It hits me like a thunderbolt, fortunate and unfortunate, all at once.
Rushing into the hospital, all is a blur . . . commotion, frenzied activity, a bustling emergency room overflowing with patients and medical attendants addressing needs as best they can. I have a distinctly unfamiliar and intolerably heavy pressure in the center of my chest. A massive heart attack is about to permanently alter my life.
The attending doctors and nurses struggle with getting the IV lines started. Frustration rapidly rises. I feel panic and alarm in their voices. I sense growing fear on both sides of me. My body is shutting down.
I close my eyes.
All sounds disappear. All sense of panic evaporates. There is only absolute quiet, calm and serenity. I seem to have moved into a great void. Momentarily, there is no sound, no sight, no feeling. Nothing. Yet, curiously, I am still aware.
Whatever is occurring to me, the process is continuous. Remarkably, I no longer feel physical. I am an energy separating from my corporeal and mortal self. I somehow understand this energy is my Soul. As my Soul emerges, I feel an immeasurably heightened sense of awareness. The light above me intensifies, and I suddenly seem to be accelerating toward it.
A crystal clear, pleasant and calm voice resonating all around me says, “You can keep coming, or you can stay. If you are going to stay, open your eyes.”