Near-death Experiences:
What are some of their common views expressed on heaven
The first time I heard of near-death experiences (NDE) was in 1993. I was driving across the country to return from temporarily living in an R.V. in Florida to our home in Montana. We were about halfway across the country and it was late in the day when I tuned in to a radio station talking about near-death experiences. Prior to that day, I had never heard of such experiences. Neither had most of those who experienced death and returned. They rarely told anyone of their inner experiences, even loved ones, because they were ignored or told it was a dream or wasn’t a real experience. Rarely would someone listen and believe.
In 1969 psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published her book, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. Then Raymond Moody, also a psychiatrist, began collecting stories from those who had NDE’s, starting when Dr. George Ritchie shared his journey out of his body during his clinical death. George later published his story with the world in his book Return From Tomorrow (1978) which I highly recommend reading.
Dr. Moody was fascinated with George’s story and in 1975, after collecting his own interviews from those who had died and returned, he published his first book on NDE’s, Life After Life wherein he coined the term “near-death experience”. Dr. Moody’s book was the first I read on the subject after years of desiring to know more about the subject from hearing the radio interview.
After returning to Montana I tried to find the radio station I had heard to get more information on their broadcast but I could not. The worldwide web had just started and web browsers were just being developed so I was limited to finding information through libraries and their microfilm and microfiche machines where you could view thousands of newspapers and documents. But I never tried that source of information. Still, I held it in my mind constantly, with the desire to know and learn more about these near-death experiences.
Then one day I learned Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the Summit Lighthouse had brought the topic out publicly during a Los Angeles conference put on in 1991, using excerpts from Moody’s book, and later she brought up the subject during another conference in Montana. I was very happy to finally discover and read Moody’s book and learn more on the subject.
Since that time I have read dozens of books on the subject and countless personal stories published online through NDE websites. While several researchers and writers have written on the subject, I have wanted to share for some time the actual descriptions of what God, love, light, heaven, our purpose for being, etc. is from those who have been in heavenly realms and returned.
From the moment I heard of these experiences I believed them to be true. There will always be debunkers to truth, especially in regards to God and true reality. While our planet and existence seem to be replicated in the lower levels of heaven, it is often said by those who have been there that there are no words to describe the light, colors, smells, love, and peace that they experience and encounter. Heaven is perfect.
Time
Not surprisingly, there is no time in God's Reality. We only experience time in the physical realm. Almost every individual who experiences their spirit/soul leaving their physical body mentions there isn’t any time outside the physical plane.
One individual even felt like time never existed. “There was no time. It was like time no longer existed and that it never existed.”
Another explained why we have time but not where they were.
“Where I am, there is no sense of time. Time, as we know it on earth, is linear and irreversible. Not in Heaven.”
And one simply said, “Time doesn't exist in heaven.”
What do they experience about timelessness? Peace.
Peace
Once a person dies whether it be while on the operating table, from drowning, or from an accident or heart attack, they usually quickly feel peace. Many hover above their body and feel totally non-attached to their body or sometimes they don’t even realize the body they are looking at is their own.
The following man convinced himself that his body wasn’t dead and he was just having an out-of-body experience—although after returning he found out he had a cardiac arrest. “I began to feel a huge sensation of lightness and peace. My senses were awake. I turned around instinctively and to my great surprise, I saw my body still lying on the bed with the eyes shut. I then understood that I was outside of my body."
Most who share their NDE tell how they don’t want to return to the physical body because they know where they are at is home and where there is total peace, love, and beauty. One woman expressed she knew she had to return to raise her children and not leave them motherless. She describes peace as indescribable. “Hard as it was to leave this place of overwhelming unconditional love and indescribable peace, I knew I had to return to my life.”
Returning to life on earth is usually very difficult. NDEs overwhelmingly share that what they miss very much after returning to their physical form is the love and peace they experienced in heaven. Some of them share that they experience long periods of depression from the stark difference of heaven from earth. One man expressed he never experienced the peace again that he had in heaven. “I was in a state of total peace like I’ve never known before that moment or since.”
Some souls need a lot of healing peace from their earthly experience. One woman shared she was taken to a green meadow that filled her with peace. “Peace fills me and pulsates through my being, settling in every hidden part of my insides, into my cells, bones, nerves, and fibers. The entire meadow is laden with peace.”
Meadows are common in what I describe as the lower levels of heaven. And besides bestowing peace, they are more beautiful than any meadows on earth. One comment on heavenly meadows: “We (the woman with her guardian angel or guide) reached a ledge which opened onto a gorgeous pastoral scene of vivid, green grass studded with vibrantly colored flowers unlike any I have ever seen.”
Another shared she continued to feel heavenly love and peace for three weeks after she returned to her body, giving her the sign that her experience was very real. “I was completely enveloped in the ‘peace that passeth all understanding’ and the amazing unconditional love of God, like an invisible bubble of protection!”
Colors
And colors…well they are colors that cannot be described. “There were colors that I cannot define because they don’t fit in the palette of colors that we have on earth.”
Another shared: “I went through a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel there was a light so indescribably strong. It was nothing like an earthly light. I went to a peaceful place. It was so beautiful that I thought, 'The earth is like a film that hasn’t been developed. Not until we reach the other side, is the film developed. Everything will be seen in beautiful colors that don't exist here on earth.' I saw a beautiful meadow. There were flowers and colors that were so fantastic that our earthly brain can't comprehend it. The colors we have here on earth are very pale in comparison to the colors I experienced in the spiritual realm.
Another meadow scene: “The colors were rich and vibrant. The sky was of the bluest blue and reminded me of a gorgeous spring day. There was a beautiful light that lit up the sky. The light was as brilliant as the sun. Yet, there was no sun in the sky and the Light illuminated everything, giving off a beautiful golden glow. I knew that the light came from the heart of God. As I stood next to the golden wall, I saw a magnificent, lush green meadow filled with wildflowers of every color. The wildflowers were colored in rich vibrant pinks, purples, yellows, reds, violets, and blues."
Sometimes the NDEs describe the flowers as happy! “We went up very fast and in the blink of an eye we were in this wondrous place of bright-colored landscapes. There were beautiful plants and grass. All of this was alive like they were conscious plants. (That’s the only way I can describe it.) It was a place full of joy that even the plants were happy.”
Light
Where there is light – there is God. NDEs describe them as one and the same. “At a certain point, I heard a voice that came from deep inside of me, compelling me to go towards the sky. I intuitively went towards the stars. Before me unfolded a scene that I had never seen in my whole life. I saw dazzling, beautiful lights in so many colors, among which were white, pink, and gold mixed together. There was no tunnel. (It is fairly predominant for NDE’s to experience a tunnel as they travel upward.) These marvelous lights filled the whole sky. I wanted to go towards the lights but was blocked by a collective presence. I couldn’t see the other worldly Beings, but I could feel their presence. I instinctively knew that this collective presence was 'God.' I wondered how this was possible given that during this time I didn't believe in God."
The Light also carries peace and love. “I was focused on a ray of white light coming towards me. I knew it was different from the other lights as it immersed me in its purity. I felt an overwhelming sensation of absolute peace.”
When an NDE describes their tunnel experience that the soul travels through to get to heaven, light is usually seen at the end. “I went through a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel there was a light so indescribably strong. It was nothing like an earthly light. I went to a peaceful place. It was so beautiful."
Light heals. Many healers know and feel the light of God coursing through their body temples when praying for healing for someone. The light can feel like heat and a tingling vibration. In this out-of-body experience, this woman watched above her body the light of God coming through angels as they healed her body from a car accident that had broken her back in several places.
“Most of what I realized outside of my body in the operating room came through immediate impressions, like the way a child sizes up whether an adult is trustworthy or not. The angels were trustworthy and there to help and comfort me, so I did not question their authority. They sent waves of light which transferred messages to me in the form of completed thoughts and feelings, not individual words. The light emitting from the eyes of the angels and sent into my spirit body allowed me to access information faster than the fastest possible broadband speed in megabytes or even terabytes. The angels were not only able to interact with my spirit body, but they were also able to interact with the two neurosurgeons and through them. The surgeons, most likely, did not realize this interaction. I knew that my awareness, understanding of the world, and my ability to experience joy was growing exponentially moment by moment. Just before the monitor started to beep, which signaled that my heart had stopped, the angels slowed down their communication. They looked at me intently and said loudly and with force, 'Watch this!' The same light that they beamed into my spirit body, they sent through the back of the doctors, through their hands, and into my physical body. My physical body was instantly altered and healed in ways that the doctors might not have been able to heal me. I knew that I would walk again, that the fragments of bone would be picked out of my spine, and that I would feel healthy and run again at some point in the future.”
Love
Light is also love according to one NDE. “Love is light - I know that.”
God’s love is pure and holds no judgment. After thisperson overdosed and returned from their NDE they said, “The love was so pure and overwhelming that I immediately began to weep. The liquid love flowed through my heart and filled up my chest cavity to the point that I could not expand my lungs to inhale. I was aware of having difficulty breathing, but it did not concern me. I was so blissed out from the love, that nothing else mattered. I had the realization of, 'This must be God.' It was so large, infinite, and powerful, that I just knew it could have no other name than God. Once I realized I was in the presence of God, my next thought was, 'Oh no, God is going to judge me for taking too much medication.' I waited for the judgment. It did not come. I moved into the flow of God, searching for His judgment. No judgment was there. Not a speck. Only pure, adoring love was in the infinite flow of God."
Love is described as unity. “Love is unity. Love is not a romantic love. It is a love that binds us all as ONE. In Heaven we are connected and joined in the Unity of Love.”
God's love is infinite. “There are no words that are adequate to describe infinite love. The love is so pure. Here on earth love often comes with strings attached. In Heaven the love pours out for eternity, wanting nothing, but to give love.”
God’s love is indescribable. “I have never felt a love such as this one. The love that they have for me and that I have for them, is indescribable.”
What humans do to God’s love: “The love we have on Earth is not really love, it is rather an educational love to teach us what Love is. We destroy love, we condition it, we suppress it, and we change it, thinking we know what love is. But Love is everything, love does everything, and love must be understood. Love is totally misunderstood and Earth is a great school and opportunity to teach us about Love.”
Happiness is oneness with the source of Light. “Love is at the center of everything. Compassion and mercy are more important than our exterior successes. We can be happy in everything we do if we are connected to the source of the light. Our happiness has nothing to do with material things, even though of course they are necessary for our life on earth."
Love heals: “Love is ‘heaven’. Love can heal our wounds, could heal the world. Love is the most powerful force there is. Love is eternal.”
Love is all that matters: “One of the most important lessons that was transferred to me by the light is that love is all that matters. Though this seemed like a hippie slogan or a paraphrase from the Beatles, the message sunk into me on a deeper level. Every interaction is meaningless if love is not attached to it in some way. A prayer is meaningless without love. A sermon is meaningless without love. A religion is meaningless without love."
Another person shared:
The prayers of those who loved me felt like wind, slowing down my progress toward the light. Though their love felt sweet, and reminded me of my life on earth, their prayers did not stop my desire to keep going deeper into the light. I’ve always been an adventurous soul, and this was the greatest adventure I’d ever been on. When I returned to my body, it felt like a dark wind had engulfed me. I still felt one with everything."
"If I had to sum up, the main lesson of my NDE is that God, or the light, is a loving force that doesn’t want people to harm others and wants us to feel joy and happiness in our lives. Love and kindness are the greatest gift we can give others. We are all a part of that light, but we forget how to love because of fear. We forget how to walk through this world as the light. We are all closer to God as children because love comes more natural for us. We are able to be gleeful about pets, a bird in the sky, looking into our parent’s eyes. We are in love with the world, and the world is in love with us. We breathed easier as children, and lived more extended, intense moments as children."
In heaven love permeates everything. “I felt totally calm, loved, and whole. I also felt a deep, profound sense of LOVE permeating everything there. It was big love, as if the structure of this place was somehow made of love. Love was everywhere because there was nowhere that wasn't love. I can't explain it any further than that.”
As many NDEs express that the love of God is indescribable some still try to give a human understanding of God’s love. “Then I felt the love. This is a very difficult feeling to describe. Try to remember the first time you saw your child or met your significant other. Most people know what I am talking about. It is that feeling of first-time love that is so positive and so powerful. Now take that feeling and multiply it thousands of times over. It is a love that is unimaginable on Earth.”
Hell
Most Christians believe in hell but their belief in what hell is and whether is is eternal or temporary differs. I will share more on this topic in my next part on NDE's, yet for now I want to share a story of one man's experience of dying and going to hell.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a grass field on a sunny day. I could hear really southern, hillbilly-sounding voices of a girl and a couple of guys. They were laughing and cutting up in a really stupid way. I tried to slowly, quietly, get up to look over the grass and see who it was. I saw a run-down old shack. As a breeze came across the grass, I caught whiff of the foulest smell. I finally saw the the people that were talking, but they weren't really people. They were wearing overalls, but they had jackal faces. They noticed me and came running over. They asked who I was and where did I come from. Just then, one of them pointed to the sky.
As I looked, I saw a line appear and the sky ripped open. A giant, brown creature came jumping out and landed next to me. He had horns all over his head, 5 or 6 eyes, and was cussing violently. He was not like the detailed creatures you would see in a movie. He was more like a cartoon. He smelled really bad, and was really hard to listen to. His words were full of curse words and insults. I don't remember what all he said, but he grabbed me and jumped back into the hole in the sky. We landed on a platform in space, with a wall of what looked like TV screens. They were actually cubes. There was a control panel like a podium. He told me this was hell, and in every cube was a custom made hell for every soul. He explained that people adapt to every kind of hell, and some people are more tolerant of some things than others, so hell is ever changing. He took great joy out of watching people suffer.
As I walked along the wall of cubes, I was sucked into one of them and found myself in a small white room with a door and a shelf. Soon the door opened and a very good looking guy and girl walked in. They were very nice to me and asked if they could get me something. Generally in unknown situations, I don't eat or drink. It's just me. I have to be perfectly comfortable before I'll indulge myself. So I kept saying 'No' but they kept on bugging me about it until it became so annoying that I finally told them, 'Sure, a sandwich and coke.' They left and returned with a sandwich and a coke. I was skeptical, so I just let them sit on the shelf. Then they started to bug me to take a bite and enjoy. I finally gave in and took a bite, but I looked through it to make sure it was what I thought it was. After biting into it, I was totally repulsed by the flavor. It was so rank, I spit it out and grabbed for the coke that was just as bad. I had to spit it out too. They laughed and laughed as I was trying to get the rank taste out of my mouth. Real funny, ha ha. Then they apologized and offered to get me another. I said, 'No thanks' and they again started to convince me that they were just joking and it wouldn't happen again. I finally just stopped talking to them and began to see that these two good looking people actually had jackal faces with a transparent mask or something. I realized that I could see through their masks and this whole thing was just a way of torturing me. I was whisked up and snatched out of the cube in a whirlwind. As I left the platform, I could hear the devil screaming, 'Nooooo!'
The next thing I knew I was being shown flashes of all the bad things I had ever done, and I was being put into other peoples' shoes as I was doing bad things to them. I could see how insensitive I was to people and didn't even know it. It was excruciating and overwhelming to relive things that I had forgotten about, or just didn't care about. I was made to feel they way I made others feel. I was so cold and was shivering.
I realized that I was somewhere. I opened my tear-filled eyes and found myself kneeling in a cave of some kind. It had a low ceiling and a cold wet floor, and was very dark. I felt so alone and abandoned. I began to try to move through the cave in the dark. It was hard because I couldn't crawl without getting wet, and I couldn't stand up because the ceiling was so low. I didn't want to get wet because I was so cold. Soon I saw an amber light ahead, I hoped that it would be warmer near this light. I could see other people near the light and found a crowd of people all kneeling at the side of an opening. I could tell there was fire inside. I saw a girl kneeling with her wrists cut, a man with a rope around his neck, and another with the back of his head blown out. I could hear screaming from the cave ahead, and I was trying to get one of these people to talk to me and tell me where I was. One of them told me to be quiet or I would be next. Then a huge, ugly demon reached out of the cave, grabbed them and dragged them into the cave. I became worried that I would be next. I knelt down. As I closed my eyes, I was overwhelmed again with visions and emotions of all the bad things in my life. I opened my eyes and realized that I could not close them unless I wanted this to happen. I looked around and realized that this was why everyone looked like a bunch of zombies. You can not close your eyes. You can not talk to the others. You can not stand up. You can not sit down. You can only kneel there on the tips of your toes and the points of your knees. All you could do was stare at the hole of fire, listen to the screams, and hope you are not next.
I saw a man in a robe who was about 40 years old with a trimmed beard and a balding head. I thought he looked like a monk, and wondered to myself if this was Judas. After a long time, my eyes began to burn so badly, I finally decided that it was worth it to put up with the bad flashes if I could just close my eyes for a while. I began to sob quietly as the flashes of my evil ways rushed in, and I heard a voice. It said, 'If you ask him, maybe he will save you.' I thought to myself, 'How?' The voice said, 'Say it. Say the words, Jesus Christ my savior in heaven, please save me.' I said the words out loud. The voice said, ' Again' and so I said it again, and again, and again. The screaming stopped, and then the flashes stopped. It was silent.
He was saved from hell and returned to life a changed person. While sharing NDE's about hell are rare, they do occur. The movie, "A Perfect Wave" was made about Ian McCormack's experience of going to hell after being stung by 5 deadly jellyfish. He hadn't led a good life up until his NDE and although his mother was a practicing Christian he declared himself an atheist. What might have saved him from permanently staying in hell was what happened in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I will share a little bit here and you can read more in these two links and of course, watch the movie if you are so moved.
What was incredible was his conversation with Spirit and his vision of his mother before his death that saved him. Here is a part of that story:
As he lay there dying, he saw his mother in a vision praying for him, encouraging him to cry out to God from his heart so that He would hear and forgive him as explained in this link. While Ian was hearing direction from within on what to do to save his life, his mother also heard her own direction and began to pray for him. "Your elder son Ian is nearly dead, pray for him now." Then Ian sees a vision of his mother praying for him and hears her say: ""Ian, no matter what you have done in your life son, no matter how far from God you may be, if you call out to God from your heart, God will hear you, and God will forgive son." But Ian doesn't believe in God and he doesn't know how to pray. Yet he does pray by thinking to himself, "I have no idea what to pray, please help me to pray." He then sees these words flash in front of his eyes: "Forgive us our trespasses and sins."
Ian's first thoughts to forgiving is that he doesn't want to forgive those who wouldn't help him after he got stung. The rest of the Lord's prayer continues and finally Ian surrenders his life to God and then he dies. When he "awakes" in spirit he is in total darkness. Here is the link to this experience in hell.
As I was standing there in the darkness, I sensed the most incredible coldness and fear coming over me. Maybe you’ve walked down a lonely street at night, or you’ve come home by yourself and you feel as though there is someone looking at you. Ever felt that? You sense someone’s looking at you in the darkness but you can’t see who it is. I began to sense evil in the darkness. The darkness seemed not just physical but spiritual. I felt like I was being watched. A cold encroaching evil seemed to pervade the air around me. I knew there was something around me. Slowly I became aware that there seemed to be other people moving around me, in the same predicament as me. Though I didn’t speak out loud they answered my thoughts.
From the darkness I began to hear voices screaming at me: “Shut up!” “You deserve to be here!”
I thought, “I’m in hell, this could actually be real, but how did I end up here?”
I was terrified – afraid to move or breathe or speak. As I thought about it I thought, “Yep, I could have deserved this place.”
....There is no relationship to time in that place. The people there can’t tell what time it is. They can’t tell whether they’ve been there ten minutes, ten years or 10,000 years. They had no relationship to time. It was a frightening place.
And it was the scariest and the most frightening and the most terrifying place I have ever been in. I would never wish or hope that even my worst enemy went to hell.
I had no idea how to get out of this place. How do you ever get out of hell? But I had already prayed, and I was wondering why on Earth I’d gone there, because I’d prayed just before I died, and asked God to forgive me of my sins.
I was crying and I literally cried out to God, “Why am I here, I’ve asked you for forgiveness, why am I here? I’ve turned my heart to you, why am I here?”
The only way I could leave is because I’d repented before I died.
It’s too late to repent once you get down there. You can only repent before you die. You can’t pray your way out of hell and no one on Earth can pray you out of hell, no one. You have to have prayed yourself. The Bible teaches that no one can pray for dead, departed souls and get them out of hell. They have to repent before death.
Then a brilliant light shone upon me and literally drew me out of the darkness.
Ian entered a tunnel and at the end of the tunnel was a brilliant light whereupon he met Jesus and had a most incredible experience. After reading the entire bible Ian became an ordained minister.
I have much more to share in my next part on NDEs with their description on what is compassion, acquiring knowledge, the purpose to life, oneness, reincarnation and God.