Few people in the history of humanity have  had the impact that Thomas Jefferson has had and continues to have, world wide. This influence is largely indirect, through his insistence that protections of basic human rights are an essential element of any government that claims to respect its citizens. Because Jefferson succeeded in raising the bar for good governance, people all over the world have basic rights to speech, press, religion, and justice. He laid the groundwork that would eventually end slavery worldwide and yet later provide women with the same rights of citizenship that men enjoyed. That ripple effect is now being seen in the ability of gays to serve openly in the military, the granting of equal governmental services to gay couples, and in the gathering recognition that animals and the Earth itself have rights that need both acknowledgement and protection. To learn more about Jefferson and how you can use his vision to change your life, see Thomas Jefferson and Dream Politics.

In this interview one version of Jefferson speaks its truth. It is not your Jefferson; to access that, you are invited to do your own interview. Society needs people like Jefferson today; you need to access that part of yourself to help provide you with the courage and wisdom to act in the world and to better govern your own life.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

Since this interview is about listening to those emerging potentials personified by Thomas Jefferson, the first issue would be about how to best go about guaranteeing human rights for all mankind.

The second is how best to insure the rights of my greater identity, so that I can respect my greater self and not be a dictator in my own relationships to myself.

The third is how best to awaken others to the Thomas Jefferson part of themselves. 

Thomas Jefferson, look out at the world from your perspective and tell us what you see… 

I see an amazing, appalling world, full of hope and despair, of extremes of wealth, privilege, opportunity and ignorance, greed, and abuse of power. Beyond my amazement at the extraordinary improvements in transportation, communication, health, education, and human rights is my horror at the degree of neglect and irresponsibility I find in governance. I thought the virtue in man combined with governmental checks and balances and guarantees of the rights of men would tip the balance toward virtue. What I see instead is that human greed and lust for power has used those institutions to create vast inequality and exploitation. Man has developed and tolerates a capacity for weapons that, through a moment’s fury, miscalculation, or simple system error, could trigger his own extinction. I never considered that mankind could become so powerful, reckless, or foolish – and in only two hundred years! I never considered that mankind could use the richness of the earth to the point that he would deplete its abundance and create such an imbalance that imperils life and threatens cities with the rise of the sea and the drying out of vast areas, making them unsuitable for cultivation. I am astonished, horrified, deeply sad, confused, and very angry. 

Thomas Jefferson, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I have been living on as an historical example and as ideas, inspiring people and societies to implement and extend human rights. Few have considered the extension of these ideas to their interior realm. I did not, because the understanding of the mind had not developed to a place where those concepts made sense during my lifetime. I am curious about the possibility of this application of human rights to the interior realm, mostly because I always thought that human virtue would win out, and this could be a way of strengthening virtue within individuals in a way that balances out the accumulation of segregated power and control by waking minds. This is a new concept to me. 

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like most that I built structures that endure and that stand the test of time. They do so because they are universal, rational, virtuous, and balanced. My greatest strength is my ability to adapt, to expand and grow in my understanding and in my willingness to implement what I know.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

As a human, I had plenty of weaknesses. The historical record has a good accounting of them. I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, completely good or trustworthy. I am not a good model in some ways. I am not trustworthy in some ways. I am human. I have learned that it is unrealistic to expect myself to be perfect, to expect others to be perfect, or to tolerate humans imagining I and my ideas are perfect. They are not. They are merely tools, experiments in building a more just society. That is all.

Thomas Jefferson, what aspect of myself do you represent or most closely personify?

Intellectual curiosity. The willingness to question any and all beliefs and power structures, both external and internal. Respect for reason. Belief in quality, accountability, transparency, education, hard work, and human virtue. Belief in the Golden Rule and its practical application in government.

Thomas Jefferson, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would like to experience life from multiple perspectives, to look out at the world from the minds and hearts of all humans everywhere. That is actually occurring, as people learn about me and get in touch with the parts of themselves that are like me. 

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Thomas Jefferson, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 8 I still am not sure virtue can or will win the day. However, human ability to access and practice the necessary virtue has increased and is increasing. 

Compassion: 8 It is difficult for me to control my impatience and intolerance. From my perspective, humans are tolerant of many intolerable things: poverty, hunger, illness when they now have the resources to finally remove these scourges; war, when it has never been more dangerous; destruction of the earth and heavens when it is obvious that when you foul your own nest you cannot live. While I understand why these problems have grown and refuse to yield to time and wisdom, I am impatient and intolerant of the intolerable, and I think humans should be too.

Wisdom: 8 I have grown in wisdom enormously since my physical death and I became a growing idea for governance. I see no reason why this will not continue.

Acceptance: 5 Perhaps it is my lack of acceptance of injustice that most makes me who I am to you. I think you should be less accepting of injustice as well, but starting with the injustices you do to yourself. This is a new idea, something I did not so much contemplate when I was alive.

Inner Peace: 5 I have work to do. I want to be used more by humans. I want to be put to work. There is a time for inner peace and there is a time for exertion and effort. Still, I know that only from a space of inner peace does the strength come that is required for sustained effort. During my lifetime I did not do enough to guard and build my inner peace. I can be more effective in your life the more you are in touch with yours.

Witnessing: 8 I see the broad panorama of human history. I see the hearts and minds of humans. I am hardly God, but from where I stand I can see a lot.           

Thomas Jefferson, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I would be more powerful and more effective, because I would be more balanced. This is why people need to access other emerging potentials from history and within themselves besides me. I supply important attributes for transformation, but I am hardly strong in all of the necessary ones. 

How would my life be different if I naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Your focus and dedication would mean that you made clearer choices. You would waste much less time on activities and people that do not serve those goals that not only accomplish your ends, but those of your broader self and of humanity.

If you could live my life for me, how would you live it differently?

I would have more courage and confidence and therefore act more, with less consideration for those who lack vision and who are doubtful and afraid. Time is real. Time is short. It is time to make haste.

If you could live my waking life for me today, would you handle my three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Since this interview is about listening to those emerging potentials personified by Thomas Jefferson, the first issue would be about how to best go about guaranteeing human rights for all mankind.

A multi-pronged approach is required. Some people will work to change law to ensure human rights and the rights of the Earth. Some people will focus on increasing internal virtue through extending full rights of citizenship to the other parts of themselves that you call emerging potentials. Both approaches are necessary and become more necessary as human power, knowledge, numbers, and complexity grows.

The second is how best to insure the rights of my greater identity, so that I can respect my greater self and not be a dictator in my own relationships to myself.

Your work, which is about listening to disenfranchised emerging potentials and applying their recommendations, allows people to find their own way to virtue. It teaches them to believe in themselves and find direction for growth that is genuine and deeply meaningful for them. So through your work people learn to become much less dictators over themselves; that will continue to be the case.

The third is how best to awaken others to the Thomas Jefferson part of themselves.

You are doing what you know to do in this regard. Others will read this and some few will try these experiments and get in touch with me. Some few of those will find themselves awakened and will be moved to greater, more effective action.  

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of my life?

Question, but do not tolerate doubt, distraction, or the petty criticism of those who are themselves rudderless or who are protecting their advantage.

Recognize and remember that your inner community looks to you for leadership, direction, inspiration, and help. It cannot live or act in the world without you. It is up to you to represent them and to advocate for them, to ensure that they have a place at the decision-making table, that their voices are heard, and that their grievances are respected.

Virtue is a balance of many things, as you know. It is also an active thing, not simply an idea, ideal, or moral imperative. The nature of an imperative is that it commands and leads to action, and not just any action, but virtuous action. The most virtuous actions are those that extend rights to more in broader spheres, to everyone, to the earth, and to the internal constituency of every personal government, without exception.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for me to imagine that I am you and act as you would? 

Only when you want vision, courage, and decisive action.

Thomas Jefferson, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

In my lifetime I did. I have no interest in it now.  

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

I see the big picture and find it petty, distracting, and self-centered.

Thomas Jefferson, you are imaginary. Why should I pay attention to anything you say?

An idea whose time has come is more real than any individual. It is more powerful than any army. I am such an idea. I continue to be born within the mind of humanity. I continue to be born within your mind.

Why do you think that you are in my life? 

Political power is personal power, writ large. Personal power starts with accessing powerful, wise, and virtuous inner reservoirs of ability. I am one such reservoir. 

How am I most likely to ignore what you are saying to me?

You will think small. You will listen to your fears. You will surround yourself with petty, confused, or destructive people. You will forget about me. 

What would you recommend that I do about that?

Read over this interview. Work on the practical application of my presence in your daily life. Enfranchise your internal society.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

There exists within me and within all men a very powerful and effective emerging potential personified by Thomas Jefferson.

Is there anything you want to take away from this interview to apply in your everyday life?

Great deeds by great men can inspire me to do great deeds and to be a great man, in my own small way, in my own limited sphere of influence. Being that in a quality way today is my focus, not tomorrow or in the world in general. My power lies in effectively expressing my emerging potentials today. 

Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Even if, like me, you’re not a Christian, you have some relationship with Jesus. Maybe you hate what he represents. Maybe you worship him. Maybe you’re not sure what your relationship with him is. Whatever the case may be, because you live in a world drenched in stories, beliefs, and histories that are either about or reactions to what this or that person thought about Jesus, he represents a persona and a set of experiences that cannot be ignored. The following interview is an example of what you can do to clarify and improve your relationship with this potent personal, spiritual, and cultural reality.

Many people have near death experiences of Jesus. I grew up thinking of him as a loving elder brother. From my years studying the Edgar Cayce readings I generalized that to a sense of God and spirituality as “Christ Consciousness” or an “awareness of my oneness with God,” as Cayce defined it. Think of it as a universal or archetypal Jesus/God/self combination. It’s a concept that is used by Unity and various segments of the new age community.

That belief structure began to lose salience for me in 1969, when I was nineteen, and got exposed to multi-perspectival approaches to spirituality, particularly through the study of Chinese and Indian religions. I also slowly became less enamoured with the historical Jesus because of the many contradictions in and non-spiritual aspects of his character (demon fighting, whip using, bringing not peace but a sword, apocalypticism, exclusivity “No one comes to the Father but by me,” among other things), things about him that I did not recognize, minimized, or excused before. Still, I continue to believe that the most plausible explanation for the image on the Shroud of Turin is resurrection. I also do not discount the extraordinary reality and transformational love of people’s encounters with “Jesus” in near death experiences.

So why not an interview with my own archetypal Jesus to give it a chance to be heard? I do not expect it to express truths or realities for you – you have to do your own interview to do that – and I don’t expect it to be free of my own projections, biases, and prejudices. But how will I know if it will provide a helpful, broadened, useful perspective or not unless I allow it to speak to me?

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

Staying centered in luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance.

Writing, editing, publishing.

Learning German.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

The first. It’s my present conceptualization of the sacred and how to build my experience of it in my daily life.

What feelings does this issue bring up for you? 

Good ones! The six core qualities – confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing. A sense of being on the right track and doing what I need to be doing. So a sense of happiess and contentment.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

White.

 Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.  

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What? 

Let’s go with a heavenly Jesus, complete with wings, sacred heart, and halo…The works. He’s smiling beatifically, full of love and peace…

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Christ Consciousness, look out at the world from your perspective and tell us what you see… 

I see a world of suffering, delusion, confusion, and fear. I see a lot of scared, alienated people, who don’t feel supported or loved.

Christ Consciousness, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am universal love and wisdom. I am praying for humanity. I am welcoming all to me that are receptive to me.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I am loving and wise. My strengths are that I am patient and never-failing. 

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I do not get heard. My influence is limited. People are more receptive to me when they are in crisis, near death, or dying. I would like more people to experience my love and my wisdom.

Christ Consciousness, what aspect of Joseph do you represent or most closely personify?

His awareness of his oneness with God.

Christ Consciousness, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

The problem is, since he doesn’t have much use for the concept of God, awareness of his oneness with God doesn’t do much for him any more. He is not much interested in mystical experiences, because they don’t last and he’s not looking for transcendental awakenings. He wants to be more awake in mundane ways: when he listens to people, when he’s washing the dishes. So for me to reach him I need to be a personification of what he desires: my qualities awakened within him. Just white light.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

White Light/Christ Consciousness, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can’t die so I have nothing to fear.

  Compassion: 10 I’m Jesus! Who could be more compassionate?

  Wisdom: 10 I know more than Santa Claus!

Acceptance: 10 I totally accept everyone and everything.

Inner Peace: 10 Nothing stresses me out, not even all the suffering I see.

Witnessing: 10 From up here, the view is great. I get to see everything and everybody.            

How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

He wouldn’t need me; he’d be me! But he’s not, so he needs me!

If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

Focus on what he has: my love and wisdom, not on what he doesn’t have.

If you could live Joseph’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Staying centered in luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance.

He’s on track with that one. Keep it up!

Writing, editing, publishing.

Set a daily schedule, do a bit of self-discipline.

Learning German.

The same.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Joseph’s life?

Avoiding, ignoring distractions. 

Developing a laser focus. 

Enjoying each moment!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would? 

Whenever he loses focus or direction; whenever he needs a clearer sense of direction.

White Light/ Christ Consciousness, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

Nope. Too busy being me. 

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

Too focused on love and wisdom. 

Christ Consciousness, you are imaginary, to the extent that you are a projection of Joseph’s idea of you. Why should he pay attention to anything you say?

I am a reality for a good part of the human race. The more he internalizes me, the more he will relate to others. I’m a part of his larger self he’ll meet when he dies. I score higher than he does. I embody the love and wisdom he seeks. Those are pretty good reasons. 

Why do you think that you are in Joseph’s life? 

To reassert myself as an important, valuable emerging potential for him.

How is Joseph most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?

See me as just one more of many valuable and valid emerging potentials. 

What would you recommend that he do about that?

Nothing! That’s true!

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

There is a role for Christ Consciousness in my life and in my growth.

Is there anything you want to take away from this interview to apply in your everyday life?

Become Christ Consciousness whenever I lose focus or need a clearer sense of direction.

Notice that  this portrayal of Jesus/Christ Consciousness/White Light did not have any sense of exclusivity. In response to the question, “How is Joseph most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?” the answer was, “See me as just one more of many valuable and valid emerging potentials.” “What would you recommend that he do about that?” “Nothing! That’s true!”Christ Consciousness is not assigning itself a higher value than any other interviewed emerging potential, which is interesting. It reflects a perspective that says that everything is a portal for the sacred. Your interview, however, may produce a Christ Consciousness that is exclusive. There is a place for that perspective as well.

You may also find yourself disappointed that an interview with such a transcendent immanence is not a mystical experience. Certainly, if it was a real contact it would be transformative, awe-inspiring, and life-changing, right?

The challenge of spirituality is the alchemy of turning the lead of this present moment into gold, and to keep doing that moment after moment. That can only happen when we become that gold, when webecome that Christ Consciousness. IDL interviewing is designed to help you do that, using whatever is your icon for the MOST HIGH: Jesus, Buddha, Christ Consciousness, money, fame, health, a government that is fair and just…I invite you to interview your own Christ Consciousness or your equivalent, and share with us what you learn!

The following provides an excellent example of how your inner compass does not discriminate between night time dreams and waking life the way that you do. It is a dream of drowning based on a real life near drowning by Ingrid, a six year old girl at the beginning of World War II in Germany. In this case, the dream of being submerged in the water merges with the waking dream of almost drowning. From the perspective of Ingrid’s inner compass, both realms are equally opportunities to stimulate growth through wake-up calls. Both dreaming and waking life are equally opportunities for us to grow into a greater identity through listening to and growing into a broader sense of who we are.

There is also considerable help in this interview for understanding dreams of water, how threat is often misperceived, the impact of enculturation, and how needless, avoidable fears can be carried around for decades because of a mistaken perception of life and dream events.

As a child Ingrid thought almost drowning was punishment for disobeying her mother and sneaking out and going swimming. She has been afraid of water ever since, although she loved it before this accident, and although during the experience of drowning itself she was not afraid.

Here is an interpretive summarization of the interview for Ingrid. Read it over as if it was meant for you, too. Then, if you want to understand the interview in more detail, you will find it below. Of course, an interview with your own water will have its own unique perspective and generate different recommendations, created especially for you.

There is a liquid, flowing part of yourself that you are separated from, that only experiences itself. It puts you in touch with infinity, nature, and a wider view of life. It is fluid and is constantly moving, and clear. Nothing disturbs this part of you. This is a neutral part of yourself.  It wants to stay clear and pure. Its power is to separate. It is abundant. It is very confident because it cannot die; it only transforms. All life comes out of this part of yourself.

This is a part of yourself that is not very compassionate. Perhaps you have to become less “socially” compassionate before you can recognize and create real compassion. To find life happiness and contentment it recommends that you care more about yourself and becoming one with yourself. For health, it encourages you to drink at least two liters of water a day.  It is a part of you that does not think about needing a lot of money but just having enough.  It recommends you focus on stopping doing things that pollute your body or mind. Consider the possibility of polluting thoughts, feelings, and relationships not just actions, like what you eat. Avoid putting conflictual things into yourself, such as you do when you argue with yourself or waste energy feeling angry. Don’t disturb your inner peace with  activities that take advantage of it!

This is a part of yourself that usually respects natural limits and boundaries and doesn’t waste much energy in feelings of separation. It recommends that you become it when you want to increase your confidence, because it scores higher in confidence than you do. Doing so will allow you to be more neutral and to have less compassion, which will allow you to focus on yourself and find your own inner peace. It considers itself worth your trust. It can, will, and does support you, but to know that you have to take the first step toward trusting it. Trust your daughter Claudia to help you grow in confidence to trust this part of yourself. (Claudia has years of experience in teaching people to be comfortable in the ocean snorkeling. She leads dolphin excursions to Bimini, in the Bahamas.)

It is telling you that as a child you did not feel seen, acknowledged, or loved by your mother or your sister. You weren’t looking for them to rescue you from this part of yourself, but simply to be recognized for who you were. You were as clear about that as you could be.

From the perspective of the water, almost drowning had nothing to do with punishment or disobedience. It also becomes clear that the water was not attempting to scare you or kill you either. It was simply being itself.

Every time you read over this interview you will strengthen your contact with your own sense of who you are. You will internalize its confidence and move toward a healthier balance between compassion for others and love of yourself.  Practice becoming the water whenever you want to feel more confident and trust yourself more.

The Interview, from which the above remarks are derived:

How can that long ago life event and repetitive dream help Ingrid heal her fear of the water today? We start, as always, by making the questioning process as practical and useful as possible by asking Ingrid to share three life issues that affect her today.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

Life happiness – contentment; to stay that way

Health for me and my family

Money – enough to take care of needs; not necessarily to be rich

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

When I was six years old I had started school. It was at the beginning of WW II in Germany. I liked to go swimming at a public swimming pool. My mother didn’t allow me to go that afternoon. I don’t know why. But I took my swimming suit and a little money and went alone. I always went there alone. We played tag in the water and I was moving very fast. My feet slipped on the ground and I fell over on my back. I couldn’t get my feet under me to stand up.  I swallowed a lot of water. The girl that was after me in the game was the only one that saw that I was in trouble. She took me out of the water and put me under a warm shower. At home, during the night I couldn’t sleep because I hadn’t obeyed. I wanted to tell my mother what had happened; I told her I almost drowned that afternoon. After that I often had the dream that I was lying on the floor of the swimming pool with clear water above me. I saw  my mother and sister walking past. I tried to stretch my arm out so that they could see me but the water was just too deep to reach out of the water. They never saw me. I repetitively had that dream. I forgot all about that story and that dream for years.

Why do you think that you had this dream?

There was a feeling of being separated from my mother and my sister. I didn’t have fear when I was drowning. At that moment I knew that everything was over, that it was the end. It wasn’t fear but I was conscious of the end of life.

That’s interesting, because whenever you tell of your fear of water you tell that story!

I think I may have felt that I was punished for disobeying my mother. But I loved to go into the water before that. I was called “Water Rat!” After that, I thought everyone in the world knew how to swim but me. Before a holiday to Italy when I was a young adult I was wondering whether to get an inflatable swimming suit, so no one would notice I could not swim. But instead I decided to take swimming lessons before the holiday. I went there every day for several weeks. My teacher had me jump off a one meter board, which was very scary. All the men at the pool were watching me, so I forced myself to jump and swim to the edge. I thought I was the only one in the world that couldn’t swim! When I went to Italy I was not scared of the water and actually even went in when there were waves.

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Water!

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Water, are you a character in Ingrid’s dream and life, yes?

Yes!

Water, look out at the world from your perspective and tell us what you see…

I only experience myself – liquid!

Water, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I move to and fro. Sometimes there is wind and I’ll be a little higher and not like a mirror. I’m used to all these different states. Nothing disturbs that. My movement is very important to me.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

That I can jump and move! I can take things away! I can make things like wood move. It’s like being in neutral. I’m not aware that fish need me to live. I haven’t thought about that until now.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

That I’m getting polluted!

Water, you are in Ingrid’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right?  Water, what aspect of Ingrid do you represent or most closely personify?

Danger, but not really…I have the power to separate.

Water, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would like to stay as I am. I have power. My power is to separate. I am deep enough. There’s plenty of me.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 8 Because I’m everywhere! When I evaporate I come down as water again! I don’t vanish!

Compassion: 3 My compassion is not very developed…

Wisdom: 7 I have a lot of experience; I’m very old. All life comes out of me. That makes me proud but also powerful. I don’t care whether people get drowned…

Acceptance: 6

Inner Peace: 8 Nothing upsets me. I am as I am!

Witnessing: 6

Water, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I don’t think I’d be much different.

How would Ingrid’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

I don’t think she would be much different.

If you could live Ingrid’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

Maybe I would concentrate more on my compassion for life around me. Ingrid’s compassion is higher than mine.

If you could live Ingrid’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Life happiness – contentment; to stay that way.

You can only be happy if you’re one with yourself. That she will care more about herself. It could be more!

Health for me and my family

With the help of drinking at least two liters of water a day! Her body is mostly made out of me!

Money – enough to take care of needs; not necessarily to be rich

As water I don’t have to think about money. Just having enough!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?

1. Pollution of myself! Ending it!

2. It’s important to me that the circle of life remains undisturbed and that humans stop stirring me up by putting all sorts of weapons and military systems inside of me.

3. I don’t like people treasure hunting in me. I want my peace, please!

Do you feel separated from anything, Water?

I feel separated from land. Sometimes I go and try to catch some. So people build dams.

If you were Ingrid, how would you handle this issue of separation. Like she does, or differently?

I wouldn’t do anything! I did everything I could towards it.

Ingrid has had a fear of you in her life, Water. How would you handle that fear if you were her?

I could offer to have her try to be in me to gain confidence.

Why should she trust you? You’re imaginary!

I support her! I could show her that I am able to carry her. She has to try it first to gain that confidence.

Do you think Ingrid could or should trust her daughter, who has taught many people to be confident in water?

Definitely, yes.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Ingrid to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

Not to care so much; to be more neutral.  It would help Ingrid to not have too much compassion.

Why do you think that Ingrid had those dreams when she was a child?

She wanted to be seen, to be acknowledged! It wasn’t about needing to be rescued!

Why do you think that you are in Ingrid’s life?

She likes me. She likes the sea. It has no limits! The infinity to the horizon. I can show her or give her that. Reflections of the sky and the clouds. I can show her a wider view.

I think her mother and daughter did not acknowledge her in her dream because…

She did not feel loved by her mother and her sister.

What have you heard yourself say?

I remember that I don’t care that much what’s happening around me as water.  I don’t care about anything, really.  Water said I want to have a relationship with it. I feel like water is trying to make for a relationship with me. It’s a difficult relationship, it seems…

Water, do you think it is a difficult relationship with Ingrid?

Not for me. It’s because Ingrid doesn’t trust me.

Water, were you punishing Ingrid because she disobeyed her mother?

Definitely not! I’m neutral! I witness!

Water, why do you think Ingrid had a strong urge to tell her mother she ha disobeyed her, gone swimming, and almost drowned?

Because she experienced fear and wanted to be comforted.

Water, how do you feel about Ingrid not trusting you?

It’s a pity! All I can do is wait, be patient! You can’t force anything! Try and find out for yourself! If she comes to me I can show her I can carry her and support her. That’s the first step!

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

I’ve always lacked confidence. Maybe the waking call is, “Go and try it!” The water is very clear. The water tried everything it could to support me and be clear. Those two couldn’t see me. Maybe there is something wrong with them.

When everyone in the dream is a part of you it means that there are two parts of yourself (mother and sister) that don’t see you. The issue is that you are not recognizing or acknowledging a part or parts of yourself that want and need to be seen, accepted, and made part of your life.

“Samsara” is the Sanskrit word for “illusion.” It refers to the suffering associated with the incessant rounds of rebirth created by karma, or the law of cause and effect.  This is the basic predicament behind Hinduism, Buddhism, the Bon religion of Tibet, Jainism, and Sikhism.

Such grand religious formulations are out-picturings of very personal human dilemmas that everyone struggles with, regardless of their religious preferences.  From time to time all of us feel trapped in the drama of life, victims not only of our own poor decisions and delusions, but of our social, cultural, and biological worlds. How to get out? What to do? Each Indian religion has its own answer. For Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism it is to take up a yoga and seek moksha, or liberation (mukti in Sikhism). Buddhists follow the Eight-Fold Noble Path and seek nirvana, the cessation of all cravings.

In the following interview Gloria, a lovely, talented professional singer, is feeling overwhelmed by the drama of her life. She feels that her life options are closing off and that she will stagnate and stop growing. The more she looks for solutions with her stuck waking mind the more anxious, stressed, and panicked she becomes.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Should I leave Michigan where I live with my boyfriend and move to Canada?

2 Will I have enough self-confidence and energy to continue my life work as a free-lance singer and also continue organizing the work for Abraxas?

3 What keeps me from actually saying “yes” to a job as a steady member of a choir where I will have less financial pressure or insecurity? Why does it give me the creeps to think of staying in one steady place? What is my life path? Security and no more challenge? To be one more singer in a choir, without control over my material? I couldn’t be myself so much.  It would mean stagnation and no challenge to grow. But on the other hand I would have time to read and paint and do other things. How long will I have the energy and power to lead the life I am living? I am thirty-two.  Abraxas is forty-eight. Is this about having children and settling down?

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Stagnation and having no challenge to grow. It brings on a sense of panic. (Tears.)

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Pink-violet

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

A metal trash bin!

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Metal Trash bin, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

Gloria is not here. I am in a vacuum. I’m making noise with my lid!

I’m an old fashioned light blue colored trash bin with a wooden handle.  There are places in me where the paint is gone and you can see the rust underneath.

What’s it like in a vacuum, Metal Trash Bin?

It’s not grey or unpleasant. It’s like me – it’s light blue.  I’m comfortable here but I can’t turn around.  There are no other trash cans that I can see. It’s definitely darker behind me.  I quite like Gloria, but she’s not here.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like myself.  I’m good at making nice noises! Rattling! I am kind of an antique; I have some style.  I have character!  I may be rusty, but I don’t have any trash inside me!  I’m not interested in trash! I’m not interested in my function as a collector or holder of trash.

If you could be filled with anything, what would you want?

I want to remain empty!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Not really. I don’t like not knowing what may be behind me.  I think it’s pretty good that there’s no one around.

Antique Trash Bin, what aspect of Gloria do you represent or most closely personify?

Loneliness and sadness.  But I’m not a stupid Trash Bin. Maybe I’m a bit in resistance. My rattling is rebellion.

Antique Trash Bin, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would like to stay a Trash Bin but I wouldn’t rattle so much. I might like to keep my lid shut. I would like to have flowers like lavender in me.

How long do you want to stop rattling, Trash Bin? For three years?

That would be good!

How about twenty three years?

No, I would get rusty!

I am realizing that I don’t need this lid!  I want to be filled with lavender.  I already have dirt inside me to grow flowers in, but the problem is that over the course time everything dies.

But not necessarily in imaginary Antique Trash Bins…

After my lavender dies I don’t want anything. (Looks sad…) I will be sad; the dirt is inside me. That’s how it is.  In the course of time I too will dissolve… I want something to remain.  I wonder if I should?

Let’s say the lavendar dies and you rust out and are gone. What is there now?

Nothing!

I’d like to ask the Vacuum some questions, Trash Bin. Vacuum, is there anything in you after you rust out and are gone?

There are shining stars in me!  But I don’t exist!  There will be no vacuum either when the Bucket stops existing.

Vacuum, how does it feel to no longer exist?

It’s good!

What’s good about it?

It’s the aim! Because it’s good if one can really cease to exist. The lavender is part of a circle of life, samsara. Everything starts all over again. But if everything really ends, that’s good…Everything is good!

If Gloria felt like you do all the time, non-existent Vacuum, would her life be different? If so, how?

That’s actually Gloria’s aim!  To be like me is her goal!

I thought it was to decide whether to stay and join the choir or move to Switzerland.

It’s all not important! I think it’s important to look for answers in how to dissolve!

Stars, are you still existing?  What do you think of what the non-existant Vacuum is saying?

It’s not the question of existing or not existing.  That’s not important for us!

What is?

Nothing!

What’s that like to have no important, pressing issues, Stars?

I can’t take the role of role of a star! I’m a vacuum! It’s my hope that I can stop existing like that – to become one with something that is above all the hassle and human troubles.

Have you managed to do that, non-existent Vacuum?

When I dissolve, that’s what I will be. I will be detached and no longer transform.  I think it’s good.  It’s not time yet to dissolve and completely detach.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Non-existent Vacuum, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: I cannot do that!  I have no idea what this could be like!  I know it will be good when I dissolve! But how exactly?  It’s also not my own doing. It’s not in my hands…

Compassion: I don’t know…

Wisdom: I think there would be a lot of wisdom even though I wouldn’t exist.

Acceptance: A great amount!  And a lot of love!

Inner Peace: Oh yes! Definitely! Beyond my imagination – extraordinary!

Witnessing: I definitely won’t be entangled in any drama! I won’t have an emotional quality or any feeling – it will just be wonderful!

How would Gloria’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

It would be wonderful!  First she has to reach my level! She has no idea how to be me!

If you could live Gloria’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

I think it’s all not so important!  Then she could also dissolve and not exist one day!

So if she did that today, how would her life be different?

If she continues life like she is she’ll become like the bucket! That’s not so good because she will remain part of the circle of life and not dissolve…

What do you think she needs to do to dissolve?

She needs to calm down! To have peace! Nothing will happen to her career! Things that seem so important now wouldn’t be so much anymore if she does!

If you could live Gloria’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1 Should I leave Michigan where I live with my boyfriend and move to Canada:

It’s not important!  She needs to focus on breathing! That’s much more important! Then she’ll be able to make better decisions!

2 Will I have enough self-confidence and enough energy to carry on a free-lance life.  Also to organize the work for Abraxas?

It’s all not important! I even get out of breath saying the life issues!  This is about concentrating on herself!

3 What keeps me from actually saying yes to a job as a steady member of a choir with less financial pressure or insecurty. Why does it give me the creeps to think of staying in one steady place? What is my life path? Security and no more challenge? One more person in a choir? I couldn’t be myself so much.  It would mean stagnation and no challenge to grow. But on the other hand I would have time to read and paint and do other things…How long will have the energy and power to lead the life I am living? I am thirty-two.  Abraxas is forty-eight. Is this about having children and settling down.

If she doesn’t calm down and breathe her life will go to the dogs. It’s not about the choir, if she doesn’t remember to breathe and calm down she will stagnate and not grow.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Gloria’s life?

Nothing is so important! I enjoy looking at lavender! I concentrate on being…All those issues would be burden I don’t want to load onto myself! I would focus on being! Like flying!

Wouldn’t that be selfish?

Who cares whether it’s selfish or not?

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Gloria to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

Always!

Why do you think that you are in Gloria’s life?

I am actually worried about her. If she doesn’t remember to breathe then it will all be over!   I came into her life today because she really needs me. She’s really been looking for me!

Has she found you now?

Yes!

How long will it take her to lose you again?

To find me she can breathe, sleep, be quiet, calm down…And to have confidence!  I am always there!

Gloria, what have you heard yourself say?

Breathe! Despite the fact that I’m a singer!

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

There is no vacuum!

What Gloria seems to be saying is that when you become one with annhilation, death, and nothingness you find that it is overflowing with beingness. What you feared you would experience and what one actually experiences are almost complete opposites.

Notice that from the perspective of Vacuum there either is no selfishness or concerns about selfishness are of no importance. Notice how different a perspective that is from how most of us were raised and how we use some measure of selfishness/altruism to determine the worth of what we do and who we are. How would our lives be different if we thought about selfishness the way Vacuum does?

An irony of this interview is that Gloria is being told to use her breath to center, find, and maintain inner peace, yet she is a singer who uses her breath in a disciplined, controlled way more than just about any occupation, except perhaps freedivers and pranayama yogins. Clearly there is a great difference between becoming an expert at controlling your breath and becoming one with it.

We also find that escape from the cycle of samsara is not about meditation, mystical states, yogic trainings, various purifications, or taking up this or that religious practice. We find that it is about becoming present with what already is, embedded in every breath.

How can we help our powerful spiritual transformations alive in our lives today? How do we cut through the whirl of mental and emotional confusion that keeps us from inner peace?  How can we best understand chronic pain? Why do we sometimes find ourselves inexplicably angry at others or life for no reason? What is the nature of the traumatic dissociation from our spiritual selves that we all experience, to one degree or another, as children?

One of our NDE research subjects, Cheryl, chose to continue to work with IDL dream yoga interviewing after her NDE research interview.

Cheryl’s courage shows us how we too can blow on the embers of our inner fire, reigniting them to fill our lives with meaning and joyful service. In this fascinating interview we find that the first challenge is to wake up to the fact that drama is not our friend. We are so addicted to our normal stream of mental and emotional trauma that it has become comfortable and familiar, even as it slowly kills us.  Once we have learned to listen to drama and distinguish it from the light we seek we can work our way back to the core of ourselves.  This is the hero’s journey. It is a process, often sparked by a glimpse of what awaits us, as NDEs provide.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 My actual birth and how that is today. I get anxious whenever I have things to do. It’s hard for me to get started. I always do. It feels like I can’t go out the birth canal – it’s the same in my everyday life. I do, but there’s the anxiousness at the onset.

2  The right side of my body will have pain in specific places but it will move around from place to place. Where my back and my bottom meet, my calf, and a place at the base of my skull on the right side. I can get red spots above my brows.

3  It feels like “anxious anger.” The word “bitter” comes. It just doesn’t apply to my here and now, yet I’ll feel angry or bitter.  But it’s not related in the now.

What would you like to deeply listen to? One of these life issues? An aspect of your  two NDEs? A dream?

“…last night the most brutal night I’ve ever had.  I had sat down & cried for a long time before bedtime. Crying is very unusual for me and welcome. I have been feeling sad on and off for a month or so. All the crying/pain release last night was from, first, my mother tries to kill me twice, succeeds once and now she is feeding me. At the time I feel like I just stayed disassociated.

My husband was a blessing & was there for me. Then we went to sleep. After perhaps an hour I awoke & the rest of the night was BRUTAL. The most pronounced was the pain in my head. At my temples it was  SEVERE; (it) felt like a vice grip clamped down as hard as it would go. The pain was so great it was unbearable. This went on most of the night. I had been breathing into it and then I woke my husband and got dramatic, which I realized, then he reminded me again to breathe into it. This took me into a many hour journey. For awhile (it) felt like a literal birth that didn’t finish. Then it was more birth, death, I saw many skeletons… Never felt like I got to the rebirth.”

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Pressure:

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

It’s black.

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness. Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

It’s a funnel shape

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Funnel, Vortex, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am outside of Cheryl, I surround her. I am smaller at the bottom, spinning clockwise very quickly. I almost don’t know I’m spinning. I want to go the other way. I feel that I’m out of balance.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I CAN spin. I know stuff – not the intellect, but knowing. I know what not to do!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

That I only spin clockwise. I feel stuck. That I only go in one direction is a weakness.

Vortex, you are in Cheryl’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right? What aspect of Cheryl do you represent or most closely personify?

Her personality. She is afraid to trust God and live beyond the humanly way.

Vortex, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I want to change! It’s bizarre – I think I want to change but do I really want to change? I’ll change into the universe! I’m gigantic; I’m observing everything. I’m moving on an axis, slowly – it still feels I’m moving clockwise. It feels natural this time instead of feeling like I’m supposed to go the other way.  What’s difference is that there is nature’s way. How anything operates.

Try going counterclockwise for a moment and tell me what that is like for you, Universe…

Very difficult! Sluggish!  Why am I going this way?  It’s the wrong way.

Now go back to being the Vortex…

I’m not spinning any more. I feel planted in the ground. I can sway. It is a relief not to spin! It was so taxing to spin all the time!

Vortex, try spinning and then stopping and changing speeds. What’s that like for you?

It feels foreign and jerky!  On off On off… I would like to be open…

Be open Vortex and tell me what that’s like for you…

It’s like Nirvana!  It feels very good. No restrictions. Go with the flow. Go with nature…I’m purple, then white! My preference would be to be at peace. I wouldn’t be spinning. I would be going with the flow.  I don’t know how to do do that.  I feel resistance, afraid…

Ball, have you been listening to what Vortex has been saying?

Yes.

What is that resistance and fear about, Ball?

I’m laughing! Not at Cheryl!  It’s all a hoax!

What would you do if you were this vortex, Ball?

Get a grip! Stay one with God!  I’m one with God!  There isn’t any difference between me and God!  If the vortex was like me it would live from spiritual love.  It would be green!  It would be floating! Like an energy wave…

Vortex, I would like you to imagine that you are a green energy wave and tell me what that’s like…

Much better! That’s the truth of me, the seed of me, not the everyday basis personality self. But I easily forget about the energy wave. I’m in the ball. It feels new, promising.  I feel reluctance…I can’t get out of here…

So Vortex, since you are imaginary, imagine you are out of the Ball. What’s that like?

It’s strange.  I want to be in it, then I feel stuck and want to be out of it! Then when I am out of it I’m not content either!  I feel damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

Vortex, what if you allow yourself to be in the Ball when you want and out of it when you want to?

That would be lonely…It would be good to be in the Ball. But having the ability to be in or out of it feels scrambled, like I’m beating around the bush, like I’m keeping everything at bay.

Ball, what do you think of what Vortex just said?

Cheryl not intentionally keeps her life at bay. She came back to life but she left her spirit behind because she didn’t want it to be harmed.  It’s weird for her to live her day to day life without her spirit. She does the best that she can but there’s really something missing.

I have a question for Cheryl’s spirit. Can you be harmed, spirit?

No. There’s no way to destroy me. I’m energy that can’t die.

What do you think of Cheryl’s fear that you will get hurt that causes her to leave you behind, Spirit?

That it is unnecessary and backwards! She thinks she needs to protect me but I actually protect her!  With guidance! If she saw things as I do she would follow spiritual guidance, she wouldn’t have to be in charge, we would have more fun, she would face life in a much lighter way.

What do you think of this Vortex, spirit?

It’s a scrambler! I would eliminate it!

Vortex, what do you think of what Spirit just said?

I’m not of use to Cheryl.  It’s like scrambling a computer. She can’t live her thing, do her thing. If she does, she’s not very present. Without me, the Vortex, the scrambler, things will be straight forward. She won’t have all this push-pull.

What do you think of this green wave, Spirit?

It’s great!  To live from her heart!  To live from a loving energy, period, without thinking she has to do this or that or orchestrate everything. Much more go with the flow.

What do you think of this Ball, Spirit!

Play with it! Have fun with it! It’s totally hers. She acts like it’s not!

Spirit, do you have any color or shape?

White, like snow, and sparkly.  I’m all around her!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Vortex, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10  I’m beautiful, I sparkle! I’m soft, like a nice, warm blanket!

Compassion: 10 Compassion is the best thing I can give. Compassion accepts! There is no judgment.

Wisdom: 10 What I need to know I know! I don’t have to keep figuring things out.

Acceptance: 10 I AM acceptance!

Inner Peace: 10 There’s nothing to get upset and disturbed about.

Witnessing: 10 That’s really all I do, observe.

How would Cheryl’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Not much different than it is!

If you could live Cheryl’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

I would stop thinking that I am not there, not tens in all six of those qualities. She would experience herself as spirit, ten in all six of these qualities, that she hasn’t left me behind. She’s only thought she left me behind!

If you could live Cheryl’s waking life for her today, would you handle Cheryl’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1 My actual birth and how that is today. I get anxious whenever I have things to do. It’s hard for me to get started. I always do. It feels like I can’t go out the birth canal – it’s the same in my everyday life. I do, but there’s the anxiousness at the onset.

Know that it’s safe for her to live her life, no matter what that is.

Why should she trust you, spirit?

Because I know!

2  The right side of my body will have pain in specific places but it will move around from place to place. Where my back and my bottom meet, my calf, and a place at the base of my skull on the right side. I can get red spots above my brows.

Let the pain go!

How would she do that?

Visualize it dissolved.

How would that make a difference?

Her body wouldn’t hurt. Now she gets too involved with the pain.  Pain will come when she’s ignoring me.

Why?

To get her to pay attention to me!  To take a break and be still and meditative!

3  It feels like “anxious anger.” The word “bitter” comes. It just doesn’t apply to my here and now, yet I’ll feel angry or bitter.  But it’s not related in the now.

Let that go too! She is already safe. She doesn’t need anger to back people away.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Cheryl’s life?

1. I’d play more, especially in the water! She lives in the water and she could do that any time! I would have more fun and stop being so serious all the time!

2. I would do LOTS of artwork!  Do it for the sake of doing art, not be serious about it.

3. Creating!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Cheryl to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

In particular, when getting in motion, initiating, starting whatever she is about  to do. She won’t be afraid because I don’t have fear!  She will engage with herself and others without any fear!  There won’t be that anxiety when it’s time to engage! It would be nice! There wouldn’t be any resistance! She would go forth with what she wants!

Why do you think that you are in Cheryl’s life?

I would love Cheryl to allow me to be in control! She should trust me! She is working herself to the bone when I’m already there!

How is Cheryl most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

She keeps studying and reading about me and ignores that I’m already here!

What would you recommend that she do about that?

She can study and read but she really needs to play and have fun!

Cheryl, what have you heard yourself say?

Spirit is already here! I feel really delighted! I don’t have to work so hard!  I get to play and have fun and do art and be free of taking life so seriously and working hard like I do 98% of the time!

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

LIVE!

Is there anything you want to take away from this interview to apply in your everyday life, between now and the next time we talk?

Remembering that I’m here to live, not figuring it out!  I can make little posters and put them around to remind me that I’m already living!

Notice that Cheryl’s physical pressure personified as the vortex we first interviewed. She is enveloped in an energy field that says it is out of balance because it can only spin in one direction. It personifies her personality and in particular her fear to trust. IDL dream yoga interviewing addresses this issue by building trust in one’s own inner compass. All of us are in touch with our inner compass but its guidance must compete with the guidance of many relatively exterior compasses: the voices inside our head of our parents, relatives, and teachers, those of our current family members, our society, and by various experts. What a vortex! IDL puts a priority on strengthening your contact with your own inner compass in the belief that doing so gives you a way to determine what is useful and what is not in all the other competing and conflicting messages that come from within and without.

While the vortex does not like or trust the direction that it is going, when it changes into the universe, from that perspective the direction it is moving in is “nature’s way,” how everything operates. She is being told that she can trust the direction, if not the speed, of the spinning of her vortex. It feels more grounded and a relief not to spin at all. It is peaceful, going with the flow.

The shift to the Ball was to view this experience from the perspective of the peace and bliss of her infant NDEs. Would it confirm what the Universe said? What comes up is surprising.  The ambivalence of the vortex and Cheryl’s mind is gone and the fear of doing the wrong thing or being wrong is gone.  Instead there is a perspective that is reminiscent of the Hindu concept of Lila: divine play.  The ball is laughing and sees it all as a hoax.  What keeps us in pain is a series of self-generated delusions.

What would you do if you were this vortex, Ball?

Get a grip! Stay one with God!  I’m one with God!  There isn’t any difference between me and God!  If the vortex was like me it would live from spiritual love.  It would be green!  It would be floating! Like an energy wave…

The ball would turn the vortex into a green floating energy wave, which personifies the core truth of who Cheryl is rather than her personality.

Much better! That’s the truth of me, the seed of me, not the everyday basis personality self. But I easily forget about the energy wave. I’m in the ball. It feels new, promising.  I feel reluctance…I can’t get out of here…

Our addiction to our habitual fears and waking perspective are so strong that we quickly kick ourselves out of heaven and back into purgatory at best, hell at worst:

It’s strange.  I want to be in it, then I feel stuck and want to be out of it! Then when I am out of it I’m not content either!  I feel damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

The Vortex is given the option of not being in the Ball, since it feels stuck inside it. However, the problem is not lack of freedom; it is a restless lack of trust in whatever state one is in.  Again, this returns us to the issue of finding one’s inner compass and trusting it as the arbiter of all offered choices.

Ball, what do you think of what Vortex just said?

Cheryl not intentionally keeps her life at bay. She came back to life but she left her spirit behind because she didn’t want it to be harmed.  It’s weird for her to live her day to day life without her spirit. She does the best that she can but there’s really something missing.

Here we have a very interesting insight into the genesis of our addiction to our own particular version of Cheryl’s vortex. The only tool a child often has available to them to cope with abuse is dissociation.  It provides a measure of protection at the expense of splitting identity. Personality deals with the world but access to spirit becomes inherently problematic. If dissociation becomes severe, personality itself fragments, compounding the problem. The decision to leave spirit behind, dissociated, in order to keep it from being harmed is both appropriate and realistic for a child. It represents a core script decision that all of us make to one degree or another in order to give the adult world what it mostly wants: our obedience, not our spirit.

However, this early script decision is based on the realities of childhood and need to be revisited from the perspective of years of subsequent development:

I have a question for Cheryl’s spirit. Can you be harmed, spirit?

No. There’s no way to destroy me. I’m energy that can’t die.

What do you think of Cheryl’s fear that you will get hurt that causes her to leave you behind, Spirit?

That it is unnecessary and backwards! She thinks she needs to protect me but I actually protect her!  With guidance! If she saw things as I do she would follow spiritual guidance, she wouldn’t have to be in charge, we would have more fun, she would face life in a much lighter way.

Cheryl’s basic life premise that she cannot be whole because she must protect the core of herself from harm is being refuted. Will she listen? To the extent that this is our basic life premise, that in order to succeed and survive in the world we must repress, ignore, and protect our spirit, are we listening?

Spirit would eliminate the vortex. To the extent that this is her personality, this is not realistic. Personality is a tool, to be made transparent and a vehicle for spirit; eliminating it is to negate all the work we have done to build life skills, to be in conflict with ourselves again. But to the extent that the vortex is the excruciatingly painful pressure, it serves as a wakeup call that can be eliminated – to the extent that it is listened to.

The remainder of the interview personifies the green wave and spirit in forms that Cheryl can visualize and experience more concretely.

She would experience herself as spirit, ten in all six of these qualities, that she hasn’t left me behind. She’s only thought she left me behind!

Cheryl is told to know that it is safe for her to live her life as spirit, to let her pain go by visualizing it dissolved. She is given more information about the etiology of her pain:

Pain will come when she’s ignoring me.

Why?

To get her to pay attention to me!

Cheryl learns that her anxious anger and bitterness is a tool that she learned long ago to back people away, a tool that she no longer needs. She is giving herself permission to let it go. Spirit recommends that she play, especially in the water, to be creative and to particularly remember to become it when she is initiating soem activity or contact with others.

The core principle of IDL dream yoga, that we heal, balance, and transform our lives when we listen to and trust our inner compass, is not an abstract theory. It comes from countless interviews. In this case, it comes from Cheryl’s spirit:

Why do you think that you are in Cheryl’s life?

I would love Cheryl to allow me to be in control! She should trust me! She is working herself to the bone when I’m already there!

How is Cheryl most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

She keeps studying and reading about me and ignores that I’m already here!

This is the case for most of us. We do many things to find or discover spirit instead of listening to what is so close and so real that we overlook it.  It is like exploring the world for treasure when we have a diamond mine in our back yard!

Cheryl gets the message:

Spirit is already here! I feel really delighted! I don’t have to work so hard!  I get to play and have fun and do art and be free of taking life so seriously and working hard like I do 98% of the time!

The issue is whether she will remember it. And that is the purpose of learning to use IDL interviewing, or something like it, on a regular basis. We forget. We fall back into being the vortex. We can slowly break that addiction, but to do so we need to experience spirit as alive and relating to who we are today in practical ways, that address our particular problems in a way abstract spiritual principles or past spiritual experiences do not.

Kundalini, an ancient concept from Hindu yoga and a separate type of yoga in its own right, means “coiled” in Sanskrit and refers to either a feminine “Shakti” or a “serpent” power. When it is raised in consciousness it is often symbolized as seven or more nagas, or snakes, above and behind a meditating Buddha.  This implies that meditation and awakening of the kundalini go hand in hand.  I learned this concept early, beginning in 1963, when I was thirteen, from the son of Edgar Cayce, the medical clairvoyant, Hugh Lynn Cayce, and also from reading passages in Cayce’s readings themselves.  It was the opinion of those readings, as well as Hugh Lynn, that the elevation of this energy was a consequence of proper meditation and that drug-induced altered states of consciousness were dangerous ways to awaken it and could do more harm than good. In retrospect, from over forty years later, the way I understand this is that altered states of consciousness open us up to genuine transformational states that we lack the balance and perceptual development to integrate. Much of my life has been spent, in the development of Integral Deep Listening dream yoga, in developing a balanced, reliable way of awakening or experiencing enlightenment in the here and now, in our secular, mundane lives, without having to go into trance or spend years in monasteries doing intensive meditation.  I believe in teaching what I know from experience rather than what I believe.  I also believe that you should never take what I say on faith but simply put the injunctive methodology of IDL to work in your own life and judge the results for yourself. Any true yoga is not dependent on any particular teacher. The vehicle is irrelevant; if it is genuine, one should be able to get the results regardless of who teaches them, albeit different people resonate better with different sources of instruction.

Personally, I have always been suspicious of altered states of consciousness because I had plenty of them when I was young and they did not last. I got very clear very early that balance and integration had to be my focus. Consequently, instead of enlightenment being a singular model of love, as it is for many Christians, compassion, as it is for some forms of Tibetan Buddhism, or wisdom, as it is for Theravadin Busshism, it is for IDL the balancing of core processes and associated qualities that are associated with the round of each breath, day, and life. Interviewing and practicing becoming potentials is a way of accessing and then internalizing components of enlightenment at one’s present state of development. As this occurs, your sense of who you are expands to transcend and include who you think you are.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Waking up

2. Cosmic humor

3. Abundance

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

A mother and a couple of siblings, perhaps two young boys are being kept prisoner inside an area. First a sound is heard…is it an engine? Yes…but what kind?…a large bulldozer?….Yes. The integrity of the area is maintained by at least a couple of large bulldozers that are built into the structure of the area. Either I or the mother remembers that one of the boys, about six or seven, was taught to drive all sorts of things and could drive a bulldozer.  So he is asked to drive this one. It is a simple matter for him to drive it and crash it into trees or a wall or a building, which he does on purpose, even though his mother and brother are in it.  He knows that the bulldozer is so big they won’t be hurt but it will hurt the bulldozer enough for them to be free of it.  That is what happened – he succeeds in freeing his family, but he is put in jail where he becomes fat.  Although he is very intelligent, it is not developed because he spends years misidentified as a criminal.

Why do you think that you had this dream?

Last night I worked on an interview of the sleeping, child part of myself, personified as a monkey. He came up in the context of being oblivious of how much I eat and also my past and future thoughts that keep me from staying centered when I meditate.  This kid probably is about that.

If this dream were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

Driving a Bulldozer

These are the characters in the dream, beside yourself…

Mother, two boys, engine, bulldozer, imprisoning area, obstruction,  jail

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Bulldozer

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Bulldozer, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am an integral part of this building. My engine is always running. I am always ready, but I don’t move. I give the building bulk and my engine runs things.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I am powerful, even when I am not moving. My energy feeds other activities.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I am not using most of my capabilities. I am not moving, I am not working. Like the people in this compound, I am also imprisoned.

Bulldozer, you are in Joseph’s life experience, correct?  He created you, right?  Bulldozer,, what aspect of Joseph do you represent or most closely personify?

I am his latent life force, prana. Core physical brute energy.

Bulldozer, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be kundalini! I would rise! And as I rose, I would transform! I would be different things depending on how far I rose! At the top I would be a winged sun before I cascaded over as pure light and bliss!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Pure Light and Bliss, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 There is no death! I have no fear!

Compassion: 10 Everything is a crystalization, a condensation of me! All things are my eyes and ears, my senses!

Wisdom: 10 I am in balance.

Acceptance: 10 What is there not to accept?

Inner Peace: 10 I am wildly alive and at complete peace in my aliveness.

Witnessing: 10 One with all, I witness all.

How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Luminosity. Cosmic Humor. Abundance.

If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

In my presence.

If you could live Joseph’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Not so differently, but with increasing clarity, as he is already working to do.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The same.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would?

Any time he wakes up and realizes he’s off center somewhere, in some way.

Why do you think that you are in Joseph’s life?

You mean, why do I think Joseph is in my life? To give me another way to know myself!

How is Joseph most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?

Mental fuzziness; sleepwalking; addiction to past and future; focus on fear and scarcity.

What would you recommend that he do about that?

Smile! Remember me!

I think Joseph had this dream because

This was about taking the initiative with his monkey mind. He knows it’s not the problem or the enemy but he hasn’t yet figured out how to use it to free himself and to free me. However, he’s figuring it out; he’s getting closer!

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

The barrier had to be hit to free him from me. As long as he was unconsciously identified with me he was trapped in me, like a seed that is in hibernation. When he is free he can witness me and I can witness him, so we both are free to transform. There is a part of his mind that wants to punish him from breaking free, as it does in him escaping the prison of his marriage. But the breakout is what is important, not how it is done. Becoming fat has to do with putting himself back in the prison of sleepwalking through life.

What have you heard yourself say?

I can usefully view my prana as a bulldozer for me to drive. It maintains my life and the prison of my life drama and life script, but it can be much, much more than that. First, I have to take initiative and liberate both of us and others. Then I have to stay OK about that and not allow myself to fall back into scripted limitations, guilt, or small thinking.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

I am getting close to awakening my kundalini consciously. By remembering this dream, deeply listening to it, and applying it, I speed that process of waking up.

The  implication of this interview is that I have available to me a very powerful power source that must first be recognized then controlled to free oneself.  There seemed to be a second one on the premises as well. It is controlled by a young part of myself that reminds me of a “monkey” potential I interviewed yesterday. There also appears to be a need to separate out my consciousness from that of the life force itself – to use it, but not identify with it.

Such interviews can speed spiritual awakening by conscious participation in the agenda of those potentials that are attempting to emerge. I have no doubt that my access to this particular power source is a result of dedicated, focused, consistent meditation of an effective variety on a daily basis. It does not take a lot: a little bit that is effective is better than a lot of sitting that involves mental games.

Throughout the day following this interview I have felt more alive, with more energy of a deep, inner quality, than I have felt before.  It is something different, a different sort of life force connection than I have ever felt. Very interesting….

The information that I got on the six core qualities is what today’s focus is!  What is the most remarkable thing for me is what I realize about myself. Because I was the Flower, things came through that I just wasn’t aware of.  That’s just great!

How have you been using your interview and your Flower?

A big thing has just been stepping back. My personality is in some ways starting to come unglued from drama. I am recognizing it quickly so I can just step out of it and into what’s actually going on. That recognition time is much quicker!

Could you give me an example?

My husband and I were home together Sunday. He was working on his computer and I went over help him – I thought – do something with his pictures.  I was thinking it would be faster for him. We started getting into a quarrel about him being on the computer on our day off instead of spending it together. We started to get in a quarrel that I picked with him. Then I realized, “Oh! What I really am wanting, because my back is hurting, is for Norman to rub my back!  Oh! I wasn’t recognizing what I wanted and didn’t ask for it!  I apologized to my husband and said, “What I really wanted was to have my back rubbed and when would you be available for that?”  It was so brief – that drama!

What do you think is the relationship, if any, between your previous NDE interview with your flower and remembering to get out of drama?

I stay with myself rather than distancing from myself.  My needs are closer to my awareness.  The NDE interview helped me to realize, “Oh! This is drama! I don’t want it! I want to have what’s real for me!

May I ask Flower some questions?

Yes!

Flower, how are you today?

I’m excited!

Do you have any idea why Cheryl is catching herself quicker when she gets into drama?

Cheryl: I feel like I just got busted! I can’t get into the Flower right now.

Cheryl, is unable to get into you right now, Flower?

All of a sudden Cheryl got scared and got blank.

Cheryl: The focus on was me…All of a sudden I needed to be accountable?

Staying present! It’s missing for Cheryl! When I stay present it’s glorious!

Is there any reason why Cheryl should be afraid of staying present, Flower?

She’s being on guard of awful things. She has her life confused with “awful is about to happen” But awful doesn’t happen in her life!  She needs to get a chance to experience without that kind of guard, that fear of harm.  She really deserves a chance to live without that!

Do you live without that Flower?

Yes!

What’s that like for you?

As a flower I don’t wait for hurricanes to come. Sometimes they do, but it’s not a fearful thing.

What would you like to see Cheryl get out of our time together today, Flower?

Being less likely to lose me!  To be less likely to lose her natural self! Cheryl doesn’t know that she is losing touch with her natural self until after the fact.   There is some kind of gap in Cheryl that when there is emotion and need she kind of goes blank. She doesn’t recognize the emotion. She doesn’t go into her need. She is off on something else.

Flower, would it help if Cheryl named her feelings several times a day?

She thinks her feelings are awful!

So Cheryl, What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

There is a force or energy against me. When I am walking or exercising I feel an energy against me. When I am in pain or constipated, it’s there.  It’s a distraction going on.

There is something I feel I am not letting go of or holding back on but I don’t know what it is.

There is a slight lack of unity with self and others.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

The Force that’s against me.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Purple

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

A square or box – three dimensional.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Square, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am right in front of Cheryl’s torso.  I’m made of steel.

Why are you there?

I am not wanting to let her go forward.  I thought that was the best thing for her. It’s better to keep quiet. You’re not supposed to say the things you have to say. You are not supposed to feel the pain and sadness that you feel.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I’m solid, sturdy, shiny.  I can do anything!  There aren’t any limits!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

The lack of movement. I’m stuck!

What does that feel like for you to be stuck, Square?

Awful, like I’ll never get beyond being stuck.

She created you, right? What aspect of Cheryl do you represent or most closely personify?

Strength!

Square, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be an owl.

Square, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I’m sitting, I’m patient, I’m wise. Silence is best. I’m hard to see. Not many people see me.

What do you think of that Square you were before, Owl?

Heavy! It weighs me down! I can’t fly with it!  I couldn’t even try!

Do you think Cheryl needs that Square, Owl?

She thinks it protects her, but it doesn’t. It holds her back. She stays behind it, like a wall, staying separate from herself and what she’s here for.

How would her life be different without that Square, Owl?

Freedom! She would be doing what she’s here to do instead of other stuff! To help people with the light she saw when she was a baby!  She knows how to transform what is in other people’s way of their life and health and well-being!

How did you manage to transform that Square into you, Owl?

I wasn’t afraid!  I just did it!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Owl, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can do anything! I don’t have to be held back. I go with the flow. I am one with my nature.

Compassion: 10 Because I’m loving and patient! I love to observe.

Wisdom: 10 I am bright! I know stuff but not the mind stuff. I go by my nature. It’s already built in. I know how to get my needs met, I know how to fly and get food. Acceptance: 10 What else is there? (Smiling…) It’s just the way it is!  I’m laughing at people that think it’s any different!

Inner Peace: 10 I feel very peaceful as owl! There’s nothing to not be peaceful about! Life is what life is!

Witnessing: 10 That’s exactly what I do! I just sit on my branch and witness!

How would Cheryl’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She would be soaring with ease, going with the flow, pain free.

Where would that Square be?

History! She just wouldn’t need it because there is nothing to be afraid of! She kind of makes that up as a way to connect with people.  That’s what she learned after she died and her brother grabbed her arm: connected to her brother and fear. It’s as if she doesn’t know how to live in the people world with others without that fear.  It’s as if being with people and connecting with them requires that old fear. But it’s not a requirement!

If you could live Cheryl’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

I would stop pretending that emotion is required to connect with people. That leads her to drama.  She thinks she doesn’t know how to connect without it.  She doesn’t need to pretend that she needs the fear, anger, and pain to connect to people.  It’s sneaky!  She pretends that she doesn’t know the emotion is there but yet she’s acting on it!

If you could live Cheryl’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle Cheryl’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

There is a force or energy against me. When I am walking or exercising I feel an energy against me. When I am in pain or constipated.  A distraction going on.

I would join the energy! She feels like it is against her but it is really the light energy inviting her to join it! It reminds her of when she is not one with it!

When she feels it blocking her, what do you recommend she do, Owl?

Join the light! Join the peace! Stop thinking she can have too much of a good thing!

There is something I feel I am not letting go of or holding back on but I don’t know what it is.

Cheryl is engaged in things that are petty when she really wants to be engaged in what really turns her on, what her passion is.  She continues to still sit on her passion. Cheryl is holding back on her passion! Her life would be warm and worry-free with it. She would not have to be so organized!  Not have to worry so much about the physical details – is the house clean? Are the dishes done?

There is a slight lack of unity with self and others.

She thinks that’s there. It’s not, really!  She makes up things that are a problem but they really aren’t a problem.  It’s just part of how it is, part of life!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Cheryl’s life?

1. Love

2. Peace

3. Joy!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Cheryl to imagine that she is you and think, feel, and act as you would?

When she starts to get worked up! When negativity comes in – that this should be this way; when it’s not, she gets worried and afraid.  If she became me at those times she would know when to just be and not to cultivate a mountain out of a molehill. She needs to just sit on the branch, like I do!

Owl, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

I don’t do drama! Drama’s ridiculous!  It doesn’t solve anything!  It’s a waste of time!  It’s so contrary to spirit!

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

Presence! Just being! Observing!

Why do you think that you are in Cheryl’s life?

To know she has a choice! She can at any moment she can pick presence instead of drama!  At any moment she can be true to herself or abandon herself and get involved with drama!

How is Cheryl most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

Be a brat!  “I’m going to do it my way no matter what!” Her way is not always aligned with her own spirit!

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Stop self-destructing in that way!  She just needs to know that going with the flow is OK! That she deserves to have this peace and freedom!  She’s come this far…she might as well go all the way!

Cheryl, what have you heard yourself say?

Be yourself! Being something else or someone else is awful!  It’s self destructive whether it lasts for a minute or five!  It doesn’t serve me! I am seeing drops into water and how each ripples out.  Even if it is for a second it still effects me afterward. I have a choice in what I want to reside in me. Instead of this stuff I get worked up in me I want the peace to reside in me, the peace, the fun, the happy-go-lucky in life!

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Freedom! Freedom is mine!  I am not locked behind that Square, that wall!  That I’m already me and it’s a cinch to live accordingly!

Is there anything you want to take away from this interview to apply in your everyday life between now and the next time we talk?

Being the Owl and recognizing the difference between the owl and the square!

I could write that intention on a sticky note and carry it around!

I can name what I am feeling several times a day. Ask myself what I am feeling and name it periodically throughout the day.  Am I happy, sad, scared, confused, angry, impatient, relaxed…what?  Then to not have any judgement about the feeling – just naming it and moving on.

Read over this interview before going to sleep!

Notice that Cheryl’s steel Square, the energy that blocks her is actually a wake-up call from the same light that she had in her NDE.  She is misperceiving it as a barrier when Owl says that “it is really the light energy inviting her to join it! It reminds her of when she is not one with it!”

Notice that Cheryl is making huge strides at recognizing when she is drama and choosing to get out of it.  There can be no inner peace with drama; to eliminate drama it must be dealt with in the three realms: interpersonally and externally, in our thoughts and feelings, and in our night time dreams.

Will Cheryl follow these recommendations? If so, what will be the result? Stay tuned!

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

My health Fibromyalgia. A stroke last year. I had a bad fall that messed up my hand.  I have a lot of pain. I’m very limited in what I can do.

Wanting to write a book but having all these excuses why I can’t.

Making some more money; starting a business and being successful at it.

Tell me about your near death experience…

Somehow an unexpected peace descended upon me. I found myself floating on the ceiling over the bed looking down at my unconscious body. I barely had time to realize the glorious strangeness of the situation – that I was me but not in my body – when I was joined by a radiant being bathed in a shimmering white glow. Like myself, this being flew but had no wings. I felt a reverent awe when I turned to him; this was no ordinary angel or spirit, but he had been sent to deliver me. Such love and gentleness emanated from his being that I felt that I was in the presence of the Messiah.

Whoever he was, his presence deepened my serenity and awakened a feeling of joy as I recognized my companion. Gently he took my hand and we flew right through the window. I felt no surprise at my ability to do this. In this wondrous presence, everything was as it should be.

Beneath us lay the beautiful Pacific Ocean … But my attention was now directed upward, where there was a large opening leading to a circular path. Although it seemed to be deep and far to the end, a white light shone through and poured out into the gloom to the other side where the opening beckoned. It was the most brilliant light I had ever seen, although I didn’t realize how much of its glory was veiled from the outside. The path was angled upward, obliquely, to the right. Now still hand in hand with the angel, I was led into the opening of the small, dark passageway.

I then remember traveling a long distance upward toward the light. I believe that I was moving very fast, but this entire realm seemed to be outside of time. Finally, I reached my destination. It was only when I emerged from the other end that I realized that I was no longer accompanied by the being who had brought me there. But I wasn’t alone. There, before me, was the living presence of the light. Within it I sensed an all-pervading intelligence, wisdom, compassion, love, and truth. There was neither form nor sex to this perfect being. It, which I shall in the future call he, in keeping without our commonly accepted syntax, contained everything, as white light contains all the colors of a rainbow when penetrating a prism. And deep within me came an instant and wondrous recognition: I, even I, was facing God.

I immediately lashed out at him with all the questions I had ever wondered about; all the injustices I had seen in the physical world. I don’t know if I did this deliberately, but I discovered that God knows all your thoughts immediately and responds telepathically. My mind was naked; in fact, I became pure mind. The ethereal body which I had traveled in through the tunnel seemed to be no more; it was just my personal intelligence confronting that Universal Mind, which clothed itself in a glorious, living light that was more felt that seen, since no eye could absorb its splendor.

I don’t recall the exact content of our discussion; in the process of return, the insights that came so clearly and fully in Heaven were not brought back with me to Earth. I’m sure that I asked the question that had been plaguing me since childhood about the sufferings of my people. I do remember this: There was a reason for everything that happened, no matter how awful it appeared in the physical realm. And within myself, as I was given the answer, my own awakening mind now responded in the same manner:

“Of course,” I would think, “I already know that. How could I ever have forgotten!”

Indeed, it appears that all that happens is for a purpose, and that purpose is already known to our eternal self.

In time the questions ceased, because I suddenly was filled with all the Being’s wisdom. I was given more than just the answers to my questions; all knowledge unfolded to me, like the instant blossoming of an infinite number of flowers all at once. I was filled with God’s knowledge, and in that precious aspect of his Beingness, I was one with him. But my journey of discovery was just beginning.

Now I was treated to an extraordinary voyage through the universe. Instantly we traveled to the center of stars being born, supernovas exploding, and many other glorious celestial events for which I have no name. The impression I have now of this trip is that it felt like the universe is all one grand object woven from the same fabric. Space and time are illusions that hold us to our physical realm; out there all is present simultaneously. I was a passenger on a divine spaceship in which the Creator showed me the fullness and beauty of all of his Creation.

The last thing that I saw before all external vision ended was a glorious fire – the core and center of a marvelous star. Perhaps this was a symbol for the blessing that was now to come to me. Everything faded except for a richly full void in which That and I encompassed All that is. Here, I experienced, in ineffable magnificence, communion with the light being. Now I was filled with not just all knowledge, but also with all love. It was as if the light were poured in and through me. I was God’s object of adoration; and from his/our love I drew life and joy beyond imagining. My being was transformed; my delusions, sins, and guilt were forgiven and purged without asking; and now I was love, primal being, and bliss. And, in some sense, I remain there, for Eternity. Such a union cannot be broken. It always was, is, and shall be.

Suddenly, not knowing how or why, I returned to my broken body. But miraculously, I brought back the love and the joy. I was filled with an ecstasy beyond my wildest dreams. Here, in my body, the pain had all been removed. I was still enthralled by a boundless delight. For the next two months, I remained in this state, oblivious to any pain.

I felt now as if I had been made anew. I saw wondrous meanings everywhere; everything was alive and full of energy and intelligence.

Although it’s been 40 years since my heavenly voyage, I have never forgotten it. Nor have I, in the face of ridicule and disbelief, ever doubted its reality. Nothing that intense and life-changing could possibly have been a dream or hallucination. To the contrary, I consider the rest of my life to be a passing fantasy, a brief dream, that will end when I again awaken in the permanent presence of that giver of life and bliss.

Beverly had another remarkable NDE experience as a child. You can find an account of it as well as the NDE above and helpful biographical information at

www.bevbrodsky.com

Why do you think that you had this NDE?

I don’t know, really….It was a blessing and a great gift. I think I’m supposed to do something more with it.  I would like to bring its healing emotionally and spiritually into my life and the lives of other people.

These are the characters, forms, and objects in the NDE, beside yourself…

hospital, sister, tonsils, heavenly landscape, clouds, field, flowers, motorcycle, cold table or stretcher, radiant world, flowers, hills, Hall of Knowledge, ceiling, black wave, Earth, small white circle, like a bubble in the wave, sun, Light, curtain, string, radiant being, Pacific Ocean, large opening, circular path, God, universe, supernovas, glorious fire in a star, void

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Void and the Curtain

We will address Void first and perhaps Curtain as well if we have time.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your NDE and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Void, are you a character in Beverly’s NDE?

Yes, I am.

Void, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I represent the infinite potentiality of all things and the unity of all things. I am the infinite point; I have no substance. I am the point from which creation occurs.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I cannot separate, I do not judge. I lovingly accept all beings.  I have infinite strength because within me is God who creates all things.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I sometimes wish I could be creation and experience all the joy of beingness.  My limitation is that I cannot know duality.  I cannot know what it is like to be in the physical world and know life and death, dark and light, good and evil.

Void, what aspect of Beverly do you represent or most closely personify?

Her higher nature, her unconditional love, her beingness.

Void, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

Yes, I sometimes imagine myself standing beside people while they live their lives, being an unseen presence observing without judgment the struggle of humans and other beings like them who have free will and have to make decisions. I can do that by shifting my attention to what I am not.

Try that now, Void and tell me what that’s like.

If I focus on Beverly I have compassion for her but I don’t understand why she finds her life so difficult. I don’t understand pain and the concept of having difficulty doing things like she does. She is not in touch with this part of herself that does all.  It’s her ego, her mental chatter, negative influences from others, darkness in the earth plane.

If you were Beverly, what would you do about that, Void?

If I were her I would know I could overcome these  things by connecting my consciousness, my inner being, my soul with this quality. I would look up at the stars every night and become the stars as she did in her experiences. I would take that into me and know that the stars are me.  I would know that I could create works, like worlds, from my essence. She’s that powerful?

She doesn’t realize she’s that powerful.  She doesn’t understand that infinite power she saw is who she is. She doesn’t use her power in her life.

Why not, Void?

It’s her social conditioning that is in denial that makes it hard for her to access it.  Meditation time, connecting with the stars. That is where her strength lies. She knows she is love but she needs to feel this love.

I can’t actually participate in duality.  I sometimes want to change but I can’t change because I am the greater plan. There has to be a resting place in oneness. I can imagine that I am both as Void but I cannot be both in actuality.

Void, I would like you to imagine that you are both now for a few minutes if that would be OK?

Yes.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Void, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I see those around me are full of fear. I am absorbing the fear of others and my own level is dropping and becoming a nine.

Compassion: 10 I am infinite compassion.  I identify with this duality; separation is not what I am.

Wisdom: 10 I understand how things work and how people are guided to make the choices that they do make. Acceptance: 10 Because I accept the choices people make. It’s part of their path.

Inner Peace: 9.5 to 10 The inner peace that I feel in my beingness from where I am. There is a lot of interference out here in creation that tells us that we are citizens of particular countries, gender, aging, which is not what we are -.

Witnessing: 10 That is what I am doing now. If I were Beverly it would be harder but it can be developed by her as a meditative skill.

How would Beverly’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She would be more her God self, her higher self. She would walk more confidently. She would know that she has the tools that she needs to do her work and heal her body.

If you could live Beverly’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

Much differently. I wouldn’t waste time on fear-based things. I would concentrate on the message I could give other people and the healing of her body. Others have been able to heal themselves through their higher connection.

If you could live Beverly’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

My health Fibromyalgia. A stroke three years ago. I had a bad fall last year that messed up both my wrists.  I have a lot of pain. I’m very limited in what I can do.

She has been making progress getting off her medications but she could make more progress by doing more meditation, tai chi, and other processes.  She would do that every day.

If she followed your advice, what difference would it make?

It would make a dramatic difference in her ability to move and to channel higher energies. She is absorbing lower energies instead. She would be able to have mastery of her body, which is very important for her to do at this time.

Wanting to write a book but having all these excuses why I can’t.

I would help her to see these excuses for what they are. Some are genuine. As she progresses in her well-being she needs to just get up and do without thinking and to limit her commitments so she can do it. I would start out with writing every day for an hour. She thinks too much about what she needs to do for the IANDS group. That is part of her higher calling but not to think and worry about it so much. Make it an item every month to find a speaker and get their information, get it out and run the meeting. It’s not that much work. Perhaps she would take the summer off and have no other commitments and focus on her writing . Let someone else do the meeting.

Making some more money; starting a business and being successful at it.

I would not feel guilty about making money because that is what is needed for her at this time in her life. As long as she starts at a low level and starts building it up there’s nothing wrong with making money.  Money is like energy, a concrete exchange between people.  It’s having a business, a non-profit side of her to balance with the God side of her.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?

1. Meditation and God connection for healing. The healing will come naturally as she connects more deeply with her God-self.

2. Service to humanity, whether writing, giving a talk, or doing internet radio like she was a few days ago.

3. Her vibration is important – to bring herself and others joy!  Her core mission is to be happy!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Beverly to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

When she doubts herself and when she has pain.  I am always there. She can always call on me. I will help to fill her up with confidence and knowingness. She just needs to still her outer mind and call on me. I can help her to see that pain cannot exist if we are all one. If she connects with this oneness within she will be relieved of her pain and instead be connected with her joy and her joy for her life (crying).

Void, tell me about Beverly’s tears…

She absorbs other people’s ideas and feelings very easily. Her fears are not her own.  The body needs to take in some water!  She has fears, mostly concerning her health. She is afraid that she can’t do things. If she will just focus on doing things instead of what might happen… The fear of doing things or getting sick stops her. Then she feels justified about living in fear. She’s been telling herself a story of “no” that is not true. I would like to see her stop herself when she is doing that. I would like her to remember that I am present with her and love her and that she doesn’t have to live like this.

Why do you think that you are in Beverly’s life?

You called on me, Joseph!  I thank you for allowing me to express more of my beingness in her life.  You have gone very deep into who she is and what stops her. And it’s all resolvable.

Do you think Beverly has been listening to what you have been saying to her?

I feel her surprise at my priorities for her life. In her healing work she is not trained to focus on her joy. She is called to really feel love and joy and get out of her fear and pain body. It’s more a fear state of mind than a pain state of mind. The fear is the cause; the pain is the result.

How is Beverly most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

If she continues with her current path it will be difficult and painful and many things can stop her. It’s important that she climb a smooth path, not one full of boulders and things that can trip her up. The one I have for her she can run on or even fly, under my guidance.  Whenever she is filled with fears of her body stopping her she is to call on me and the many beings that are watching over her.  She can call on us any time for help. We are always there. We have infinite time and infinite patience. We do not judge her.

I think Beverly had these NDEs because…

There was much more that happened in her NDEs but it is difficult to explain in words.  We teach her in her dreams; she should pay attention to them. Infinite knowledge wants her to succeed, to be happy, to not suffer. She’s a very special child of God and she should not put boulders in her path as she has been doing but sail smoothly toward her destination, which is enlightenment and helping many others.

What have you heard yourself say?

I have walked a stony path because I am so afraid of what I can’t do. I stop myself from progressing and doing what I can do.  I can always turn to my higher self and get help at any time.  Rather than focusing on my projects I should focus on feeling joy in my life. The projects will do themselves. I have to get my ego mind out of the way. When I hear that inner chatter I should go into the witnessing mode and tell myself, “I’m telling myself that again.” Take some breaths and settle into my God self. Let that feeling lift me out of that fearful place into love!  That is my main problem – that I am living with all these fears of my body instead of using my body to do Tai Chi and other practices I’m trained in and allowing the God energy to fill me up.

Has this interview saved you any time in your life? If so, how much?

I don’t think I have as much time as I used to, having had a stroke and being in my sixties.  I certainly hope that I do! The way I have been handling my life in the last 20 years with this fibromyalgia I have had to go somewhere and have someone else fix me. I couldn’t take the medications; the pain was getting worse and worse.  I think it has really saved me, if I can look into this and save this, I can save myself a lot of time. I really thank you for this method of listening to myself.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Don’t take this world and your pain so literally and seriously because this is only a small part of who you are.  Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

Do you think your IDL interview helped you to “wake up” in some way to the usefulness or relevance of your NDE for you in your current life circumstances?

Yes, it helped me very much, giving me practical advice on dealing with my pain/disabilities as well as reprioritizing my life goals.  It’s great to know that I’m supposed to have fun after two very challenging years.   I’d forgotten how to let go.

Was becoming an aspect of your NDE useful? If so, in what way?

Indeed it was!  It let me see another aspect of my-Self that has more wisdom, grace and power.

Did you feel like you were in touch with the divine in any way or at any time during your interview? If so, in what way(s)?

Yes, when the Void was talking I felt the divine coming through.

Have you experimented since the interview at becoming your interviewed character and attempting to live your life from its perspective and out of its energy?  If so, have you noticed any results? If so, what?

I haven’t done so yet, but I do intend to try this technique on other aspects of my NDE.

Now that some time has passed, do you think that the recommendations your character had for your waking life were appropriate, relevant, and useful? If so, how?

Yes, although it is difficult for me to always remember, and I have to balance my real limitations against my higher dreams and sometimes say “No. That has been my biggest challenge, especially since I had the stroke.  I do find it inspiring to view situations from the point of the Unity, instead of physical separation and limitation.

Sometimes we can get swamped with recommendations during interviews and sometimes the press of daily events swamps our ability to apply the recommendations we do receive.  Has either been the case for you?

As I shared with you, I pushed myself to get to my next appointment even though I wasn’t feeling well, and came back really sick!  So, there was a bit of a delay in implementing the changes Void suggested.  However, I’m feeling better and better each day, and am meditating and moving joyfully each day.

Did you learn anything new about your NDE from your interview? Did it change your attitude about it in any way?

It reinforced what I already knew, making it personal.  I loved the life issue of raising my vibration!  What a joyful “core” task.   Also, it confirmed that the divine is always there, and that I have to invite it to help me in my trials.   I would like to reach the point of just doing, but I’m still a bit ill.  However, this is the story of my life!

How about NDEs in general? Did your interview change your attitude about NDEs in any way? If so, how?

I love NDEs, and my NDE in particular.  They are great, great gifts of light and love.

Has your character continued to be present? Have you had any success at becoming it?  Or has its significance faded with time?

The Void was very powerful, and I continue to feel Its presence.   My struggle has been letting go of my identity with the body and with pain.   I know at some level that I am more than this body, but I haven’t yet mastered that in everyday reality.

Do you think reading over your IDL interview would help someone who has not had an NDE to benefit from them all the same?

Yes.  In Lessons from the Light, Kenneth Ring called it the benevolent virus, that others benefit just from reading about.  He did research with college freshmen and senior citizens.  Both groups lost their fear of death through learning about and studying NDES.

Do you think an IDL interview could help people who have not had an NDE to get in touch with the divine?

Yes, for the reason stated above.

Do you think this interviewing process could help NDEers avoid doing a “spiritual bypass?” (thinking they were totally healed and not addressing their psychological issues.)

In my experience, most NDErs have emotional or physical challenges that they readily recognize.  I believe the concept of spiritual bypass is more common for spiritual seekers, especially those with an Eastern slant that deny the reality/legitimacy of the ego and the problems caused by earlier traumas and conditioning.

Do you think that sharing your interview with family and friends could help them come to grips with the transformation that is still occurring in your life as a result of your NDE?

Yes, if they are open to it.

Do you think that an IDL interview on a NDE theme could help terminally ill patients and their families?

What a wonderful idea! I believe my NDE taught me that we live on and there is nothing to fear.

Lion has a different sort of near death experience, in that it doesn’t contain a lot of the elements most commonly reported in NDEs in Long’s research. However, that does not matter from spirit, because it does not differentiate between mystical, near death, dream, or waking experience the way we do; any and all of them are worm holes to clarity about our life path, as Lion’s interview clearly and graphically shows.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

So many projects, things on the to do list, juggling so many balls. I don’t really have time to play and relax. I’m working 12-16 hour days every day. I go dancing a couple times a week. I have dates and stuff.

Money! I’e been wealthy in the past. I spent 30 years as a head hunter. I have been in a building phase for nine years.

Women! I just ended an eight-year relationship. I’m taking a year off from relationships. I’m learning what love is and love isn’t. I am learning how my early programming has effected my ability to love.

Tell me about your NDE…

It happened during the summer of 1978. I was traveling through the Southwest, selling jewelry and giftware, Austrian crystals to feather earrings. On my way toward Los Angeles from Las Vegas, I stopped to help a motorist whose car had broken down in the Mojave Desert. He was down on his luck, had no plans, and nowhere to go. So I invited him to travel with me.

His name was Ray, and he looked to be in his early twenties. He was small, muscular, wiry, and slightly gaunt, as if underfed. I felt sorry for him, and in the three days we were together, I grew to trust him. I sent him on small errands while I visited stores to sell my wares. At one point, I gave him some of my clothes, and it pleased him to have something new to wear. He seemed calm and mostly satisfied.

The third night, we were camped out next to Puddingstone Reservoir east of Claremont. I was sitting on the floor in the back of the large van, moving things around in the cupboards to make more room for my clothes, books, food, boxes of samples, and Ray’s duffel bag and travel gear.

There was a loud explosion, and I felt a sharp, searing blow to the top of my head. Had the gas stove exploded? I looked up, but it was intact. Then I looked at Ray, sitting in the driver’s seat, and I saw the black gun in his hand. His arm was resting on the back of the seat, aiming the pistol at my face. A bullet had hit me! At first, I thought he was warning me – that he was going to rob me. That suddenly seemed fine. “Take it all,” I thought. “Take it all. Just leave me outside and drive away.”

Another explosion shook me, and my ears rang with a terrible, high-pitched whine. I felt blood dripping down my face. The top of my head throbbed. He’s not warning me, I realized. He’s going to kill me. I am going to die.

There was no place to hide. I was stuck in an uncomfortable position surrounded by cabinets. There was nothing I could do. I heard myself whisper “Relax. It’s out of your control. Breathe. Stay awake.” My thoughts turned to death, and to God. “Thy will, not my will, be done.” I let my body go, and I relaxed, slumping back against the cabinet. I watched my breath flow in and out, in and out, in and out….

I began preparing for my death. I asked to be forgiven by anyone I had hurt. I offered my forgiveness to everyone who had hurt me throughout my life. It was a full-color fast-reverse movie reel of my entire twenty-six years. I thought about my parents, my brothers and sisters, my lovers, my friends. I said goodbye. I said, “I love you.”

Another explosion shook the van, and my body pulsed. I was not hit. The bullet missed me by a fraction of an inch, penetrating the cupboard to my right. I relaxed back into the reverie of my life review. My luck could not hold out. If he held a revolver, there were three bullets to go. I hoped that the gun wasn’t a semi-automatic with a full clip.

Nothing mattered at that moment but to be at peace. My van, my money, my business, my knowledge, my personal history, my freedom—all became worthless, meaningless. In the face of dying, it was just dust in the wind.

All I had of value was my body and my life, and that was soon to be gone. My attention was focused on the spark of light I called my Self, and my consciousness began to expand outward, extending my awareness in space and time. I heard my instructions clearly: STAY AWAKE AND KEEP BREATHING.

I prayed to my God, to the Great Spirit, to receive me with open arms. Love and light flowed through me, spreading out from my heart like a lighthouse beam, illuminating everything around me. The light itself grew inside me, expanding my awareness like a huge balloon until the van and its contents seemed small. A sense of peace and acceptance filled me. I knew I would soon be leaving my body. I could sense the timeline of my life, both backward through my history and forward to my death, and beyond. I saw the next bullet – a short distance into the future – leave the gun, jet toward my left temple, and exit with brains and blood on the right side of my head. I was filled with awe. To see life from this expanded perspective was like looking down into a dollhouse, seeing all the rooms at once, with every detail in sharp relief, so real and yet so unreal at the same time. I looked into the warm and welcoming golden light with calm and acceptance.

The fourth explosion shattered the silence, and my head was pushed violently to the side. The ringing in my ears was deafening. Warm blood rushed down my head and onto my arms and thighs, dripping onto the floor. But strangely, I found myself back in my body, not out of it. Still surrounded by light, love, and peace, I began looking inside my skull, trying to find the holes. Perhaps I could see light through them? I did a quick check of my feelings, abilities, thoughts, and sensations, looking for what might be missing. Surely the bullet had affected me. My head was throbbing, but I felt strangely normal.

I decided to look at my assassin – to look death directly in the face. I picked up my head and turned my eyes toward him. He was shocked. Jumping up from his seat, he shouted, “Why aren’t you dead, man? You’re supposed to be dead!”

“Here I am.” I said quietly.

“That’s too weird! It’s just like my dream this morning! I kept shooting at him, but he wouldn’t die! But it wasn’t you in the dream, it was somebody else!”

This was very strange. Who was writing this script? I wondered. I began to speak slowly and calmly, trying to settle him down. If I could get him talking, I thought, maybe he wouldn’t shoot again. He kept yelling, “Shut up! Just shut up!” as he peered out the windows into the darkness. He nervously walked closer to me, gun in hand, examining my bloody head, trying to understand why the four bullets he had pumped into me hadn’t finished me off.

I could still feel blood oozing down my face and could hear it dripping onto my shoulder. Ray said, “I don’t know why you aren’t dead, man. I shot you four times!”

“Maybe I’m not supposed to die,” I said calmly.

“Yeah, but I shot you!” he said, with disappointment and confusion in his voice. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“I wanted to kill you, man, to take this van and drive away. Now I don’t know.” He seemed worried, uncertain. He was beginning to slow down, becoming less jumpy.

“Why did you want to kill me?”

“Because you had everything, and I had nothing. And I was tired of having nothing. This was my chance to have it all.” He was still pacing back and forth in the van, looking out the windows at the black night outside.

”What do you want to do now?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man,” he complained. “Maybe I should take you to the hospital.”

My heart leapt at this opportunity, this chance – a way out. “Okay,” I said, not wanting to make him feel out of control. I wanted it to be his idea, not mine. I knew that his anger sprang from feeling out of control, and I didn’t want to make him feel more angry.

“Why were you so nice to me, man?” he asked plaintively.

“Because you’re a person, Ray.”

“But I wanted to kill you! I kept taking out my gun and pointing it at you, when you were asleep or not looking. But you were being so nice to me, I couldn’t do it.” He seemed forlorn, as if he were a little boy, disappointed in himself for failing.

My time sense was altered. I floated in a zone of ultra-reality, with no idea of how much time had passed since the first bullet. After what felt like many minutes, Ray came up to me, still in my crouched, locked-in position, and said, “Okay, man, I’m going to take you to a hospital. But I don’t want you to move, so I’m going to put some stuff on you so you can’t move, okay?”

Now he was asking my permission. “Okay,” I said softly. He began taking boxes filled with samples and stacked them around me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay. A little uncomfortable, but it’s all right.”

“All right, man. I’m going to take you to a hospital I know of. Now don’t move. And don’t die on me, okay?”

“Okay,” I promised. I knew I wouldn’t die. This light, this power inside me was so strong, so certain. Each breath felt like my first, not my last. I was going to survive. I knew it. Ray lowered the pop-top of the van, secured the straps, and started up the engine. I could feel the van backing up on the dirt road, finding the pavement and moving forward to my freedom.

He drove on and on – to where, I had no idea. Were we bound for a hospital, as he said, or toward some horrible fate? If he was capable of killing me with a gun, he was capable of lying, or worse. How did he know where to go? We were in Claremont. Los Angeles was more than an hour away. As I sat alone in the dark van, I re-played the scenes and analyzed the past three days, trying to understand what had happened, and why.

After an hour or so of deep contemplation and questioning everything in my life, I felt the van slow, pull over and stop. The engine was turned off. Silence filled the space. I waited. It was still dark outside. We had not pulled into a driveway. There were no lights. This was not a hospital.

Ray walked back toward me with his gun in his hand. He pulled away one of the boxes and sat down on the platform bed, turning toward me. He looked distraught. His head hung down. His words cut deep through my cloud of hope. “I have to kill you, man,” he said calmly.

“Why?” I asked quietly.

“If I take you to the hospital, they’ll put me back in jail. I can’t go back to jail, man. I can’t.”

“They wouldn’t put you in jail if you take me to the hospital,” I said slowly, still feigning injury, passivity. I knew that I might find an opening, a moment when I could surprise him, overpower him, take away his gun. As long as he didn’t know I was okay, I had an advantage.

“Oh yes they would, man. They’d know I shot you, and they’d lock me up.”

“We don’t have to tell them. I won’t tell them.”

“I can’t trust you, man. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t go back to jail, that’s all. I have to kill you.” He seemed forlorn. This was not where he wanted to be. He wasn’t making any moves. His gun hung limply from his hand, pointed down toward the floor. The boxes were still stacked around me. I couldn’t judge how much strength I had, whether it would be enough to push out and wrestle him down. He was small but strong. Was he still full of adrenaline? That would make him even stronger. My strength lay in words, in verbal swordplay. If I could keep him talking, he might not take stronger action.

“Maybe I could go into the hospital alone, Ray. You wouldn’t even have to be there. You could get away.”

“No, man,” he said, shaking his head. “As soon as you told them, they’d come find me. They’d track me down.”

I was silent. That didn’t work, I noted. What could I do to escape this danger? The only answer I could find was to stay present in the moment. Keep breathing. Be awake to everything.

He said, “Why aren’t you dead, man? I shot you four times in the head. How come you’re still alive and talking? You should be dead! I know I didn’t miss.” He looked again at my head, taking it in one hand and turning it to the left and right. “Does it hurt?” he asked. He seemed genuinely concerned.

“Yeah, it hurts,” I lied. “But I think I’m going to be okay.”

“Well, I don’t know what to do. I can’t take you to the hospital. I can’t just let you go, because you’ll go to the police. Why were you so damn nice to me, man? No one’s ever been that nice to me before. It made it harder to kill you. You kept buying me stuff, and giving me stuff. I just couldn’t decide when to do it.”

Not if, but when.

“What would you do with all this stuff if you had it, Ray?” I asked.

“I could go home and be somebody, I could do stuff. I’d have enough money to buy my way out of there, man.” Ray began to talk, weaving his sad tale. I listened deeply. He talked about his home in East Los Angeles, the poverty around him, his anger, the schoolteachers who made him feel stupid, his father who drank too much and beat him, and being a tough guy on the streets. He talked about joining the army, how that was supposed to make it work, but he couldn’t stand being told what to do all the time, so he went AWOL. He talked about dealing drugs, and drug deals going bad, and how he ripped off his dealer buddies. That’s why he had to leave L.A., because they were looking for him. He talked about stealing his father’s gun and money before he left. Then his car broke down, and he realized there was no place to hide. He decided to turn back. He could do one more rip-off and get rich. He just needed one hit, one sucker. If his target was rich enough, he could pay off the dealers and start over. So he decided to kill whoever stopped. Whoever came by to help him. I volunteered.

The night was turning to morning, the sky shifting slowly from dark indigo to deep blue. The sound of chirping birds was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I was grateful to be alive.

“I’m pretty stiff and sore, Ray, I’d feel better if I could get up and stretch.” I was still in the same position I had been locked in for six hours. Dried blood was plastered to my hair and face, my shins hurt from being pushed against the edge of a cupboard door, and my lower back was throbbing with a deep ache. My head felt like I had been hit hard with a baseball bat.

“Okay, man, I’m going to let you up, but don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“Okay, Ray. You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Remind him that he is in control. Don’t let him feel out of control. Look for an opening.

He moved the boxes from around me, stepped back with the gun in his hand, and opened the door. I crawled slowly out of the van, stretching upright for the first time. How beautiful the world was to my new eyes. Everything shone as if made of sparkling crystal.

We had stopped on a residential street near an embankment with a small pond at the bottom. He gestured down the dirt trail that led to the water. As I walked down the steep incline I thought, “Is this death again, tapping on my shoulder? Will he shoot me in the back and push me into the water?” I felt weak and vulnerable, yet simultaneously immortal and impervious to his bullets. I walked erect and unafraid. He followed me to the water’s edge and stood by as I squatted down and rinsed my bloodied hands and face, splashing cool, fresh water on myself. I stood up slowly and faced Ray. He looked at me curiously.

“What would you do if I handed you this gun right now?” he asked, holding the gun out to me.

My answer was my first thought: “I’d throw it out into the water,” I said.

“Aren’t you mad at me, man?” he asked. He seemed incredulous.

“No, why should I be mad?”

“I shot you, man, you ought to be angry! I’d be fucking furious! You wouldn’t want to kill me if I gave you this gun?”

“No, Ray, I wouldn’t. Why should I? I have my life and you have yours.”

“I don’t understand you, man. You are really weird – really different than anyone I’ve ever met before. And I don’t know why you didn’t die when I shot you.” Silence. Better left unanswered. As we stood at the water’s edge, I realized that Ray had undergone as profound a transformation as I had. We were both different people than we had been the day before.

“What should we do now, Ray?”

“I don’t know, man. I can’t take you to the hospital. I can’t let you go. I don’t know what to do.”

We continued to talk, seeking a solution to his dilemma. We explored the possibilities – what could we agree to? I made suggestions, he told me why they wouldn’t work. I made other suggestions. He listened, considered, rejected, and relented. We sought a compromise.

Ultimately, we found a bargain we could agree to: I would let him go, and he would let me go. I promised not to turn him in or report him to the police, but under one condition – he had to promise that he would never do anything like this again. He promised. What choice did he have?

As the sun rose over the hills, we climbed back into the van. I sat in the passenger seat and he drove to a place that was familiar to him. He parked, and turned off the engine. I gave him all the cash I had – about $200 – and a couple of watches I thought he could pawn. We got out of the van and walked together across the street to a bus stop. The sun was shining. It was early in the day but already warm. He had his army jacket and sleeping bag under one arm, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Somewhere in the bundle there was a black gun.

We shook hands. I smiled at him, and he continued to look confused. Then I said goodbye and walked away.

In the emergency room of L.A. County Hospital, a doctor scraped away small bits of metal, skin and hair, and sewed stitches into my scalp. He asked me how it had happened, and I told him, “I was shot, four times.”

“You’re a lucky man,” he said. “The two bullets that hit you both glanced off your skull. You have to report this to the police, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

He called me lucky, but I knew it was more than luck – I felt blessed. I didn’t go to the police. I had made a promise and had received a promise in return.

I kept my promise. I believe that Ray kept his.

The entire account of Lion’s NDE can be found at

http://beliefcloset.com/resources/articles/a-shot-in-the-light/

Why do you think that you had this NDE?

I needed a wake-up call. I was a spiritual hippy. I was tripping around, kind of ungrounded, not in the real world. Iw as living in a kind of fantasy land. It grounded me. It brought me down to earth. Shortly after that I got a real job that worked real well for me, got married, had a kid, got divorced!…

These are the characters in the dream, beside yourself…

Road, Roadside (where stopped) Ray, Van, gun, bullets, shelves, residential neighborhood, pond, hospital, doctor,

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Road

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Road, are you a character in Lion’s NDE, yes?

Yes.

Road, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I represent the stream of life that’s going on everywhere. There are endless opportunities for discovery. It’s filled with horror, brutality, generosity, hate, love and every aspect of humanity display of opportunity. I am a long, winding road with many turns and twists. There are many turns and options.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

Endless possibilities and options. I’m very solid. I lead to adventures and the unknown. I am a space for travelers to explore.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I’m limited. I can’t move but I can extend my fingers but once I’m laid out I can’t move. I have a few potholes here and there. There are places where people can disappear. They can be taken out by the opportunities I present. I’m not sure that’s a weakness – it’s just one of my functions.

Road, you are in Lion’s life experience, correct?  He created you, right?  Water, what aspect of Lion do you represent or most closely personify?

His endless curiosity. It’s almost lust, a kind of hunger for excitement and pleasure. In some ways I represent running away, also.  Escape from something and escape into something else.

Road, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I am very happy to be myself.

Road, how do you feel about Lion having this experience?

It was crucial for his growth and development. I am very happy to have provided it for him.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Road, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 Because I am what I am!

Compassion: 0/10 I provide opportunities, yet I embrace everyone and everything. I’m more dispassionate than compassionate. Wisdom: 0/10 People gain wisdom by being on me. I just provide the opportunities. I don’t have the need for wisdom. Acceptance: 10 I accept all travelers. I don’t discriminate.

Inner Peace: ?

Witnessing: 20! I’m a space for all things to happen.

Road, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I’m more than an archetype than a human. I don’t have human feelings or emotions.  I think I would be the same.

How would Lion’s life be different if he naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

He would be less emotional. He would remember his wisdom all of the time instead of just some of the time. He would love without being judgmental.

If you could live Lion’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

I would have more adventure and less work.  I’m actually pretty proud of how he’s been living his life lately.

If you could live Lion’s waking life for her today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

So many projects, things on the to do list, juggling so many balls. I don’t really have time to play and relax. I’m working 12-16 hour days every day. I go dancing a couple times a week. I have dates and stuff.

As a road I can go everywhere at once but humans can’t. He tries to go in too many directions at once. He’s trying to drive on five roads at one time. He needs to narrow it down.

Money! I’ve been wealthy in the past. I spent 30 years as a head hunter. I have been in a building phase for nine years.

He is focusing on living his life based on purpose, which is the right focus, rather than living it for money, which he has done in the past. He has a more purposeful life right now, but it’s less lucrative.

Women! I just ended an eight-year relationship. I’m taking a year off from relationships. I’m learning what love is and love isn’t. I am learning how my early programming has effected my ability to love.

He’s been trying to ride five horses at once and not very successfully! He is doing the right thing in waiting for the road to take him to the right person. So he’s in a good place right now.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

1. I would bring play and fun up higher on his priority list. The road is for play, adventure and fun. He needs it to be in balance. The journey is more important than the destination.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Lion to imagine that he is you and act as you would?

It would be better if he had a map. He’s driving without a map. It would be helpful if he would map out his goals and his ways to get there. So he has limited vision right now.

What would that map look like, Road, if you were in charge?

It would have the three basic elements of where he is now, where he wants to be, and how he wants to get there, including all the alternative routes. It wouldn’t be a straight line but a meandering one that would carry him to his destination in a fun and enjoyable way.

Road, do you have any recommendations about how Lion could go about creating that road for himself?

Paper, crayons, and consulting with good mapmakers!

Why do you think that you are in Lion’s life?

I can’t not be. I’m in everybody’s life. I’m the road they travel, the directionality, the territory, not the map.

How is Lion most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?

He will just get back in his car and keep driving, he’ll get busy. He won’t create a map or take care of the things that are more important.

What would you recommend that he do about that?

I would recommend that he stop the fucking car, get out and look at the landscape! Look at the beauty around!  Live a little! Take some time off!

What’s Lion feeling right now?

He’ says he’s got it and he’s ready to move on!

I think Lion had this NDE 32 years ago because

He was calling for transformation. He made the call, we delivered.

I think Roy was in this NDE because…

He was the delivery boy…

The four bullets?

They were the message carriers

And the way he felt when he was hit by those bullets and became calm and accepting?

That’s what he called for. He was calling for a shift in consciousness and an elevation in perspective and that’s what he got. He wanted an elevation in perspective and we gave it to him.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to Lion?

Wonders and adventure await you if you take time to explore.

What have you heard yourself say?

I could be taking some time off and enjoying my time more than I am now. I could have wonders and adventures awaiting me. I could get out of the car and appreciate the beauty more instead of working my ass off all the time.  There was this quality of dispassionate universal awareness that if I could be in that more of the time I would have more of what I want.  More love, more peace, and more awareness.  Get out of the fucking car!   Make a map of my territory, where I want to go and get some help if I need it. Design in more time to get out of my car, my drive, get some play and adventure into my life.  The journey is more important than the destination. I have been making the destination the most important thing.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Stop and smell the roses!

Notice that Lion got help from his interview even though his NDE happened thirty-two years ago. If we had interviewed another perspective from the experience, say Ray or the bullets, he would have gotten what he needs now, but from another perspective on his own truth.

The challenge now for Lion is to continue the dialogue and to show his inner self that he is listening by stepping out and testing its wisdom by applying the recommendations in his life. After all, what does he have to lose?

Almost all of us have had traumatic experiences in our childhood. They have left scars that echo through our lives, affecting how we see ourselves and others and subtly structuring how we feel, think, and act. While these experiences can never be undone, their negative influence can be minimized and they can be reframed in ways that allows them to become assets, strengths, and doorways to unrecognized or unrealized potentials. The beauty, peace, and love of a near-death experience can overwhelm and neutralize karmas of all types, even years later, if we can find and use the tools that bring them alive in our particular present life circumstances. Integral Deep Listening interviews provide one such doorway, and it is my privilege to have been able to share with Cheryl through the following interview an awakening and integration of a very beautiful, central expression of the light she is.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Emotion – fear, anger, and hurt are out of whack

2 My body is out of whack – particularly my right side.

3 Embracing myself – there’s a timidness and fear there.

Tell me about your NDE…

Both NDE’s were in infancy, I feel certain before six months. I am guessing they occurred around 2 months of age. I did not start to recall them until fifteen years later. Then I recalled that on one occasion my mother put her hands around my neck and held me in mid air. This one feels like I went to a dark place; there was dark energy. My mother feels very gone. Seems like my Dad stopped her. He focused on her, I was ignored or abandoned. I feel gone, way out there. It seemed unimaginable how I could do this journey, to live my life.

On another occasion in my infancy my mother held my head under water. (I feel a pain spot that I am very familiar with on the back right lower side of my head as I write these words.) I die. I am within the most incredible experience ever. I am in nirvana! I still have a sense of myself, with a translucent ball like LOVE energy. (My favorite toy as a child was a ball.) I am not sure if the form of a ball or sphere was really there. It seems formless and the sphere shape helped me notice it was there, or a way for me to bring it back, and a way to describe? There aren’t words to describe how incredible it was.

My father takes my mother off me. Four of my five siblings are in the bathroom crying; they are super afraid. One of them, seems like the oldest, my brother Earl, grabs my arm, which seems to dislocate my shoulder, and pulls me up out of the water. Now my entire being has taken on all of my siblings’ fear. I feel very angry, that I am taken from where I was and from the feeling of nirvana. I know this light energy now. Hard to call it light energy because it seems way more powerful than light and it has a translucent nature to it.

Later, when I was in a post-graduate program, I had experiences that seemed to verify these memories. My teacher was doing therapy with me in a group of thirty. Suddenly the woman sitting next to me said, “I can see the hand prints on her neck!” Red hand prints were visible on my neck. She was freaked! Also at around that same time, during a diad exercise, in the group, my hand went up to my nose (as a drowning person may do). My teacher said, “you can trust your body.”  I had no idea of either infant NDE at the time. It was about 15 years after the experiences that the NDE memories started to come.

Why do you think that you had these NDEs?

To save my life. To be one with love not earthly, human, object love, but the love of all, universal or cosmic or godly, spirit love.

These are the characters in the NDEs, beside yourself…

Mother, water, darkness, father, siblings, bathtub

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

My Mother

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your NDEs and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Mother, how shall we refer to you?

I feel anger, but call me “Mother,”

Mother, are you a character in Cheryl’s NDE, yes?

Yes

Mother, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I’m going blank. I’m feeling afraid. I don’t know what to do. I’m killing Cheryl. I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t stop myself.  I don’t know what is happening….

Mother, what do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

Patience, calm, good cook…

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Anger, getting things right, especially others, trying to get the outside right. I lost my mother to death right after my birth.

Mother ,what aspect of Cheryl do you represent or most closely personify?

The light! I couldn’t face the light; I couldn’t face my light. I didn’t know how to live without my mother…it seems that I went psychotic…Six children was too much…

Mother, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

A flower! I’m bright, cheery, natural, colorful, alive, vibrant, loved! I’m yellow and I have petals that look like a daisy or a sunflower.  I move with the breeze.  I have a center, a nucleus that all the petals come out of. Perhaps it is brown.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Flower, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I initially had no fear at all; I just felt my naturalness with no fear of decay or death.

Compassion:   8 I’m weeping; I don’t know how to embrace myself fully…I’m afraid of myself…I have a beautiful spirit that I’m afraid to show it. I’d rather be off alone

Wisdom: 10 Brilliance! I know stuff; I don’t know how I know it, though. It’s fun to have this wisdom; it’s playful and exhilarating, and just plain useful!

Acceptance:   5 I’m afraid of harm.

Inner Peace: 7 I feel disturbed about these things I can’t get resolved….I stand alone; I’m out in left field…I can’t be myself…

Witnessing:   9 I get stuck; I lose touch with my nature; I forget my nature and before I know it I’m involved in wanting things to be a certain way…I want things to be peaceful, balanced, going with the flow, being natural.

Flower, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I would be in community – I would be with other flowers – I would be blowing in the wind; I would be living nature, however that is, IS! I could be raining on me one day, it could be sunny, I could be cut and taken to a vase!

How would Cheryl’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

The struggle would be gone…purpose, drive and purpose would be very different. Instead of focusing on getting everything all right it would just be living life as it comes in a natural flow. Present comes…to be present. Checking out wouldn’t happen.  Emotion would be resolved.

If you could live Cheryl’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

Lovingly, to love what you are.  You are always trying to make yourself better when you’re OK now! To live without the fear, anger, and pain that feels very, very old!

If you could live Cheryl’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1 Emotion – fear, anger, and hurt are out of whack:

I would grieve; I would wash the emotion away.  There’s no need to carry this old emotion. I would let it go…The sunlight allows the emotions to be released. As a flower I am embraced by the sunlight. It MAKES me! It’s not emotion, it’s sunlight! (When my husband is observing transformation for me he regularly sees the sun!)

2 My body is out of whack – particularly my right side.

Increase, enliven the left side; let go of holding on to physical pain…There’s a lot of fear stuck in the body; I’d let that fear go.  Cheryl is natural like me!

3 Embracing myself – there’s a timidness and fear there.

It’s already done! Stop thinking about it! Embracing yourself is to stop losing yourself to the body personality “you.” Stop limiting yourself! Embrace is already there!  Accept the embrace!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?

1. Nature!

2. Fun!

3. Living!

If she focused on those three live issues instead of her own, what difference would that make in her life, Flower?

Free, set free, being no longer bogged down; accepting the beautiful life that she has and the beautiful person she is. Control would be gone and unnecessary. She makes up all kinds of stuff that is so unnecessary!

In what daily life situations would it be most beneficial for Cheryl to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

With others in day-to-day life. Then she would be free, relaxed, competent, with time for her to share her truth, stop hiding, smile!

Why do you think that you are in Cheryl’s life?

For beaming! For presence, love, and adoration! For a reminder to be the way she is when she looks and experiences ME! When she looks at me she is so full  of love and presence and peace, adoration, stillness; she really cares for me well.

How is Cheryl most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

By getting angry.

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Remember that the anger is over and that anger is so not her! It is pulling the plug on the anger; it is so not her; it is such interference. When Cheryl gets angry it is pulling the plug on her real self. Anger it is not her natural spirit. Letting Cheryl get back to her real, cheerful, beautiful self.  She thinks she’s still angry, but she’s not; that’s just the interference.

I think Cheryl had these NDEs because

to get back to her true nature. The circumstances she was born into was difficult. By having the NDEs she remembered the light that as a child she called love. This got her through her childhood and kept her on track with the essence, the spirit of life, with the clear light that can transform anything back to nature, back to the way of the clear light, the way of spirit!

I think the ball of love was in the NDE because…

It saves her, it is a reflection of her…so she wouldn’t forget herself. Brilliance is not ego; it’s not mind. It’s just nature!!!

Can Cheryl tune into you and ask you questions any time she wants to, Flower?

Yes! I’m always here for her!

Can she become you anytime she wants?

Yes! That will help her take the confusion out; sometimes she thinks she’s different from her true nature.

What have you heard yourself say?

That I am just like a flower! That is the way I was born and the way I am and always will be. I don’t have to get involved in anything else that takes away from my true nature.  That the old anger and pain and fear are OVER! Stay present, not just in the here and now, but not disassociating or going into shock (My body will go into a shock like state…) What will prevent mind and body from going into shock or into disassociational states is more intentional meditation every day.   Knowing the difference between meditation and disassociation or shock. I need that stillness, the quiet or peace. To get myself used to that instead of go, go go…

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Love what already is! There is nothing more to get! The spirit door will just naturally expand in life.  I don’t have to force it!  Live here and now You.

Do you have any questions or comments about the interviewing process?

Your way of interviewing makes it flow with such ease!  I noticed myself staying present the whole time, which is not always easy to do!

( I love flowers & have them in our home most of the time& surrounding it. Like on your desk. Funny those ‘coincidences’ happen with me often!)

Notice that Cheryl could, in the future, go back and interview any other character in her experience.  All will reveal for her how, when, and where she is stuck and what she needs to get unstuck today, regardless of when she does the interview. Every aspect of our lives is a wake-up call; as we listen to them we see through the unnecessary and the complicated to the simple essence of who we are and what we are here to do.

Do you think your IDL interview helped you to “wake up” in some way to the usefulness or relevance of your NDE for you in your current life circumstances?

Yes. Holding back is counter productive & counter intuitive.

Was becoming an aspect (mother) of your NDE useful? If so, in what way?

Yes. This part I am really looking at and sorting out. More becomes clearer each night I read the transcript. This aspect is me. And it has given me the opportunity not only to identify how I am that aspect, also to transform the parts of this aspect that don’t serve me. Also reaffirms, everything is of light. Light does not exist in people according to behaviors, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. To live spiritually instead of personality based is much lovelier.

Did you feel like you were in touch with the divine in any way or at any time during your interview? If so, in what way(s)?

Yes. I know divine was there b/c I stayed present the whole interview. This is new to me to be “public” with the NDE’s. And the interview came to me from divine intervention.

Have you experimented since the interview at becoming your interviewed character (flower) and attempting to live your life from its perspective and out of its energy?  If so, have you noticed any results? If so, what?

Yes. And I want to do it more at any time not just in my meditation time. When I become the flower I remember I am nature just like a flower. If I get wrapped up in what isn’t my nature ‘I’ disappear.

Now that some time has passed, do you think that the recommendations your character had for your waking life were appropriate, relevant, and useful? If so, how?

All the above. I have kidded for decades, ” I wish God made me a grocery bagger!” God made me a light worker & that’s that! I love helping myself & others transform, using divine energy.

Sometimes we can get swamped with recommendations during interviews and sometimes the press of daily events swamps our ability to apply the recommendations we do receive.  Has either been the case for you?

I am integrating & transforming every day. This I have done daily for many a year. A priority that is necessary for my health & well being. The interview gave me lots of territory of self to transform. I’m happy with my pace.

Did you learn anything new about your NDE from your interview? Did it change your attitude about it in any way?

(It) forced me to write the NDE down & put it in public, which I had not before. Helped me separate how I ended up in a NDE (mother) & working with the NDE itself. With the trauma out of it, it’s a phenomenal experience. Amazing what the human psyche & body are capable of.

How about NDEs in general? Did your interview change your attitude about NDEs in any way? If so, how?

I feel fortunate I had one. I’ve been in touch with on some level, since an infant, what many people spend a life time hoping to experience.

Has your character (mother) continued to be present? Have you had any success at becoming it?  Or has its significance faded with time?

The characteristics of the character have been present. Haven’t tried to become it. This question stimulates me to work with mother character.

Do you think reading over your IDL interview would help someone who has not had an NDE to benefit from them all the same?

Yes.

Do you think an IDL interview could help people who have not had an NDE to get in touch with the divine?

Very possible.

Do you think this interviewing process could help NDEers avoid doing a “spiritual bypass?” (thinking they were totally healed and not addressing their psychological issues.)

Definitely. One of the most productive parts of the interview for me was becoming the aspect (flower) and the character (mother). Because I got information about myself that I wasn’t intentionally holding back but was. Excellent, gentle way to get into the subconscious. Even stuff I knew was a problem i.e. acceptance, I didn’t know the afraid of harm aspect of it.

Do you think that sharing your interview with family and friends could help them come to grips with the transformation that is still occurring in your life as a result of your NDE?

Definitely. My husband was delighted. Have only shared with him & my best friend so far.

Do you think that an IDL interview on a NDE theme could help terminally ill patients and their families?

Yes, especially those who are afraid of death, or family members who may be ‘holding on’ to a loved one who is going to pass.

(I am) so amazed how much I have gained by the interview & working with it day & night.