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.

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." - R. W. Raymond