Starting back in 1998, I was living a typical kind of family life with all the typical stresses and strains of being in that kind of lifestyle in the Western world—striving for success and creating life as best as possible. It was the bigger-and-better-than plan, as I called it: basically, constantly trying to make things bigger and better than what is.

At one point in time, I had one additional stress land on my plate that was just one too many—more than my shoulders were willing and able to carry. Perhaps I was carrying more than the average, just based on my own past karma, history, or unfinished business. That one extra load of stress put me over. It was as if I wasn’t able to avoid myself any longer. The deepest essence of my being was wanting to show up and wouldn’t wait any longer.

Around midnight one night, my children were in their beds asleep, and no one else was in the house but me and them. I was in my living room when I had what presented as a heart attack. I went through a death process in the living room of my home, as a very, very intense pain hit my chest. My heart was very hot with heat and pain. This heat and pain filled my entire chest, went up through my neck, across both of my shoulders, and down both arms to my hands. The heat and pain were so intense—beyond anything I could ever imagine—to the point where I couldn’t even hold my body up. I fell down to my knees. The heat and pain continued, more than I could bear, and I just laid down and went totally out of apparent consciousness.

I experienced a place where all of my history came before me. It was almost like every event in my life that was unfinished or incomplete in some way—around being less than loving toward another human being or in a situation with other people—showed up in my awareness wherever I was. It was almost like movie frames, where each of the individual frames of the movie were of my life: each and every circumstance where I was less than loving with another person. It was a chance to clean up and clear up all this seemingly karmic, or past, holding on. It seemed like there were thousands of these frames, just like a film—a film reel with a thousand frames of my unfinished business with the human beings of my life.

What occurred was that, over what seemed like less than a split second, I saw each frame fully and completely—the entire event, the entire situation, with every person involved. This was an experiential, feeling situation where I felt 100% of all the pain and suffering that was present: the pain and the suffering that I participated in within each situation and with these people. Each frame was felt fully and completely—100%—and then when that particular frame was felt, it would just fade and disappear, and then another one came up, and then another one, and another one. It just continued: each one feeling it fully and completely, and then it transformed into the next, into the next, into the next. A thousand of these frames came through and were experienced, felt, released, and transformed. At the end of it all, in a brief split second, there was a bright white ball of light that shone from a distance. It was as if whatever “I” was at the time was viewing this ball of light, and this ball of light began to move closer and closer toward me.

It was so magnetic and so attractive that it was the only thing I could really focus on and see. It continued to move toward me, and as it got what seemed to be fairly close to me physically, the visual of this ball of light also became an intense felt sensory experience of love. I remember saying, “That’s love!” Then it continued to move closer and closer to me, to the point where this shining white ball of light of love touched my physical body. I recognized it as myself, and I remember saying —”Oh, that’s me.” At the very moment that I said, “Oh, that’s me,” and recognized it as myself, it totally and completely engulfed what seemed to be the “me”—the physical form, the body and mind—and transformed it fully and completely, 100%, into that ball of light.

The light and the love that I was experiencing were me. I was it. It was me. We were one and the same. This was a merging—a remembrance of the essence I am, the light I am, the love I am. One with the light. One with the love. One with God. One with presence. One with this vastness of consciousness. Pure love is all there was, and all there is, always already—for everyone—as the essence of being.

Everything else is added-on stories of the human.

And even though this unfolded the way it did—experiencing all the pain and suffering intensely, fully and completely, 100%—it is as if it cleared all the coverings, all the veils that seem to block the always-already-present unconditional love that is here now. The God that we are, the presence that we are, the oneness that we are is here all the time. It is just our uncovering process.

I am one with this light and one with this love. We are one. The experience is that there is just nothing else to do but be here now, in this, as this energy. It is a feeling of being full and whole and complete—nowhere to go, nothing to do. There is no doing involved; just being. And this is totally the full experience of being: completely full, where there are no needs or wants present, no worries, no fears, no doubts. No mind. There is nothing there. It is empty—and in that emptiness it is completely and totally full. It is all there is: this fullness in the emptiness as the emptiness. It literally is everything and nothing simultaneously, fully simultaneously empty. Ineffable, indescribable—words can do a very small pointing toward it, but can never touch it.

To continue: the next thing that occurred in my experience was that, as this consciousness itself, I could very clearly see other realms. I could see that my body—this vehicle, this body that I was traveling in in this current lifetime—was laid down on the floor. There was a voice that asked, “Do you want to keep going?” I could see that my children upstairs, who were fairly small and young, would be waking up in eight or ten hours to see their father lying, seemingly lifeless, on the floor—and how dramatic and traumatic that would be, and what pain and suffering it could create for them. It would most likely create a very different lifestyle from that point on. I consciously remember making a choice to come back, so they didn’t have to have that experience. And the minute I chose, “I’m coming back, and I’m coming back in that body,” I came back.

I am not totally sure how or why this experience unfolded the way it did. I actually had no idea what had happened. I didn’t understand what occurred. I just knew something major had changed—had shifted.

Which is actually one of the big realizations of this experience: that we really don’t have to know all the specifics about things. And actually, the search for all the whys and wherefores, in general, can actually be a limitation and a veil to the love that is here now.

After I made that intent, I woke up. It was the next morning, about eight or ten hours later. I remember, even before opening my eyes, this intense connection and being of love. It was so intensely powerful that I really didn’t even want to move or get out of bed. There was not even a need to do that—just to lay there and be it. I had a wonderful experience just waking into that place of my bed and my room. I remember even moving under the sheets—just the slightest little movement of my body under the sheets was ecstatic. It was ecstatic and alive and awake, as if every skin cell was just totally open and aware and alert and awake and alive. I was just this energy being.

I did open my eyes. The first thing I saw was just across the room—sunlight coming in, with a beam of light coming across and onto a dresser and onto the floor. The items in the room didn’t really seem to have a name; they were just present there. Everything was unconditional love. Everything was just loving, and the unconditional part was simply that there was no naming of it. There was no judging of it, no description of it. It was just this overall energy, and it was just all loving. It was just the most loving experience. The light itself, coming into the room, was this love, and the floor that it was shining on was the same love, and the dresser was the same love, and the curtains and the lamp and the bed and the sheets and me—we were all the same love. There were no differentiating factors. It was just all the same energy. I could even see the form of the items in the room and see that they were made up of the same energy. The carpet was the same energy as the dresser and me and the walls and the lamp. It was just very beautiful. It was like I was swimming in this love in my room. This was such an amazing, wonderful, awakening, life-rejuvenating remembrance.

Anyway, I was in that for a while, for some time, and finally made my way out of my bed and went downstairs to greet the day. I remember every step along the way—whether it was my feet on the floor or the walls or the everything that I saw—everything that I experienced was this beautiful, loving vibration. There was nothing else. There was zero else going on except this intense experience of unconditionally loving everything as it was, as it is. Nothing had a name, no description, no judgments, no mental chatter about it, no commentaries.

I recall pretty much not having the drive, need, or want to do anything—just to sit and be, and to be very extremely content in that space. I recall basically sitting on my sofa in my living room and just really experiencing being this energy of love. I sat there for about three or four weeks in one place, pretty much only getting up to go to the bathroom, and even rarely eating. At one point, periodically, these heat waves would move up through my body. They would seem to start at my feet and move all the way up through my entire physicalness and out the top of my head. That would create this huge warmth moving up, and I would just be in a really super high vibration. Some period of time later—whether minutes or hours—it seemed like the flow would come back down through my body again, back out of my feet, into the Earth. This up-and-down flow of energy happened periodically over the period of about three weeks: through my body, from my feet, out of the top of my head, and then down through the top of my head, all the way through my body, and out the base, the root, at my feet. And I loved it. I remember loving that feeling—”here it comes again”—and I just surrendered into it.

An awareness came in at that point that if I tensed up, it created some pain in my body. So I learned to surrender and let go, and I was aware that in doing so, this energy would continue to flow easily and effortlessly. It would flow up and back down and almost really just move my whole body when I surrendered into it as it was working its way up. And so I went through that experience—that cycle—for weeks.

During that period of time, one of the realizations that came while sitting in being was that I would have a thought—a question would arise in my field—and right when the question came up, an answer would come in just as fast: instantaneously, with no delay whatsoever. So as I asked a question, the answer was there instantaneously. It was an amazing, awesome happening. I actually went and got a paper and pen. Every time I’d ask a question, I’d write down the answer. It was very funny, because I remember it starting off slowly, where I’d ask a question and the answer would come and I’d write it down, with plenty of time for writing. Then I started asking questions faster than I could write them down. I’d ask a question and the answer would come and I’d be writing, and then some part of me would ask another question—”What about this?”—and the answer would come, and I was trying to write faster and faster than I could actually write.

This was kind of hilarious to watch—myself having to slow down my questions so that I could keep up with writing down the answers. It showed me later how much the conditioning, mentalness, mind chatter, commentaries, and judgments seemingly block what is here, right here and now, for everybody on the planet. Which is: when you ask, you receive, and there is no waiting period whatsoever in its pure form. The waiting period is only there because of our blockages, beliefs, and limitations—all those triggers and charges. But anyway, I had that experience. That was about three or four weeks of just being in that energy, having this energy of life moving up and down through my body, washing me and cleansing me and purifying me, and just really keeping me in the flow from that point on. I was sitting in love and having countless realizations and universal understandings flow in.

I realized other people around me wanted me to get up and actually do something. It had been about a month since I was sitting still and journaling, and really not doing anything else. So I was aware it was time to take this energy—this new way of being—out into the world and actually be functional, be responsible, and take care of my responsibilities. However, my life was 100% different; it was 180 degrees opposite to what it had been before on pretty much every level. I was literally an entirely different being in this physical form—the same physical body, but an entirely different, energetic being. Quite frankly, I wasn’t energetically recognized by some people around me. Our apparent previous historical human conditioning and relationships were just so different in the apparent physical human realm that it was unrecognizable. My vibration was so different and unfamiliar from what we were accustomed to between us.

Our physical home even changed. We went from living in one lifestyle in a nice home and area to this new vibration. With this new energy shift, we ended up moving to a new life and a new area, which seemed to match the new vibration—seemingly showing how the inner vibration changes the outer vibration to match, and vice versa. Anyway, it just started a whole fresh new level, even in where we lived physically.

Around that time, I began to more consciously enter into alternative healing modalities—becoming a Reiki master and massage therapist, and traveling to various areas from India, Australia, Bali, Brazil, Costa Rica, Hawaii, and California, learning a countless variety of natural healing modalities, including breathwork, energy work, and psychic development modalities.

While the renewed, rebirthing near-death experience (NDE) was really totally full, whole, and complete into itself—and continues to open up clear seeing and new awarenesses—it created a foundational place to live from in everyday, coming-and-going, day-to-day doing of the human being. I think the physical doing or learning of so many alternative healing modalities is the natural expression of the vibration of the inner transformation into the apparent human realm.

Realizing it is the weaving together of the seen and unseen, the known and the unknown, the ineffable, the unknowable, and apparent human worldliness. Seeing what is as everything and nothing simultaneously—some may say, like non-duality—this blendedness.

It seemed to become very clear that this blending together of duality and non-duality is really just living life where we are—which made it simple: being right where I am, accepting where I am and what I am doing, for real, with what is going on in my life just as it is, not trying to change anything. Being real with what is. And that is all there was to do. No techniques required. It was just: be with what is, right here, right now. And in doing so, a doorway or opening can reveal itself, can show up, can be seen. Then, if action needs to happen, it will happen automatically from here—and even effortlessly from here—if any movement or seeming change needs to happen.

So obviously things have even deepened since this initial awakening. Like, in the beginning, it was about being with what is—and even if that meant being with the pain 100%, not trying to get sidetracked or distracted by it, or push it away, or anything like that. Staying with it 100%, and it’ll go away fast. I learned that from my NDE, where I experienced 100% of the pain, and after I did that it was nirvana—total bliss consciousness—and some would say God consciousness. And that is what it is for me. I know that I can have heaven on Earth right here and now, by experiencing my pain and suffering right now, while I am living. When it comes up, I can have bliss and nirvana right here and right now. It is just that simple. We make things so complicated sometimes—when just being present with what is can shift everything.

If I am in suffering, I am totally with it—I close my eyes if I need to and just feel it and experience it fully. It bursts like a little balloon in a very short period of time, usually minutes. After it bursts, pure bliss, ease, and unconditional love are there. A space is made for consciousness, which basically just comes in and settles peacefully. It is so beautiful. So that was what unfolded for this human being: being with what is, and then there will be grace and peace.

As things have continued to unfold, it has been seen that while that is where I was at that time—in being 100% with pain and suffering—it is a way to be free while still living here on Earth as a human being. The phrase “start where you are” can also be important to see, because at the point of my experience, that is where I was at the time—already deep in suffering—and it seemed like the only choice for me at the time was to be 100% with suffering. And that was the doorway to my freedom. There can be other doorways, for sure. I am just speaking of my own—this human being’s path—at that time.

It has also been seen that if one is starting where they are, that can mean simply being in this state of open awareness, consciousness, seeing, being—being the seeing. When a thought or belief, a worry or fear, or a pain and suffering situation arises, it can be as simple as shining the light of the essence of being I am onto that which is seen and felt as pain and suffering, worry, fear, shame, blame, guilt, or doubt—whatever it is—and shining that light instantly transforms it into its essence of being: the natural, clear, pure light I am—the light of love itself. So there is no requirement to dive into worry and fear, pain and suffering stories, ideas, beliefs, conditioning, and programming in order to be free. It can be as simple as being the light of this love, shining its brightness on whatever arises, and transformation instantly happens. Freedom remains. Love remains. Peace remains. Joy remains.

So to sum that up: it is up to each human being to know where they are with what is. Start where you are, and the way can be shown.

It is simply an entirely new ballgame, so to speak—knowing I am. I am pure consciousness. I am God awareness. I am aliveness. I am grace. I am divine peace. I am this bliss—this nirvana—that was looked for. And the beautiful part about it, the whole experience of it anyway, of awakening really, was to see we are all just this one energy in essence.

We are all this love. We are all the same. We all have the center place where we meet in the middle, and it is all God, goddess, oneness, peace, love, and joy. And there is no real “I” there. It is isness. It is oneness. It is like the experience I was talking about in the beginning of this sharing—the things in the room, the people, the lights, the sofas, the chairs, the tables, the houses, the cars. They are there as a form, but their energy essence is this light of unconditional love. It is just consciousness viewing consciousness viewing itself.

And even the words just arise—the words just arise and then go back into consciousness, and more words just arise and go back into consciousness. And even the vision—the vision of the things in the room, the vision of the people—the vision is just there. The seeing is just going on. The seeing is coming through consciousness everywhere; it is not coming from a person or a personal “me” or an “I.” It is seeing without a seer. It is just there, just like words. And it is a very beautiful way of seeing and being, because we get to see each other. We get to see people—see who they really are through all the other mind-made-up stories, roles, and conditioning—just to purely see someone for who they really are: this loving soul, this loving spirit, this beautiful, loving energy of this God—this God that they are. Seeing God greeting God, the God-goddess that we are.

We get to see and be the love that we are. And there are just no judgments, no mental narration, no dialogue, no mind chatter, and no commentaries going on. It is freedom—just freedom. So it is really just about seeing. Seeing is freeing. Seeing is where the freedom comes in. And we can see not only with our human eyes, but we can see with our energetic eyes. We can have the courage and strength—that we can call forward—to be able to see the truth as it is. And that is beautiful. That is a beautiful mantra: “Let me have the courage and strength to see, so I can be free.” And so it is really that simple, instead of running away from what needs to be seen.

I recall a time when an energy actually showed up for me that didn’t really want to show up fully—for whatever reason, perhaps fear or worry or some other made-up stories and all this mind stuff going on about what other people would think, and so on. “Who are you to say all this? Who are you to stand up so tall and so big and claim all this consciousness and awareness and nirvana and bliss?”

When this arose, I just watched. Just watched this energy surface, and I looked at it. I saw it. It was almost like this energy being had come up—this little personality came up—and I just observed and I claimed it. It was there. And knowing my purpose and my mission is to spread this light of truth and love, peace, and joy, it just dissolved in the love. And I continue to move forward, showing up here and now, fully and completely, 100% total, as the love I am, the light I am, the God I am, the bliss and nirvana and causeless joy and laughter I am. And I am here to serve in the highest and biggest and best way possible that I can possibly serve—through all fears, worries, doubts, mind chatter, mentalness, old thoughts, beliefs, patterns, conditioning, programming, whatever might show up.

I am here now. 100%. Total.