Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had spent that evening getting high, huffing model airplane glue. (Toluene causes euphoria). A very dangerous drug, I knew.
I had been in a despondent gloom due to body dysphoria, and my Grandfather dying. Wanted to feel better. Also, my family and I were at constant odds since I was GLBT and they didn’t want me to be “myself.” I felt very alone. Though I excelled academically, I was unpopular socially. In our religious right, evangelical, conservative small town, I could not fit in.
I was alone that night. There was no one there to “tell” whether I had passed the death threshold.
However, I “knew”I had died. I was suddenly above my body. I saw my body under me, laying still in dim light, on my bed. Saw my closed eye,s from above. Yet, I was aware, awake, alert, able to see. Wide awake, euphoric, free.
I left my physical body, coming into all compassionate White Light. I had some kind Higher Guide I was aware of then Celestial, holy, loving (Interestingly, not Jesus or anything we were force-fed in Presbyterian Sunday School). Who hated GLBT, according to our sunday school teachers.
Of course, church in my family was only for “baby sitting.” A convenience place for my alcoholic mother to drop the kids off on Sunday, so she could be free of us for awhile.
My initial experience after death was love. I remember Time. Clock time just the narrow tip, this was vastly increased in dimension (very hard to describe). Time was not linear, it went backwards and forwards and curved. I could actually ‘see’ time like a river of colors flowing, living.
I was propelled, or traveled towards a place of glowing white light. All compassionate, love. A sense that a]every thought that had ever been thought in the history of all man was right there. Sort of like Jung’s collective unconscious, I thought. There were little darker spots in the whiteness. These were negativity patches. Not to be feared, though. Everything was OK. Life made perfect sense.
All my suffering dropped off me when I left my physical body. We were all connected, as people. A blissful loving Oneness. At one point I had to make a choice whether to jump into “the pool of humanity. “or not. I greatly feared losing my individuality. But had the courage and took the plunge. My happiness, my happiness jumped exponentially, soared. I was one with all, but still myself, I discovered, to my great joy and relief. My worst fear had been unfounded. It was rerquired I had to lose all to gain all. A great paradox.
I was asked by my guide (s) if I wanted to stay? I knew I would die if I did. I thought of my family. I could see them in in the future, in darkness, suffering because I died.I wanted them to have happiness, brightness.
Just that fast, I was propelled beck in dark space, by my higher guide and by God (it seemed).
However, I changed my mind on the return trip! Too late.
I was back in my body on the bed in my dark room. Left with an indescribable peace. A sense of knowing no one need fear anything ever. I couldn’t wait to tell everybody the great news! No need to fear dying.
But started thinking what the consequences of talking would be for me, in my life. And became very frightened for my future.
Alone, I would read of time concepts in modern physics that seemed to describe this “knowing.” I also learned there have been near death experiences similar to mine recorded from aeons ago, in many languages, many lands.
Many people are coming forth with their NDE s now, if not in the USA in the 1970’s.
After decades of silence for fear of others reactions, I am sharing my experience in the hopes that people can gain a sense of peace and lose any fear of death that might be causing them unhappiness.
If I’d have told anyone back then, especially my parents, I would have to had to say I was sniffing glue. Why else would a healthy teen suddenly die? In that time and place, I’d have been put way in an institution, probably medicated into oblivion as well.My parents were eager to prove I was crazy because they believed GLBT was a mental illness, as did psychiatry at that time.It would have given them the perfect excuse to throw me away.
Maybe this is experience is crazy, “schizophrenic, I wonder?” The outcome of this hugely positive experience is life affirming. Jump into life, engage, be a part of the world, humanity. I refuse to “pathologize” this. I have others in my life now who are inspired by my story. I choose to stay with the positive and leave the labeling and negating to small minds.
I had no spiritual teacher on my path. Our conservative Christian church never bothered to discuss mystical experience. They believed people were sinners and sinners go to Hell when they die. Death was greatly feared, for God was an angry punisher, by nature, according to church dogma.
So, I acted as a normal child, behaved as I was “supposed to.” Do and what others expect. Therefore, I was not “hassled” for this, and achieved great success in my academic and musical career later on, as a student at the renown, elite Berklee College of Music, in Boston, MA.
My views of life were never the same afterward. My immediate reaction was overwhelming great relief and joy, and gratitude to God for letting me experience this majestic vision.
My life turned out very difficult, but with the knowing I gained, I have been able to have peace, in the midst of chaos and adversity.
Paradise: Ascent of the Blessed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
jakelonewolf 