Infinity: The Ultimate Trip

Hardly a month goes by where we lose one of our friends and co-workers as they move on to the world of spirit. What happens when one leaves the physical world and enters the world of the spiritual dimension? Filmmakers Sharron Rose and Jay Weidner have presented answers to these and other questions in their latest DVD, Infinity: the Ultimate Trip which contains interviews with some of the worlds most renowned thought leaders on death and dying. Featuring Gregg Braden, Dannion Brinkley, Renate Dollinger, Stanislav Grof, John Holland, Dzogchen Ponlop, Robert Thurman, Alberto Villoldo , Neale Donald Walsch and Brian Weiss, the film takes viewers on a journey into the rich and compelling notion that we are all part of an intricately connected greater existence. It addresses the deep questions that many are asking personally now as global changes and challenges have affected all walks of humanity and life.

Bob: In regards to the name of this film, which is dealing with Infinity, could you please tell us a little about Infinity: the Ultimate Trip. What really is infinity?

Sharron: Alberto Villoldo who is in the film and also one of its producers describes Infinity in this way," "The point of all the great spiritual teachings is that you can step into Infinity today, reside in Infinity consciously and source from there. Within Infinity, you become the architect and the dreamer of the great matrix of expression and creation. If you don't do that then you are caught in someone else's dream, in someone else's nightmare. The practice of infinity is really about dreaming your world into being."

Bob: Isn't that an incredible statement about dreaming your world into being. Of course he also noted that there is a difference between infinity and eternity which is the stuff from Western religions especially eternity which is an infinite number of moments. Infinity is before time, after time, unbound by time, in other words it's boundless. Villoldo also noted that non-linear time is informed by past and future. Linear time is only informed by the past. That's an extraordinary statement.

Sharron: I think that it is part of the reason why people in the West are so afraid of death. Because we are taught from the moment we are born to think that this is it. There is a beginning and there is an end and that is all there is, after death it's just oblivion. One of the main problems of this time period, the Kali Yuga, is that in dealing with all of the stress, confusion and nightmares that we have to deal with from day to day, we cannot see ourselves beyond this material concrete realm. When we cannot see how much greater we are, that we are spiritual beings in material form then we get caught in these nightmares.

Bob: Is that what motivated you to create this film, Infinity?

Sharron: There were a number of motivations. One is that the mother of my husband Jay Weidner who is my partner in Sacred Mysteries and director of Infinity, passed away of cancer. He felt so sad that there was no way for him to tell her about all that he knew concerning the relationship between reality, death and life. That our journey it is so much greater than we ever imagined. Due to her upbringing and conditioning, he was unable to talk to her about these things. Therefore, as filmmaking is our medium, we chose to create Infinity: The Ultimate Trip as a means to bring this knowledge of our greater existence to others.

Also we had been interviewing Alberto Villoldo and the Qero Shamans of Peru for our film, Timewave 2013, talking about 2012 and their prophecies concerning the end of time. At the end of 2012 the Odyssey I express that every person experiences their own end of time. Each and every one of us will be faced with that moment, the end of time as we know it, and that moment is when we die. So this subject was very much in our consciousness. Alberto in his school, The Four Winds has a whole program for learning the art of dying consciously. So he was very interested in the concept for the film and decided to sign on as a producer.

We very much wanted this film to be of benefit to humanity. This has been a motivating factor in all of our work, opening people up to the possibility that we are so much more than we have been led to believe. Creating films that provide them with a mechanism for understanding this larger reality so they can re-empower their lives and feel that they are not just the victims of circumstances has been our goal. We feel that this is very important, especially these days with what we are seeing all around us. All the suffering, we are living in a world of so much suffering. What can each individual do to go beyond suffering to find the joy and bliss that is our true heritage. So we decided to speak to the experts and explore these realms of death and dying, of reincarnation, the life review, out of body experiences, near death experiences and the concept of infinity. Four people in the film talk about their near death and out of body experiences.

Bob: What were your criteria for choosing the people you interviewed for Infinity?

Sharron: For all of our films we look to the scholars and authors who have written deeply on the subject. Everyone in Infinity, except for the painter Renate Dollinger has published a book on the subject and these books are very informative and compelling. I read every book I can find on the subject and we choose the people according to their knowledge and their erudition. I knew about the early research of Stanislav Grof who is in the film, into altered states of consciousness, holotropic breath work, and the rebirthing experience so I was very excited to speak with him. And we look to who has the depth of insight and experience in the subject matter to bring these concepts forth in a meaningful way such as Renate who is just a delightful and amazing being, an 87 year old holocaust survivor who has had direct experience with angelic realms.

Bob: What she had to say was extraordinary. Her meeting with a 'heavenly social worker' who called himself John was very enlightening. Could you tell us a little about that experience she had in which she also asked him, "What about Hitler? What's going on with places like Auschwitz?

Sharron: That was an amazing story. The first thing about her was that she reminded me so much of my mother, coming from a Jewish, European background. But contrary to my mother's childhood, Renate had experienced a whole different reality. Born in Germany, when she was a teenager the Nazi's killed her father. She was on the last Kinder Transport out of Germany. She had the kind of experience that I had read about growing up in a Jewish family. But here was someone who had lived through these times. She was living in England out in the country, not in the big cities. Where she was living they never knew anything about the holocaust. For V day she came to London. She was sitting in a café when a very tall, very pale man with blue eyes wearing a captain's uniform came and sat down at her table even though there were empty tables all around. He knew her name and when she asked him how he knew her name, he answered," I know everything about you." Then he began to tell her that her whole family had been killed except for her sister in America, that he had known her for many lifetimes. She asked him if he was an angel. He replied that he was a sort of lesser angel, a heavenly social worker. He proceeded to also tell her about her past lives and her future in this lifetime. Here was a being who was timeless, beyond time.

Bob: Some of the advice that he gave her was pretty extraordinary especially in regards to Hitler.

Sharron: She asked him, "What happens to the evil ones like Hitler?" He replied that when you return in your next life you become what you hate. So she said, "Then Hitler will become a Jew? " "Most likely, he answered, "You can only learn by wearing the sandals of another."

Bob: That's a very important teaching. Let us talk about Dannion Brinkley for a little while. He says in the film, "There is no death. The end of something is just the beginning of something else." What can you tell us about that?

Sharron: Here is a man who has had three near death experiences so he knows from direct personal experience. He is a man who one might have referred to as a 'good old boy", a former Marine, strong and vital who was talking on the phone one day and lightening struck, coming through the phone line. He was dead for 28 minutes, had the experience of a life review, going into the luminous realms, meeting with angelic beings, receiving information on the future. It took him approximately three years to recover, to be able to feed and clothe himself. Since that time he has had two other near death experiences. In the film, he describes the panoramic life review in which you see your life pass before you in a 360 degree panorama, especially the incidents that were emotionally charged. But you see this from a third person perspective. You are not this person with all of your imprints and fears; you are your soul, your essence, coming from the place of wisdom that is inherent in each of us. You are experiencing the life review from this perspective. He said that he has now had three life reviews and he came back from the first one inspired to be of service to humanity.

Bob: As he says about the meaning of life," You are chosen to come to this world, the divine architect says there is no body on this earth better than you. That you chose to come here because as you hit a certain point in evolution, by coming into the physical body you can slow down all of those laws and manifest in a slow muddled way evolution towards sensitivity and more. He said some really great stuff. No ego at all.

Sharron: He is a beautiful human being because he has seen it, he has experienced it. He tells us that he is here to be at the bedside. He says," I am here to assist these people. I know what it is. I have lived it and I am back here specifically to be of service. Every time a have a new life review I see that I have grown, I see all the gifts that I am giving to others."

Bob: He says," Learning compassion and kindness, sharing it and serving others is extremely important."

Sharron: Of course, that is the signature of what we need right now with these chaotic and disingenuous times that we are living through with all of this fear and confusion. It is time to come back to the ways of the heart.

Bob: We all can make a very big difference as you well know. What really happens when one leaves one's physical body and moves into the world of spirit?

Sharron: During the creation of the film I had the opportunity to ask these questions of the experts. They say that the first thing one experiences is a sense of safety and comfort. Another common experience is the tunnel of light. They report that they are in this tunnel and they see loves one's who have passed coming to greet them. They also speak about the life review process during which they see and feel their life's experience. And then there are choices about what to do next. Renate said that you can fly around, go to the opera and enjoy yourself. She described it as an incredibly playful experience.

There are traditions such as the Tibetan or the Egyptian tradition that describe life and death as being part of one continuum. It is interesting to me for as I was studying the Hindu Yuga tradition with their perspective on cycles of time and cycles of experience, the Tantric texts state that in the beginning, when we first came forth from the heart of divinity, we were in a Golden Age in which there was no death. So that made me wonder, what does this mean, no death? Well if you were born into a culture such as that of ancient Egypt, India or Tibet that taught you from the beginning that death itself was an initiation and part of the cycle of a greater existence, you certainly would not have the fear that most of us in the West feel towards death.

Dzogchen Ponlop tells us in Infinity that every moment is part of a continuum and part of a cyclic process. There is the birth of that moment, the dwelling in that moment and the death of that moment. Then there is the arising of the next moment and so on. So if you are born into a world where you are given this understanding of death from the cyclic perspective, this changes your whole perspective. You see that you are more than just this material being. You have a soul, you have a spiritual essence that is part of a much larger metaphysical reality and that you are here in this physical body to learn lessons and to grow. When you see from this perspective, then you do not have that terrible fear of death because you know that life goes on beyond the body.

Bob: Let's go back to the life review because it is very informative. What is the life review really all about? You mentioned that you do experience highly emotional aspects of your life, the positive ones as well as you do feel what you have done, the hurt that you have caused others.

Sharron: Dannion Brinkley speaks about this in the film. He says that you actually feel all the pain but you also feel all the joy. Some of us have these terrors that the Day of Judgement is going to come and we are going to be annihilated but no, if you see from the perspective that your soul is on a path growing and learning then you see that this is a great opportunity to make sense of your life and to come to closure with it. Alberto teaches that before you die what one should do is come to closure with the people in your life. Tell them you love them. Really open your heart. This is your chance.

In the ancient Egyptian tradition, when someone dies, their heart is weighed on a scale against the feather of truth. If your heart is lighter than a feather then you move on to the next realm. So the goal, and this is part of why we brought this movie forth, is that you want to release all of these issues before you die so that when you reach that place you have an extraordinary life affirming experience.

Bob: In the film Alberto Villoldo says that not everyone gets the opportunity to incarnate in a physical body.

Sharron: According to the Qero Shamans we only have six to nine lifetimes to get this right and if we don't get it by then, we are going to be returned to the great mulch. This I receive as a dissolving of your essence into the great matrix of becoming.

In Infinity, Robert Thurman talks about this from the Tibetan perspective. He describes two activities associated with death and reincarnation. One he calls reincarnation and one he calls automatic rebirth. Automatic rebirth is when you die and then return with all of your passions and ignorance. In this case, you have not really learned that much. Reincarnation, he says, is reserved for those who have actually learned the lessons. Once they leave their bodies they have a choice whether to move on to other realities and other realms. In the Tibetan tradition, there are many, such as Boddhisattvas, that either come back as humans or remain in the luminous realms to be of service to help the rest of humanity on their journey through life, death and the beyond.

Bob: I can't recall exactly who that was who said that "Death is a process of re-identification, and the following things happen, one, you will come to know that you are not your body." In many of the meditations that one learns as we grow and evolve, that is one of the first meditations that you learn. I am not my physical body, I am my spiritual self. And then he notes, "two, you are not your mind who is the thinker", and then finally that you are not even a soul separated from others but that we are all one.

Sharron: That was Neale Donald Walsh. And can you imagine if we really got that on the deepest level, if humanity understood that, what the world would be like?

Bob: So then something like the Golden Rule which is found in all of the great ageless wisdom teachings or in all spiritual traditions becomes very important.

Sharron: Of course it is very important. The way you grow is by learning to open your heart. Learning to be what I consider a real human being. Some of the activities I have seen taking place in the world now, the pain, the war , the torture, the deception, to me those activities are not part of what makes up a real human. Being a real human is a magnificent expression. Our bodies are temples of Divinity. We have forgotten these things but we need to remember, because death can come at any moment. We need to remember and appreciate not only the preciousness of every moment of our lives but also to cherish those that are in our lives.

Robert R. Hieronimus, Ph.D. has been an acknowledged pioneer in the "New Paradigm" movement for over 40 years. Host of the popular 21^st century radio program and author of United Symbolism of America, his work has been featured on ABC World News Tonight, ABC Radio, ABCNews.com, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS, The Larry King Show, Strange Universe, and in dozens of leading publications.

Sharron Rose, MA.Ed, is a true renaissance woman. A filmmaker, choreographer/ composer, author, teacher and performer, she has spent the past thirty years working in the fields of education and the esoteric arts to uncover, reconstruct and translate the mystic and symbolic imagery revealed within the heart of the world's great spiritual traditions into works of art that are meaningful and accessible to modern audiences.

In the realm of filmmaking, Ms. Rose is the writer/director of the documentary films, 2012 The Odyssey and Timewave 2013, executive producer of the feature documentary, Infinity: The Ultimate Trip,  creator of the instructional film, Yoga of Light and producer of the films comprising the Sacred Mysteries DVD Collection. These films have brought great insight into mankind's spiritual heritage as well as the circumstances that have led to the current global crisis. Since 1999, she has been President of the world-wide DVD distribution company, Sacred Mysteries Distribution.  In addition, Ms. Rose is the author of the award--winning book, The Path of the Priestess: A Guidebook for Awakening the Divine Feminine (Inner Traditions) and contributing author to the book, The Mystery of 2012(Sounds True). For more information www.sacredmysteries.com, www.sharronrose.com.