Near death experience
Near-Death Experience NDE Story
of Mellen-Thomas Benedict
Journey Through the Light and Back
In 1982 I died from terminal
cancer. The condition I had was inoperable,
and any kind of chemotherapy they could give me would
just have made
me more of a vegetable. I was given six to eight
months to live.
I had been an information freak in the1970’s, and I
had become
increasingly despondent over the nuclear crisis, the
ecology crisis, and so
forth. So, since I did not have a spiritual basis, I
began to believe that
nature had made a mistake, and that we were probably a
cancerous
organism on the planet. I saw no way that we could get
out from all the
problems we had created for ourselves and the planet.
I perceived all
humans as cancer, and that is what I got.
That is what killed me. Be careful what your world
view is. It can feed
back on you, especially if it is a negative world
view. I had a seriously
negative one. That is what led me into my death. I
tried all sorts of
alternative healing methods, but nothing helped.
So I determined that this was really just between me
and God. I had never
really faced God before, or even dealt with God. I was
not into any kind
of spirituality at the time, but I began a journey
into learning about
spirituality and alterna¬tive healing. I set out to do
all the reading I could
and bone up on the subject, because I did not want to
be surprised on the
other side. So I started reading on various religions
and philosophies.
They were all very interesting, and gave hope that
there was something
on the other side. I ended up in hospice care.
I remember waking up one morning at home about 4:30
AM, and I just
knew that this was it. This was the day I was going to
die. So I called a
few friends and said goodbye. I woke up my hospice
caretaker and told
her. I had a private agreement with her that she would
leave my dead
body alone for six hours, since I had read that all
kinds of interesting
things happen when you die. I went back to sleep.
The next thing I remember is the
beginning of a typical near-death
experience. Suddenly I was fully aware and I was
standing up, but my
body was in the bed. There was this darkness around
me. Being out of my
body was even more vivid than ordinary experience. It
was so vivid that I
could see every room in the house, I could see the top
of the house, I
could see around the house, I could see under the
house.
alluring; you want to go to it like you would want to go to your ideal
mother’s or father’s arms.
As I began to move toward the Light, I knew intuitively that if I went to
the Light, I would be dead. So as I was moving toward the Light I said,
“Please wait a minute, just hold on a second here. I want to think about
this; I would like to talk to you before I go.” To my surprise, the entire
experience halted at that point. You are in control of your life after death
experience. You are not on a roller coaster ride.
So my request was honored and I had some conversations with the Light.
The Light kept changing into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha,
Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked the Light, “What
is going on here? Please, Light, clarify yourself for me. I really want to
know the reality of the situation.” I cannot really say the exact words,
because it was sort of telepathy.
The Light responded. The information transferred to me was that during
your life after death experience your beliefs shape the kind of feedback
you are getting before the Light. If you were a Buddhist or Catholic or
Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own stuff. You have a
chance to look at it and examine it, but most people do not. As the Light
revealed itself to me, I became aware that what I was really seeing was
our higher Self matrix.
We all have a higher Self, or an oversoul part of our being. It revealed
itself to me in its truest energy form. The only way I can really describe it
is that the being of the higher Self is more like a conduit. It did not look
like that, but it is a direct connection to the Source that each and every
one of us has. We are directly connected to the Source. So the Light was
showing me the higher Self matrix. I was not committed to one particular
religion. So that is what was being fed back to me during my life after
death experience.
As I asked the Light to keep
clearing for me, to keep explaining, I
understood what the higher Self matrix is. We have a
grid around the
planet where all the higher Selves are connected. This
is like a great
company, a next subtle level of energy around us, the
spirit level, you
might say. Then, after a couple of minutes, I asked
for more clarification.
I really wanted to know what the universe is about,
and I was ready to go
at that time. I said “I am ready, take me.”
Then the Light turned into the
most beautiful thing that I have ever seen:
a mandala of human souls on this planet. Now I came to
this with my
negative view of what was happening on the planet. So
as I asked the
Light to keep clarifying for me, I saw in this
magnificent mandala how
beautiful we all are in our essence, our core. We are
the most beautiful
creations.
The human soul, the human
matrix that we all make together is absolutely
fantastic, elegant, exotic, everything. I just cannot
say enough about how
it changed my opinion of human beings in that instant.
I said, “Oh, God, I
did not know how beautiful we are.” At any level, high
or low, in
whatever shape you are in, you are the most beautiful
creation, you are.
The revelations coming from
the Light and seemed to go on and on, then
I asked the Light, “Does this mean that Mankind will
be saved?” Then,
like a trumpet blast with a shower of spiraling
lights, the Great Light
spoke, saying, “Remember this and never forget; you
save, redeem and
heal yourself. You always have. You always will. You
were created with
the power to do so from before the beginning of the
world.”
In that instant I realized
even more. I realized that WE HAVE
ALREADY BEEN SAVED, and we saved ourselves because we
were
designed to self-correct like the rest of God’s
universe. This is what the
second coming is about. I thanked the Light of God
with all my heart.
The best thing I could come up with was these simple
words of total
appreciation: “Oh dear God, dear Universe, dear Great
Self, I Love My
Life.”
The Light seemed to breathe me
in even more deeply. It was as if the
Light was completely absorbing me. The Love Light is,
to this day,
indescribable. I entered into another realm, more
profound than the last,
and became aware of something more, much more. It was
an enormous
stream of Light, vast and full, deep in the Heart of
Life. I asked what this
was.
The Light responded, “This is
the RIVER OF LIFE. Drink of this manna
water to your heart’s content.” So I did. I took one
big drink and then
another. To drink of Life Itself! I was in ecstasy.
Then the Light said, “You have
a desire.” The Light knew all about me,
everything past, present and future. “Yes!” I
whispered.
I asked to see the rest of the
Universe; beyond our solar system, beyond
all human illusion. The Light then told me that I
could go with the
Stream. I did, and was carried Through the Light at
the End of the
Tunnel. I felt and heard a series of very soft sonic
booms. What a rush!
Suddenly I seemed to be
rocketing away from the planet on this stream of
Life. I saw the earth fly away. The solar system, in
all its splendor,
whizzed by and disappeared. At faster than light
speed, I flew through the
center of the galaxy, absorbing more knowledge as I
went. I learned that
this galaxy, and all of the Universe, is bursting with
many different
varieties of LIFE. I saw many worlds. The good news is
that we are not
alone in this Universe!
As I rode this stream of
consciousness through the center of the galaxy,
the stream was expanding in awesome fractal waves of
energy. The super
clusters of galaxies with all their ancient wisdom
flew by. At first I
thought I was going somewhere; actually traveling. But
then I realized
that, as the stream was expanding, my own
consciousness was also
expanding to take in everything in the Universe! All
creation passed by
me. It was an unimaginable wonder! I truly was a
Wonder Child; a babe
in Wonderland!
At this point, I found myself
in a profound stillness, beyond all silence. I
could see or perceive FOREVER, beyond Infinity.
I was in the Void.
I was in pre-creation, before
the Big Bang. I had crossed over the
beginning of time/the First Word/the First vibration.
I was in the Eye of
Creation. I felt as if I was touching the Face of God.
It was not a religious
feeling. Simply I was at one with Absolute Life and
Consciousness.
When I say that I could see or
perceive forever, I mean that I could
experience all of creation generating itself. It was
without beginning and
without end. That’s a mind expanding thought, isn’t
it?
Scientists perceive the Big Bang as a
single event which created the
Universe. I saw during my life after death experience
that the Big Bang is
only one of an infinite number of Big Bangs creating
Universes endlessly
and simultaneously. The only images that even come
close in human
terms would be those created by super computers using
fractal geometry
equations.
The ancients knew of this.
They said God had periodically created new
Universes by breathing out, and recreated other
Universes by breathing
in. These epochs were called Yugas. Modern science called
this the Big
Bang. I was in absolute, pure consciousness. I could
see or perceive all
the Big Bangs or Yugas creating and recreating
themselves. Instantly I
entered into them all simultaneously. I saw that each
and every little piece
of creation has the power to create. It is very
difficult to try to explain
this. I am still speechless about this.
It took me years after I
returned from my near-death experience to
assimilate any words at all for the Void experience. I
can tell you this
now: the Void is less than nothing, yet more than
everything that is! The
Void is absolute zero; chaos forming all
possibilities. It is Absolute
Consciousness; much more than even Universal
Intelligence.
The Void is the vacuum or
nothingness between all physical
manifestations. The SPACE between atoms and their
components.
Modern science has begun to study this space between
everything. They
call it Zero point. Whenever they try to measure it,
their instruments go
off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have
no way, as of yet, to
measure infinity accurately. There is more of the 0
space in your own
body and the Universe than anything else!
What mystics call the Void is
not a void. It is so full of energy, a different
kind of energy that has created everything that we
are. Everything since
the Big Bang is vibration, from the first Word, which
is the first vibration.
The biblical “I am” really has a question mark after
it. “I am—What am
I?” So creation is God exploring God’s Self through
every way
imaginable, in an on¬going, infinite exploration
through every one of us.
I began to see during my near-death experience that
everything that is, is
the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is
the great Self. That is
why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible
because
wherever you are is the center of the universe.
Wherever any atom is, that
is the center of the universe. There is God in that,
and God in the Void.
As I was exploring the Void
during my life after death experience and all
the Yugas or creations, I was completely out of time
and space as we
know it. In this expanded state, I
discovered that creation is about
Absolute Pure Consciousness, or God, coming into the
Experience of Life
as we know it. The Void itself is devoid of
experience. It is pre life,
before the first vibration. Godhead is about more than
Life and Death.
Therefore there is even more than Life and Death to
experience in the
Universe!
When I realized this I was
finished with the Void, and wanted to return to
this creation, or Yuga. It just seemed like the
natural thing to do. Then I
suddenly came back through the second Light, or the
Big Bang, hearing
several more velvet booms. I rode the stream of
consciousness back
through all of creation, and what a ride it was! The
super clusters of
galaxies came through me with even more insights. I
passed through the
center of our galaxy, which is a black hole. Black
holes are the great
processors or recyclers of the Universe.
Do you know what is on the
other side of a Black Hole? We are; our
galaxy, which has been reprocessed from another
Universe. In its total
energy configuration, the galaxy looked like a
fantastic city of lights. All
energy this side of the Big Bang is light. Every sub
atom, atom, star,
planet, even consciousness itself is made of light and
has a frequency
and/or particle. Light is living stuff. Everything is
made of light, even
stones. So everything is alive. Everything is made
from the Light of God;
everything is very intelligent.
As I rode the stream on and
on, I could eventually see a huge Light
coming. I knew it was the First Light; the higher Self
Light Matrix of our
solar system. Then the entire solar system appeared in
the Light,
accompanied by one of those velvet booms.
I could see all the energy
that this solar system generates, and it is an
incredible light show! I could hear the Music of the
Spheres. Our solar
system, as do all celestial bodies, generates a unique
matrix of light,
sound and vibratory energies. Advanced civilizations
from other star
systems can spot life as we know it in the universe by
the vibratory or
energy matrix imprint. It is child’s play. The earth’s
Wonder child
(human beings) make an abundance of sound right now,
like children
playing in the backyard of the universe.
The Light explained to me that
there is no death; we are immortal beings.
We have already been alive forever! I realized that we
are part of a
natural living system that recycles itself endlessly.
I was never told that I
had to come back. I just knew that I would. It was
only natural, from what
I had seen during my life after death experience.
I don’t know how long I was with the
Light, in human time. But there
came a moment when I realized that all my questions
had been answered
and my return was near. When I say that all my
questions were answered
on the other side, I mean to say just that. All my
questions have been
answered. Every human has a different life and set of
questions to
explore. Some of our questions are Universal, but each
of us is exploring
this thing we call Life in our own unique way. So is
every other form of
life, from mountains to every leaf on every tree.
And that is very important to
the rest of us in this Universe. Because it all
contributes to the Big Picture, the fullness of Life.
We are literally God
exploring God’s self in an infinite Dance of Life.
Your uniqueness
enhances all of Life.
As I began my return to the life cycle, it never
crossed my mind, nor was
I told that I would return to the same body. It just
did not matter. I had
complete trust in the Light and the Life process. As
the stream merged
with the great Light, I asked never to forget the
revelations and the
feelings of what I had learned on the other side.
There was a “Yes.” It felt
like a kiss to my soul.
Then I was taken back through
the Light into the vibratory realm again.
The whole process reversed, with even more information
being given to
me. I came back home, and I was given lessons from my
near-death
experience on the mechanics of reincarnation. I was
given answers to all
those little questions I had: “How does this work? How
does that work?”
I knew that I would be reincarnated.
The earth is a great processor
of energy, and individual consciousness
evolves out of that into each one of us. I thought of
myself as a human for
the first time, and I was happy to be that. From what
I have seen, I would
be happy to be an atom in this universe. An atom. So
to be the human part
of God... this is the most fantastic blessing. It is a
blessing beyond our
wildest estimation of what blessing can be. For each
and every one of us
to be the human part of this experience is awesome,
and magnificent.
Each and every one of us, no matter where we are,
screwed up or not, is a
blessing to the planet, right where we are.
I went through the reincarnation
process expecting to be a baby
somewhere. But I was given a lesson on how individual
identity and
consciousness evolve. I was so surprised when I opened
my eyes. I do not
know why, because I understood it, but it was still
such a surprise to be
back in this body, back in my room with someone
looking over me crying
her eyes out. It was my hospice
caretaker. She had given up an hour and a
half after finding me dead. My body was stiff and
inflexible. She went
into the other room. Then I awakened and saw the light
outside. I tried to
get up to go to it, but I fell out of the bed. She
heard a loud “clunk,” ran in
and found me on the floor.
When I recovered, I was very
surprised and yet very awed about what had
happened to me during my near-death experience. At
first all the memory
of the trip that I have now was not there. I kept
slipping out of this world
and kept asking, “Am I alive?” This world seemed more
like a dream
than that one. Within three days I was feeling normal
again, clearer, yet
different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory
of my near-death
experience came back later. I could see nothing wrong
with any human
being I had ever seen. Before that I was really
judgmental. I thought a lot
of people were really screwed up, in fact I thought
that everybody was
screwed up but me. But I got clear on all that.
About three months later a
friend said I should get tested, so I went and
got the scans and so forth. I really felt good, so I
was afraid of getting bad
news. I remember the doctor at the clinic looking at
the before and after
scans, saying, “Well, there is nothing here now.” I
said, “Really, it must
be a miracle”’ He said “No, these things happen; they
are called
spontaneous remission.” He acted very unimpressed. But
here was a
miracle, and I was impressed, even if no one else was.
During my near-death
experience I had a descent into what you might call
Hell, and it was very surprising. I did not see Satan
or evil. My descent
into Hell was a descent into each person’s customized
human misery,
ignorance, and darkness of not knowing. It seemed like
a miserable
eternity. But each of the millions of souls around me
had a little star of
light always available. But no one seemed to pay
attention to it. They
were so consumed with their own grief, trauma and
misery. But, after
what seemed an eternity, I started calling out to that
Light, like a child
calling to a parent for help.
Then the Light opened up and
formed a tunnel that came right to me and
insulated me from all that fear and pain, That is what
Hell really is. So
what we are doing is learning to hold hands, to come
together. The doors
of Hell are open now. We are going to link up, hold
hands, and walk out
of Hell together. The Light came to me and turned into
a huge golden
angel. I said, “Are you the angel of death?” It
expressed to me that it was
my oversoul, my higher Self matrix, a super ancient
part of ourselves.
Then I was taken to the Light.
Soon our science will quantify
spirit. Isn’t that going to be wonderful?
We are coming up with devices now that are sensitive
to subtle energy or
spirit energy. Physicists use these atomic colliders
to smash atoms to see
what they are made of. They have got it down to quarks
and charm, and
all that. Well, one day they are going to come down to
the little thing that
holds it all together, and they are going to have to
call that ... God. We are
just beginning to understand that we are creating too,
as we go along. As I
saw forever, I came to a realm during my near-death
experience in which
there is a point where we pass all knowledge and begin
creating the next
fractal, the next level. We have that power to create
as we explore. And
that is God expanding itself through us.
Since my return I have
experienced the Light spontaneously, and I have
learned how to get to that space almost any time in my
meditation. Each
one of you can do this. You do not have to die or have
a near-death
experience to do this. It is within your equipment;
you are wired for it
already. The body is the most magnificent Light being
there is. The body
is a universe of incredible Light. Spirit is not
pushing us to dissolve this
body. That is not what is happening. Stop trying to
become God; God is
becoming you. Here.
I asked God: “What is the best
religion on the planet? Which one is
right?” And Godhead said, with great love: “I don’t
care.” That was
incredible grace. When Godhead said, “I don’t care,” I
immediately
understood that it is for us to care about. It is
important, because we are
the caring beings. It matters to us and that is where
it is important. What
you have is the energy equation in spirituality.
Ultimate Godhead does
not care if you are Protestant, Buddhist, or whatever.
It is all a blooming
facet of the whole. I wish that all religions would
realize it and let each
other be. It is not the end of each religion, but we
are talking about the
same God. Live and let live. Each has a different
view. And it all adds up
to the big picture; it is all important.
I went over to the other side
during my near-death experience with a lot
of fears about toxic waste, nuclear missiles, the
population explosion, the
rainforest. I came back loving every single problem. I
love nuclear waste.
I love the mushroom cloud; this is the holiest mandala
that we have
manifested to date, as an archetype. It, more than any
religion or
philosophy on earth, brought us together all of a
sudden, to a new level of
consciousness. Knowing that maybe we can blow up the
planet fifty
times, or 500 times, we finally realize that maybe we
are all here together
now.
For a period they had to keep setting
off more bombs to get it in to us.
Then we started saying, “we do not need this any
more.” Now we are
actually in a safer world than we have ever been in,
and it is going to get
safer. So I came back from my near-death experience
loving toxic waste,
because it brought us together. These things are so
big. As Peter Russell
might say, these problems are now “soul size.” Do we
have soul size
answers” YES!
The clearing of the rain
forest will slow down, and in fifty years there
will be more trees on the planet than in a long time.
If you are into
ecology, go for it; you are that part of the system
that is becoming aware.
Go for it with all your might, but do not be
depressed. It is part of a larger
thing.
Earth is in the process of
domesticating itself. It is never again going to
be as wild a place as it once was. There will be great
wild places, reserves
where nature thrives. Gardening and reserves will be
the thing in the
future. Population increase is getting very close to
the optimal range of
energy to cause a shift in consciousness. That shift
in consciousness will
change politics, money, energy.
After dying, going through my
near-death experience and coming back, I
really respect life and death. In our DNA experiments
we may have
opened the door to a great secret. Soon we will be
able to live as long as
we want to live in this body.
After living 150 years or so,
there will be an intuitive soul sense that you
will want to change channels. Living forever in one
body is not as
creative as reincarnation, as transferring energy in
this fantastic vortex of
energy that we are in. We are actually going to see
the wisdom of life and
death, and enjoy it. As it is now, we have already
been alive forever.
This body, that you are in,
has been alive forever. It comes from an
unending stream of life, going back to the Big Bang
and beyond.
This body gives life to the
next life, in dense and subtle energy.
This body has been alive
forever already.
http://www.mellen-thomas.com/stories.htm
Mellen-Thomas Benedict's Near-Death Experience
Mellen-Thomas Benedict is an
artist who survived a near-death
experience in 1982. He was dead for over an hour and a
half after
dying of cancer. At the time of his death, he rose up
out of his body
and went into the light. Curious about the universe, he
was taken
far into the remote depths of existence, and even
beyond, into the
energetic void of nothingness behind the Big Bang.
During his
experience, he was able to learn a great deal of
information
concerning reincarnation. Because of his near-death
experience,
he was able to bring back scientific discoveries. Mr.
Benedict has
been closely involved in the mechanics of cellular
communication
and research dealing with the relationship of light to
life called
Quantum Biology. This research is providing dramatic
new
perspectives on how biological systems work. Mr.
Benedict has
found that living cells can respond very quickly to
light stimulation
resulting in, among other things, high speed healing.
He is a
researcher, inventor and lecturer who holds six U.S.
patents.
Several weeks after Benedict
was born, he may experienced a
NDE when his bowels were ruptured. His body was tossed
to one
side as a corpse, yet much to everyone's surprise he
later revived.
As soon as he was big enough to grab hold of crayons,
he started
what became a compulsive urge to create symbolic
renditions of
the black/white yin/yang circles of Eastern religious
thought. He
has no memory of why he drew those particular symbols.
He spent his grade school
years in a Catholic boarding school in
Vermont, and was baptized in the Salvation Army
religion as a
youngster. He traveled extensively because of a
military stepfather
until the family finally settled down in Fayetteville,
North Carolina.
Then, Benedict was diagnosed
as having inoperable cancer. He
had retired from the frenzy of filmdom by then and was
operating
his own stained-glass studio. As his condition
worsened, he spent
more and more time with his art. One morning he
awakened
knowing he would die the next day, and he did. As the
typical
heaven-like scenario began to unfold, Benedict
recognized what
was happening as it was happening. The process was
familiar to
him because he had read many books about the near-death
phenomenon previously.
Mr. Benedict's NDE is reprinted here
by the permission of his
friends Dr. Lee Worth Bailey and
Jenny Yates. Their excellent
book entitled The Near-Death Experience: A Reader, published by
Routledge, New York, in 1996, is highly recommended by
the
webmaster. A portion of his near-death experience also
appears in
P.M.H. Atwater's book, Beyond the Light. Concerning
Mellen's
near-death experience, Dr. Ken Ring remarked, "His story is one of
the most remarkable I have encountered in my extensive
research
on near-death experiences."
P.M.H. Atwater has the following to say about Mellen-Thomas
Benedict:
tumor and the conditions of his death are true. I have met his
mother and step-father, been in his and their homes, and have
followed his life since - his struggles and his accomplishments - as
he sought to find a way to integrate his experience into his daily life
while still honoring the mission he felt guided to fulfill."
