Beyond the Veil: Why We Die

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Death fascinates and frightens us, yet Dr. Douglas James Cottrell offers a refreshingly hopeful perspective: we don't fear being dead as much as how we'll die. This profound distinction sets the tone for an exploration of mortality that transcends typical doom-and-gloom conversations.

Our physical existence, Dr. Douglas explains, is merely temporary—Earth is our "boarding school," not our permanent home. Each lifetime serves as a developmental stage in our soul's journey toward becoming "fully realized beings." Like trading in worn shoes for new ones, death simply marks the transition to our next experience, chosen by our souls for specific learning opportunities.

The soul's progression follows a natural educational pattern—from kindergarten through university—with each life building upon lessons from previous incarnations. What we experience as fate and destiny operates alongside our free will, much like how a letter's purpose guides its content while allowing freedom in vocabulary and structure. This elegant balance explains how our lives can feel both predetermined and chosen simultaneously.

Most remarkably, Dr. Douglas reveals that love is the only emotion that transcends physical death. While we shed all other emotions with our bodies, love continues, pointing to our ultimate destination—a realm of unconditional love without worry, fear, pain, or loneliness. This understanding transforms death from something to fear into a graduation worthy of celebration.

That small dash between birth and death dates on a tombstone represents our opportunity to live meaningfully despite our temporary nature. Dr. Douglas encourages us to honor our physical vessels while recognizing their impermanence—to worship our bodies while understanding they're just vehicles for spiritual growth. By embracing this perspective, we can approach both life and death with greater purpose, gratitude, and peace.

Ready to transform your understanding of life's greatest mystery? Subscribe now and join our community of seekers exploring consciousness, spirituality, and what truly matters in this brief, beautiful human experience.

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Episode Transcript

Announcer (00:00):
Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell,
your source for helpfulinformation, advice and tips to
live your life in a mindful wayin this increasingly chaotic
world.
For over four decades, DrDouglas has been teaching people
how to develop their intuitionand live their lives in a
conscious way.
His news and views of the worldtomorrow, today, are always

(00:21):
informative and revealing.
And now here's your host, DrDouglas James Cottrell.

Douglas James Cottrell (00:27):
Welcome to the Wake Up, the broadcast
where curiosity leads to deeperunderstanding.
I'm your host, Douglas JamesCottrell, and my good friend and
co-host Les Hubert is here withme, along with editor Jack
Bialik, as we delve into thefascinating realms of life,
metaphysics, spirituality andthe pressing questions that
shape our world.

Les Hubert (00:48):
We're going to talk a little bit about death.
The question is, why must wedie?
Death seems to be verydepressing, since you can only
die slowly or for natural causes.
But how can we live in apositive way with this
unavoidable end in mind?

Douglas James Cottrell (01:03):
Well, it's how you live your life, and
by that I mean if you live agood and decent life, you have a
good death.
Everybody says they're notafraid to die.
You talk to those people thatare full of faith and they are
absolute.
They are good, god-fearing, asthey say, faithful people, and

(01:26):
moral and just and upstandingpeople.
They're not afraid to die.
What they're afraid of is howthey're going to die.
And so everybody comes to thatmoment in life where you
rationalize how you're going todie.
You hope that it's not going tobe painful, you hope that

(01:47):
you're not going to have alingering sickness.
That is terrible to die.

And so part of the question is: I don't mind the concept of (01:50):
undefined
being dead because I know I'mgoing to live again, I know my
soul lives forever and sotherefore, it's okay.
I'm going to live my life thebest way I can, and when I get
to the end of my life, knowingthat it's coming, I will try to

(02:13):
do the best I can with the timeI have.
Or I'll try to have the bestlife I have.
Or, in circumstances wherepeople are born with
difficulties, their life isshortened.
Then they say, there must be areason or a purpose for this,
and I'm going to try to make theattempt to be the best I can at

(02:34):
what I have.
And so each of us goes throughlife, with our burdens, our
difficulties, our crosses tobear, if you will, and we
attempt to live the best life wecan.
The purpose of life, however,is to restart the cycle all over
again.
You know, it's like this iskindergarten, primary grades,

(02:55):
high school, university, and sowe have to go through these
developmental times in oursoul's purpose to get to
university and graduate as aperson who is aware, who's
self-aware, who becomes realized, self-realized and then fully
realized.

(03:15):
And a fully realized being issomeone that has a soul-like
consciousness in a physical formor body.
Another name for that is anavatar.
And so, we all aim to get to thehighest level.
But why we die is the same aswhy are we born.
Why do we come here?

(03:37):
Well, we don't belong here.
This is not our home.
This is our away from homeschool.
It's boarding school.
It's a place we existtemporarily.
It's something to allow us toembellish ourselves, to gain
consciousness, to make our soulbetter, to gain great knowledge

(04:01):
and to have great understanding,so that we can be perfected, so
that we can become a fullyrealized soul.
So the short answer to this oneis the reason we die is because
it's in the cards.
We've chosen when we're goingto be born.
We chose what we're going to doin life.
You know all the possibilities,our pattern of life, what we're

(04:24):
going to attempt to accomplish,what we're going to repent, fix
up, overcome or experience.
You know the pendulum swingsthe opposite way from one life
to another.
One life you've been a reallymean person.
Next life you're a savior ofpeople, or somewhere in the
middle you learn the differencebetween -- that really hurts, so
I won't do that.

(04:44):
I'll intend to, I'll give good.
So the pendulum swings back andforth to these extremes.
I know I'm being simplisticabout that, but at the end of a
lifetime you've met what thesoul has decided it wished to
experience, because your freewill and free choice is a soul
consciousness, free will andfree choice.
My good friend Alan Spraggettcame up with the analogy where,

(05:08):
if you want to know what thepurpose of life is or what the
difference between destiny andfate is and free will and free
choice is, is to understand itas when you sit down to write a
letter.
In your mind, you have theintention of the letter.
That's your destiny, that'syour fate, to write that letter

(05:34):
with the thoughts and thepurpose of what's going to be
put into the letter.
Free will and free choiceallows you to pick the
vocabulary, the grammar, thesentence structure, the
paragraphs, the length of thestory, the periods, punctuation,
etc.
That's your free will.

(05:55):
However, you're fulfilling yourfate.
So, as you enter into the world, it's a finite thing.
You want to discover from Aright through the alphabet to
the end, and you want to knowall the things in between.
Sometimes you accomplisheverything.
Sometimes you get cut offhalfway.
Next time you come back, youpick up where you left off and
you continue to the end of thealphabet, so to speak.

(06:18):
So why must we die?
Well, we don't belong here.
This is a terrible place to be.

I know people are saying: Douglas, what's the matter with (06:25):
undefined
you?
This is wonderful.
You know, I go to parties, Iexercise, I have money.
You know, I love to go surfing.
I have people that love me.
Okay, but this is all temporary.
Temporary.
And all the sages and thesaints tell us that life is an

(06:45):
illusion.
First time I heard that I went,you're crazy, this is me.
Look, I can hit myself, so yesI'm here for sure.
But no, it's not.
The life that we know is anillusion.
It's a pretend existencecompared to the one from where
we came and to where we want togo.
Okay, so see yourself not as aphysical body subject to the

(07:11):
weaknesses of the flesh, to allthe temptations of the flesh, to
all the vulnerabilities of life, and see yourself as a beam of
light, a sphere of light,lightning, electricity, which is
something I compare as ananalogy of God.

(07:32):
God is everywhere, likeelectricity is.
God is both a thunderbolt andit's the light in our lamps, and
it's also the light that comesoff our fingers.
You know, when you touch theswitch on the wall and you get
that little jolt of static,that's electricity, that's
inside of you.
So electricity and lightningare all, in a very simplistic

(07:53):
way, examples of God beingeverywhere.

That's what our real life is (07:57):
to be light, or something like
light that we call a soul.
A soul consciousness, a soulunderstanding, is completely
different to this physical life.
Only in this world do we haveemotion.
Except for one, all otheremotions are left behind.
They are shed as the clay isshed when we die.

(08:20):
That emotion that carries on islove, the only one.
Wow.
And as we understand love, andwe get to understand
unconditional love, we get to beloving in a spiritual sense, in
order to come back to thatplace where only love exists
unconditionally.

(08:41):
Oh, okay.
So in order to get there, wehave to wear out a few pairs of
shoes along the way, and eachlife can be looked like a pair

of shoes (08:50):
brand new, shiny, wonderful, a little hard to get
used to them, you know.
They squeak, they give youlittle sores on your feet, but
after they become comfortable,and they're oh so comfortable,
and then one day you have tothrow them away because they're
worn out.
You grieve over losing yourfavorite shoes, but from a

soul's perspective it's like: okay, that was interesting. (09:13):
undefined
What's next?
I think I'll try a pair ofthose Oxfords.
No, maybe I'll try one of thoseNikes I hear about.
You know some other kind ofshoe?
I'll even try the sandals.
What the heck?
You know.
I'm being a little humorous andsimplistic about it but, the
soul chooses exactly what itwants to experience next.

(09:40):
So why must we die?
One, we don't belong here.
Two, this is a temporarysojourn.
Three, it's the soul's purposeas to came in this place, found
out all we needed to find outand continued on our way.
Because it's just like asidetrack, it's a way station,

(10:01):
and that's why we have to keepon keeping on.
And only way we can keep on iswhat?
The soul jumps out of the bodyand carries on, and so no soul
in the body, what happens?
The life of the body is gone.
There's no vitality of the soul, and I have a theory about crib
deaths, which is that babiesdie unexpectedly for no reason

(10:23):
-- infants, newborns moreexactly -- because the soul
hasn't entered into the body togive it that life.
If you look at the biblicalsense, it was God breathed
through the nostrils and therewas life.
Well, I take that to mean thesoul didn't come into the body,
breath through the nostrils ofthe physical form, and therefore

(10:44):
the body expires.
Now could be right, could bewrong.
hat sure there's people whoknow more than I, can probably
correct me or add to it orwhatever.
But if you take it from a basisof understanding why we die,
then it's like, okay, don't getcaught up and think that this
comfortable pair of shoes is it.
It's not.

(11:04):
There is a better pair of shoes, a better life, a better
experience coming that is soamazingly pleasurable of on
being wrapped up inunconditional love.

Think of it (11:17):
it no worries, no fears, no pain, no loneliness,
nothing but love.
Whoa, surrounded by love.
What an amazing .
feeling Can you remember whenyou were a little child, wrapped
up in a blanket and mommy anddaddy were looking over you and
all the relatives came andpeeked down the edge and scared

(11:39):
the heck out of you, and Andwhose who's big two Two inches
away from yours?
Oh my !, But but you were niceand to warm war, when but it was
happening.
I can remember people who hadthat experience.
They can remember these peoplecoming to stick in their face,
far away from the that baby'snose, nose and scaring the
daylights out of the babybecause, oh my god, I was there
zero, I was having a ball andsomebody.

(12:05):
..
anyway anywayAnyway to answer the question
question, it's simply, uh, theidea that, if you take the
analogy of a pair of shoes,don't get too comfortable with
this life but be grateful for it.
Worship your life, be gratefulfor it, praise your body from
the tip of your toes to the topof your head.
Once in a while, sit there andsay, you know, big toes, I love

(12:28):
you.
You know, heart, I am sograteful.
You know ears, you're wonderful.
My hands are great.
Praise yourself, worshipyourself, talk to yourself,
honor yourself.
Wake up, because this is theonly body you have.
Take care of it.

(12:49):
I know we all don't.
t's used to play football, Iused to play hockey up until I
was 57, and I beat myself up.
Well, guess what?
You pay me then or you pay menow.
So you beat your body up,you're going to pay later,
guaranteed, there's that balance.
It's karma.
You know it's out there, youcan't help it.

(13:11):
So my friend Les that sort of ina very basic understanding is
why we must die.
Nothing is forever and it isordained that we come into the
world made of clay, we exist fora while and we carry on.
What you do between thebirthday, the year you were born

(13:35):
and the birth year, that youdie on your tombstone, is a
little dash.
Wiser people than I havereferred to that as what did you
do in that dash between thetime you were born and the time
you died?

Les Hubert (13:52):
Excellent.
Well, thank you, Doug, that wasgreat.

Douglas James Cottrell (13:55):
Okay, my friend, until next time,
everybody.
I'm your host, Douglas JamesCottrell, and this is my good
friend Les Hubert, wishing youpeace and prosperity.

Announcer (14:02):
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(14:24):
and other related products,please visit his website
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Until next time, we wish youall of God's blessings: health,
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