From Chop Wood Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life, by Rick Fields, etc. pp 98-100.
During the past seven years, I have interviewed hundreds of people who have had near-death experiences — beautiful and life-transformative encounters with what most of them simply call “the Light.” Many of these individuals have come to be much more than my “research subjects.” By becoming channels for “the Light,” they have become my teachers as well. Here, in their own words, is what the universe looks and feels like when perceived within the Light, and some lessons learned from the experience:
It was a total immersion in light, brightness, warmth, peace, security. It’s something which becomes you and you become it. I could say, “I was peace, I was love.” I was the brightness, it was a part of me. It was eternity. It was like I was always there, and I will always be there, and that my existence on earth was just a brief instant.
It was just as pure consciousness. This enormously bright light seemed almost to cradle me. I just seemed to exist in it and be a part of it and be nurtured by it, and the feeling just became more and more and more ecstatic and glorious and perfect. The feeling — if you took one thousand best things that ever happened to you in your life and multiplied by a million, maybe you could get close to this feeling. I don’t know.
I remember I knew that everything, everywhere in the universe was OK, that the plan was perfect. That whatever was happening — the wars, famine, whatever — was OK. … The whole time I was in this state, it seemed infinite. … I was just an infinite being in perfection. And love and safety and security and knowing that nothing could happen to you and you’re home forever. That you’re safe forever. And that everybody else was safe.
I realized that there are things that every person is sent to earth to realize and to learn. For instance, to share more love, to be more loving toward one another. To discover that the most important thing is human relationship and love — not materialistic things. And to realize that every single thing that you do in your life is recorded and that even though you pass it by not thinking at the time, it always comes up later. For instance, you may be … at a stop light and you’re in a hurry and the lady in front of you, when the light turns green, doesn’t take right off, (she) doesn’t notice the light, and you get upset and start honking your horn and telling her to hurry up. Those are the little kinds of things that are recorded that you don’t realize at the time are really important. One of the things that I discovered that is very important is patience toward other human beings and realizing that you yourself might be in that situation sometime.
You are shown your life — and you do the judging. Had you done what you should do? You think, “Oh, I gave six dollars to someone that didn’t have much and that was great of me.” That didn’t mean a thing. It’s the little things — maybe a hurt child that you helped or just to stop by and say hello to a shut-in. Those are the things that are most important.
Ken Ring is a psychologist and a near death experience researcher.
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