Experiencing the Absence of the Illusion: My NDE

By Michael Rostock, RN “The cold was replaced by an absence of temperature, neither warm nor cold, as if temperature no longer existed.” To contact Michael at his email address, see below. “My search for answers eventually led me down many different roads throughout my life.” “ I had been searching for a feeling, a connection, a personal relationship with the God that I felt I experienced in my NDE.”

It was the summer of my ninth year when I experienced my NDE, although at the time I had no idea what had happened to me. Being so young and having no knowledge of these kinds of things left me quite confused for some years afterward. Swimming in a pond with other boys my age at summer camp, we were all diving off a raft in water about 12ft deep. I had taken my turn at diving off the raft and was just coming back up for air when another boy jumped in and hit me squarely in the chest with his feet. What air was left was knocked from my lungs and I sank to the bottom of the pond quite stunned. Tall weeds growing from the bottom of the pond hid my presence from anyone who might miss me and wonder where I’d disappeared to. At the bottom of the pond I was conscious of the fact that I was in deep trouble and terror enveloped me along with the tall weeds and coldness of the deep water. All I could think of was getting myself up to breathable air. I struggled, got tangled in the weeds and grew even more terrified. By this time my lungs were screaming with pain and I was beyond panic. There was a moment when I thought that I could no longer take the pain in my lungs or terror that I felt. It was at this moment that my whole life changed dramatically: One second I was experiencing the cold darkness of the deep water and feeling terrified, the next moment it was all gone from my senses to be replaced with a feeling very difficult to describe in words. Peacefulness like I have never felt before surrounded me. The cold was replaced by an absence of temperature, neither warm nor cold, as if temperature no longer existed. The darkness was replaced by an absence of the need for light and the sight that was available to me was one not of earthly eyes. What I envisioned came from some other source which today I know to be God. The wholeness and continuity of all spiritual beings originating from that One Source was perfectly evident to me at this time. As a side note I’d like to mention here that time itself felt like it ceased to exist. I could have been under the water for the 10min that it actually was, or 10yrs, there was no way for me to tell the difference. Here I was basking in a glow of utter contentment, joyfulness, peacefulness and oneness of spirit that I had never felt before in my life. It was at that point that a voice in my head said to me “You don’t belong here yet.” The moment that I heard that voice, the memory of being on the bottom of a pond came back to me and fear intruded upon the wonderful feelings I was experiencing. It was at that exact moment that I blacked out. The next thing I remember was waking up on top of the raft with a lifeguard administering CPR to me. What I was told after this experience was that I was missed after about 5min and the lifeguard began to search for me in the water. He was just about to give up when a current underwater separated some weeds and he was able to see my lifeless body. I had been underwater approximately 10min by this time. When he had finally gotten me up onto the raft he said his first thought was that there was no hope for me coming back to life. My color was blue. I had no pulse and my lungs were filled with water. He started CPR immediately, regardless of my condition, and within a few minutes I regained a heartbeat and started breathing on my own. It was at this point that I became conscious again of what was going on, my last memory being of a completely different place. At this point in my account I need to stop for a moment to remind the reader that I was only 9yrs old at the time of this experience and my concept of God and spiritual things was that of the child I was. I was left feeling quite confused about what had actually happened to me. I knew it was something quite profound but lacked the ability to articulate the experience. I did what any other child would do. I went on with my daily life, albeit with some differences I’ll explain next. THE AFTERMATH It wasn’t long after this experience that the memory of it began to trouble my mind and I desired answers to the question of what had happened to me. What had stuck in my mind that I would never be able to forget was the feeling I had experienced back then. Now up until this time, I had been a relatively normal child who was outgoing, playful and often silly. People started noticing a change in me quite soon after my NDE. They said that I became much more serious, reflective and introspective of life in general. Looking back today I can say that my whole perspective on life changed even if at the time I wasn’t able to see it or define it. This was the start of my search for answers; I was probably almost 10yrs old by this time. Having been brought up within an organized religion, I had thought to seek my answers there from priests and other people of my faith. What I remember about that period was a general aversion of the people I approached to discussing the subject with someone of my tender years. This left me feeling disillusioned with the faith of my fathers and feeling more lost and confused than ever. The best they were able to come up with back then was to tell me that “it was probably a dream” and to be grateful I was alive. There was no way I could accept this answer as I knew deeply that it wasn’t a dream or hallucination. My search for answers eventually led me down many different roads throughout my life. Most of which, I won’t bore you with details except to say that I searched through quite a few orthodox and rather unorthodox religious beliefs. I also ran the gamut of seeking answers through things of the material world such as sex, drugs, and just about anything else we can make an idol of in this world. It would be quite some time before I was to find an answer to my questions that was in accord with what I had experienced. FINDING MY WAY HOME Where I was in my life by this time was in a state of feeling abused by “too much” and “not enough”. I was completely out of balance with no hope of ever coming to terms with my questions. I was feeling as if the world as I knew it didn’t hold anything for me and all my spiritual seeking had been in vain. Suicide became an option at that point because I knew deep down that what we call death was only a transition to what I considered “my true home”. While I toyed with the idea and had even made some half serious attempts at different points throughout my life, they were all just acts of the desperation I felt from what I knew was missing in my life. I had gone the worldly route to no avail, felt that religion had let me down and had a bookcase full of self-help books that were somewhat helpful but still didn’t completely correspond to what had happened to me. I knew something was missing although what I thought it was and what it actually turned out to be were two different things. I had been searching for a feeling, a connection, a personal relationship with the God that I felt I experienced in my NDE. What I still needed was a belief that answered my questions and filled the void within myself that I felt for so long. The last thing I wanted to do at that time was to start reading another of what I considered to be a “self-help” book. I had met some people one day talking over the internet that were discussing a book called A Course in Miracles. I had never heard of the book but was attracted enough to the people and their conversation to reach out to them and ask them where they found their spiritual guidance. They suggested I read ACIM and as they seemed as if they understood where I was at and what I had experienced through my life from the time of my NDE up to the present, I gave in and bought the book. Well it sat on my desk for about two weeks before I actually picked it up to start reading. One night I picked up the book and read the first 100 pages or so in stunned silence. When I finally took a break from reading I found myself in tears from what I had read and was overwhelmed by the feeling that what I was reading was something I knew all along but couldn’t put into words. I felt as if I had come home after a long journey. ACIM was able to put into words what I had experienced during my NDE and even more, what I had experienced as the result of it. For the second time in my life, my whole perspective on things had changed dramatically. I was now able to see my NDE as perfectly natural and a blessing, and able to finally see that there are many paths all leading to the same place. While the teaching remains the same for us all, in my belief, the road we choose to do our learning varies from person to person. Today, I have an understanding of my NDE that makes sense and a relationship with the God I experienced back then that I longed for over the years. I no longer hold any resentments or illusions about religion or even all the self-help books that crowded my bookcase. They were all useful to a point in getting me to where I am today. I’ll end with this quote from a famous movie, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with”. I’ve finally come home at last! Namaste! CONCLUSIONS With respect for whoever reads this, I feel it necessary to qualify a few things at this point. Please keep in mind that this is a snippet of MY experience and journey down the path home. While it may seem to differ substantially from another’s experience and journey it’s my hope that you may see it as part of a universal experience that we all share. I’ve found that there are many paths to tread but only one destination to which they lead. While theologically we may seem to differ, experientially we are one. It has been through experiencing an NDE in the past and my strong desire to go back home in the future that I was able to find peace in today. That peace resides in my belief in a universal experience and not in whatever path I or anyone else may choose to follow. As is stated so eloquently in A Course in Miracles, “Nothing real can be threatened, Nothing unreal exists, Herein lies the Peace of God”. Contact Michael at MJARACIM@aol.com