was being replaced by true wisdom.

I was indeed going through a transformation at the time.

The physical world seemed more like a robotic world of worker bees toiling in a giant rat race to maintain an economy that seemed more like a pyramid scheme than an intelligent way of life.

Humanity was being duped into a self-perpetuating system of servitude to a formation of governments and mega-corporations whose only purpose was to ensure their own growth.

For a government or mega-corporation, it meant survival.

To an individual human being seeking peace of mind, it was madness.

Anyway, I was definitely going through some changes back then. I had become a more confident person during that period, able to speak to strangers, including women. Naturally, this brought an onslaught of rejection into my life but it's better to be rejected than to walk away and never know.

The medicine card reading was an eerily positive experience and made me more aware of the world around me. For example, a woman who wears a tattoo is a woman who wants to be noticed. And a woman who wants to be noticed is a woman who wants to be admired. But the moment you express a hint of admiration, the same woman will instinctively reject you.

Men may rule the world but women rule the men.

A dragonfly tattoo is a subtle form of camouflage - you can admire it but must pretend you don't notice it.

* * *

Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. Contact bret@centurytel.net

We are born into this world naked and helpless. If we do it right, we leave this world with a smile on our face and no regrets. Somewhere in between, there comes a time when we question our existence. This process is called a midlife crisis.

My midlife crisis took place in the summer of 1986. I had spent about 20 years as a computer programmer and consultant. I was very good at it. Anything short of perfection was never an option. Then one day I began to ask myself some important questions.

Was all this hard work worth it?

What difference did my existence have on the grand scheme of things?

How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?

Why did Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Obviously, not all of my questions had depth but I was trapped in the rat race and knew I had to do something about it or I was going to wind up in a padded cell next to the guy who invented Teen-age Ninja Turtles.

So I did the only logical thing I could think of at the time. I quit working, sold my possessions, bought a 4X4 pickup truck with a camper shell and acquired all the necessary equipment to become a gold prospector.

Then I left Los Angeles, with a dog named Shadow at my side, and headed for the hills. I never expected to strike it rich but I had this romantic notion that the adventure would be the real treasure.  If I managed to stumble upon the Mother Lode, it would only be frosting on the cake.

I spent a couple of days poking around the Mohave Desert near the old mining town of Randsburg. There was plenty of broken glass, but not much gold littering the landscape.

I soon headed north again and drifted around the old California gold fields near towns like Angels Camp, Grass Valley and Placerville. Most of this territory was private property, making it difficult to find a secluded spot to set up camp or prospect.

Eventually, I made my way to Nevada and scouted the Silver Peak Mountains, west of Tonopah and Goldfield. This area had more claim markers than trees. Rather than dodge bullets, I decided to move on.

I went down to Arizona, into the wilderness east of Dolan Springs, where I camped among the Joshua trees. During the day, I hiked into the hills, taking samples along the way. At night, I sat by the campfire, staring at the stars, wondering whatever possessed me to live in a big city in the first place. It was a bit like being in heaven.

For the next several months, I camped on the low desert northeast of Wickenburg or up in the mountains near Prescott, depending on the weather. I actually found a few traces of gold now and then, but preferred to spend most of my time staring at campfires and discussing philosophy with Shadow.

It was a glorious experience.

The most important thing I learned was that the purpose in life is to discover the purpose in life.

And in order to discover the purpose in life, you must realize that you are of paramount importance and total insignificance, both at the same time.

You must become fearless in order to become whole.

Suffering and injustice can only be overcome with grace and courage.

Patience is the key to inner peace and eternal contentment.

The most important thing Shadow learned was where all the bones were buried. His purpose in life was to hang out in the desert with some crazed loner who kept staring into campfires, boring him with philosophy.

Six months after I started my midlife journey, I bought a home in the desert a few miles outside of Wickenburg where I began to live a simpler life. I did occasional computer work, just enough to keep the bills paid. I also started writing novels and continued to roam the desert, scratching for gold, eventually filing two mining claims. Later, I sold the mining claims for a tidy profit and found a publisher for my four novels.

My purpose in life has been fulfilled. I can now go to my grave with a smile on my face and no regrets.

I started out with nothing and still have most of it.

My riches are my memories.

* * *

Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. Contact bret@centurytel.net