A Visionary Sound Arts Interface

Return to Main Page DARV'S NEAR-DEATH-LIKE EXPERIENCE The first thing I experienced was a flash of what could have been pain or pleasure. So intense was the feeling, but for also a numbness that set in nearly immediately as if some fundamental area of my nervous system had been mortally wounded, that I was dazed quite nearly to the extent one would be if slammed in the head with a two-by-four. I also felt like the proverbial �deer caught by the headlights.� My following sensation was bewildering and frightening. It felt like my head was �popping� up symmetrically round welts, one after another with increasing frequency. These �welts� were quite rapidly giving my cranium something of the shape of a raspberry. The �popping� was rather like small membrane sacs, not quite the size of a tennis ball, suddenly inflated to full-size. �This has got to cause brain damage,� I thought. It was my last coherent thought before the major transition. A beautiful golden wave, pixillated with small red triangles, blue circles and green asterisks (resembling the �fuzz� one sees when one�s television is tuned to a channel where nothing is being broadcast, but liquid and shining like metal gold,) crashed over me and I was thrown over backward into an amazing chaos of rainbow colors awash in liquid metallic gold, sunlight, and ultrawhite foam. There were geometrical designs, tinkertoy-like shapes (some appearing to be chemical,) and what I can only describe as �nexi� of various informational �nodes.� None of these things I saw made any sense to me, but were simply fleeting visual impressions within a turbulent oceanic environment where I was tumbling about in a state of mental confusion. Emotionally, I was surprised but not afraid, and distinctly still had the sense of being myself. Having grown up in the beach communities of Los Angeles, California, I had at one point in my life been an avid bodysurfer and so was no stranger to �going over the falls� of a wave or being �caught in the backwash.� This was not unlike that, except, of course, that the medium was of a much more fantastic and cosmic nature. A sudden shift occurred, which had no sense of jolt but rather that of increasing speed along a very steep gradient. In a moment, I was travelling at an amazingly high velocity, banking until I was headed straight up. I was moving through a tube or tunnel that appeared to be golden streaked with white. I would have to say that my impression was that it was made out of a material that was continuously smooth along the surface, giving no details as to its composition. I was not paying attention, but instead looking directly upward in the direction I was headed. In the distance, I could see the top of the tube, soft white light infusing the end. I was hovering over a dark sea at nighttime. I must have been about forty feet above the surface. There were large storm clouds lit by moonlight in the distance. When I looked up, I could see a starry sky. The ocean itself was active, but not in a violent sense. It was not placid by any means, however. My vision was in three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. I could see in all directions simultaneously. Because I�m used to one-twenty degree limited vision, however, I was still paying attention only to my usual visual field. This means that, although I could see everything at once, I still followed a convention of �looking around.� As I looked down, I observed the surface of the ocean being broken by other humans as they slowly moved upward into the sky. Each person was held by the upper arm and shoulder on either side by what appeared to be �Angels Of Death.� Some of the people appeared to be in a beatific sleep, with wide smiles as though beholding some beautiful dream. The emotional vibrations that they gave off made their attending angels gorgeous creatures indeed. The angels radiated a soft, lustrous luminescence, and were decidedly humanoid, with flowing robes. There were yet others of these people breaking the surface of the ocean, accompanied by two Angels each. These people were awake and extremely frightened. Their screams, hollering, and protestations were the main sounds to be heard along with the lolling of the active sea itself. Mightily struggling against the relentless grip of the Angels, these unfortunates gave off emotional vibrations of terror and wrath which broke across the forms of their attendants like electric cat-of-nine-tails, �tattering� their appearance, causing the Angels to appear hideous. The Angels, for their part, were simply conveying the humans along an appointed course which led from somewhere beneath the surface of this sea up into the sky beyond sight. Theirs was a firm patient hold on their attendee. There was no malice nor haste in any of their movements. Their faces did reflect their enjoyment of seeing bliss and their being disconcerted when working with those in a state of fright. �Where am I?� I wondered. This was a thought, not spoken aloud. �This is where people first arrive after they die,� said a voice above me and to my right. I could not see the person who said, or thought, this. �Well. . .what am I doing here?� I asked. �You must have died,� said the voice. This was not a particularly welcome idea. I tried to remember how I had arrived here. I was still very disoriented. Let�s see. . . I thought about my bedroom of 13 years. I had passed out, died. Had I killed myself? I thought of my housemate and his friend downstairs. They would find my body. I thought of my family, how this would injure them. And everybody at work would know. . . . I felt embarrassed. Then: afraid. What if I had killed myself? I�d heard that there were rules against that. You could even possibly be in trouble for accidentally killing yourself, for all I knew! The word, �Damnation,� entered my mind and I shook with fear. This was not a pleasant prospect! �Tell me about this �damnation� thing. What is �damnation�?� I asked. My three-hundred-sixty-degree vision then rotated so that I was looking down at the surface of the ocean. The surface then parted and beneath it I could see many levels of experience proceeding downward. On each level, beings in various states of torment moved through repeating unpleasant experiences. It was almost as if these experiences were �looped,� endlessly repeating the same thing over and over. I was given to understand that �Hell� or �Damnation� is a choice that one can make following the encounter with the Divine Light. During the after- death experience, one is given the �Life Review.� Then, one is shown the Divine Light in all its glory, and particularly emphasized is Unconditional Love and Forgiveness. One is then shown the contrast between this Light and the life one has just lived. If we can accept the Forgiveness that is always extended to us, we can move on to the higher vibrational realms of experience � the Heavens, the Paradises, the Shared Belief locales, onward to the Light Itself. However, if we cannot accept the Forgiveness, believing that we are not worthy, or that we need to punished for transgressions, or that we cannot release past orientations of resentment, that we cannot �feel� the way the Light �feels,� then we recoil away from the Paradisal, under the gravity of our own attachment to lower vibrational states. Our options then begin to emphasize Reincarnation to a new life selected from a limited palette of lives which are conducive to exploring our particular issues or questions, or �Hell,� in which we punish ourselves by repetitiously reexperiencing the memories of the adverse behaviors and conditions that we feel guilty about, OR behaviors and conditions which are symbolic of this guilt. This can continue indefinitely and is experienced as temporal succession. It will last no longer, however, than the time when the experiencer has an insight into why they behaved in such a way or brought themselves into such a condition, or until they become bored. At this point, one can either accept the Forgiveness of the Light, or choose a new incarnation. The latter is more likely than the former, since the individual is probably still in a problem-solving mood. Another metaphor that was brought forward was that �Hell� is similar to �Detention� in school. If you missed an hour of class, you got about five hours of detention. The difference being: that you were assigning the detention to yourself. �So, if I was to go through all this repetition of my guilt for, say, five thousand years, or whatever, at the end of that time, I would be okay with the Divine? I�d still be Forgiven?� I asked. �Of course!� said the voice. �For you were Forgiven the entire time. You are ALWAYS Forgiven.� �Oh!� I said with relief. �Well, I can bear that. . . .� �Good,� said the voice, �because that is not what is going to happen to you anyway.� Then, it was as if I was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and swiftly lifted in an ascending spiral forward and to the right. I was passing through space, with stars twinkling and celestial objects of great beauty. It was as if I was passing along the arc of one of the serpents of the Caduceus, or along a strand of DNA. In amazement, I was approaching an immense mandala, which was in the upper right of my vision. I was moving toward it from below. The mandala was brilliant white in the center, surrounded by lustrous gold, then a wide incandescent rose band, moving outward to a band of the most beautiful devotional blue I have ever seen, with an outside fringe of sunlight. I was given to know that this was the �Mandala of All Human Souls.� I flew to the center of this mandala, which was not a disc but a sphere! In the center was the Light of Awareness, which I could see infused all of the lives connected in the sphere with One Light. I could see that all lives were One Life experiencing itself in a multitude of realities. �The appearance is that we are many people living in the same world; the inner reality is that we are the same Person living in many worlds.� I then �passed through� the center of this mandala somehow, and found myself still hurtling through space on a spiral upward, forward and to the right. I was approaching another, even larger mandala now. Its center was again brilliant white, but it was shining like a golden shield, with many geometrical ramifications across its surface along which thin lines of white light darted. I was given to know that this was the �Mandala of All Human Events, Past Present and Future.� Again, I was taken to the center of this spherical mandala and witnessed the Light of Awareness permeating all events, revealing that they are the ramifications of One Event. I saw that all events are part of an amazing artistic structure which, seen in its entirety, is profound, awesome and sacred. I then moved through the center of this mandala and continued my upward arc. I then was approaching a light so tremendous that I believed that this was finally the Light, that I had in fact died and was about to return to the Light, become One with it and experience the dissolution of my ego. Believing that I could not fight this inexorable situation, I relaxed into it and awaited my annihilation. What happened instead is that I found myself inside a structure of concentric spheres of what appeared to be conjoined pillars of crystalline white light. I had the sense of it being a �palace� of sorts. This structure bears a distinct resemblance to �Concentric Rinds� by Sacha Ledinsky, 1998 This is an Escher-like painting and I can�t help thinking he had a painting of the same name, but cannot find it elsewhere. In any event, here you can see a similar structure. I descended as it were through these concentric levels to the area of brightness at the center. This turned out to be a large domed room with geodesic triangles of the dome each a video screen depicting an event from some previously lived experience of mine. In the center of the room was a long elliptical table which resembled nothing so much as a surgery table. Off to my right, stood a brilliant white being. I turned to face this being and was somewhat taken aback to see that it appeared to be three people standing in the same space. It was as if there were three superimposed images, which flickered in and out of dominance, but were not resolving into one coherent image. I would see a man clad in simple white clothes with a turban, then a woman of the same size but in flowing white robes, a nd then another figure, which was not humanoid but rather like a silver-white shimmer that would gleam with brilliance occasionally. I call this being the Three-In-One. The being silently but warmly greeted me and then led me back to the table. The surface of the table shone a diffuse comforting white light. Then, the side of the dome opened as if elevators doors had parted, and I could see the "Mandala of All Human Souls" out in space and below our position. The segment of the mandala which is my life was then copied and the copy was brought to the dome to hover above the table. The copy was tinkertoy- like, resembling a molecule. It was as if the various paths and metaphors of my life, arranged as stops and starts, beginning and endings of sequences, was laid out before me. I was given what I refer to as a �demo� of the Life Review. I was shown how I could observe two or more events from different times and places in my life simultaneously in order to note similarities and contrasts. I could observe scenes occurring forward or backward, from my personal perspective or from the perspective of any of those interacting with me. In other words, I could see things from my point of view, or how I looked to others. I couldalso view scenes from various angles independent of any embodied viewer. I could see how my actions affected other people who, in turn, acted upon others because of me. I could see how actions from others had affected me and I had carried those actions forward through me, reacting against them by acting upon others. I could see the mirroring process of reality as I shaped it by my beliefs and attitudes. Then, I was becoming aware that I was intentionally avoiding looking at the end of my life. The Three-In-One noticed this and took me aside. It said, �If you were actually dead, this would be the point where we would fully enter into the Life Review and begin analyzing your life carefully.� It led me away to the other side of the dome where it stood with its back to a Void that was also filled with intense criss-crossings of Light that looked something like the Universal Mind Lattice by Alex Grey. You can view this painting by going to the Alex Grey gallery on the web, clicking for the Sacred Mirrors, clicking to view the Sacred Mirrors, and then selecting �Universal Mind Lattice:� Click here to go to Sacred Mirrors It was at this time that we entered into a discussion of my personal issues which I have, to this day, fully repressed the specifics addressed therein. I have tried to remember this conversation, but I guess am not ready. A little too �to the point,� I would guess. . . I have come to believe that I was offered an opportunity to merge with this being at this time, but declined. The being then led me back to where we had originally met and told me that I could ask any question that I wanted to ask at that time. �What are the motivations of the Divine?� I asked. Instantly, I felt that I was expanding. My point-of-view was beginning to encompass many areas of knowing and experiencing that I had never even dreamed of. It was not unlike Alice in Wonderland, becoming increasingly huge. Unlike Alice, however, I was not becoming merely physically larger, my entire range of experience was increasing. The avalanche of spiritual information that flooded into me was beyond anything I had experienced before. I was feeling overwhelmed, swamped with all sorts of things I would need to know in order to understand the Divine�s motivations. My area of perceiving was covering an increasingly enormous,baffling field of Awareness that I could never have imagined existed! I experienced fear of being out of my depth. In acute response, my expansion ended and I found myself back in the dome, standing next to the Three-In-One. �I can�t understand the motivations of the Divine,� I confessed, feeling humble. The Three-In-One seemed to find this remark amusing. Then, my attention was rotated upward toward the ceiling of the dome, which parted missile-silo-like. Above me, I could see level after level of realms of increasingly pure and rarefied awareness, which conscious beings living on these realms in wondrous states of meditation and adventure where the repetitious cycles of mortal life had opened into never ending spirals of creativity. A painting by Gustav Dore somewhat captures this vision. It is titled,"A Saintly Throng In The Form Of A Rose." This other mandala also expresses this vision of looking up througha series of concentric planes toward the Light Above. It is titled, "Consciousness Of The Heart" by John DeMarco I was then raised up through the center of these planes toward the most brilliant light I have ever beheld, which was directly above me in the center. This is the Light that has been called �The Light of A Thousand Suns,� but I would say it could be in the millions or billions for that matter. It is as if the whole sky is as bright as the sun and the sky surrounds you. The brightness is many-fold beyond the sun, but while extremely intense is not painful to look at. On the contrary, it is beautiful beyond any comparison. The closest visual representation of this sight that I have ever seen is the �Mandala of the Divine Light,� the final image in Heita Copony�s book, �Mystery Of The Mandalas." This is not on the web however. The painting by Alex Grey entitled, �White Light,� conveys some of this idea. In any event, it was now that I merged with the Light Divine. It was a pure brilliance of white-golden with traceries of crystalline white light dancing through it. I was in a state of ecstasy so pure that its intensity had gone past the pain/pleasure confusion of simple ecstasy to an experience that I can only refer to as �tranquility.� Perhaps this is what some have referred to as �enstansy.� Within the Light, I beheld the Essences of all of those lofty transcendental concepts for which we are more familiar with the names than their realities. Love Unconditioned was there, as was Truth, Creativity, Intelligence, Joy, Forgiveness, Eternity, Will, Strength, Beauty, Justice, Infinity, and many other fine, miraculous realities. Above all, I was impressed by the Knowledge that the entire Creation and every thing in it which exists or happens is PERFECT. That there is NOTHING WRONG nor could there EVER be. That all the Realities of the One constitute the penultimate masterpiece of the Supreme Artist in which every individual and movement contribute to the Ultimate Vision of Wholeness and Love Without End. I was then meditating on the Mysteries of the Universe, delving into the deepest Secrets and Truths now laid bare. My questions asked and answered. I had entered a state of profound Wonder and dined as it were on the Paradisal Delicacies of the Treasures of Divinity. After a while, I noticed that the Light had softened and taken on a decidedly feminine feeling. It swirled luxuriously as a warm milky whiteoceanic liquid of finely granular Light. The emotional state became Blissful, rather than ecstatic. And wave after wave of intense pleasure wafted over me. Leaving my meditation on the Revealed Secrets, I opened my eyes to find myself seated in a blooming lotus flower on gorgeous pads of sparkling leaf, floating upon and within a sea of warm liquid light, now white with gorgeous currents of cerulean blue wafting through. I could see others on their pads, deep in meditation. I closed my eyes and returned to my meditation upon the Mysteries. After a while, I reopened my eyes to find myself still seated cross-legged in the lotus bloom. So this is my version of the Heavenly Paradise, I thought to myself. This is where I will spend my Heaven Time. And for the moment, I felt a deep contentment and relief. If only the people back on Earth knew what I know now, I reflected. They would not be so miserable, nor behave so unpleasantly. Things would be better. . . . And then I suddenly became sad, as I realized that I could never go back and tell people about what I had seen. That I had lost my chance to help the world. I wanted so much to help, my chest swelled within the longing to do so and the pain of knowing I could not. �I want to help the world. I want to go back,� I said aloud. �I owe it to the world to go back and help.� I began to weep for the world, for all the sorrow and pain in the world. And within half a minute, I was back in my familiar bedroom, laying right where I�d left myself. AFTERTHOUGHT: It has been some time since i first posted this at my website. I fully attest here that what i have written is a RECOUNT of an ACTUAL EXPERIENCE that i had, which i have in no way added to in order to make it seem more fantastic than it actually was. Previous to this experience, i was not a particular believer in reincarnation, but this experience has definitely opened my mind to a new way of considering it. As for "hell," this experience provided for me a deeper understanding as to how such an experience is provided for the benefit and education of beings who utilize it and not as some sort of "punishment" from a wrathful and demanding deity. While i was more inclined to not believe in hell previously, i am now inclined to believe in the "hell-experience" as detailed in my recount. For me, this was a culminating experience of many years of questioning the nature and meaning of reality and our human experience of it. Many of my fundamental questions were answered and concerns allayed. I only wish that i may play my own part now in providing our suffering human world with some portion of this experience so that as many of us as possible can know that there is something more, that it is highly personal and based on individual freedom and co-creative participation. And, most importantly, that it is NOT what "THEY" said it was going to be, but is actually FAR GRANDER and much more ON YOUR SIDE than most of us have dared to hope or dream. Return to Main Page