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1. Introduction to Intense Emotions and NDEs
In my own NDE research, intense feelings of love is the number one most common characteristic found in NDEs. Along with feelings of love, there is also a wide spectrum of feelings that people may experience during an NDE. Many of these emotional states experienced in NDEs cannot be experienced in the physical realm. I have learned from more than one experiencer mention that there is no love in this physical world in comparison to heavenly love. One experiencer, Reverend Ken Martin, returned from his NDE only to discover that his life on earth, his ministry, his calling, his wife and family, everything – is insignificant compared to what he had just experienced in his NDE. As it is with many other NDEs, the experience is something that is completely out-of-this-world and cannot be described with words. It is an experience involving thoughts and feelings that have no real comparison in this physical world.
2. Perpetual Love and Ecstasy?
a. This Scares Some People
Someone wrote to me this interesting comment: “When reading about all of this eternal love and happiness, it sounds beautiful and amazing; however, it sounds like there are an infinite amount of spirits with plastered smiles on their faces floating around heaven … What everyone seems to say is that in heaven, EVERYONE goes around like they’re high on drugs. This is what it comes off as! Eternal bliss and unmatched feelings of love? Sounds amazing. It really does. The stories on your site make it sound as if when you die, Jesus tells you, “Tough shit. This is the way it is whether you like it or not,” and our spirit automatically transforms into a state of sheer, pure bliss without second thought. It scares me.”
b. Kevin Williams’ Response
Nobody forces you into eternal bliss or anywhere to do anything. And nothing is perpetual. Eternal, perpetual bliss would be hellish. There are many levels of love and happiness where you can choose and where you can fit in. It is the same principle found here on earth. Just follow your own level of bliss. Let me cite some of the best NDE references, in my opinion, concerning the tremendous ecstasy found in NDEs:
3. Examples of NDE Ecstasy
a. Jayne Smith’s NDE
“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… The light brought with it the most incredible feeling of total love, total safety, total protection. I was just enveloped in it… I began to be rapturous. The rapture built. The bliss built. My consciousness began to expand with the bliss of it 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.” (Jayne Smith)
b. Dr. Kenneth Ring’s NDE Research
“One woman told me that when she found herself in the light, ‘The feeling just became more and more and more ecstatic and glorious and perfect … If you took the one thousand best things that ever happened to you in your life and multiplied them by a million, maybe you could get close to this feeling.’ Another man wrote, ‘Then there was peace. Peace, but in order to give an idea of what one means by that, the letters would have to be written thousands of miles high in soft glowing colors … It is a complete happiness, total happiness, beyond the realm of happiness.'” (Dr. Kenneth Ring)
c. Arthur Yensen’s NDE
During Arthur Yensen’s NDE, he had a discussion with a heavenly being who resembled a Greek god. Yensen had the following conversation with him:
Yensen asked, “How do you explain this intense happiness?”
He answered, “Your thoughts are vibrations which are controlled by the Master-Vibration. It neutralizes all negative thoughts and lets you think only the good thoughts, such as love, freedom and happiness.”
Yensen asked, “Then what becomes of the old grouches?”
He answered, “If they are too bad they go to a realm of lower vibrations where their kind of thoughts can live. If they came here, the Master-Vibration would annihilate them. After death people gravitate into homogenous groups according to the rate of their soul’s vibrations. If the percent of discord in a person is small, it can be eliminated by the Master-Vibration; then the remaining good can live on here. For example, if a person were 70% good and 30% bad, the bad could be eliminated by the Master-Vibration and the remaining good welcomed into heaven. However, if the percentage of bad were too high, this couldn’t be done, and the person would have to gravitate to a lower level and live with people of his own kind.
“In the hereafter each person lives in the kind of a heaven or hell that he prepared for himself while on earth. If you threw a small pebble into a threshing machine, it would go into the box – not because it is good or bad, but because of its proper size and weight. It’s the same way here. No one sends you anywhere. You are sorted by the high or low vibrations of your soul. Everyone goes where he fits in! High vibrations indicate love and spiritual development, while low vibrations indicate debasement and evil.” (Arthur Yensen)
d. Miscellaneous NDEs
“Sexual orgasms can’t compare. You are so high. Magnify that to infinity!” (Berkley Carter Mills)
“They are brought to a path that heads up toward heaven and are committed to angel guardians there. Then they are accepted by some other angels and introduced into communities, and there into many forms of happiness.” (Emanuel Swedenborg)
“The happiness and ecstasy in NDEs are like nothing we can compare to on earth. God will not let us have more of this ecstasy than we can bear. There are many realms in the afterlife corresponding to the many levels of bliss that souls can choose from. In general, the level of bliss we realize after death is basically determined by our choice between positive vibes or negative vibes here on earth. And no one is locked into a particular vibrational level and each of us can choose higher and lower levels of bliss. The higher the vibrations we desire, the more our negative thoughts and feelings are replaced with positive thoughts and feelings.” (Kevin Williams)
“I can’t find words to explain how I felt. The amount of joy I felt. The amount of love I knew I was being given. I felt as if I had come home. I knew this is where I actually belonged. Even though I love earth and I love living here. But when I was encountered by that being, I knew I had come home.” (Barbara Springer)
“When I came out of my body, I was on a bridge. In the distance and over the water was a really beautiful harbor and city infused with a golden light. The feeling of leaning on the side of the bridge looking at the play of light on the water was an indescribable joy.” (Debbie)
“Oh, there is such love… Oh, there is such peace… I’m engulfed in light and blending into that light. Oh!… Oh, this is everything, everything, everything… I cannot explain the wonder and beauty and love and peace.” (Betty Andreasson Luca)
“I feel compassion beyond words. I understand everything, but I have no feeling of attachment to anyone. I look at each person standing at the bedside and feel tremendous love. I want to say to them, ‘I’m all right. You don’t have to worry. I’m all right. Look at me! I’m fine.” (Josiane Antonette)
“Often, such [out-of-body] experiences involve hearing spiritual music or sounds, and can be quite ecstatic… Some of the sounds which occur are of a spiritual or mystical nature rather than transitional sounds that carry the traveler to a different place. These ‘higher’ spiritual sounds are of a heavenly nature and are ecstatic beyond description.” (Robert Monroe)
“The experience of merging with the light of God is like having your body explode in a pleasant way and becoming a million different atoms. Each atom can think its own thoughts and have its own feelings. You feel all at once what it feels like to be everything and everybody.” (Nora Spurgin)
“I felt as if I was an awareness, a being without a name or identity, and I was expanding to the size of the cosmos… As my presence continued to expand in a state of bliss, it felt as if I was nearing a point where I would explode into a billion atoms and forever be with God.” (Angela B.)
“The White Light in front of me was sorta like a white light bulb only it was so strong… God was love and love was light, and it was warm and it permeated every molecule of me. This was so delicious, I was crying with tears that didn’t exist. It was so enormous. I was loved.” (Jeanie Dicus)
“He (Jesus) then told me to go back and tell everyone what I had seen. I said I would. Then he hugged me. It felt like a million volts of electricity going through my body I found that from his hug, I couldn’t stand up because of the intense power I felt coming from him.” (Susan)
“There was only love; nothing but love. It was warm love, overwhelming love, precious love, expanding, embracing, accepting, nourishing, and arms-wide- open big hug love! My self expanded. I knew I was in the presence of God. I breathed His love into my perfect soul.” (Bobbie K.)
“I remember feeling like I was expanding… I remember a wave of understanding and the sensation of the most exquisite joy imaginable. I remember that I understood everything. I remember rejoicing in that knowledge and feeling joy, happiness, and warmth.” (David B.)
“An explosion of Ecstasy and Love started from my belly and expanded into the light itself. Soon, I became the Light and became Innocence, Love, Ecstasy, Peace, Power and Beauty and Wisdom of the Light.” (David)
“My consciousness began to expand until it encompassed the entire universe. I was filled with the most amazing, unconditional love, and I knew this love was God… It was pure bliss. I was all at once, everywhere and a part of everything in existence. I was filled with all the knowledge that existed and knew everything there was to know.” (Val C.)
“I floated up through blackness where there was no fear, no pain, no misunderstandings, but instead a sense of well-being. I was enveloped by total bliss in an atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance.” (Laurelynn Martin)
“This is eternal bliss,” I thought. “This cannot be described; it is far too wonderful.” (Carl G. Jung)
“When I was satisfied that [my body] was dead, there came a joyous euphoria, like a prisoner being released from a long jail sentence. I danced and danced around the light bulb, singing like a child. It was finally over. I was free.” (P.M.H. Atwater)
“I can remember the emotions I went through as I hovered above my body. It was a total euphoric happiness. Feeling totally unconcerned and faintly amused, I watched the two nurses and doctor working to resuscitate my lifeless body. I could relate with extreme clarity the actions they took in this procedure.” (Caroline Sharp)
“I was then suddenly sucked into a luminous tunnel. I saw an immense light. I moved toward the light, feeling intense happiness and a fullness and peace I had never known. I felt my soul expand… It felt like it encompassed the whole universe. It was wonderful as I bathed in universal love.” (Estelle D.)
“How elated I felt! Now, out of my body, I had no worries, no cares. Never had I felt like this when I was ‘alive.’ My entire spirit body was transparent, and I was inside a glowing white light that extended about three feet around me. At that moment, an awareness overtook me – I am not my physical body!” (Dr. Dianne Morrissey)
“He then took me to the next kingdom which was far more beautiful in glory and order than the former two. The beautiful flowers, trees, gardens, people who were dressed in pure white, and so pure that I was overwhelmed with joy and most earnestly implored my guide to allow me to stay, but he said, ‘You cannot go any further, for this is next to the throne of God.” (John Powell)
“When the cloud covered me completely it was magical, a smile came over me, not a physical smile where my mouth was curved to form a smile, but something that tingled sensations of the GREATEST joy any human could experience, for I could feel my feet, my chest, arms, brain, heart and soul all consumed into a joyous smile of my soul! That’s why I knew this was GOD.” (Victor Borras)
“I heard the words, ‘Remember, pray without ceasing. Play, love, laugh, live for the joy of it. Have fun. Happiness is holy. The purpose of life is joy. Savor fully the loveliness of each experience… Let go of obligation and duty. Live for the pure joy of being.”” (Jan Price)
“Everyone has within them a unique ‘celestial song’ – an inner melody wanting to burst forth. The inner vibration within us connects us to the deep, modulating, harmonious music of the ‘celestial orchestra.’ This cosmic orchestra is the collective energy of everything that’s ever lived and everything that’s ever going to live. It is the life force. It is the power of the universe. It is ecstatically happy. The culmination of this energy is love. Love abounds with its feelings of ecstasy and deep bliss. It is the love holding every atom, every sparrow, every galaxy, everything together. Everyone has forever been a part of this life force and always will. We are already familiar with this at a deep level. We know it. The problem is we bury it under so much apprehension and worry. Don’t worry. Be happy and feel good. There are an infinite number of levels of existence and each level adds to the hum of the cosmic orchestra. It’s as if we’re always spiraling upward until we reach a state of atomic bliss. Life continues. The show goes on in ever varied and unfolding settings.” (Larry Hagman)
“As the light got closer to me I realized that it had a personality to it. Love and understanding were emanating from the light. It was the most intense amount of love that you can imagine. It was as though you were in the presence of the one person in your life who had loved you beyond anything, despite what you might have done, and that love was magnified many times.” (Elane Durham)
“As the two beings approached us, I could also feel the love flowing from them toward us. The complete joy they showed at seeing the Christ was unmistakable. Seeing these beings and feeling the joy, peace and happiness which swelled up from them made me feel that here was the place of all places, the top realm of all realms. The beings who inhabited it were full of love. This, I was and am convinced, is heaven.” (Dr. George Ritchie)
“I was there with this orb of glowing love and understanding. It didn’t seem foreign to me. It was not frightening. It was totally assuring and there was no feeling of anything but my awe and the love and knowledge and wisdom this orb projected.” (Brian Krebs)
“I left my body and watched the surgeon operating on me… The closer I approached the light I became aware of a fundamental sense of purity. I could feel my pain falling away. I became aware of PURE LOVE, peace, tranquility.” (Chris Taylor)
“Then something happened that I will never, never forget. Love, pure, utter love came pouring down on me along with incredible warmth. My soul or being was immersed in this love.” (Guenter Wagner)
“I was shrouded in a layer of warmth like I had never known before – a blanket of intense love – and thrown into a vortex of beautiful colors swirling around me as I spiraled downward with incredible velocity when suddenly, bam! I was slammed with intense force back into my physical body.” (Steve)
“The drama of creation is unbounded and is neither limited by our perception of it, nor by our ability or inability to comprehend it. This drama is as stupendous as it is terrifying, as awesome as it is wonderful, as miraculous as it is mysterious, as beautiful as it is the ultimate act of all-consuming love. To witness even a glimpse of such glory, to know the Real Truth of it, leaves a mark so deep and so profound you are forever uplifted and transformed.” (P.M.H. Atwater)
“If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there’s not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing.” (Dr. Dianne Morrissey)
“I traveled very slowly along a tunnel toward a bright light, and I could feel an overwhelming sense of warmth and peace and whiteness. I wanted to walk into the whiteness, which was so tranquil and happy. It was like stepping into a vacuum, there was nothing tangible, no scenery to look at, but a tremendous feeling of being somewhere, like Nirvana.” (Helen)
“All who walked through the city [in heaven] brought glory and honor into it. Harmony and order prevailed, and the residents lived joyfully, creating that which brought forth beauty and fulfillment – a place of perfect peace, the peace that passes understanding.” (Jan Price)
“All my senses – hearing, seeing, tasting, thinking, and other abilities I didn’t know I had, were at such high fidelity it was of being a totally different creature… All my senses were expanded far beyond what I, and everyone else, is dealing with in human bodies on this planet.” (Greg S.)
“I was looking at a thing that was my body, and it just didn’t have that much meaning to me… I felt more alert, more aware, more alive than I had ever felt in my entire life. All my senses were extremely acute.” (Howard Storm)
4. NDE Intense Emotions Conclusions
The following are the main conclusions I gleaned from the NDE insights above and my own research:
a. We can choose to rise to higher realms of love and happiness when we are ready and when we have earned it. No one is forced to dwell in a realm for which we are not compatible and for which we don’t desire or belong. Nobody forces light and happiness upon us.
b. In the higher realms where souls are more united in love, only perfect oneness survives. Many experiencers describe the lower hell realms as a condition where self-centeredness and darkness reigns supreme without inhibition. In my view, this suggests that as the soul rises to higher realms of vibration, the more the forces of oneness are applied to the soul. This means everyone becomes more and more on the same wavelength as the soul vibrations rise higher. That wavelength is the love, joy and peace of the light of God. Souls who dwell there want only the force of perfect unity, love and happiness to reign. This certainly does not mean that everyone goes around with plastered smiles and playing harps. However, I believe it does mean that souls desiring something different can find a realm to express their vibrations. In the lowest realms, there is no oneness – only self-centeredness and misery. Because unity increases as the vibrations of the soul grow higher, no negative vibrations exists – only positive vibrations. This allows for a freedom and happiness that cannot be compared with the earth experience.
c. The key to entering the higher realms is to desire only perfect love and happiness for everyone and yourself. This perfect state of the heart and mind certainly must involve experiencing the full range of love and happiness that exists. In the same way, there probably exists in the lower realms a full range of low vibrational emotions that can be expressed. This is one reason I believe that this physical realm is a vibrational level somewhere between the highest and the lowest. Perhaps one of the reasons we are here in the physical realm is to learn how to cope with these high and low emotional vibes.
d. God doesn’t force anyone to any level of bliss they don’t desire or don’t belong. We are free to choose and create our own level of bliss. And the saying birds of a feather flock together certainly applies to all levels of the heart and mind. But there is evidence from near-death accounts that all dimensions of reality are on a path that eventually returns to the oneness of God.
e. Perhaps our citizenship in this half-way to heaven realm means we need both experiences of higher and lower emotional states for soul growth. Mellen-Thomas Benedict once commented on how we are all here to help each other to attain a higher level of consciousness. He said that we are going to “link up, hold hands, and walk out of hell together.”
5. The Nature of Heavenly Ecstasy
a. What About Negative Experiences?
The same person wrote to me this comment: “The big problem I have is not with happiness and joy. It is just that I WANT to have some type of negative feelings. Wouldn’t you think that around hour number two of being blissful and joyous to no extent, you would start to get, frankly, bored? What is any positive without a negative. It is undefined … boring. Sheer bliss without periods of non-bliss would not be good to me at all. This is what I’m afraid of.”
b. Kevin Williams’ Response
“Heavenly ecstasy is not necessarily perpetual. Nothing is static because everything is dynamic – constantly changing and evolving. And there is NDE evidence suggesting that others agree with your desire to not constantly experience ecstasy. For example, during Jayne Smith’s NDE, heavenly bliss was not forced on her and she concluded that God will not let us shatter from more bliss than we desire. We cannot take in more of this love and bliss than we are able to handle at a time. So you see, some people experience exactly what you are referring to in their NDE – not becoming blissed-out. We all come to earth on a mission from God. I am convinced that those who come here from higher realms are probably trying to bring heaven to earth. Those who come here from lower realms are probably trying to remove the influences from their previous experiences in the lower realms. NDErs who visit higher vibrational realms of bliss often carry these influences back with them to share with the rest of us for the purpose of our enlightenment. Many NDE accounts involve people voluntarily returning from these higher realms to our lower realm. According to one particular experiencer, she had a choice between remaining or staying. She decided to return because she preferred experiencing physical things than experience higher levels of bliss (See the NDE of Dr. Dianne Morrissey). Not all people experience ecstasy during an NDE. Some have very negative experiences when they find themselves in a realm where God appears to be nowhere around (as in the lower hell realms). Some of these realms are totally devoid of love and happiness and there are those who belong there because they fit in. According to Dr. George Ritchie, those who prefer to entertain negative vibes can and do flee the light and bliss of God after death because they are too uncomfortable to have their inner thoughts and feelings revealed to everyone. When Howard Storm was rescued from hell by Jesus, he felt very uncomfortable in the higher realm.” (Kevin Williams)
6. Choosing Lower Realms Over Higher Realms
The following NDE accounts involve experiencers preferring, for one reason or another, to return to this lower physical realm rather than experience the bliss of higher realms.
“I reached the point in the rapture of it all where I thought to myself suddenly, “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.” (Jayne Smith)
“I felt torn between two desires: wanting to go into the light and wanting to touch something tangible and retain my connection with all that was physical. (For this reason, she returned to the physical realm.)” (Dr. Dianne Morrissey)
“In my NDE I was also shown that there are many souls in heaven who are more than willing to come to this place regardless of the state it is in.” (David Oakford)
“At a time when I felt the closest to accepting my death, I experienced a resurge of sorrow and pain, longing for my son, for my life. I couldn’t let go of my human life. My guides tried their hardest, they never gave up, they never became discouraged. It is unbelievable the amount of patience and love they exuded. Finally, my hysteria was calmed by a higher spirit who seemed to envelop me in love. My guides were instructed to allow me to return. Despite their pleas to allow them more time, they were told that at this point, my spirit would not rest. It was best to let me return, to settle my spirit, learn further lessons. My pleading won my return for the time being. I understood before my descent that my friends and family had lessons that were being postponed, but they would have to learn the lessons at some point that my death taught.” (Karen Schaeffer)
“Then I made the decision to come back to earth. And I remember that it was such a hard decision. It was so difficult because everything there was so beautiful and there was so, so, much love. I had the feeling of freewill, yet a feeling of duty was present – of obligation. And the second that I realized that I shot back into my body.” (Brian Krebs)
“This man was not able to tell us how long this reunion lasted. He was so awed by his family’s health, their beauty, their radiance and their total acceptance of this present situation, by their unconditional love. He made a vow not to touch them, not to join them, but to re-enter his physical body so that he could share with the world what he had experienced. It would be a form of redemption for his two years of trying to throw his physical life away.” (Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)
“During his experience he had seen images of people he knew … I wanted to get there but there was just some part of me that wanted to [pause] go back with these images … When I woke up, the first thing I thought was Oh, God. Thank you. I made it, and I was extremely happy. (He had been severely depressed before his suicide attempt.)” (Dr. Kenneth Ring)
After Sandra Rogers shot herself and during her NDE, she was told that she could remain in the light, provided she later is reincarnated to re-experience and overcome all that brought her to the point of suicide. Or she could be revived to live out rest of her life and overcome her problems here and now. Obviously, she chose not to stay in the light so that she could resume her life and not have to face the same problems in a future life. (Sandra Rogers)
“So, in conclusion, nobody forces us to experience a particular level of bliss we don’t want. It appears from NDE accounts that people are given the choice to: (a) reincarnate or (b) be revived from death to return to earth (c) or experience a particular vibrational level that we desire and have earned. If we desire to remain in the physical realm, we are allowed to do so. But because the core of our being is perfect love and joy (God), I don’t believe we will ever be truly satisfied until we reunite completely with God and others in the higher realms of bliss.” (Kevin Williams)
7. Why Heavenly Ecstasy Is Not Perpetual
a. Perpetual Blissfulness Seems Simplistic
The same person wrote to me this comment: “Descriptions of heaven do seem overwhelmingly blissful and simplistic. One cannot be blamed for getting the impression that the next life is hyper-happy, bright floaty white and churchy … I believe many of us, deep inside, are a bit frightened of a perpetual white happy Jesus heaven.”
b. Kevin Williams’ Response
“I agree. Again, nothing is perpetual or static. And the idea of heaven as being a place where people do nothing but float on clouds and play harps is one of the biggest misconceptions about heaven. It certainly has nothing to do with any NDEs that I have read. One particular experiencer, Mellen-Thomas Benedict, had the opportunity to visit many of the heavenly realms that exists on the other side during his NDE. He stated something that came to my mind while reading your comment. Here it is:
“I saw the Christian heaven. We expect it to be a beautiful place, and you stand in front of the throne, worshiping forever. I tried it. It is boring! This is all we are going to do? It is childlike. I do not mean to offend anyone. Some heavens are very interesting, and some are very boring. I found the ancient ones to be more interesting, like the Native American ones, the Happy Hunting Grounds. The Egyptians have fantastic ones. It goes on and on. There are so many of them. In each of them there is a fractal that is your particular interpretation, unless you are part of the group soul that believes in only the God of a particular religion. Then you are very close, in the same ball park together. But even then, each is a little bit different. That is a part of yourself that you leave there. Death is about life, not about heaven.” (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)
“Those who have visited higher afterlife realms state that the physical realm is but a shadow – a lesser reality – when compared to the higher heavenly realms. Some of these realms are described as being far more dynamic than anything experienced on earth.
In conclusion, the saying to each his own certainly applies. We always create our own reality based on our own desires. If one desires worshiping eternally before the throne, they will be allowed to do so until they begin to get the feeling that what they desire is an illusion. For these reasons I say follow your bliss but be careful what you wish for because you will probably get what you wish for.” (Kevin Williams)
