Thirteen years ago, a woman with a long history of paranormal consciousness and kundalini awakenings watched a TV show on The Learning Channel in which I described my NDE. She wrote about her reaction, “Awakening to the Self,” for a small newsletter about Kundalini risings.
The woman’s name was El Collie, and anyone familiar with Kundalini phenomena may know of her. I didn’t until very recently, when a new reader of this blog sent me a link to her article (and Steve, I’m forever in your debt for this).
Despite some variations in our circumstances and interpretations, this is the only commentary I have ever encountered about the Void which truly “gets it.” Here is a substantial excerpt from the first section of her article. Another segment will appear in my next post. A link to the full source is at the end.
The One
by El Collie
I caught a very interesting program on TLC the other night called “Life After Death.” During a segment on rare, hellish NDEs, there was a depiction of the God/Self/Source experience I had 32 years ago. The narrator began this portion by intoning: “Darkness, Void, Vacuum, Loneliness, Absence, Nothingness, Nonexistence. . .”
Nancy Evans Bush described a near-death-experience that happened to her 35 years ago. A voice or awareness informed her: “You never existed, you will never exist. You’re not real. Nothing you ever knew existed. Nor does anyone you think you ever knew, nor your life, nor where you live. You made it all up.” She goes on to say, “This meant that not only did I not exist, but the baby and her year old sister [her children] didn’t exist. Your mother, your husband, nobody you know exists. You’re not real, and nothing you know is real.”
She concludes: “I found it instant holocaust.” Yet she was compelled to deal with this awakening for the rest of her life, and slowly came to terms with it: “There is a gift in these experiences. Now, it’s not a gift we want to get, but if we’re stubborn and hang in there, we work through a lot of issues. We come to discover our religious faith in incredibly deep ways that we couldn’t if we just dazzled around on the happy level. So what I’m trying to do is go beyond the idea that pain = bad = punishment = hell = eternity = despair. Because the alternative to despair I think is joy, which is different than happiness. But the paradoxical nature of this is that in order to get to real joy, we have to be able to accept suffering as part of us. And I know that sounds bizarre. But I didn’t make up the rules. . . and it just seems to work that way.”
The spiritual journey can veer into various levels of ego-loss in which our sense of self-identity is momentarily or permanently altered. The Eastern religions in particular extol the dissolution of ego — the release of our sense of “me” as a separate and rigid “somebody” in the world. These traditions regard ego-transcendence as essential to spiritual liberation and enlightenment. Most of us have experienced some degree of ego-loss, often as a self-expansion or self-eclipsing in the presence of something awesomely vast or beautiful: the spectacular wonders of nature, the encompassing joy of love, or through powerful inner experiences of sublime, mystical states of consciousness. I’ve had episodes of grace when, as if something suddenly changed the channel on my perception, I’ve been shifted into states of euphoric bliss. Everything became a sweetly flowing effortlessness in which I felt carried along as ephemerally as a summer breeze.
This, and other more common ego-suspension experiences mentioned above, are very different in their psychological impact than the stark confrontation with the illusory nature of existence which Nancy Bush and I encountered. The positive experiences have a melting-quality whereby ego-boundaries are blurred and we feel ourselves to be One with life. By contrast, being divested of all previous notions of self is a great shock to the psyche. At this deepest level, not only one’s sense of individuality but one’s total sense of reality implodes. One’s entire perceptual orientation is turned upside down and inside out…
The problem was that what remained was a single Consciousness which existed in absolute aloneness.
Awakening to the “eternally complete consciousness” isn’t about being in the presence of the One or feeling union with God, both of which assume the existence of two entities, self and Divine. In this experience, one’s personal identity is obliterated. Nothing exists but self-aware Consciousness that knows itself to be the single and whole reality subsuming all space and time. The collapse of the phenomenal world (which doesn’t instantly vanish from view, but is seen to be a stupendous “trick” of the One Mind) is disemboweling to the psyche. This was the most harrowing, soul-shattering, and simultaneously the most illuminating and transcendent experience of my life. For me, the unbearable thing was not that El Collie had vanished; my self-deletion was akin to removing a costume. The problem was that what remained was a single Consciousness which existed in absolute aloneness.
The “eternally complete consciousness,” a. k. a. God/Goddess/Self is the Infinite One proclaimed by mystics from every tradition. Direct knowing of the One Consciousness dissolves the self who would be the “knower.” There is no one standing apart from the One to bear it witness when awakening occurs. Rather, the individual self is understood to be an illusion of a separate identity. All duality ceases to have meaning; there is no opposition or division anywhere. In the deepest sense, no one can awaken to this truth. Becoming Self-Realized is the experience of knowing there never was and never will be anyone to become enlightened, and that nothing but Consciousness IT-Self is eternally real. Mystics throughout the ages have struggled to convey this apparently logic-defying Reality which seems to be saying that nobody is there when satori/samadhi occurs. But that is just it—there is no body, there is only the One Eternal Self, the true Self who we all are. In this highest sense, we do not each have a distinct and separate Atman/Self. Rather, we are individuations, creative expressions of a Single Being. Throughout my life this knowledge has followed me as a reminder that nothing in this world is entirely as it seems, particularly not my own ego-self.
Whoever wrote the script for the TV program obviously found it inconceivable that Nancy Bush had a genuine revelation of Self/Source, so the narrator inserted the explanation that Nancy’s story exemplified one of the hell experiences that Stanislav Grof says is the product of a terrible childhood. Wrong on every count. Grof actually discusses the type of awakening Nancy experienced on a tape called “The Cosmic Game.” On this tape, Grof distinguishes between experiencing deities and divine personages (Buddha, Jesus, Shiva, Kuan Yin, Divine Light, etc. ) and experiencing the core God/Self –the I-AM of pure consciousness. Many of the people who have this core experience (which a friend of mine calls “God-in-the-Void”) seem to be exhilarated by the absolute freedom of realizing that everything and everyone is an illusion. But some—like Nancy, me, and others I’ve met who are more love-and-relationship oriented—are devastated by the eternal aloneness of Self/God. And I’ve run across a number of people who have had this experience but buried it in rationalizations afterwards because they couldn’t bear to carry the knowledge of eternal emptiness in which nothing/nobody really exists.
The few people I’ve personally met who awakened to the “you don’t exist, nothing is real, nobody you love is real” Source/Self have been mentally and emotionally eviscerated by the experience. Yet for me, while still in the egoless God/Self state, there was also a spontaneous shift into the joy that Nancy later discovered was the second half of the equation. So I didn’t spend years working through “issues” to get to that completion. My joy came during the experience of God/Self’s ecstatic love for all creation—even while acutely aware that all creation is maya, dreamstuff, nothingness.
So I came “back” from it both reverberating with love and shattered by the knowledge of God/Self’s solitary predicament. Reconciling God/Self knowledge with just about any other facet of existence was a humongous challenge. For a very long time, although I continued to function normally on the surface, I was in a twilight world where nothing, including myself, seemed to have any substance. I pretended not to know what I knew, and I was ever in search of an illumined soul who might somehow help me bear the weight of my secret knowledge.
There was always an element of absurdity in the attempt to find someone who understood. I was ever aware that “I” in the encapsulated form of a human El Collie was a hollow shell, a clever pretense that Consciousness used to deliberately disguise itself. I knew why the disguise was necessary, while at the same time, I knew there was nothing which could be hidden and no one to hide from. I had the acute sense that I was a transparent vessel through which God plaintively sought relief from being God. I found myself filled with tender envy for those who believed in a God who was “other”—a deity they could adore from a distance, sweetly enfolded in a relationship of child to Father or lover to Beloved. The God that had exposed IT-Self to me could neither be approached nor escaped from.
Trying to come to terms with my lasting sense that nothing was real, I went on a rampage of reading all the religious and occult literature of every sect and creed I could find in hopes that I might come across some piece of wisdom that would rescue me from the immensity of what I knew. I found what I had experienced being described over and over again, couched in myriad symbols and semantics.
Most of the authors of the spiritual texts who described the God/Self realization were exultant and bubbling with promises of eternal bliss. Almost nowhere was there acknowledgment of the devastating part of the experience. I did, here and there, come across a poignant admonition that the spiritual path was a voyage into ego-annihilation, and anyone who could should run from it. Yet the irony was clear: the only ones able to understand what was being warned against were those who were already too far into the journey to turn back.
I had repeated episodes of going fully into God/Self consciousness over several years. After the initial shock, it was never again so harrowing. Even so, having this realization so early in life, before I had come across all the hoopla in the religions about it, seemed for a long time like a strange kind of cheat: I was finished before I had in earnestness begun. I knew too much but I didn’t know what to do about it except to play dumb and carry on with my mundane life.
~ ~ ~
More here next time. Full article, titled “All One,” begins on page 15: http://www.kundaliniawakeningsystems1.com/downloads/branded-by-the-spirit_by-el-collie.pdf
will email you privately
This gives a whole new depth to the expression “Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten / Sunday school”!
So… God created people ’cause He was lonely?
Not altogether a new thought. See the lovely poem, “The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), beginning:
“And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely —
I’ll make me a world.”
I fail to see what is so lovely about the thought that everyone I love doesn’t really exist and I’m doomed to eternal loneliness.
That’s why this is a *distressing* NDE–because it doesn’t seem lovely at all. We are social creatures. This is a major dilemma, and as both El Collie and I have spent years saying, it can take a lifetime for a Westerner o come to terms with this understanding. I’m sorry. There is ultimately a level of acceptance at which this seems more bearable–and we have always to be aware that all we have with which to try to understand it all is our very limited human consciousness. There may be far larger intelligences that get it better. Kind of like being an ant considering one of us and trying to figure out the ultimate scope of ant life.
Great poem. And, as far as I can see, also true.
Not sure this is worth getting into? But…
Ontological observation: the human system has one major design component as an essential founding principle… “ignorance”. Without ignorance there can be no discovery, no “aw ha”, no “oh, wow!”, yeah, and not even a few “oh sh*t”s.
If we always knew what was around the corner or if death didn’t appear real and final… then why bother. It’s a virtual reality play of the grandest kind and guess what, we all agreed to play. The stage was constructed with the help of the grandest stage crew behind the scenes to “facilitate” planned experiences, etc.
Looks like God (really better described as “All That Is”) even decided to play or at least facilitate the play for the rest of us.
So the system is designed pretty well because on this side of the veil, there are seemingly unanswerable questions. On the other side of the veil, the human you (born on such and such a date, named so and so, approaching death or dying on…) actually doesn’t exist since the immortal you (or yous) that agree to this game made the human you up (and your family that agreed to the game were made up in the same way, too).
So, ontologically speaking, it looks like an Ockham’s Razor answer to “why” and “how something from nothing”, etc. Of course, then the higher system that created this system has to deal with these questions so we can start all over… or… we can accept the profound NDE-er statement that all knowledge is received eventually upon exit from human confines. That exit thus entailing the “end of experience” for which this system was designed. Just my two cents worth…
Of course it’s worth getting into! Say on.
Nan – I had a somewhat similar experience to you and El Collie in February 2004 during a serotonin-syndrome-induced psychedelic period. I also terrifyingly thought that nothing was independently real, that I had created everything, including my best friend, which meant I was really utterly alone in the entire universe.
The difference between my experience and that of you and El seems to be that I continued to think that *I* existed – maybe not in the form I was familiar with, but I definitely existed as a consciousness.
I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around how you could have thought that you didn’t exist. Or am I misunderstanding? Was it that you didn’t exist in the human form you were familiar with, but did exist in some form? Or was it that you didn’t exist at all in any form (in which case I can’t understand that)?
It may come down to the debate about whether the only path is eventual ego-annihilation or whether there is a path that is ego-renovation and -expansion.
I really like what the Religion professor Chris Bache has said – that ego death is *not* about dissolution of identity and merger with the Godhead. He thinks that ego death leads to a deeper, more authentic individuality; that its purpose is to extinguish the illusion of separateness, but not to extinguish individuality. He thinks the Divine is in a process of progressive complexification; that we are part of the flowering of that process; that individuality is important. Ego death opens you up to a deeper, more authentic individuality, and you can go through this process repeatedly, becoming ever more truly yourself in intimate connection with the universe.
Sheila, good question. It was overwhelmingly my life that didn’t exist, and the world and everything in it. Anything material was gone, unreal, and any experience ditto. What I perceived to be the “I” was simply a consciousness. And it was a consciousness–well, I would say “floating,” but that suggests materiality–but say floating in space, with no other perceptible anything. My ego (or memory) was enough there to be grieving the loss of the world and my life, but there was otherwise no sense of “me” to speak of. So my grieving consciousness, though invisible, was the only thing which seemed to exist…but did that make it an All or a pinprick in an unpopulated universe? Being much less sophisticated about such things than El, I had no concepts to go with the experience until I woke up. Does this help?
OK, then it sounds like the first part of our experiences *was* very similar – that we didn’t exist in the form we know, but we did exist as a consciousness. Then, how we interpreted that was different. Initially, I went more in the direction of being the All. With time, I have come to see both my normal consciousness and this distressing awakening as both only part of the whole truth about the universe / God.
I think that’s it. We’ll keep talking.
Some great comments! I really loved the bit about the “ego death” *not* being “about dissolution of identity and merger with the Godhead”. I never liked that concept — even though, it seems to be what must be the case, given the starting premise, “Nothing exists that isn’t ‘god’.”
…And this leads right into my 2nd favorite question, “The Why Question”:
Why did ‘God’ put this GAME into play?
Why is there this process of separation-(re)incarnation-reintegration?
Did God really need to “share the misery”? Why? God is Everything.
Did God really need to “experience itself”? Why? God is Everything.
Did God really need to “hear stories”? Why? God is Everything.
No one’s answers are ever satisfactory to me. They just don’t make sense. I have no idea why a God who is Everything and knows Everything put this whole Game/Drama into play.
…But I suppose all of this could/would be answered if I ever got an answer to My Favorite Question:
“How did Something come from Nothing?”
I think that’s a question even ‘God’ can’t answer…
Peace.
Hi Ron,
I guess one reason “why” might be that without ignorance (or the Game/Play as you say), there can be no experience of discovery. No “oh wow” ever. Therefore the invention of the appearance of “not knowing” leads to this and us. Each contributing unique “oh wow” or in some case “ouch” scenarios to enrich the treasure chest of heretofore uncreated experiences. Just a thought… 😉
Hierax said:
“I fail to see what is so lovely about the thought that everyone I love doesn’t really exist and I’m doomed to eternal loneliness.”
I relate to that scary thought as well, but a few things immediately came to mind when I mulled it over.
There is a big difference between being alone and being lonely, and I think it’s folly to draw hard conclusions about the afterlife while we’re in this one.
NDE’s come in radiant, distressing, and mixed varieties. Both are near death experiences, and by definition, they aren’t complete descriptions of life “on the other side”. I find NDE’s interesting mainly because they provide such pure evidence for the continuation of consciousness, and they punch holes in our materialistic hubris. Life is way more than what our puny ego thinks it is.
But let’s not confuse other peoples NDE’s as complete descriptions of our personal future.
I also find a certain amount of evidence for the continuation of consciousness in spontaneous after-death communications and mediumship, although mediumship is my least favorite because its record is so fractured and bizarre.
The funny thing is, when you put NDE’s and ADC’s side-by-side, they paint two completely different pictures. With NDE’s, we see complete transcendence and joy (or horror), but with ADC’s we are essentially the same thing over there as we are over here. From my limited perspective, they don’t add up.
The various manifestations of psi also show me that there is more to the Big Picture than we can possibly know, or maybe even need to know.
The point is, like Nan said, we are like ants trying to understand the totality of ant life. We can’t do it. As trite as it may sound, I think the best thing we can do is try to be the most loving ants we can be, and let the Other Side take care of itself. I believe that sincerely practicing love and forgiveness makes a big difference in the next life, but more importantly, I know that it makes a big difference in this one.
Cultivating love from within makes the difference between loneliness and joyfully being alone.
I’m guessing that ADC refers to “after death communication?” Just wondering are deathbed visions at all different in character from NDEs as well?
Also I don’t think it’s just westerners- I grew up with hinduism, and hindu ideas still disturb me. I honestly fail to understand why mysticism is so popular- when I read anything from any religous mystical tradition, atheism suddenly starts to look very warm and cosy. My view of God has come to be pretty much that phrase “In You I take refuge from You”. My interest in the mystical traditions of the various faiths is a morbid fascination, not somewhere I’m expecting to find happiness or fullfillment.
By the way I’m sorry if I came off as rude, I know I can seem bitter at times. I really think as a twenty year old university student, I’m supposed to be worrying about grades and hangovers and being concerned with the riddles of existence is a bit unnatural for someone my age. Are there any other barely-adults on this website, or am I the only one?
Definitely not the only one here. Yes, ADC = “after death communication.” Need to be saying more about your other points. Thanks.
I’m with you Dawg. I’m going to look out for the people I love, and extend that to everyone and everything else. Why? because I want to, and I want to do it right now, and keep doing it. Everybody on the planet doesn’t have to accept it or return it. Some like me, some don’t. If some entity tells me “you and nothing else exists”, He She It is going to hear I don’t give a rat’s !#%&. Who told you that you exist………….pinch yourself…..but don’t get your fingers dirty.
As I passed through various phases of interpreting my distressing awakening experience, at one point I thought of it as a peak at God that showed that God created us out of loneliness. But, I got a very different perspective on that from that Religion professor Chris Bache who wrote to me:
“While the loneliness of God is a concept that surfaces occasionally in the mystical traditions, personally I’ve been more moved by suggestions that creation is seeded by an excess rather than a deficit. I think sometimes that the universe is an incubator in which God is cloning herself, splitting off and patiently growing little bits of herself into larger, richer, and deeper bits of herself. For the sheer joy of sharing the bliss of her existence.”
I’m still working on that part.
Nice quote, Sheila. I like it. I also feel unsettled and overwhelmed by the rumbling implications of this essay. In the end, in spite of my ant-like inability to fully understand the big mysteries, I intuit (and hope) something wonderful is happening, and it is my/our limitations that tend to spin things in lonely and despairing directions.
Whatever the big truth is, I take comfort in knowing there are at least a few people in the world who are wrestling with these questions.
Ex nihilo nihil fit
Just as man distinguishes between himself and time, space, thought–“things”, he views nothing as just another “thing”, ie. something. Nothing= Something? Is not the subject/object split the culprit? Once man’s essence is determined nothing will be clear. Is he subject or object? Receptor or stimuli? How can he exist apart from what he isn’t(stimuli/object)? Only as non-existence. So, now that it is established that man’s essence doesn’t exist(unless consciousness without an object is considered existence*), nothing is clear! Indeed, and all that stands! So Democritus was correct(altho it’s nothing to laugh about!),”Nothing is more real than Nothing”, as nothing is as absolute as nothing. Nothing negates something(ness), just as darkness(the eternal/still/independent/absolute/exclusive) negates light(the transient/temporal/ dependent/relative/incomplete/inclusive).
Nothing is sacred
* “A mill run empty knows only self-destruction[negation]”
Nan,
Thanks so much for posting El’s story! And what thoughtful responses you’ve received! In your journal you wrote “There’s a cosmic terror we have never addressed”–having also experienced the void, these words have stayed with me–I’ve wanted to shout them from rooftops! May this blog blossom and finally address it in a cosmic way! Also, Brian Hines describes his experience of the void eloquently–“Death and the primal fear of non-existence”(church of the churchless)
Steve, thank you so much! As you know, I find El’s story simply breathtaking. Obviously, it has sparked a strong reaction from others.
Ron said:
…But I suppose all of this could/would be answered if I ever got an answer to My Favorite Question:
“How did Something come from Nothing?”
I think that’s a question even ‘God’ can’t answer…
……………………
Well first off, who said something came from nothing? People did, and with the historical track record “people” have for guessing … why would you even believe something that makes no sense in the overall picture as presented by scientists, who are themselves still looking into the origin picture?
Not for nothing, but that topic will not influence in any way, shape, or form, the second conundrum mentioned.
Ron said:
…And this leads right into my 2nd favorite question, “The Why Question”:
Why did ‘God’ put this GAME into play?
Why is there this process of separation-(re)incarnation-reintegration?
Did God really need to “share the misery”? Why? God is Everything.
Did God really need to “experience itself”? Why? God is Everything.
Did God really need to “hear stories”? Why? God is Everything.
……………
This is something you are going to have to look into yourself … I can explain it, but you aren’t going to like it, so …
Cognitive dissonance is the battle in your head regarding two contrary ideas. 5300 years ago, in one place on the globe (Egypt and Sumer) there was a major mental battle regarding something that happened, and that “something” was a minor galactic superwave, which is the work of Dr Paul LaViolette.
They knew (on their level) what a superwave was, they had experienced a major event around 8000 or so years earlier. The problem was, they had no clue what the difference was between a major and minor event.
There was an “intervention belief” attached to this event, and when it didn’t happen (cognitive dissonance) – they LOST IT. Had they stuck to the belief like everyone else, things would have been different.
Short story, it was from this point on that “religious guesswork” (for lack of a better term) began, and as time went on, if we ever really DID know the truth, it vanished completely over the passing millennia.
Short story again, “WE” are the children of the error. Here we sit trying to ponder what we have been presented with from birth, not even realizing it IS an error. Your second group of questions are typical of the impact of this error, and when presented with a rational explanation, what do you do? Ooops – cognitive dissonance. “I believe this, but the data presents that – AARRGGHH!”
Then on top of everything else, there’s this brandie new NDE subject people are trying to figure out, and you haven’t even dealt with the original problem. If you did (and correct me if I’m wrong here) maybe things would seem clearer when you compare the great being of light it seems people run into in these experiences, with the earlier version the Egyptians pointed to as the great ball of light called Ra. Were they really giving reverence to “the sun?” Or was it – “something else?”
All I know is that trying to find your keys in a hoarder’s house doesn’t work; there’s too much “stuff” lying around to see clearly. You think reincarnation is real? Then you must think Nan’s experience never happened. “Somebody” was showing Nan something – it has to do with something etheric, and is tied to deception. I mean really – stop to think about it … does this sound right to you?
A voice or awareness informed her: “You never existed, you will never exist. You’re not real. Nothing you ever knew existed. Nor does anyone you think you ever knew, nor your life, nor where you live. You made it all up.”
Really? Come on …
But because she “couldn’t find her keys” … she actually considered it. DOH!
She goes on to say, “This meant that not only did I not exist, but the baby and her year old sister [her children] didn’t exist. Your mother, your husband, nobody you know exists. You’re not real, and nothing you know is real.”
I dunno, mental trauma cannot exist – if you don’t exist. And for a bunch of non-existing people (if this is supposed to be the picture straight across the board) we sure talk alot.
So, why did “God” put this game into play? Simplest answer – we have a brain, it WILL work if we use it “correctly” – we CAN figure this out if we try. The name of the “game” is called constructivist teaching and learning. Rather than being given the answers, we are sent out on a trek to find them ourselves, armed only with a base premise. However long it takes you to figure it out, is how long it takes. Do people ever “ask for help?” And if you do, and a clue comes along, do you dismiss it because it “doesn’t line up with what you’ve learned since you were child?”
“God” isn’t “sharing the misery” … “God” is making us work.
People hold onto Christianity for answers … did you know that religion is a latter day interpretation of a belief that is at least 40,000 years old? How do I know? I listen to the “clues.” The clues do nothing but point in a particular direction – they tell you “nothing” – the “information” is in our history … we just have it all screwed up.
Does Nan exist? Yes she does. So, who lied? And better, why would they lie?
You might start by explaining what you mean about that galactic superwave and how it relates here.
Nan Bush said:
You might start by explaining what you mean about that galactic superwave and how it relates here.
…………………..
The NDE subject is part of a greater whole that we can simply call life. In your subject you look at what seems to be the typical good / bad parameters that are also seen in the paranormal and UFO subjects. I had said I was rather shocked to find this going on here, and have incorporated it into what I have been looking at since the beginning of this year. I have never had an NDE, and outside of the fact that I am collecting information regarding this “anti-aspect” I have no real business being here except maybe the normal curiousity regarding life after death.
As I have said, I don’t like to label aspects of this picture using traditional terms, as they tend to bring unneeded pictures in, and data contamination can be instantanious. What some call devil, demon, evil spirits, I simply call the anti-aspect. What some would call “heaven,” I call the front office. My experiences have been different and the entire picture runs 58 years to date. Simply put, I work for the front office, and I am here to straighten out a problem. That problem is the coming superwave.
Like all of you and your experiences, you never asked for it to happen, it just did. I never asked for it either, but here I am. Let’s just say it’s been an extremely long and drawn out “learning experience” because “giving” the information needed did not exist … everything was given, from day one in 1955, in a constructivist setting. In other words, I had to find the answers in history based on clues given. Why? Constructivism, although a long and drawn out process, gives you final conclusions that explain the why as well as the what. It seems we lost the “superwave” key due to one error made in one spot on the globe beginning 5300 years ago, and here we are today in a total state of confusion.
If one compares the fact that the Hopi are not in the least way “confused” regarding what they call the “Blue Star” and the arrival of what we call ET, and “we” look at that information and scratch our heads, it gives you some idea where we (the children of the later European line) are in this topic. Dr LaViolette had said in Earth Under Fire:
According to a legend told by the Hopi Indians, the present world civilization is not the first to populate the earth. Before this one, there were three other ‘worlds,’ each terminated by a global catastrophe. They call the present world cycle the Fourth World, and claim that it too like the others before it, will one day come to an end. They say that this ending will be heralded by the appearance of Saquasohuh, the Blue Star spirit. …
Since the cores of distant exploding galaxies are observed to have a bright blue star like appearance, it is reasonable to expect that the core of our own Galaxy would have a similar appearance during its explosive phase. So the legendary appearance of the Blue Star could be referring to an explosion of our Galaxy’s core.
Several hundred years after the first appearance of the Blue Star, earth observers would have become aware of lighting effects resulting from the superwave’s passage through the galaxy’s central bulge.
Synchrotron radiation emitted by the superwave’s cosmic rays would have illuminated the dense gas clouds in the Galaxy’s nucleus to create an oval luminous form around the Blue Star. Dense clouds of dust obscure visible light coming from this region. However, during its bright active phase, some light would have penetrated. This frightening spectacle may have appeared to ancient inhabitants as a gigantic punishing ‘Eye’ in the sky, the entire form occupying about a 16-degree field of view, or about 32 solar diameters. Its ‘iris’ would have a diameter of about 4 degrees with a brilliant light emanating from its central pupil, the Blue Star.
……………
So what does all this have to do with NDEs? Directly, nothing – indirectly, everything. As a part of the whole, in a picture regarding “something very different about this particular superwave” humanity is at a cross-road. The bottom line is that “ET” is here to help (the “front office” aspect of the ET picture) – however, it seems the anti-aspect has made a complete shambles of the topic, by pointing people in a particular direction, and just letting them do what they do best – “guess” what’s going on. Like Karla Turner said:
“A few of the dreams about impending disasters and UFOs landing, either to invade, monitor, or rescue humans, are common among abductees.”
……
There’s a world of difference between invasion and rescue; so what’s going on? She also breaks down these “dreams” into three categories:
……
“The first involves the arrival or landing or invasion of numerous UFOs on earth….
The second dream shows scenes of coming disaster and chaos on the planet, and in some cases the abductees are led to believe that their upcoming “jobs” will be carried out at the time of destruction.
The third dream type is prophetic, showing events which come to pass after the dream.”
She concludes by saying:
Angie goes further, saying, “Perfectly real aliens exist out there, and it seems one kind wants to help us and another kind wants to deceive us.”
……
Why would that be? The bottom line is simple … this coming event, even if we just base the outcome on the way we have designed our world, via electronics, humanity is finished; the EMP and gravity wave alone will finish us. Everyone dies over time, added to the picture would be possible events like the Toba calamity C 73,000 BC when it seems another superwave hit. Those who die “go on” after death, however, there will be no “future humanity” created, the anti-aspect wins.
So why would the “front office” allow this to happen? I have a news flash for you – it has nothing to do with the front office … we did this, just like “we the people” have allowed the morons to take charge of this planet … we let the information disappear, so, we suffer the consequences of our actions – or in this case, non-actions.
So what can NDErs do? I would start ramping up the study of the anti-aspect; what you call negative NDEs. What was the front office trying to show you? This is a constructivist picture where YOU create the picture based on data – together. This is YOUR subject – YOUR responsibility – I have been doing what I have been doing since 1973 – and I am STILL looking at things.
And just as a side note, and I’m NOT trying to be a wise guy, for anyone reading this that’s juggling the word schizophrenic in their hand, sorry – I presented all data to two separate therapists because it was the “logical” thing to do. Bottom line – not nuts 🙂
I say to you only what I have said to everyone else (as they ran screaming down the hall) … prove me wrong. We have a problem, we either deal with it … or it’s over.
“I fail to see what is so lovely about the thought that everyone I love doesn’t really exist and I’m doomed to eternal loneliness.”
I fail to see what’s so distressing about the thought that everyone and everything doesn’t really exist.
During my last trip home I divested myself of everything that made me “don”, all memories, ego, etc to get to where I went. Lonely is simply a human description, not one that All That Is would use.
Rather than saying ATI was lonely and created all this, why not look at it as ATI was simply exercising it’s creativity in creating all of this?
From a human, ego viewpoint I understand the distressing aspect of “nothing being real or substantial”, but having studied zen and other philosophies I don’t find it far fetched.
Anyway, just some thoughts
Blessings
Thank you for your story. I left the Light and visited that dark place where I had no memory of anything – not of Earth, being human, nothing.
Just an awareness of rolling darkness upon darkness.
It did not feel bad, just a little cold.
Then all of a sudden I had a memory of being human and wanted that back and instantly I was hurled across the universe into the ball of Light.
As the slit in the ball of light opened simultaneously with my eyes opening, I began screaming like I had never screamed before, to know how quickly it can be all gone. Instantly.
Very traumatic. And uplifting. Now the night sky looks brilliant compared to that darkness. And I thank the Creator for every moment I spend here instead of there….
Yes!
Five days ago I had this very experience. Exactly as depicted here. The exact words and realization came over me and I was in fact, terribly unsettled by it. What bothers me is that the realization seemed sarcastic, almost laughing at the plight of being totally obliterated, yet there was nothing or no-one to be sarcastic. Utter nothing. Thanks for posting this article, it’s helping me understand more on my path of awakening, something I’ve been at for years through meditation, yoga, and intent. I had no idea how hard seeing Anatta/no-self could actually be. Even if there was nobody having any experience.
Andy, thank you so much for your comment. Yes, exactly. As you continue on your path, I hope you will add more comments from time to time. It does make such a difference to hear from someone else who has had this same experience.
This happened to me when I was 15 years old. I was huffing gas and banged my head on the concrete because I passed out and fell over. I was all alone the the time with a friend in the other room. I wound up in a black vacuum, devoid of any light. This vacuum wasn’t a big space and seemed to be confined, like the size of a TV screen. I immediately was bombarded with an awareness that this was eternity and that the life I thought was real was actually never real at all but some sort of manifestation. That I never existed. The despair I felt at this moment cannot be placed into words. The thought of being in this vacuum for eternity, ALONE, with only my sole conscious thoughts was terrifying to me.
Thank you for commenting, Shawn. It’s as tough an experience as any I’ve ever heard of. How did you come to terms with it–or did you? I’m glad you found this site.
There’s something I don’t understand. During this NDE, you had the revelation that everything was just an illusion, that all human beings didn’t exist : so why are you answering other people now, since they don’t exist (Problem is: if nobody exists, it means that you all don’t exist since i’m the only one who exists. Then, all this NDE stuff is just a way to make me aware of my loneliness …). As you may have understood, I’ve been struggling with solipsism OCD for some months, and now that I’m feeling better, this NDE stuff makes me feel uncomfortable again ..
Thanks for your help !
My first response is that I suppose it’s at different levels–one on which our conversations are ‘real’ and one where they’re not. I’ve essentially stopped asking these questions for the reason you mention–that there’s no way of knowing, and the question always goes nowhere. At this point, I tend to think that if this stuff makes you feel uncomfortable, read something else, or watch trash tv for a while, or go to an art museum. (Don’t take that personally, please, but I recommend a good mystery or whatever floats your boat.)
I would also add that if you’re struggling with Solipsism you may want to spend some time investigating what that sense of self is, given the idea that you’re the only one in existence. I don’t want to go expressing alleged “truths” about this void since it does seem to swallow up existence, but there is a constant among all the variables swallowed that cannot be swallowed up, and that is awareness. These “states” of empty realization aren’t new. The Buddha spoke of them and clarified what various levels of experience were about. There’s a book that’s helped me tremendously to understand the teachings of Anatta (there are no ‘selves’ running around–void). If you’d like to know the book we can figure out a way to correspond since I’d prefer not post someone’s specific work on this site.
The void, this is said to be where consiouse mind of God started. Maybe this is all life is, consiousness of source. Or maybe the void is a way station, a type of purgitory that we weigh our life experiancein before we go to God or back to earth. It could be possible that however developed our soul is when experience this, decides how long we stay in the void and where we go next.
Thank you, Casey. I like that–life as “consciousness of source.”
I went there only 4 days ago and I’m terrified I just don’t know what to do with my fake physical life and I’m terrified of dying again to go to this void my nde was absolutely terrible and no one to talk to about it that understands is worse I’m only 33 and I’ve got to hold this forever
Just an FYI to other readers, I have been corresponding with Bobby by email. Will post a condensed version here.
Nan Bush – are you still going to post the conversation?
Yes.
Why are you people so afraid of oblivion? You said it yourself, you didn’t feel bad only a bit cold.
And I know we’re all social creatures and all but everything Maya IS real, the pain, the pleasure, the whole experience. More importantly the love was real. The memories. The co-existence. The beauty. It has happened, and if you so want it, it can probably happen again. It’s as real as illusion and illusory as real, whatever want it to be. Isn’t that freedom enough for you?
Like, I could be talking to no one but myself right now and I don’t even care, all I know is that you’re real now, this thought is real, this discourse is real, the heated discussion is real, and that’s really the only thing that matters.
What, I die anyway, I already know that, we ALL already know that, why is that such a bad thing? We’re escaping the immediacy of pain and pleasure for once.
Westerners… non-gamers too, I presume.
You’re so used to “heaven” or “brimstone hell” that you react this negatively to what could be other versions of death. I’ve been hearing this theory for decades, daily.
Anyway, NDEs comes in many varieties and honestly I’m awaiting bliss of an astral kind (because I think I found a pattern) but honestly I wouldn’t act this surprised if I experienced this.
Thanks for your very real response, JC! Lots to work with. All best.
I do not think we have to be afraid of the void, because its nothingness only because it is everything.
Also God/the universe needs us as much as we need him/her/it. Because when we hear the voice seeing we are not real, you have made it up. It is also the insecurity of the one being which is everything and therefore nothing and vice versa if it exists.It wants to exist, so when it questions our existence it also questions it’s own existence and I do not think it likes it. It wants to be as much as we want to be. I see it as a young man consisting in our minds and in we in his minds. Life is his ever changing moods and willingness for creation, his desire to be something. He cannot control his moods and therefore his creation and his is therefore both proud and thornfull because he is so powerful and the creator but also mournful and selfdespicing because he causes so much suffering. On the other hand i see the universe as a giant animal swimming in the sea of existence compassing all. I often see it’s eye before me. Again you can see it’s powerfulness but also it’s vulnerableness. It is older then time yet it looks quite sorrowfully at times also asking itself if it’s exists. If you enter the void and you get the feeling that everything is a dream a joke it is true and not true at the same time. But I think the universe/the creator wants to exists and it needs us to exists, therefore we are so loved by God the creator because we are needed. We exist in him and he in us. So I also see it as an existential question from the universe creator itself, questioning its own existence, being everything and nothing. But he wants to exist so in the void you are actually not alone on the contrary you are with everything and everyone and therefore you are with unconditional love. You are in the womb of our mother, you are in the womb of all mothers and you are in the womb of the great mother. So you are definitely not alone.
Chana, thank you! That’s a packed addition to this ongoing conversation. I’m sure people will find it very helpful.
Hej Nancy,
I read a lot about anaesthesia being linked to the void. So my guess is that it does necessarily have anything to do with anything death related or maybe even spiritual. Maybe we should also investigate that path too.
It seems that which kind of near-death experience you have does also say something about in what type of state you were in. We are grouping experiences together from a different order and are calling them near-death which is really strange and unhelpful. Sometimes they use the word near-death when the person is far from near death or is struggling to survive which is not being revived from death. There are some accounts of people being revived from death, but those are far more scarce.
I feel a bit said that I did not know that before. Because I started meditating on it, and although I saw some beautiful things I also started to experience the feeling that nothing is real that I am not real etc.. which was very scary and traumatic etc… But it does not necessarily tells us anything about death or even life or spirituality it could just be a state of consciousness which is being altered because of anaesthesia. The problem is that we cannot know anything about death derived from states of consciousness which are produced during life. Buddhists monks derive at a whole state of consciousness, and from those states they derive conclusions about life and death. But the mind can go the extreme states because of a whole bunch of things. Stress, nutrition, illness, oxygen, … meditation is also one of those. The way that Buddhist monks practise meditation is a very unusual state of being, so weird things can happen with the mind.
People derive meaning from there experiences, make conclusions but sometimes it has no meaning or a very different meaning. Just because our minds tell us something does not mean it is true. I learned that the hard way.
For example the father of my child used too much weed and started to believe the things he saw on is high. No one could get him to believe it was not true, no one because it just was so real. So even he knows that he used lots of weed and that he was on so much drugs and he knows that weed can produce hallucinations, he still believes it without a doubt.
So we have to be very, very careful to believe our states of minds.
I really destroyed my happiness very often by believing my thoughts and my state of mind, and by believing other people’s thoughts.
The internet can be a dangerous place. I have read so much on it, and I have so often scared and even traumatised myself by reading things and by overthinking. We should not really trust our minds or the minds of other people.
Also a lot of people with hellish NDE experiences were also far from death. People experiencing the abyss on certain drugs while dying etc… I read about one woman experiencing hellish feeling when her cat died. This is not a near-death experience at all. I think if we are to study near death we can only account people who were revived from death, nothing else. The other states of consciousness we can also study of course but we cannot call them near death. We should call them extreme states of being or consciousness or something like that.
I also do not think that because they are transformational that they have any higher meaning. I mean people have believed the strangest things and transform there whole life because of it.
The feeling of abyss I have had this many times, but almost always it was due to physical states of being. In the past I have had feelings which I have attributed meaning too, but afterwards i discovered they were just physical states of being produced by a medication or by a problem with my gut. This does not mean that we are only our bodies or only matter, but i do think that matter is very important. We are definitely also matter and this shapes us more then religion or spiritual schools have acknowledged i think. I think that matter can be very spiritual too. Even if we would be just our bodies there could still be a great sense of spirituality too.
I just think we should be very, very careful to describe conclusive meaning to our experiences, because the meaning we ascribe to it can also cause a lot of suffering.
We just cannot know, but with love, joy and beauty we cannot do anything wrong. The problem is that we look at religion tradition and we think they tell some truth for example Buddhism. We often associate buddhism with meditation, and we think that this is where they derive there fulfilment from or there truth and that the therapeutic effect of Buddhism is there meditation and non-attachment but we forget that it is also community, beauty etc.. I have seen documentaries about Buddhism and in Tibet or Mongolia there is a lot of community and beauty. Same with Hinduism and even christianity. I do not think there value is in there words, or in the truths that they describe but in there community life and the beauty that surround them in nature and there architecture. So when we take religious teachings and we bring it to our western world we have a problem, because we have so little community and so little natural or architectural beauty sometimes.
It is always community and beauty… this is religion, and God. And all the rest could just as well be hallucinations or a brain on fire as it could be truth and the word of gods.
I think it is best that we just stop with thinking about meaning of live and God and just spread love, and community. Because until recently being human was all about living in a community, and now not anymore. But still we are looking for truth in religion while forgetting that large part of Buddhism is community, large part of Hinduism is community, large part early Christianity was community, large part of cavemen was community, etc…
Humans need meaning, but the need for meaning can also make us suffer tremendously. I hope we can make a lot of community in the world.
We just don’t know if there is anything more so I going to be very careful to draw any meaning from my states of consciousness, and from symbols because it almost destroyed me in the past several times. May the people who are suffering find love.
Chana, thanks for this in-depth comment! My one response just now is to remind you and everyone that “near-death experience” got its name from Raymond Moody, who coined the term for his book Life After Life. The accounts to which he was responding had all happened to people who reported a clinical death–in other words, they were truly near to death. At the time, going on 50 years ago, English had no general term for this type of consciousness. The result is what we see now, when near-death experience, or NDE, is used for all such events, whether the person is close to death or not. It’s simply a generic term. There is some push now to find a more accurate vocabulary. Until we get one–and ‘spiritually transformative experience’ (STE) isn’t accurate for all such events, either–the NDE term is what the public knows. I know, it’s frustrating. There are lots and lots of terms people have been coining, but so far NDE and STE and sometimes EHE (Exceptional Human Experience)are the only ones widely recognized.