Death and the Light

 

I hope everyone had a great Easter break (if you had one). I am back in Hong kong after a lovely time spent in Beijing and Qingdao, China with my wife. 

Here is another extract from my novel, Light which is nearing completion, BTW - you can read the early part of the book here). It is fascinating how life sometimes mirrors fiction. In the book, the main charecter, Greg Marks, has two near death experiences. This extract is the second one. I wrote this on a plane flight, and just as I was writing it we hit severe turbulence. We were getting buffetted all over the place. The two guys sitting to either side of me were clearly looking a bit nervous, and I was no different, I can assure you. However I kept writing all through the turbulence, which went on for quite a long time. I had to wrestle the computer back onto the little retractable table a few times!

It was all a little bizarre, to tell the truth. I almost felt like I was writing the fate of the plane. I thus made a hurried decision to avoid all crash and burn scenarios in the storyline!

It was perfect though, for the writing about NDEs!

This part occurs close to the end of the book, when Greg feels like he has lost everything, and feels like giving up. "JOL" is for Journey of Light, the spiritual group Greg joins in the novel.

Blessings,

Marcus

*     *     *

 

I drove into the late afternoon ocean, diving under giant waves, crashing, pulling me here and there. I surfaced for a moment, turning back to face the beach. The red sun was setting behind the dunes, filling the world with an eerie Armageddon crimson. It felt like the end of everything. There was no more JOL, no more Julie, no more Amanda or Paul. Everything had been ripped from me like a dying man’s final breath. And now I did not even know if anything I had learned at JOL was real. Maybe it was all bullshit. All lies that I told myself to make myself feel special.

I let go.

“Take me God, if that is what is meant to be. I floated, face down, eyes closed. A great wave crashed over me, and I was tossed and turned in the turgid waters. Moments later I surfaced, breathed deeply and then another wave came. I went under. This same pattern of events kept repeating, waves coming, me being pummeled under the waters. For the longest time. Then, miraculously, all became still, became quiet. I was floating, face up in the ocean, beyond the breakers. I could feel the current taking me out, further, to God only knew where. I did not resist.

The water was strangely warm, rapid yet strangely serene as I was carried on the rip tide. I did not open my eyes, and could see nothing from the world outside, merely sense the warm crimson glow of sunset gently massaging my eyelids. The sound of my breath echoed deep inside my ears, and somehow the sound of it was soothing, putting me into a deep state of peace as I floated out to sea.

Yet all the time my mind was illuminated by the light within, filling my skull with a radiant beauty. It began from just behind my eyes, the blue light of the third eye, then spreading till the brilliance filled my entire mind, my entire being.

I floated belly-up for an eternity, the warm water carrying my body past evening and then into night. When I finally opened my eyes I could see stars, bright diamonds scattered upon the black velvet sky.

It was night. The stars bobbed and weaved before me. I did not try to struggle against what was happening, nor even try to do anything more than relax, gently flipping my hands and feet from time to time give me balance.

I did not know whether I would live or die, nor did that concern me. My mind was completely embraced by the warmth of the ocean, and the luminance that shone inside my skull, filling me with a delicious light like I had never known. It was as if I was in the embrace of the divine mother, not in her arms but within her womb. I was whole. I was complete.

The water filled me and even as I sank into the waters I floated upward, out of my body, all the time filled with the light. It was a light I had known before, had always known, and it was bringing me home again.

The light expanded, filled me, became me. The feeling of being loved became the sense of simply being love. This was my true nature. Our true nature. I was love. Everything was love.

I became aware that the love had voice, had intelligence. It was guiding me, filling me with its wisdom.

There is no betrayal.

Yes, I remember now.

You must forgive. Forgive them all. What they do.

Yes.

I saw the faces of my parents, Amanda and Paul, Dusker, Jonathan and others. I became aware of anger. My anger towards them, and it hurt. I felt it pierce the light, and although the sense of love remained, the sense of peace evaporated for a moment. The thin is, I felt not only how my anger hurt me, but how it hurt them. I felt my thoughts attacking them, eating at them, shaming them.

Forgive yourself. Without self-forgiveness there is no love, no true light.

“Yes. I understand.” My words were simple. They were simple because the understanding was immediate, and it was not with the words that I was communicating with the Light. I knew that as soon as the thought came, the knowing was delivered.

The people must learn to choose forgiveness. Without this there will be no Light on earth. There will only be the darkness of control, abuse of power and suffering.

Somewhere within my mind I nodded. There was no need to say anything, but there was a question. I knew that this was why I had experienced all that had occurred to me over the previous months. It was part of my journey. Part of my learning.

“How do we choose love and forgiveness when there is so much pain and suffering?”

“Allow the pain to arise in the moment. Turn yourself inside out. Do not resist it. To feel the love you must first allow a place for darkness. 

Suddenly a panorama opened up before me. I saw war and suffering and death and destruction. There were tanks, and fighter planes, and bombs. There were buildings and bodies and babies torn apart. There was the pain of ten thousand years of human civilisation. I could see it and feel it. The pain of it twisted within me, monstrous, like a huge black snake writing its way through my innards.

Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting me?

Relax. Do not be afraid. It is merely an alignment.

Even as the words were spoken the figure of a man appeared before me, placing his hands out, reaching into my heart. I knew him. The rustic energy, the simple face and short beard, the eyes of laser blue.

We are replacing a heart of stone with a heart of light.

The searing pain continued, piercing my heart, as if something was drilling deep into me, twisting the very fibers of my being. The pain was beyond imagining. Then there was a scream; a long, deathly scream of intense horror. My scream. I was dying. Again. But it was not just my own death that I was feeling, but the death of my father, my brother, my ancestors, my race and all of humanity.

The scream was blackness, and blackness was the scream. It seared down from my heart and into my spine, making its way downward like a spear thrust into my back.

“Why are you doing this? Please help me?”

“Relax.”

Then it was over. The pain evaporated, and a light like a supernova exploded before me, within me. The rustic spirit with the diamond eyes smiled.

Everything changed. There were children playing. One of them ran to me. I knew that he was me. I picked him up, hugging him, feeling the joy of his simple being.

“Hello Little Greg, I love you.”

Then there were other children, boys and girls, all coming to me, as if drawn by some invisible magnet within me. I knew that they were me. Not part of me, not separate, but simply they were me. Some were happy, smiling, some shy and hurt, frightened. But each came to me, and we became me. I felt their love, and I felt my love for them.

Love them. Love them as your own.

I smiled, the radiance filling me. After the blackness of the suffering, the light felt exquisite. Complete bliss filled me.

You must go now. You must tell your story.

“How will I tell it? I do not know how.”

“You will be shown the way.”

You will be given power, but not yet.

The thought came to me to ask why.

You must wait. If you were given your power too soon, you would destroy it. You must trust the timing.

I floated, the words beyond words filling me.

“Thank you. I love you.”

Then I was diving into a deep blue sea. There were fish of every colour, coral of exquisite hues. The water was warm, the water was love. I floated, completely embraced by it.

I let go and I disappeared.

                 

The Cacophony of Voices

Here's a little teaser from the  middle section om my novel Light. I have posted about a quarter of the book online, but am saving the rest for the final publication. This section occurs at a point where Greg Marks has been doing the odd psychic reading for other students on campus. One was for a medical student named Chloe, who also has a more skeptical medical student colleague named Jonathan.

The scene occurs also just after a time where Greg has a run-in with Dr Dusker, who is not only the Morgan Hall director, but a staunch member of the university skeptics society. In a previous scene (which I have not posted) Greg gets into an argument at the skeptics society meeting while Dusker is attending.  

Marcus

  *     *     *

I ambled into the Hall office and walked over to my pigeon hole. There was a single envelope there with the Hall logo on it. However I was too tired to wonder much about what its contents might be, and headed back to my room and lay down on the bed. I didn’t bother to get up as I opened it. My eyes widened as I read on.

          Dear Greg,

It has come to our attention that you have been engaging in inappropriate matters relating to religious and spiritual engagement on Morgan Hall premises. That this has also involved the soliciting of money from other students is a very serious violation of Hall protocol. Under section 11.7 of the Morgan Hall Rules and Regulations handbook, this violation may involve expulsion from Morgan Hall and legal prosecution.

You are requested to attend a meeting to discuss this matter on Wednesday, 17.00, in room C220. You are strongly advised to be present. If you will not be attending, please advise immediately, as your nonattendance may result in legal charges being brought against you in your absence.

Dr. Michael Dusker, PhD, JP, NIID,

Director, Morgan Hall

“What the fuck?”

A large, black ball of nausea filled my stomach and I felt the darkness pierce my skull. Then came the anger.

What the hell was this all about? Inappropriate religious and spiritual engagement?

“Shit!”

This had to be about my readings. It had never struck me that they might be against regulations. But money? I hadn’t been taking any money. Then I remembered. Chloe’s twenty bucks. I knew I shouldn’t have accepted it. A steady sense of panic began to overtake me. Chloe? Why would she have told anyone about that? It didn’t make any sense.

I stopped, took a deep breath and connected with her energy. I could see her in my mind’s eye. But there was nothing strong that I could sense. There was no agenda against me, nor malicious intent.

I saw it then. She opened her mouth and spoke a single word to my inner ear.

“Jonathan.”

I slapped my forehead. That was it! She had mentioned the reading to that tall streak of misery and he had gone and blabbed to Dr. Dusker. I shifted physically, instinctively turning thirty degrees clockwise and brought my attention to Jonathan. His face came to me. His brow was furrowed, his lips forced down. Immediately I could feel it.

“You are a fraud. Full of shit. You humiliated me. Now you must pay.”

I didn’t need to look any further. His intention was clear.

I shook my head. “What an arsehole!”

Next I turned to Dusker. His energy came strong, dark. Ghoulish.

“You are finished here. I will destroy you.”

“Shit, shit, shit!”

I paced back and forth across the three-meter breadth of my room. I felt like a man already tried and convicted, waiting for his final all-expenses-paid trip to the gallows. Yes. I was finished at the Hall. There was no way out. But a legal conviction? That would surely end my uni days. They were sure to run the story in the student union newspaper, emphasising the part about my psychic delusions. My future was lying in ruins before me. What employer would hire a guy with only a high school diploma, and who had been kicked out of university? Who would want a convicted felon, a delusional one no less?

 I was screwed

In that moment and for the first time, I regretted being able to read energy. Not only was the entire university turning against me, I could feel their energy closing in on me, circling like buzzards about a wounded buffalo lying bloodied and helpless on the savanna. I could see the twisted faces, feel the lecherous thoughts, and hear the cacophony of voices clawing their way into my skull.

You are nothing. We will destroy you. Look at you, you pathetic fool. Do you think you are the messiah? You are a joke. You are a piece of shit!

I lay down, hands on my head, trying to turn it off.

There was just one other thing I knew, something I felt just as strongly as the terror that filled me. I was starting to lose it.

Light, Ch. 33: The Appointment

Happy Chinese New Year! If you are wondering why there has not been a lot of blog activity here lately, it is just that my energy is focused on other things at present. There will be a few more posts coming up soon, though. Meanwhile here's a little more from my new novel, Light. Currently I am re-writing much of the novel, and restcruturing some of the plot. I won't be posting all of it online. The novel will be available in its entirety in e-book and softcover form in a few months time. As mentioned, this novel is semi-autobiographical, and this chapter reveals some of the kinds of healing methods I have experienced in my own journey. All characters are fictional, even the main character - although he's probably about 70% like me. I'm far too boring to write about! There's an extract from the chapter, below. Click on the heading to read the whole chapter.

Marcus

 Light, Ch. 33: The Appointment

Julie shifted again, and I saw my mother before me. I was a child again.

“You are not allowed to be angry. You are just a little boy. Get down!” Julie was standing over me, pushing me down from the shoulders.

I could feel them on me, the chains of imprisonment. From within my own darkness the rage erupted. I screamed, pounding the pillow with clenched fists. “I will kill you, you fucking bitch! Fuck you! Fuck you! I will kill you!” My face was red with rage, my arms pounding the pillow, rising and falling like a woodchopper felling a great tree.

Julie pushed down harder. “Stop this nonsense at once! You are not allowed to feel. You are just a worthless child. Sit down and shut up!”

I sobbed the tears of a helpless infant. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

“You are a boy. You must never become a man. Mean are dangerous, dirty, perverted, sexually deviant beasts. They must be destroyed, all of them.’

I could take no more. I sprung up, drawing myself to my full height, standing towering over Julie, over the darkness that was my mother. The words came out as a great roar of violence. “No, no, no! I will not shut up! I am a human being too! I am not your whipping boy! I am a man!” A great primal roar came busting through me, the rage rising from my lower back and thrusting skyward into the havens with my scream. I knew it was the rage of lifetimes of repression, of persecution, of playing the role of victim.

The torrent of energy evaporated from me, and I fell down to the floor, sobbing so deeply that for a time I lost all sense of who I was and of who was with me. Hot tears flowed down my ruddy cheeks, mucus running from my nose and down my shirt. I cried the tears of a thousand years. It was the first time I could remember truly crying since I was an infant. Slowly my awareness returned to my surroundings. I was exhausted, yet somehow liberated of the burden of a great weight.

Julie handed me my teddy bear. “Your little boy is yours now.”

Light, Chapter 29: The First Time

Light, Chapter 29: The First Time

You can read the rest of the chapter here: Here's a short extract.

“Can you acknowledge any of that, Greg?” Julie smiled.       

I sighed. “Sure. I’m a wimp and I know it.”       

“Don’t beat yourself up. We are simply being transparent here. It’s important not to take this personally.” She smiled gently at me. She then addressed the group.

“Each of us is here on earth at this time to take absolute responsibility for our energy. That’s part of the deal. That is what God is asking us to do, and it’s part of what Journey of Light is all about.” Then she turned to me again. “I’d just like to thank you for coming today, Greg.” Her smile was soft, her face suddenly taking on the look of a young woman, and quite a pretty one at that. “It isn’t easy to do this kind of work. It really does take guts.” I looked at her, and then around the room. Everyone was looking at me, but the faces were soft, smiling. They accepted me. The sense of fear that had possessed me ever since I had entered the room began to abate.

Light Ch 28: The Journey of Light

Light. Chapter 28: The Journey of Light

 
I describe my online novel Light as “semi-autobiographical”. Many of the 'paranormal' things in the book actually happened to me. The one described in this latest chapter is one of those real events.

Not everything described in the novel  happened literally, but many ‘events’ occurred in a general sense, or alternatively in psychic space. For example, in Chapter 15 the main character, Greg Marks, is struck by lightning, and has a near death experience.  I have never had a near death experience. But I have had many dreams of being struck by lightning, and it represents a blast of spiritual energy or light passing into the body, which I definitely have experienced many times. The account of leaving the body, as described in the chapter, is taken from many out of body experiences I have had over many years. Further, quite a few of the images that Greg witnesses in this chapter are quite literally visionary images which I have experienced during meditation or dreaming. For example, the image of tornadoes is a recurring one, and they represent a convergence of dark, powerful, destructive psychic energies. The hearing of the voice from a disembodied being is also a common one I have experienced many times.

In short, I am not just making all this up, and it is constructed from realities which are very real for me.

The book is fictional in the sense that most of the trivial conversational details did not occur. It also packs about twenty years of life experiences into a short time frame. I did work with a spiritual group, similar to the one depicted in the novel, but details are changed to protect the privacy of the said individuals. 

The main character is not me precisely, but is probably more me than not. I’m a bit too boring to use as the protagonist! 

The encounter with the spiritual guide, as described in this latest chapter, is pretty much word for word accurate of such an experience I had, only at the age of about 26. I referred to this incident in Discover Your Soul Template.

Here’s a short extract from the chapter.

Blessings,

Marcus

I don’t think I had been asleep more than a few minutes when I became aware of her standing there. She was a woman of youngish appearance, with long flowing dark hair. She was standing beside the bed, looking at me intently. I say I ‘saw’ her, but it was not with my eyes that I was looking. After all, I was asleep - or almost asleep - and my eyes were closed. I could feel her gentle hands moving above me, gentle, caressing me. They were softer, more motherly than any mother I had ever known in my childhood. There was a soft light emerging from her head, arms and body. An energy of tender love filled the room. She began to speak, not so much with words, as with thoughts.

“There is much hurt in you, although you do not know it yet. There is much healing for you to do.”

I listened. There was nothing to say, nothing I should say. Nothing I could say. There was merely her grace, and I was not required to respond. That is something that I just knew. She continued to move her hands above my body, centering around my chest and abdomen. I knew that she was helping me heal.

“You are only using three per cent of your mind at present.”

There were no more words than that, but there came the understanding that there was much more that I could do to expand my mind, my consciousness. I lay there, allowing her peaceful energy to fill me. There was peace.

The Mind Reader

Light, Chapter 27: The Mind Reader

Below, you will find an excerpt of this chapter of my online novel. To read the rest of the chapter click here.

"There are certain requirements that we need to address before we accept people into the Journey of Light", Julie said. We are not a car club."

"Yes. Yes. Of course. I understand."

"Do you?" She looked at me in a way that made me shift uncomfortably. She didn't speak for what seemed like half a minute, though it was probably just a few seconds. What was she talking about? Was there going to be some weird initiation ceremony or something?

"The first thing we need to determine is where are you sitting currently on your spiritual journey? Where are you right now?” She turned round, picked up a marker and drew a long horizontal line across the whiteboard. “This line, this continuum, represents human consciousness evolution. This left side of the line represents zero, and the far right one hundred per cent of full consciousness. So, where are you on this line right now?" She then placed a finger on the line, and quickly moved it from left to right. Unfortunately for me her finger didn't go very far. In fact it came to a stop right near the beginning. Near the zero point. "This is where you are right now." She drew a short horizontal mark at the relevant point on the line. It was definitely less than five per cent or so.

"And this is where I am." Julie then did the same thing again, only this time her finger went much further along the line. She made a mark at about the half way point along the line.

I looked at my humble placing near the zero point, and hers at around the fifty per cent mark. I flinched. Who the hell did this woman think she was? Did she think I was a moron or something? A guy who just walked in off the street and who didn’t know anything about human consciousness?  I had been studying the subject in my own time for months, and the Awakening had given me abilities which most people could only dream of!

“I see’” I said. What I really wanted to do was tell her to go screw herself. The sheer arrogance of the woman! It was obvious that I already knew all the kind of  stuff she had been going on about; and had even worked it out on my own without needing some cult to brainwash me. And I certainly didn’t need some female Jesus wannabe with an inflated ego to tell me what to think. I would have walked out right then and there, if not for what happened next. And what happened next shocked my very soul in a way that nothing I’d ever experienced had.

Julie looked at me blankly. She was not smiling now, although she did not look displeased either. “I’m just going to channel your ego towards me right now, just to let you see it more clearly for yourself.” Before I’d even had time to work out what she meant by that, she stood up, and moved to the centre of the room. Suddenly her entire demenour changed from that of  a relaxed new age lady guru to one of angry agitation. Her voice became terse, abrupt. The sudden shift was shocking.

“Do you know who I am! I already know all this stuff!” She was pacing back and forward like a caged animal. Her entire body had become tense, her breathing shallow, her voice raspy. It was a frightening transformation. “I know more than you do! I can see, I can. I can see! I know this already! I know it.”

I was looking at her, and I could hear what was going on. But I could barely look, barely listen. The woman had ripped open something from within me, something very personal, very secret. She was reading my mind. And not just any part of my mind. She was reading the nasty part. There was more.

“So don’t tell me what to think you stupid bitch! I know more than you do! I’m special! I can see more than anyone! I’m superior to you! So fuck off. I’m out of here!”

At this point, mercifully, she stopped. From the hot feeling on my face I knew my cheeks had turned red, flushed. For a few seconds I sat there in denial. This was not me she had just mind read. No. This was somebody else, somebody dark. Somebody arrogant, angry and judgmental. Somebody else. But weren’t these the very thoughts that had been circulating through my mind just a minute or two before? I just wanted to run away. I felt, ashamed. Terrified. Naked.

So this was mind reading. I had always supposed that if it was real that it would be exciting and fun. A game played by children who believed in flying carpets, magical kingdoms, and fairies. Instead it was terrifying.

"Light", Chapter 25: FF

Light, Chapter 25: FF
 To read the rest of the chapter (or novel), click on the chapter title, above. There's a short extract below.

Professor Forsen picked up the creased piece of paper from the manilla folder, and put on his reading glasses.
    “I note that you failed the Philosophy 3A exam, where you attempted to answer only one question, and even in that you were awarded a zero grade by the marker. You wrote – and, um, I do quote here: “Western science is a deluded mishmash of forced extrapolations violently extracted from a cosmos that it does not understand, let alone feel. Newtonian science is the violent, rapacious organ of patriarchy, pillaging and violating all that stands before it. Universities have prostituted themselves, selling their souls to the phallus of dissociated patriarchy. Any academic moron who had done the slightest amount of introspection would know this.”
    He removed the glasses, and sat there looking at me.
    “Oh, and one of your blank answer sheets was folded into the shape of a jet aeroplane.”
    “Yes, I believe that is correct, Sir.”