There are moments in life when we are shattered into pieces...when all pretense is stripped, and the soul stands bare. My moment came wrapped in pain, in the stark cold of a hospital room, and in the trembling hush between one breath and the next. An accident on the job landed me in the emergency room with broken bones and bruised spirit, but what followed would alter my life far more than physical injuries ever could. I was sent home, my body aching and breath shallow, only to return hours later, barely able to inhale, suffocating not only from the trauma but from something deeper, invisible, existential.
In that hospital bed, drugged and desperate, I was told by a nurse, “Push the button if you need anything.” But pride, that old familiar ghost from growing up in the South Bronx, whispered that I could handle it. We didn’t show fear, not then, not ever. But this wasn’t a fight on the block or a struggle for dignity in a world that offered little. This was death, imminent and real. I waited too long. Then came the code blue, the flurry of hands and wires, and my shame at being so helpless and exposed. There was CPR. I still couldn’t breathe. The air simply refused to come. And in that quiet terror, I realized something that shook me to the bone: if I died right now, I would never see my loved ones again.
I was an atheist. I believed in nothing beyond this world. Death, I thought, would be like flipping off a light switch...blackness, finality. But desperation has a way of prying open the locked door of belief. “If you’re real,” I whispered into the void, “help me.” Then came silence. Then came surrender. I gave myself permission to die.
What followed was nothing short of holy. A shadow brushed the room, not dark but gentle, and I felt wrapped in a warmth and safety deeper than anything I had known. My soul departed my body...I saw myself from above, saw the broken vessel that had carried me all these years, now empty and slack like a well-worn car at the end of its road. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was weightless, without judgment, surrounded by a love so vast it annihilated every trace of earthly fear and guilt.
Then came the life review...not grand achievements or failures, but simple, fleeting moments. A kind word here. A careless act there. No judgment. No condemnation. Just love...pure, unfiltered, and absolute. In that realm, all the noise of this world fell away. Hatred, insecurity, shame...they had no place. The negativity of Earth was dissolved in an instant, as though it had never belonged to us in the first place.
In that place, everything lived (trees, rocks, winds, stars) all of it alive with motion, spirit, vibration. I moved among these forms not as an observer but as a participant. I became the mountain, the flower, the breeze. Everything was connected in a way we forget down here, entangled not by chains but by love. I even discovered I could paint scenes I had never been interested in before...a gift, it seems, from that world to this one.
I spoke to my father...not in words, but with the silent language of the soul. We had never hugged while he lived. Men of our generation didn’t do that. But in this sacred realm, I embraced him, and he embraced me. And when it was time to go, he said with gentleness and sorrow, “You cannot stay here.” I resisted. I begged. I didn’t want to leave. But then he offered a deal...a father’s promise: “When it is truly your time, I will come and get you.” And in a blink, I was back. Pain filled my body, but so did a knowledge I had never known: death is not the end. Not even close.
I tried to explain. I told my cardiologist, “I went somewhere.” He waved it off...“That’s not real, your brain was starved of oxygen.” Science couldn't touch the truth I had lived. For three years I remained silent, holding this sacred story in my chest like a fragile ember, until one day a nurse listened. She didn’t scoff. She believed. That encounter led me to IANDS, and with it, the courage to speak again.
What I learned is this: there is no death. There is only transition. There is no judgment. Only love. And most importantly...there is no hierarchy in Heaven. The soul does not recognize the crowns of kings or the accolades of generals. The scales of heaven do not weigh wealth, race, or title. Power and status dissolve at the edge of this world. In the next, there is only unity.
Our spiritual home knows nothing of human systems...no domination, no exclusion, no ranking. There, every being is embraced as equal, connected directly to Source, swimming in joy and light, and welcomed without condition. The universe is not a ladder; it is a circle. There are no favorites in the eyes of eternal love.
So do not fear your exit from this earthly plane. It is not a punishment, nor a vanishing. Physical death is gentle, far gentler than the trials we face while alive on this planet, a place diseased with greed, racism, cruelty, and a thirst for power. But this world is not our true home. It is the crucible in which the soul is shaped, stretched, tested, and grown.
We are here not merely to survive, but to remember...to awaken to the truth we forgot when we took our first breath: that we are divine, connected, eternal. When we sleep, and dream vivid dreams that linger for years, they are more than fantasy...they are visitations, reminders from beyond the veil. Time there is not time here. Ten minutes may hold eternity.
So love freely. Forgive easily. And know this with all your being: the love that waits for us (the Love that is us) is beyond measure, beyond condition, and beyond death.
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