When I went to Heaven, you were there: Laurie’s experience

by Laurie Immekus “One of the early statements in the first book of ACIM says that there are many paths to the Truth, and this is but one of them. I like that...” “I started living in despair. It became a constant state of being, and so I stopped noticing it…” “I understand, and I mourn those who go through with it (suicide). I know desperation, and I know it is nearly impossible to see beyond it…” “…As I said, my life was desperate and suicidal…” “…no matter what I tried, what I did, I wasn't happy deep down inside. I still felt a longing for something that without which I felt empty…” “…I opened the first page (of ACIM), read it, and knew I had come home...to my home.” “I started to believe that I could go home to Heaven.” “So I thought, "God must know how miserable I am here. I'm going to ask Him to take me Home to Heaven today." I felt convinced that He would do it…” “The next thing I knew, I was Awake...Awake for the first time I ever remembered!” “…my awareness was superhuman...I seemed to know everything…” “I became aware that this place included all the dimensions: Unlimited, unnumbered. Before this experience, I didn't have a clue as to the concept of dimensions.” “Everyone who ever lived was there. And we were all awake and together. You were with me in Heaven.” “…I was immersed in God, much as a drop of water is immersed in the ocean…” “Then God said, "Do you want to see something more beautiful than anything else?" “… I knew we were still in the realm of all-dimension, and yet we were seeing things…” “I saw person after person. God showed me people through a higher perspective than I have ever known possible…” “…in that higher view I actually saw that they were made out of the Light. It wasn't physical light, which is limited to the physical dimensions, but real Light, multidimensional, spiritual…” “God was telling me that we are always in that place, we are always in Heaven, we are always in the Light. In a place where we are made out of the Light, where we are the Light.” “Each person was so lovely, so startlingly beautiful, that each one’s egos, bodies, and roles were also beautiful. There was nothing that could change the reality of what they were--the Light.” “One thing has become very clear to me: I have always known, from that moment on, that God is my constant companion. And yours, too.”

Part One: Searching and Despair About six months after I started studying "A Course in Miracles (ACIM)" and applying it to my life, I had an experience which had subsequently changed my life and beliefs. It was similar to a near-death-experience, except I didn't die or nearly die. It was similar to an out-of-body experience, except I was not experiencing the physical level of awareness or dimensions; I saw a place of unlimited dimensions. And the experience was preceded by depression, anguish and despair. During my experience, I found myself inside of God, and I just wanted to stay there forever and ever and ever. Before I tell you what happened during my experience, I want to explain how it came to pass. A little background seems in order here. I could really relate to ACIM right from the beginning. I felt the book had been written just for me. It was what I had been waiting for. One of the early statements in the first book of ACIM says that there are many paths to the Truth, and this is but one of them. I like that. During my childhood, my mother took me to a lot of churches and it seemed that they all said, "We're the only way to Truth." I always hated that. I always thought, "Why would God create people and then only keep a handful of them." That didn't make sense to me. I, like my mother, wanted to find God, but eventually, I stopped looking. And I started living in despair. It became a constant state of being, and so I stopped noticing it. It was only later, when it went away, that I realized how it had been rooted deep in my heart. I hated living here. In this world, I mean, not the city, state, or country, but the world and society. I became cynical--in fact, I prided myself on my cynicism, making fun of people whom I thought of as "simple-minded fools," people who had faith in something. Many times in my life I had thought about suicide. I came close to suicide when I was 21--but that's another story. Suffice it to say I can relate to those who feel hopeless enough to see suicide as the only way out. I understand, and I mourn those who go through with it. I know desperation, and I know it is nearly impossible to see beyond it. Only now, now that I am living on the other side, in the peace of knowing that God is real and I am His child, now do I see it is not hopeless. So even though the people in my life didn't appear to know it, I was always depressed; I always had a big smile and I pretended that I was fine--but I was lying. I believe now that I was chronically depressed for most of my life up to my experience. Part Two: Finding a Path As I said, my life was desperate and suicidal. When I was 16, my mother died. I was devastated. For many years afterward I searched for something that could make me feel safe. The books, A Course in Miracles (ACIM) describes this search as hearing the Call. It says we will do many things to get around answering the Call, many things to delay our spiritual search. You can delay, but eventually you must answer. I did delay. Over a period of about 15 years after my mother died I tried many things to make me feel safe: I was a teenage runaway; lived in a commune which became a cult; wrote and published poetry; tried to understand yoga, Buddhism, and reincarnation; abused drugs--especially hallucinogens--alcohol, and sex; went to college; got married and divorced; started a career; and used therapy and recovery groups to help "straighten out" my life. But no matter what I tried, what I did, I wasn't happy deep down inside. I still felt a longing for something that without which I felt empty. After years of trying, I finally found myself at a place of serious spiritual contemplation. I was once again reading "new age" spiritual literature. I liked it, but no matter how many books I read it wasn't enough. One day in a metaphysical class, I heard the teacher refer to something called "A Course in Miracles." I was astounded. I said, "You mean there's a course...in miracles?" The title spoke to me. I wanted to see it. The next week I bought the book without ever having read any of it. I think now that this book was meant for me all along. This book is not for everyone nor I would recommend that everyone read it. But I opened the first page, read it, and knew I had come home...to my home. I had been looking for this book all my life. I understood what it was saying because these were the things I had always believed but which scared me terribly: the belief that this world is a fake, that everyone is scared, that most people are looking for scapegoats, that there is a lot more than what we see and hear--there is a much larger world. All these concepts were explained in ACIM, and more. For six months I studied ACIM avidly, for hours a day. I started a group for ACIM students in my area, mostly people I knew from the local Unity church and recovery groups. I loved what it said about how God Himself would reach down and take us home to Heaven when the time was right. I started to believe that I could go home to Heaven. A Light Experience: Part Three: Waking up in Heaven As I said in part two, I wanted to go Home, Home to Heaven. And I became convinced that God could and would take me there if I made Him see how much I hated it here in this world. I didn't realize then that I don't have to "show" God anything--He already knows everything about me. One day it hit me--I couldn't stand it here in this world anymore and I was ready to go. But I wasn't going to commit suicide--no, I didn't need to. By that time I had learned that I could go to God with all my thoughts, wants, and needs. So I thought, "God must know how miserable I am here. I'm going to ask Him to take me Home to Heaven today." I felt convinced that He would do it. Over the next 16 hours or so I prayed and meditated that God would take me. I believed He would. I was tremendously worked up during this experience: I was crying and yelling and raving...and then I'd fall into a deep meditation. Every time I came out of meditation hours later and found myself still here, I was so surprised, and even more than that, so upset, and I'd start over. The next thing I knew, I was Awake...Awake for the first time I ever remembered! Not dreaming! This world is a dream in comparison to where I was. I was Home in Heaven. First let me say that words cannot convey this experience because words are mere symbols of thoughts, which are symbols of awareness. I noticed many things all at once: my awareness was superhuman...I seemed to know everything. It was all there in "front" of me...truth, knowledge, awareness--everything. I didn't have to work at it--it was just there. I knew and experienced that there was nothing but Love. I was in Love. It was so intense that there was no room for any lesser thoughts, any non-thoughts. And I knew that Love and Peace and Joy and Truth and many other things are exactly the same thing and dwell in the same place. And this was the place! I became aware that this place included all the dimensions: Unlimited, unnumbered. Before this experience, I didn't have a clue as to the concept of dimensions. I had read about them in science fiction stories, but I always visualized alternate dimensions as different places that were a lot like our dimension, but had different things going on. But this experience of dimensions was more like this: if this world were two-dimensional then we would be living on a flat surface. Pretend we are looking at this world in a drawing on a piece of paper. Then think about the person who is in the third dimension--like this world--who is looking at the paper drawing. Looking at this world was kind of like looking at a drawing on a piece of paper--only much more so, because instead of being three dimensions or four or five or any number, it was ALL dimensions. A place where numbers are meaningless. Everyone who ever lived was there. And we were all awake and together. You were with me in Heaven. The ultimate awareness of being in this place was that I was at that very moment right inside of God. God was "holding" me with all the Love there is. And God was in me, in every "pore" of my being. And God was a BEING, not just a concept or a principle, and at the same time God was all those things. God was the ultimate consciousness, and "He" was completely aware of my presence. The way I was being held, I knew I was God's Creation, and just like Him. I use the word "Him" because it's familiar and it implies consciousness, but God was in no way a gender--we were way beyond the material realm here. Neither God nor I nor any of the beings I met there had a physical presence. The closest description I can come up with in words and visualizations is that I was immersed in God, much as a drop of water is immersed in the ocean. But even that doesn't do justice to this experience, because I think of a drop of water as something separate from the rest of the water, but cohabiting with it. And I was not separate from God in any way--God was in every "part" of me. I just wanted to stay there forever and ever and ever. But that was not to be. Still, there was something else I needed to see. A Light Experience: Part Four: Seeing God's Treasure I was inside of God, and I just wanted to stay there forever and ever and ever. Then God said, "Do you want to see something more beautiful than anything else?" (I'm paraphrasing here. God didn't talk or use words, actually I just knew what he wanted me to know, so I call it talking for lack of better words.) I knew that, to God, what He was going to show me was the most beautiful of all--His Treasure. Of course I said, "Yes!" Then we went to a place. Before that, we were not really in a place; we were just in each other. There was nothing else, and yet everything was there. But now we went to a distinct place. I knew we were still in the realm of all-dimension, and yet we were seeing things. And yet, I wasn’t using eyes to see; I had been given Vision. There were many things there. But finally God brought my attention to an altar or stage of some sort. It reminded me of one of those platforms a doll would stand on and a glass jar would cover. It was surrounded by Light--real Light, not physical light, Light that was all dimensional, not limited like something in the physical realm. And the Light appeared to form in an oblong shape like a glass jar would over a doll stand. I knew that this was where God wanted me to look, that this was His Treasure. And then it began. I saw person after person. God showed me people through a higher perspective than I have ever known possible. I saw them, one after another, just as they appeared down below on earth--or at a place of lower awareness--with their egos, their life roles, their bodies, their beliefs, their convictions, their awareness or their lack of awareness. I saw people that I would have been repulsed by or impressed by when looking at them under different circumstances, from a lower awareness. But in that higher view I actually saw that they were made out of the Light. It wasn't physical light, which is limited to the physical dimensions, but real Light, multidimensional, spiritual. The idea of spiritual takes on new meaning under that view; it's not a religious thing or a worship thing, it's more like clarity or Reality. I understood that we were in a place of unlimited dimensions, but more than that. I saw that God was telling me that we are always in that place, we are always in Heaven, we are always in the Light. In a place where we are made out of the Light, where we are the Light. And it didn't matter what role or body or belief system or job or intensions the person thought he had, what high state of office or power or prestige or what lowly state of poverty or self-reproach or ignorance or depravity the person was living in--the Light was the same for everyone. And there was something else. Each person was so lovely, so startlingly beautiful, that each one’s egos, bodies, and roles were also beautiful. There was nothing that could change the reality of what they were--the Light. This was truly a most beautiful sight. Then I felt something pulling at me. I felt myself leaving this place. "No! No! I don't want to go," I thought. I was surprised. I had no idea that I was going to have to leave, and I didn't want to go. But God had other plans for me, and I needed to go back. Many things happened to me as a result of this experience: I had a period of startling clarity here in this world, I started hearing the Holy Spirit—what some call God's Voice here in this realm, I experienced mental healing, I started to channel, and everyday my psychic abilities grow. One thing has become very clear to me: I have always known, from that moment on, that God is my constant companion. And yours, too. Thanks for reading my experience, A Light Experience. I am currently in the process of making it into a book along with the experiences of other people. If you are interested in the possibility or your story be included, or if you know someone who might be interested, please contact me at Laurie@lightexperiences.com. Copyright © 1996, 2006 by Laurie Immekus This work may not be edited, nor may it be published and sold, either in part or in full. Excerpts from this work may be published and distributed without charge with permission from the author of this material. Contact Laurie at Laurie@lightexperiences.com