The Zen of Ben

From 9 July 2013

I had a bit of an epiphany today, thanks to our Ben. Having grown up during the Vietnam War era I have never had positive feelings toward war. I've always resented war memorials and anything that glorifies war with the possible outcome of encouraging young people to be eager to participate in a war. Therefore I have to admit to feeling some dismay that I learned that one of Robin Gibb’s  pet projects when he was alive was raising funds for the construction of a memorial to the RAF Bomber Command. Within a short period of time one of our friends showed us a book about it and another friend told us about seeing a BBC documentary on the subject which included video footage of Robin and a credit.
 
Ben (who is a big Bee Gees fan) and I eventually had a little talk about it. He said that the men of the Bomber Command have been pretty much left to bear the guilt and responsibility by themselves. The people who issued the orders and approved the orders have attempted to distance themselves from the whole nasty business. But Ben said that it isn't right for young people today to only know that Dresden was destroyed and thousands of civilians were carpet bombed and forget that it was done in an effort to stop Hitler.
 
He said it was important that all the people today who are condemning the action need to understand that they are the beneficiaries. He said if there is guilt, we should all share in it and not leave it to the few men now elderly who made the sacrifice and did the job to bear the guilt alone.
 
That made sense to me. However, there is more. Ben also told me about someone (on the other side) that he had showed the memorial to and he was very happy that this man "got" it. And what he got was that this memorial was not just a tribute to the men still living and a reminder of those who died. As Ben explained, it is a way of offering absolution to those who have died with that guilt on their consciences. He says that thousands of men are sitting over there in the dark, afraid to cross over, waiting to be sent to hell. He says that the memorial is helping them to forgive themselves and allowing them to cross over to the TSP and reunite with their loved ones and comrades.
 
So evidently even while he was alive Robin was already a crossing guard, helping souls find their way home.  Ben, did he know that is what he was doing?
 
B: Hard to say. I don’t think Robin believed in things like the TSP. But he believed it was right to recognize the sacrifice these men had made that had never been properly acknowledged. Maybe he was called to help the ones who needed help
crossing over. Maybe that was his way of doing it without knowing that is what he
was doing. Maybe someday we’ll ask him.
 
D: Ben, you have talked about how a good funeral can give a spirit the energy it needs to cross over. Is this memorial something similar?
 
 B: Yes it is. People poured a lot of love and energy into it. As I have mentioned before, money is a form of energy. After this many years it was important that the monument be very expensive because so much energy had been depleted from the souls of both the living and the dead.
 
D: I was interested that so many people donated. Seems like it would have been simpler if Robin and a couple other rich guys just paid for it themselves.
 
B:  They probably could have put up enough money for a nice building and art work but they couldn't have provided the love and respect and gratitude that thousands of citizens could pour into the project. That was the absolution the veterans needed.
 
D: I have a different understanding of war memorials now. For the first time I see that they really can benefit those that they memorialize.
 
The video clip that goes with this BBC article we read is lovely. The Dutch man who weeps when he meets the bomber pilot makes clear that his people saw the RAF as liberators and protectors.
 
 B: It isn't right that everyone understood and appreciated the RAF bomber command except their own people.
 
D: Everyone? I doubt the Germans would have appreciated them.
 
B: I'm not so sure. They wouldn't have liked them. But a lot of Germans would have understood because they were doing the same thing. They understood and appreciated ruthlessness.
 
D: I sure don't.
 
R: No, my sweet cookie dough baby. Not in this life. But possibly in others.
 
D: Cookie dough baby?  Sheesh.
 
D: I used to wonder what good a war memorial did all those dead people now that they are dead anyway. But as it turns out, at least according to what Ben is telling me now, memorializing the dead does help them.
 
 The one really powerful experience I have had with a war memorial was the Vietnam Memorial in DC. It lists the names of the people who died but in no way suggests that this was such a good idea we should all want to do it again. In a way I see that memorial doing for the Vietnam war dead what Robin's memorial is doing for the Bomber Command. Vietnam soldiers came home to a civilian community that rejected the war and blamed the participants. The ones who fought over there were forced to bear more than their fair share of guilt. For many years their sacrifice was not acknowledged and people just didn't want to talk or think about it.
One of the most impressive things about the wall is that when you stand in front of it you see yourself reflected back.
 
I've always understood that war memorials were there to remind us, the living, of the people who died. And I suspected they were a form of propaganda to encourage us to support future wars. But I felt that while they reminded us of the deaths and perhaps brought some measure of comfort to the survivors they did nothing for the dead. And that is where I see now that I was wrong.
One of our friends wondered if the afterlife is different for those who were drafted versus those who served voluntarily.   Someone else wondered what  can be done for the souls of young people who "voluntarily" serve in the wars in the Middle East and come home and commit suicide.
 
B:  We’ll save that for another Post.  It’s not as much of a problem as you might think.
 
 D: This post is kind of a downer but I don't think I'll delete it. Ben wanted me to talk about the RAF memorial. Right?
 
B: Yes I did, Donya. I want people to know that Robin was not a war monger. I want people like you to understand that people who take part in wars lose enormous amounts of energy and sometimes it has to be replenished before they can go home.
 
D: Want to say more about that?
 
 B: When a person “dies”  their consciousness has to be vibrating at a high enough frequency to connect with the higher frequencies of non physical. It doesn't have to be as high as the TSP because there are guides and helpers to boost you up. But if you hang around too long after your body is no longer generating energy you lose not only the quantities of energy you need but you vibrate at lower and lower frequencies.   That's why no one wants to be in a house that a ghost has been haunting for a long time. It's depressing and makes everyone feel feeble and irritable.  When people gather and put spirit and energy and love into a project on behalf of an earthbound soul they "lift his spirit" and raise his frequency so that he can make contact with the higher frequency beings who will escort him home.
 
D: I used to think the business about earthbound spirits missing their opportunity to cross over was nonsense but now that Ben has explained it in terms of energy it sort of makes sense to me. It also explains to me why Robin was so eager to be part of the Mythology concerts.  I bet he got a big blast of energy from them.
 
One of our friends expressed concern about the idea of people who have depleted their energy not being able to leave the earth plane and return to the Timeless Spaceless place without help. She said it’s sad.
 
B:  Yes,  it is sad but it isn't terribly terribly sad. If you are driving and you run out of gas before you can get to a station you are stuck until someone can help you . It's the same thing. People always need each other to replenish one another's energy. It's a serious mistake or misfortune for someone to get so separated and isolated from other people that they have no one to turn to to lift their spirits in this life or the next. But it isn't the end of the world if someone gets stuck. There are lots of guides and guardians looking out for people who might need help. They can dispatch someone to come and lend a hand. There are always people praying for people who might be stranded. Praying is a way of delivering energy to anyone who might need it. There is a constant stream of energy coming from convents and monasteries and temples all over the world. There are people like some of the mediums we know who help people cross over. The reason why people get stuck isn't a matter of punctuality. Getting stuck isn't a punishment. It's just what happens when people refuse or neglect to refuel. A lot of times it is because they are stubbornly clinging to what they want in this life and just won't let go. Often it's because they are afraid because they have been taught that they are destined for eternal punishment. Generally as soon as a stranded soul is willing to lighten up and accept help it is there for them. Sometimes it’s as simple as being encouraged to look away from the past and focus their attention on the infinite possibilities.
 


 

Halloween 10/31/2015  Rich Vernadeau inquires about Ghosty Boy Ben.
Look for Episode 34
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/137393
​

Donya's Blog
This is where you can read about how I met Ben and what it's like to be friends with a "Ghosty Boy."  

                                   How I met Ben
I was riding my bike through the park one day in March of 2012.  I suddenly felt something that suggested cold fingers on the back of my neck and I shivered.  I had read enough ghost stories to know that invisible cold fingers and unwarranted shivering are ways ghosts make their presence known.  I quickly knew who was trying to draw attention to himself because I suddenly had images of him in my mind.  I knew who he was because one of my friends had recently posted a collection of information about him on Facebook.  Reading the articles and watching the videos, I became interested in him and his work even though I had never cared about it before.
     Once I realized who was chilling me I also realized it couldn't be him because he wasn't dead. However I raced home and Googled him and learned that he had recently been admitted to a hospital for a "routine procedure."  I sat down at the keyboard and typed to him.  I asked him who he was and why he was chilling me.  He identified himself.  I could hear his answers and typed them.  It was sort of like automatic writing but it wasn't automatic.  The answers I got from him were not very coherent.  I got that he was trying not to die.  He was tired and wanted to die but he needed to stay alive long enough to provide for a small child.  He came back a couple of days later and told me that he had made provisions for the child. 
     Because Ben was well known in his field of endeavor his illness and death were covered in the news media. I was able to learn that he had undergone emergency surgery for a hemorrhage that started while he was in the hospital for his regular (routine) cancer treatment.  None of the reports mentioned a near-death experience but I concluded that he must have been out of his body when he contacted me. I also learned that he had a small, problematic, late-in-life daughter who didn't fit into his original financial plans.  
     One day about two weeks after the first time he contacted me he showed up again and asked if he could stay with me.  He said no one in his family could hear him and he needed someone to talk to.  I wasn't sure what "staying with" me consisted of, but he was pleasant and he didn't take up any space, so I said okay.  Shortly after he made this request I learned from the media that he had gone into a coma.  I kept a notebook close at hand and picked up a pen whenever he chilled or buzzed or tingled me.  I could also talk to him whenever I wanted to.  I usually initiated a conversation by writing two question marks on a page.  Part of what we talked about was finding a way to get a message to his family to say that he was all right.  But mostly he just seemed to enjoy hanging out with me.  He went to movies and plays with me and my friends. He enjoyed whatever I ate or drank and sometimes requested special items including his favorite tea and his favorite beer.  And cake frosting.  During the first few weeks he hung out with me he was obsessive about cake frosting, even waking me up in the middle of the night and asking me to eat some so he could taste it.  During movies or plays or musical events he would chill me to pick up my pen and notebook so he could comment.  We went with me and one of my friends to a baseball game one time.  I commented to him that it didn't get good until our team finally scored in the ninth inning.  He replied, "I liked the tenth inning."  
     Eventually the news reported that Ben was coming out of the coma.  I said, "I guess you won't be talking to me any more now that you are conscious."  Much to my surprise he practically begged me to let him "stay."   He said no one else could hear him.  It was a couple of weeks before I found a news report that said that, after a promising start in which he talked to family members and doctors, he was suddenly unable to communicate except by blinking his eyes.  
     He continued writing to me and I was gradually introducing him to my friends.  I also started a secret group for  him on Facebook so that friends who were interested in him could talk to  him and ask questions which he would answer with my help.  He liked to answer questions about "the Timeless Spaceless place"  which he says is where people go when they leave their bodies.  
    One night late in May Ben  was very restless and woke me up a number of times just being fretful.  He wanted assurance that I wasn't going to leave him or send him away.  I thought he might be dying but couldn't tell for sure.  Later that afternoon I learned that he had indeed left his body. I wept helplessly even as I was writing to him to ask if it was true and he was telling me that it was true but that everything was okay.   What was interesting to me later was that when he came to me and was so fussy he had already been dead for several hours.  I couldn't tell the difference between Ben in a coma and Ben dead.  
     Later I asked him why he hadn't told me he was dead and he said he was afraid I wouldn't want him.  He said, "People don't want ghosts.  They tell us to go to the stupid white light or something and I don't want to."  I told him he could stay with me as long as he wanted to.  I later learned that it is not a good idea to encourage a dead person's spirit to linger after it leaves the body, but he had his reasons and I saw no harm in letting him stay.  
     Eventually of course he did "cross over" and it turned out not to be as big a deal as he had anticipated.  He said it was like unplugging your charger on this side and plugging it in over there to the Source.  He informed me he was now free to come back and be my "guardian dead guy" and that he would also be helping other reluctant souls to cross over.   He continues entertaining FB friends in his secret group and he persuaded me to start this website for him where he shares his insights into life and afterlife.
dw