1. The Ecstasy of God
I
was totally aware. I was in blackness. I
couldn't see anything. I was thinking to myself,
"This isn't the way it is supposed to be. I'm
not supposed to know anything and I do. What on
Earth has happened?"
At that point I felt
something leave my body. It was a whoosh. It
went up through the top of my head. I could feel
it and I could hear it. Just a gentle whoosh. At
that point I found myself standing in a kind of
gray mist. Then I knew I had died.
The memory of this
experience is seared into my very soul. When I
found myself standing in this gray mist with the
realization that I had died I remembered feeling
so overjoyed, so thrilled, because I knew that
even though I was what we call "dead", I was
still very much alive. Very much alive. I was
totally aware. I began to pour out these
feelings of thanksgiving. I wasn't doing it
verbally, but it seemed that the very essence of
me was saying "Thank you, thank you, God for
setting it up this way, that I really am
immortal. I was not annihilated."
I was involved in
this tremendous pouring forth of gratitude and
joy and as that was going inside me, this white
light began to infiltrate my consciousness. It
came into me. It seemed I went out into it. I
expanded into it as it came into my field of
consciousness. There was nothing I was aware of
except this brilliant white light. The light
brought with it the most incredible feeling of
total love, total safety, total protection. I
was just enveloped in it. I remember feeling
almost cradled by it. It was so dynamic it was
almost palpable.
As I existed in this
white light, in this incredible love, I began to
be rapturous. The rapture built. The bliss
built. My consciousness began to expand with the
bliss of it all. Suddenly there came into my
field of consciousness an entire field of
knowledge It was like a whole block of knowledge
that just simply came in and settled itself on
me. I knew, what takes several sentences to
tell, but it didn't come in several sentences -
it came all in one piece. What I knew was that I
was immortal, that I was eternal, that I was
indestructible, that I always had been, that I
always will be, and that there was no way in
this world I could ever be lost.
It was impossible for
me to fall into a crack in the universe
somewhere and never be heard from again. I just
knew that I was utterly safe and I always had
been forever and ever.
When that block of
knowledge was digested by me, as it were,
another block of knowledge came in. A whole
field of knowledge came in to my being and what
I knew then was that the universe runs according
to a perfect plan. I knew that the plan was
perfect. Everything that we think about as being
hard to understand or unfair or cruel or
whatever, that was really all without meaning. I
know that is very difficult, but I knew this. I
understood it. I comprehended it in a way that
when I came back from the experience I really
couldn't comprehend anymore. I understood that
all of the things that we worry about and
concern us, we really don't have to worry about
at all. There is a perfect plan and the plan is
working itself out in its perfection.
Then I simply
remember I became more blissful, more rapturous,
more ecstatic. I was just filling and filling
with this light and love that was in the
light. The dynamics of this light are not static
at all. They are so dynamic and so much going on
in there of love and joy and knowledge. As you
take it into yourself, or as it goes into you
and you receive it, your ecstasy level just
becomes tremendous.
I knew that I had
lost all sense of having a body. It was just my
consciousness, sort of pure and free floating,
and I did not think at all during this part of
the experience. I had no thoughts. I was a
receiving station. I merely felt and absorbed
and took in and did not think at all. I reached
the point in the rapture of it all where I
thought to myself suddenly, the first thought.
"I wonder how much
more of this I can stand before I shatter?"
With that thought,
the light began to recede. So, the universe will
not let us shatter. We cannot take in more of
this bliss and joy than we are able to handle at
a time.
2. The Beautiful
Meadow
As the light began to
recede, the rapture that I had built up also
began to dissipate. For a couple of seconds, I
could not remember what was going on. I remember
thinking to myself, "I don't know how I got
here. I can't remember what's going on." I
didn't know if I had been in that light for a
minute of a day or a hundred years. I think the
force of all that energy just produced a
condition in me of amnesia for a couple of
seconds. But that was not allowed to last very
long either.
Within a second or
two, I found myself standing in an absolutely
beautiful green meadow. I knew then what was
going on. I knew once again who I was, that I
had died. My amnesia period was over with.
I stood there in this
gorgeous meadow and I remember that the light
there was different from the light here on
Earth. Though it was not that brilliant white
light in which I was involved, it was a more
beautiful light. There was a goldenness to this
light. I remember the sky was very blue. I don't
recall seeing the sun. The colors were
extraordinary. The green of the meadow was
fantastic. The flowers were blooming all around
and they had colors that I had never seen
before. I was very aware that I had never seen
these colors before and I was very excited about
it.
I thought I had seen
all colors. I was thrilled to death of the
beauty that was incredible. In addition to the
beautiful colors, I could see a soft light
glowing within every living thing. It was not a
light that was reflected from the outside from a
source, but it was coming from the center of
this flower. Just this beautiful, soft light. I
think I was seeing the life inside of
everything.
When I finished
looking at this exquisite beauty, I started to
walk. I had only taken a few steps before I saw
that there was in front of me a hill, a low
hill. There were perhaps 18 to 20 people
standing on the hill. They were dressed in
robes, very simple, I suppose Grecian type
robes. They were also in all these beautiful
colors. There were men and women - more men than
women I don't know why. I thought about this a
little bit, but there were both men and women
there. There was no one that I knew, but then I
had no close emotional ties on the other side so
it is not surprising that there was no one there
that I knew.
I felt to myself,
"Oh, I want to talk with them." It seemed that
immediately I was there on the top of the hill.
I don't know whether I was able to just glide
there effortlessly or whether I only had to
think I wanted to be there and I was there. What
I do remember was that I did not have to climb
the hill. There was no effort involved in this.
3. The Moment of
Truth
As
I found myself at the top of the hill, I saw
that over on the horizon and just a little bit
lower on the horizon, there was a city. I
realized in some way that this was more than
just a city, that what I was seeing actually
represented a world. I wondered, "Was that the
world I just came from or the one I am going
to?" I never had a chance to find out because
right at that moment, 3 or 4 of the men that
were in this group of people over on the hill,
came to me and we met.
I said to them, "I
know what has happened. I realize that I am
dead. I know what's going on."
One man in the group
did all the talking to me. He was quite tall,
taller than the rest. I remember the robe he was
wearing was purple. He had a white fringe of
hair that went around his head. The top of his
head was bald. He had an absolute marvelous
face. It was very noble, very kind, what we
would think of as a very spiritual face. He also
had about him a great deal of authority, so that
I felt I was talking to someone that I could
trust completely.
When I said to him,
"I know what's going on. I know that I have
died," he said, "Yes, that's true, but you are
not going to be staying here. It isn't time for
you to be here yet."
I must tell you that
when we talked, we did not move our mouths. I
can remember that I only had to have the impulse
that contained the things that I wanted to say
and he would immediately be able to get that and
answer me. Even though he was not moving his
mouth when he talked with me, I could hear the
sound of his voice in my inner ear. I know what
he sounded like. It was a mental transmission,
yet I could hear what he sounded like. For a
long, long time, I could remember the sound of
his voice.
I said to him again,
"Everything that has happened to me since I
crossed over is so beautiful. Everything is so
perfect. What about my sins?"
He said, "There are
no sins, not the way you think of them on Earth.
The only thing that has any meaning here is what
you think."
Then he asked me a
question. "What is in your heart?"
Then in some
incredible way that I don't understand at all, I
was able to look deeply inside myself, really
into the very core of me to my essence. I saw
that what was there was love, nothing else. My
core was perfect love, loving perfection. I had
complete love and acceptance for everything. I
saw my own gentleness, tenderness, harmlessness.
I simply was perfect and loving.
I said to him, "Of
course!" I felt I was connecting with knowledge
that I had known before. I wondered how on Earth
had I forgotten anything that important. I have
known that.
I said, "Can you tell
me what everything is all about - the whole
world - everything?"
He said, "Yes."
He told me in only
three sentences at the most. It was so simple. I
understood that immediately. I had total
comprehension of what he was saying to me. I
remember again saying to him, "Of course!" Then
there was that feeling again of connecting with
knowledge I had once had. I wondered how on
Earth did I forget that.
I said to him, "Since
I am not going to be able to stay, there are so
many people I want to take this back to. May I
take this all back with me?"
He said, "You may
take the answer to the first question back, the
one about sins. But the answer to the second
one, you are not going to be able to remember."
The next thing I
knew, there was a tremendous banging in my head.
It was loud, it was fast, and it was extremely
irritating. It went on for just a few seconds
- a loud bang, bang, bang, bang. Then that was
over and there was a sort of electronic click in
my ear. I will never forget the sound of that
click because I remember thinking that it
sounded almost like a tape recorder. When the
click clicked, that was it, I was back and I
opened my eyes. My doctor was standing over me
and he was doing something that was extremely
uncomfortable.
After the experience,
I have never been able to remember the specific
two or three sentences I was told. I have tried
and I have tried for years after this experience
to make a concerted effort to try, especially
after I went to bed at night, when I would be
lying there in that not quite asleep state. And
I never could. Finally, I just stopped trying to
do that.
But, I
do think I know what he was telling me even
though I cannot recall the actual two or three
sentences. I know that it has to do with love. I
believe it has to do with what I was enabled to
see when he said, "What is in your heart?" I
looked inside myself and saw that I was perfect
love.
Now this
does not apply to just me. It applies to all
human beings. That is what we are. That is our
core. This love, this perfection, this God-ness.
I believe that what it is all about is that the
world will keep turning and we will have all
these experiences and it will go on forever and
ever and ever. As we bring that into our
consciousness and have it remain there all the
time, our connection with God will be there, not
somewhere in our unconscious. We will be
consciously aware of who we are all the time. I
think that's what the journey is.
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