What I Know NOw
“In the years prior to being attacked by a hired gunman, I had been seriously reevaluating all of the Spiritual concepts that had been my teachings. For approximately two years, I “shut down” intuitively. I felt unsure of most of my perceptions and began to doubt the validity of many of my previously-held beliefs. Meditation got me nowhere. It seemed that my prayers were bouncing off a brick wall. I felt Spiritually disconnected. I had begun to have great concern that I might be guilty of self-delusion and as a result, might have misled my students. I experienced the proverbial “dark night of the soul”.
I’ve read many other accounts of near-death experiences in which people talk about meeting Jesus or seeing angels or their loved ones. I didn’t see anything at first. I just drifted through a warm, dark space for what seemed to be a very long time. I felt surrounded by an enormously loving presence and filled with an amazing sense of peace. Then, gradually, I came out into a Light that grew brighter and brighter until finally it was so brilliant that it should have been blinding. But it wasn’t. I was aware of music…an indescribably beautiful sound that I’d never heard in this dimension, and a fragrance that can only be likened to Night Blooming Jasmine. I still didn’t see anything, except the Light, but I was still palpably aware of being surrounded by the most loving, joyful presence. It was beyond description.
I don’t know how long I stayed in the Light. It could have been minutes, hours or days. Then, suddenly I found myself walking down a path. There were green, rolling hills….trees and flowers; and some distance off to my right, I could see a white structure. Somehow I knew my mother was in that building. I also knew that my sister Barbara was there, which didn’t make sense to me because I thought Barbara was still alive. (I was told later that my sister had died of a heart attack on the morning that I was shot.)
Then a man appeared on the path, walking toward me. He seemed familiar, but I didn’t know how I knew him. He asked, “Can I help you?” I replied, “Yes, I think I’m supposed to go to that white building. Will this path take me there?” He replied, “I recommend you turn around and go back where you came from.” I said, “No….I think my mother’s in that building. I have to go there.” I can’t say that he walked toward me, but suddenly he was right in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulders, looked directly into my eyes, and said again, “I recommend you turn around and go back where you came from.” Somehow he spun me around, and I took two or three involuntary steps down the path away from him. I turned back and asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He smiled and replied, “You can call me Sam if you want to.”
I found this humorous. Sam is the name that I’ve always given to my “guardian angel”. As a child, I named my teddy bear Sam. Whenever anything approaching miraculous happened to me, I habitually said, “Thanks, Sam.” Then later, as I began to perceive what I considered to be profoundly Spiritual information through my meditations, I ascribed this information to my “guidance”, whom I called Sam.
The next thing I knew, I realized that I was lying in a bed. There were Light forms on either side of me. I could hear voices coming from those Light forms, saying, “She’s coming around,” and “Get the doctor.” At the foot of my bed was Sam, and believe it or not, he was singing: “Keep shining, keep smiling, knowing you can always count on me, for sure.” I felt like laughing, thinking, “My guidance knows contemporary music.”
Then gradually, Sam became less solid and faded into a Light form. The Light forms beside my bed became more solid and recognizable as nurses, my daughter Shannon, my friend Ava, and a doctor. The doctor, whom I later learned was named Dr. Edwards, was gazing at me with tears in his eyes. He greeted me with the words, “God wanted you alive for something.”
My body hurt, but I felt immensely happy. I can’t say exactly how or why, but I now KNEW something that I hadn’t really known before. I wanted to shout these Knowings to the world, but I couldn’t talk – my jaw was broken and wired shut. It’s hard to describe, but things that I have believed before, I now absolutely KNEW to be true. I KNEW that nothing in this dimension matters except us in our relationship with each other, and our ability to learn to live with compassion and integrity. I now absolutely KNEW that there is a Spiritual force (call it God if you want to) that is far greater than we have the capacity to comprehend, and that is intimately involved in our life experiences. I absolutely KNEW that everything in this dimension is Life and that Life is Spirit…..is Divinity. I KNEW that there are no small “sins”, that a “white lie” or a small transgression is just as harmful to the soul as a big one because it’s about Integrity. I KNEW that it is our task in this dimension to first become conscious, then to understand that of which we are conscious, and then to realize that we are the responsible creators of all of our experiences.
Out of these Knowings came an entirely new way of teaching. Out of my “near-death experience” came a deep and ongoing respect for and attunement to that which I call Sam. Most of my teachings come from this source. I offer them now not because I believe them, but because in the very deepest parts of my being, I KNOW them to be true. In fact, I bless the man who shot me. He made it possible for me to go to that place, to commune with Spirit, and to thereby bring my Knowings and my teachings to a powerful new level. My students and the profound benefits evidenced in their lives are a testament to this.”