I had intense fear and panic because we were obviously crashing. Out of my heart came the
thought, oh god help, I'm going to die.
From the time that they pronounced me dead was a good 45 minutes.
It's determined that I was not breathing for 20 minutes.
They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could
see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realise that was actually my physical body
because I was somewhere else.
By which you went to the past far, in the afternoon, by half past seven I was dead, clinically
dead, four minutes.
And they were crying because I was dead and I was trying to tell them no, I'm not dead,
I'm just fine, I'm okay.
I was greeted by people I'd known in the past.
I started to feel like I was surrounded by all this warm, loving, beautiful, soothing,
loving energy.
I'm back with God again. I just felt this all in my two breath of these, like, wow,
I'm back.
I'm back home again.
Incredibly safe and felt at home. I'd come back home. It was a very strong feeling that
I've come back home.
The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't
anything else to be felt.
And light is literally emitting from him. And I could feel that that tremendous amount
of love was coming through him as well.
They were brighter than everybody else. And I just knew who they were.
Welcome to Round Trip Death, everybody. And I cannot tell you how excited I am for this
show today because of our guest, Brooke Jones, who I spoke to a few days ago and we had a
riot.
So today, oh boy, most near-death experiences, we talk about them kind of reverently and
somberly. And today is not going to be that way. I can promise you that because Brooke
is a riot.
Brooke, say hello.
Hello. Hello, everybody. Nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me, Eric. I really appreciate
it.
You are very welcome. I'm not sure how to introduce you because you don't have one of those boring
bios. So I'm going to throw out a few things and you tell me if these are accurate or not,
okay?
Okay.
So I'll introduce you to a writer for all kinds of things. What have you written besides
books?
I have ghostwritten several movies in Hollywood which, you know, don't tell anybody because
the writer's guilt doesn't allow that. So, you know, I can't talk about it. And that's
why my name doesn't appear anywhere because ghostwriting is not acceptable in the film
community.
I have a blog. I was a political satirist on stage and on the radio in Los Angeles for
many years. And now thanks to cancer and advancing decrepitude, I'm instead of being a standup
comic, I'm a sit-down comic. And my political satire that I used to do on the radio I now
do on my blog, What If.
Is decrepitude a real word?
Yeah, actually it is.
Okay. I thought maybe you made that one up.
I do make up words occasionally. It's one of my favorite things to do. But no, decrepitude
really exists. It's a thing.
Your book is called Why Are There Monkeys? And in a few minutes everybody's going to
know why that title is. But I wanted to read one of the reviews that somebody wrote about
your book because I think it probably describes you. And you can decrepitude my inspiration
on that or not. But it says it's both flagrantly irreverent and strikingly inspirational.
Bruce Grayson, Dr. Bruce Grayson, yes. The co-founder of Ions and the world's leading
expert in the science of near-death experience. And yeah, he read my book and loved it and
wrote a review, including the words you just spoke.
Okay. Let's go back in history just a little bit so people know where you came from. Okay,
this is another of, did I get this accurate or not? Were you a hippie in the 60s?
Absolutely. And I take issue with the past tense of that phrase.
Are you still a hippie?
Of course. Of course I am.
I don't see any love beads. I told you not to dress up because there's no video. That's
why. Oh, you have a malla.
Yeah, I do because I'm a Buddhist. I don't refer to myself as a hippie anymore, but if
one was back in the day, then one is because unless your politics suddenly changed, you
still believe the wonderful things we believe back in the day. You just aren't quite as
dumb as we all tended to be back in the day. But now I refer to myself now as a gypsy crone
instead of a hippie, but all the same.
And you live in an artistic town, don't you?
Well, I was, gosh, I was in San Francisco for many years. I was in Los Angeles for many
years and then I moved to Eugene, Oregon, which is, yeah, a lot of people say it's the new
San Francisco. It isn't the new San Francisco. It's just Eugene. And it's a very interesting
town. It has a university, but you know, it's a very incestuous town also. And Cowboys
everywhere. And I kind of describe it as Omaha with an ocean view sort of, but you know,
we won't, we won't bother to go into that. But yeah, I lived in Eugene for many years
and now I live north of Eugene, but still in the Pacific Northwest.
Well, I'm going to encourage everybody to grab their frosty mug of Diet Coke like I
have because we're going to have some fun today. There are not many people that during
their near death experience have an opportunity to sit down and ask God all kinds of questions.
And I don't know if they don't have the opportunity or if they don't have the guts or the gumption
or just what it is, but Brooke couldn't help herself. And that's what happened. So please
take us back to when you had this experience. What led up to it?
This experience occurred when I was 25 years old. I had just turned 25 and as any really
honest 25 year olds can tell you, we're pretty dumb at that age. I mean, our brains haven't
even completely fully developed, but yeah, we tend to still be doing really dumb things.
And I was 25 and doing lots of really dumb things. And I had a party. And it was as I
said, just after my birthday, a couple of friends came over and they brought some party
favors. And I as many at that age do believe that I was bulletproof. And you know, so I
said, Oh yeah, let's do this. And I did some drugs. Nobody in the right mind should do
and I overdosed and you died and I died for eight minutes. I was legally dead for eight
minutes. Okay, walk us through it. I want the details. What happened? Okay. Um, I have
been a child of the sixties as I am I had seen overdoses, I knew what they looked like and
I knew I was having one. And even though at that point in my life, I was what I referred
to as a closet agnostic. It wasn't that I didn't believe in God, it was just that I had never
seen any evidence of it. So you know, one way or the other, I was pretty indifferent.
But there I was dying. And I suddenly found myself doing something I don't do. I started
praying and chanting and picturing every Hollywood actor who had ever portrayed Jesus. And I'm
chanting to a frame picture of Swami Satya Dananda that was on my dresser just in front
of me because I studied with him years before. And then I took my last breath and I was dead.
Now this was 1975. And if Dr. Raymond Moody had already published his book, I hadn't seen
it. And I had never yet heard the phrase near death experience. It hadn't yet become
the, you know, point of the realm that it is now. So the whole traffic tunnel and white
light and all of that that is now iconic at this point, I'd never heard of. So I had nothing
to relate to when I suddenly found myself moving through a tunnel that was quite literally,
at least from what I could tell, made of light. And I wasn't walking through this tunnel.
It felt as if I was being carried through it. And this tunnel, it felt alive. It seemed
to breathe. And it carried me until it wasn't carrying me anymore. And I was suddenly standing.
But I couldn't tell what I was standing on because I couldn't see anything. And it wasn't
that I was blind. It's that there wasn't anything there. I mean, nothing. All I saw was I want
to call it a fog, but it wasn't like any fog that I had seen here on earth. And this light
that didn't really seem like a light when you turn on a light bulb, there was something
very organic about it. And it literally felt alive. And I looked around and I saw nothing.
Nobody. I don't know what I was standing on. I looked down. I didn't see anything, but
I was standing. And I called out. I mean, hello, hello. Anybody home? Anybody here?
And I didn't get any answers. And I didn't hear any responses. And I finally got frustrated.
And I just said, can somebody please tell me where the hell I am? Bam. That's when I heard
the voice. So voice I now say, made Darth Vader sound like Mickey Mouse. It was that
deep and molyphous and beautiful and gentle and resonant. And it said, watch your language.
Remember where you are. But you didn't know where you were. Bingo, which is what I said.
I would gladly remember where I was. But to do that, I'd have to first find out where
I was. So I repeat, where am I? I'm going to answer. And then I voice said, you're at
my front door. And then I said, that's nice. But who are you? And that's when the conversation
got really interesting. And immediately somehow, I knew. I knew that voice that I was hearing.
And I need to qualify that it wasn't hearing the way you and I are talking now and I'm
hearing you and you're hearing me. It was as if my body had become a celestial tuning
fork and every sound that the voice uttered resonated throughout every cell of my body.
And suddenly I knew. And I said, apparently, oh, my God, the voice laughing Lee said, by
Joe, I think she's got it. Boom. And we're off and running. And I was standing at God's
front door talking to God. And I said, may I ask questions? And the voice said, of course,
I said, will you give me the answers? And the voice said, we'll see, which made me a
little crazy, because that was my mother's favorite expression in life. And whenever
she said, see, it always meant, no, I figured I'll just do this one step at a time.
Are you seeing anything at this point or just hearing? Well, or absorbing this?
I'm feeling it. It's resonating through me. But no, there was nothing to see. It was like
I was in some kind of celestial vacuum that was lit by something that felt alive. Knowing
that I was in a realm beyond this one, none of the words that we use, and I only speak
a couple of languages, but none of them offer words that really explain what it was that
I saw or experienced, because all of that exists in a world quite beyond the world we're living
in right now. So every word that I use to describe my experience, you just have to,
you know, go with me here. I'm doing the best I can, but it requires sort of inventing language
for things that don't really have words, don't have names, don't exist in this world. So,
okay, there I was in the other realm, the other world, the other side of the veil, whatever
words you want to use, that's where I was. And one of the earliest questions I asked
was what to call this being. And I did that only after I finally was able to say, are
you male or female? And God left. And I'll get to laughter in a second. But the response
I got when I said, are you male or female was, why does everybody ask me that? Uh-oh,
I've just asked me a question. Oh, now I'm really in trouble. There's just no way. So
I said, why are you asking me? And he said, well, you know, where's it written that I
know everything? I said, Oh, I don't know. How about the Bible? And he went, No, actually,
it's not. And then we had a really long talk about the Bible. But in between those two
conversations, when I said, What do I call you? I mean, Jesus, Lord, Yahweh, Allah,
Father, what? And he said, I've been called all of those and many more. But the truth
is it doesn't make any difference what you call me, because your names for me don't define
me. In other words, whatever names we use to define that divine being the Creator,
the Father, whatever you want to call it, Him, they, them, doesn't matter. It's totally
okay with that being because that word, that name is our own invention for something way
bigger than we are. And he doesn't care. And when I say, He, I have to again say, Hang
on, because I did ask, are you male or female? And finally, I got an answer on this molyphluous
pageant goal, fabulous, most obviously, masculine voice I'd ever heard said, I am neither. And
then the most profoundly feminine, gentle, maternal, sweet voice said, And then again,
we're both. Hello, are you still with me? I think if I hadn't already been dead, the
shock of all of this would have killed me. But I just kept going and asking and if I
had been older at the time that this happened, I'm sure I would have asked far more profound
questions. But I was 25, 25 year olds tend to be idiots, at least I was an idiot at
25. So all I could do was ask the best questions that occurred to me at that time in that place.
And that's what I did. Let's hear some of the others.
Okay, I actually even asked about reincarnation. And I said, does it happen? Is it real? I
mean, Shirley MacLaine has been saying since forever that she's, you know, been here a
few times in a few different lives. And by the way, as a matter of fact, I sent Shirley
a copy of the book, I haven't heard from her yet, but that's okay. And so I was asking,
do we become something else? Do we have another life after that life? And the Shirley MacLaine
right when she says that she has been reincarnated. And his response to that was you don't need
that answer because that has nothing to do with you. It's none of your business. And
I said, well, okay, is reincarnation real? Has it happened? He said, yes. I said, when
he said again, not your business. When it has to happen, it happens. So I moved right
along and I said, what about I figured this was a perfect opportunity to ask about death.
We have one life. We're born, we live, we die, the end. And the answer to that is no.
And though it took me a long time to assimilate everything I had learned once I came back,
this particular question and answer session might have been one of the most profound.
And as I thought about it after the fact made perfect sense to me and still does. And I'm
surprised that it doesn't to everybody. It was explained to me this way. We spend nine
months, you know, give or take in the water environment in our mother's womb before we're
born, we're not even breathing air. What happens when mom goes into labor, and we are forced
down that birth canal and out? Do we die? Well, yeah, sort of, because the life in that environment
ended. So we have died to that life those nine months that incubation period, we were alive.
And then we were born into another life in any way you look at it, the life we have once
we're born is different from the life just prior to being born. I mean, we're breathing
air, we eventually can talk and feed ourselves and all things you can't do in nine months
when you're connected to a placenta and you're not breathing. We live our lives. We do what
we do. We make choices and that's a big deal I'll get back to. And at some point eventually
this life as as as does everything that lives comes to an end. But death is no more an end
than birth. It's a doorway. Just as the birth process was a door from one life to another,
what we call death is nothing but a doorway from this life to our next.
No, I think that makes perfect sense. And I think some people might even call that reincarnation.
I wouldn't, but you know, I hear the term reincarnation quite a bit in interviewing people and I think
there's lots of different definitions of exactly what that can be and that's okay. But yeah,
we go from one place to another. The doorway makes sense. Then what's next? Did he tell
you anything about that after the doorway through death?
Let's talk about karma for a second because that came up also. Okay, what is karma and
there are millions of people who live their lives by it and there are millions of people
who think it's a bunch of you know, horse pucky. The funny thing is karma is no more
than Newtonian laws of physics. There's nothing airy fairy about karma karma says what you
put out, you get back. Well, hello, the basic underlying laws of physics say what goes around
comes around.
Yeah, equal and opposite reaction.
Yes, nothing happens by itself.
And quantum physics says the same thing.
Absolutely. And that's all karma is. Energy we put out there and we put energy out.
With our thoughts, we put energy out with our actions, we put energy out into the world
with our words. Every single thing we do, think or say puts energy into the world, whether
that energy is positive or negative depends on us. What is it you are sharing with the
people with whom you live with the teller at the bank with the cop who stops you for
speeding? What is it you are sharing you are sharing energy? Are you sharing positive
energy? Are you offering peace and compassion? Or are you angry and offering negative energy
and there is such a thing as negative energy and yes, it causes harm. We in our own bodies
have got to eventually accept the reality even medical science understands this that
our own emotional components have very, very strong effect on our physical health. Why?
Energy.
What is energy?
It's a vibration.
Now, let me ask you to do me a favor. Hold your hand up, Eric. Hold your hand. Okay,
now look at your hand. Is it moving?
No.
Wrong. I know it looks like it isn't, but and you know where I'm going here. Every
single cell in our bodies is made of millions and bajillions of neutrons, protons, electrons,
atoms, molecules, and they all vibrate. They are never still. We are moving. Even if you
don't see it, every single square inch centimeter and molecule of your body is moving right
now.
And there's actually space in between each of them too.
Absolutely.
Which is a little freaky to try to think because we can't see the space.
Right. But we accept that it exists when we look up in the sky and we see a space between
two clouds. There is a space there. There is a gap. What is that? Well, it's cloud there,
cloud there, not cloud there, but that's not a black hole in between. It's just something
other than that cloud and that cloud. But anyway, the vibrations of our bodies, the
vibrations of our thoughts, the vibrations of our emotions don't just affect us. They
affect absolutely every living being on this planet because the energy comes out of us
and into the world and affects everything with whom it comes in contact. It can't help
but do that. It cannot do otherwise. Again, that's not airy fairy stuff. That's physics.
What we put out there affects everything. Trees, flowers, dogs, other people, birds,
every single shred of energy that comes off of you from your thoughts, your words, your
needs, your emotions, affects with an air. Everything, everyone around you. It can't
do otherwise. When we talk about karma, what we do does come back to us. If we give, it
comes back. If we act with hostility, that hostility is going to come back to you. Maybe
not tomorrow, maybe not a week from Tuesday, but eventually what you do unto others will
be done unto you. That again is not airy fairy stuff. That's physics.
A lot of people, one of the things that they learn during their NDE is that we are all
connected. I've heard that word so many times. We're all connected. I think you just explained
how some of that works. The fact that if I do something, it affects you, it affects this
person and that person, that's part of the connection. I want to ask you, I promised
everybody that we would figure out the question, why are there monkeys as the name of your
book? Is that something that you ask God? Yes. Okay. Tell me about that. As you probably
know, Charles Darwin postulated the origin of species. In his theory, which became known
as the theory of evolution, the human race, before there were human beings, there were
monkeys. They evolved because evolution is life. Everything in life changes. Without
change, there's nothing but death. In order to grow, you must evolve. Again, that's just
basic science. When Darwin postulated that the human race evolved from what had been
monkeys, and wrote books about it, he took a lot of flak from his environment. This was
the 19th century at this point. He'd been spending a lot of time with turtles and the
people off of those islands. But he was quite certain that he knew what he was talking about.
In fact, pretty much he did know what he was talking about. During my conversation with
the divine, the creator, the father, the Irving, whatever you want to call him, he doesn't
care, I said, why, if the human race evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
Didn't they all have turned into people by now?
I like the question. That was the genesis of the title of the book, Why Are There Monkeys?
There are answers that I could give in abbreviated form during this conversation, Eric. But a
lot of it would make a whole lot more sense if you were to read the book. The whole book
takes two hours to read. It's an ee-ee-bitty little book. The backstory of the answers
makes the answer much more interesting than an answer I could give right now. I told it
to you right now, it wouldn't have the same impact.
That's okay. That's a bunch of teasers for the listeners if they're interested. You
had mentioned earlier that God has a sense of humor, which I totally believe. Give us
an example of how you learned that.
I learned that from hearing God laugh. It was, again, I wasn't hearing through my ears.
All of me had become a virtual tuning fork. I felt the sound of the words and then the
laughter. It felt like every cell in my body was smiling and being hugged when God laughed.
It was the most fabulous sound I have ever experienced. But as with everything else,
there's balance. I also heard God cry. That's an experience I hope to never repeat because
it was, I've experienced a lot of pain in my life, physical pain and emotional pain.
Having, experiencing God cry was horrifying in a way that I don't have words to describe.
But when we got to the point of the conversation when I was asking, why is there so much evil
in this world? If you are a good and loving and kind creator and you love your children,
why is there so much bad? That's, as I said to them at the time, that's one of the things
that people say gives them a really hard time believing that you exist because they say,
if there really was a loving, compassionate God, there would not be children being blown
away by weapons of war.
Yeah, the Holocaust wouldn't have ever happened. There wouldn't be children starving in Africa.
Exactly, or in Appalachia or anywhere else. So I was looking for that answer. If God is
good, why is there so much evil? And again, I said it's one of the reasons that people
have a hard time believing that you exist. And the first thing that I heard after that
was, huh, God, people have a hard time believing I exist because bad things happen. So does
that mean people have a hard time believing that the devil exists because good things
happen? And that one caught me up short. And then as we're talking about man's ability
to be horrifyingly abusive to other humans to all life to the planet we live on, just
the level of hatred is just horrifying. I suddenly realized God was crying. And the
only way I can explain that sound, and again, not hearing through my ears, but the vibrations
are going through every cell in my body. And it felt as if the air that I was breathing
was made of a million pieces of jagged shattered glass. That's what it felt like when God was
crying. His tears were like shattered pieces of glass that I was breathing. And I started
to cry. And I never want to hear that feel that sound again. But hello, people, we can
make God cry. We can make God laugh too. People ask me or make a statement, oh, I know this
book is fiction because I know God and I know God can't be funny. I've had people say that
to me. Lots of times. And I find it fascinating. Come back with, oh, do you believe God of
your belief is everywhere, all knowing, all powerful? Well, yes, of course, that's God.
I see. So the God you believe in can be anywhere and everywhere and can do anything, but can't
that be funny? Does that make sense to you? Well, no, God is serious. God doesn't laugh.
Well, you know, if Robin Williams or Mr. Rogers could portray a father figure that was warm
and loving and tender and gentle, don't you think God could do that too? And as for why
God presented in a manner that was funny for me, I've been a comedian all my life laughter
and humor are my coping mechanisms. I had a very difficult childhood. And if not for
humor, I wouldn't have survived. And to this day, humor is my go to coping instinct. If
the creator is in fact this father figure, which I now believe to be the case, what loving
father would want to frighten or intimidate their child? And it suddenly occurred to me
while I was having this experience, why wasn't I wrapped in a fetal position, cowering and
shivering with fright? Why wasn't I scared? Shouldn't I have been? But I wasn't. I wasn't
scared at all. And I finally figured it out. What reason would the Almighty have for making
one of his children feel frightened or uncomfortable or anything negative? Would any father, any
loving father do that? My answer is no. And when I explained that my conversations with
the Almighty were funny, I think that's because God chose to make me be comfortable to feel
at home and to present to me a being that I could understand that I could relate to.
And humor and the conversations we had in the context that we had them, that's how my
brain works. That's how I made to feel comfortable. And why in the world wouldn't the Almighty
want his children to feel comfortable when we go and knock on his door and say hello?
And safe and loved and completely. And if you feel more comfortable in a situation that's
very serious like some of those people you've talked to, maybe that would be their experience
if they were in your shoes. Maybe. At this point, I have heard so many people who've
had a what they call near death experience and no two are the same. That's absolutely
right. So was there a culmination to all this before you came back? What do you mean by
that? What kind of culmination are you looking for here? Oh, you know, when you see a fireworks
show and there's like the biggest bang finale at the end, was your, did your conversation
with God have one of those? And then it was like, oh, time to go back.
Yep, there was. And I can explain all of this. I was legally dead for eight minutes.
And I mean, legally dead. I asked every question I could think of and every question I asked
and every answer I was given are in the book. Why are they monkeys? It's the word for word
account of it. Every question, every answer and the last question I asked, was it the
reason that I was returned? I don't know. Maybe I'll know someday, but I don't know
now. I do know that I suddenly had a feeling that there was only time for one more question.
I don't know why I just I just knew it. I just my gut was telling me I'm about to move
to something else. I don't know what the something else is, but my time in this situation is
about to come to an end. And he's asking, do you have one more question for me? And
boom, therefore, this is going to be my last question. So I think I better make it good.
So I thought and I thought and I thought about every question I had asked. And what hadn't
I asked because I was getting the feeling that I was being asked for something in particular,
but I didn't know what that was. But I was being given time and room to come up with
another question. And it felt to me like it was going to be important. So I wanted to
make sure it was the right question. If this was going to be my last question, what should
it be? And okay, I went through choice. And boy, that was a long conversation. Everything
we do is about choice. We choose the arc of our lives, the path of our lives from this
life to another. Everything we do is about the choices that we make. We don't just haphazardly
fall into this or that or the other, we choose, even if you don't want to make a choice, that's
a choice. So I'm thinking I better come up with a good question. I've asked a whole bunch
of them, but I'm only going to be able to ask one more. So what's it going to be? And
I thought and I thought and I thought at all of a sudden I knew. And it was a question
I had never thought on. It is a question that had never, ever crossed my mind. Why it popped
into my head at that moment, I don't know. But it did. I took a deep breath and figured
okay, I don't know. Is this going to send me to hell? Am I going to go back and get
to live more? Am I going to go through the door into heaven? I don't know. But okay.
And okay, God, here's my last question. And I asked it. And the next thing I knew, I was
back where I started in my bedroom, surrounded by the two people who had been there the whole
time. I took a deep breath, opened my eyes and just I guess I was in shock. I couldn't
I couldn't even say anything to them. I was just spinning.
Did you feel like you had a choice on whether to come back or not? Or were you just thrust
back?
At that particular point, knowing that I was 25 years old, and during the course of this
conversation, I had readily admitted the fact that I had pretty much made a dog's breakfast
of life. My life, I made a whole bunch of really bad choices. I wanted to come back and try
and maybe do a better job, maybe live a life that had a purpose, maybe think less about
me and more about everybody else. And I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to live a life
that had a purpose, not just taking up space.
So did it change you from then on? Were you a different person?
Absolutely. But it took a while. When I first came back, I didn't know if what had happened
was real or not. Again, this was before I'd ever heard the term near death experience,
or known anything about it. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't have anybody to talk
to because I had never heard of this and nobody was walking around talking about it. And I
didn't know where to go. And I was afraid everybody was gonna like think I was nuts
and locked me in a rubber room.
That's how it was back then. So how long did it take before you finally talked to somebody
about it?
What long after I came back was when I was given the undeniable proof that my experience
had been real. It was after I came back. And there was absolutely no question. But that
was undeniable proof. And every word of it is in the book. I explain how it is that it
was proven to me that this really did happen. And once I knew that what I had gone through
was real, I sat down and figured, I think I have a responsibility here. I'm not sure
what that responsibility is, but I want to learn how to live in a way that is in harmony
with the experience that I had. I want to live a different kind of life, a life that
somehow gives testimony to that experience. I want to share it in whatever way I can.
So I wrote it all down word for word. And then I found some people who they were San
Francisco DJs. I was living in San Francisco at the time. And they had a Wednesday evening
Bible study. And these were not the Bible thumping, fundamental evangelical, Pat Robertson
kinds of people. These were decent human beings who recognized a God of compassion, love and
mercy. And I thought, all right, I'm going to talk to these people. So I did. And I joined
their Bible study. And we sat and we talked and we went through the Bible. And I discussed
some of what I had experienced. And yeah, I kept it all pretty close to the vest because
I still wasn't sure how it was going to be received. And again, I still had not heard
the term near death experience or Dr. Ramin Moody or the white light or the tunnel or
any of it. And nobody I knew had ever heard of it either. So I was still being very cautious
about just how much I shared. But I spent some time Wednesday evenings with this group
of people. And I remember walking through the living room of my house one day and the television
was on. And as I was walking through the living room toward the kitchen, Pat Robertson and
the 700 club was on my television. I don't know why, but it was. And I heard Pat Robertson
say to his audience of 90 bajillion people, if you send us a donation, we will at the
700 club guarantee your admission to heaven. I backed I walked backwards into the living
room and stood in front of the television and watched as he went on pontificating on
this same theme of, you know, God wants you to be rich, but he wants me to be richer.
And anything you give to me will come back to you two fold and blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. And I turned off the television and I said, that's it. That's it. This is not
what I experienced. This is not the God I met and I want nothing to do with this. So
that was the end of my Bible study. And I then started researching everything I could
and I started getting serious about my Buddhist practice because people refer to Buddhism
as a religion, but it isn't in that it's it's not theist. It's not based on the worship
of a deity. So I don't consider Buddhism a religion. I consider it a spiritual practice.
And I may practice in Buddha, a Buddhist, and I figure if I practice long enough, maybe
I'll get good at it or better at it or something. But it took me several months to get to the
point first where I knew what had happened had really happened and then how to live a
life that was in harmony with what I had experienced. During the course of my life, I have had
experiences that there is no earthly reason why I survived, none. And there's an article
on my blog called Death Be Not, in which I described three of those instances. One of
them in particular that I cannot describe to you because I suffer from risk and bad
PTSD and talking about this particular experience makes me physically ill. But when I had
that other experience that I can't talk about right now, I got home and I immediately grabbed
my computer and started typing close my eyes. I type 100 words a minute, I close my eyes
and I typed every word of my divine experience, my near death experience. And then I went
through my notebooks. I'm one of those people who has I have no idea 10,000 spiral notebooks
in my house from years and years and years and years of writing and writing and writing.
I found the notebook in which I had written 25 years earlier, the word for account of
my experience, which I wrote the day that I got the proof that it had really happened.
I wrote it down in a notebook, I put it away. Now 25 years later after just surviving an
ordeal that I don't understand how I survived, I felt an angel tapping me on the shoulder.
I don't know. I felt this overwhelming need to write and revisit and write that experience
against. So I typed it all out. And then I found the notebook that I had written it
out in 25 years earlier and I studied them and they were identical word for word. So
I had it published and it is now being published and people can read it. And as I said, I don't
make any money from it. I give all of that money to the breast cancer research foundation
because I one of the many things that I've survived that nobody can explain to me how
I survived is I survived breast cancer, even though they didn't diagnose it until it already
spread. And so, you know, for a whole bunch of reasons, I shouldn't be here, but here
I still am. And I think one of the things I was supposed to do, I don't feel like I
had a mission from God. I don't I don't feel like I came back with a mission from God.
I think that was, you know, Jake and Elwood Blues, the Blues Brothers, they had a mission
from God. I think I had a divine responsibility, maybe. And that responsibility was to share
my experience. And we'll put a link in the show notes to your website and all of that.
All right, before we wrap up, give one important message that you want to leave with everybody.
People say the world's going to hell in a handbasket or whatever. And I can't do anything
about it because I'm just one person. And to that I say the fact that you're just one
person doesn't mean you cannot affect the world. You cannot affect change. You cannot
bring about good in a horrifying scenario of bad that we are currently living in. One
person can make a huge difference. Heart of it is because of, as I said, energy. Hold
up your hand. You think it's not moving. Well, it is every cell in your body is moving. You
are vibrating at a frequency that is compatible with some and incompatible with others. You've
ever walked into a room and seeing people that you've never seen before. And one of
them looks like you don't know why you want to get to know that person. It's not because
they're particularly handsome or beautiful, but something in you is drawing you to them
and you just want to say hi. And similarly, there's another person on the other side of
the room you've never met before doesn't look familiar. But you just don't feel comfortable
around them and you don't know why you just know you don't think we want to have to talk
to them. Well, that's because everybody has a frequency. Everybody vibrates at a frequency
and your frequency may be compatible with mine, but incompatible with somebody else's
and every single thing that we say and do and think because we are putting out energy
every second of our lives. We are having an impact on everybody with whom we come in contact.
So if you think I'm just one person, so what can I possibly do? The fact is, you can make
remarkable changes in this world by recognizing that the energy that you give off that you
emit either from what you say or what you do or how you act can change the world. I
hope, I hope that one of the things that people are going to take from my experience is the
realization that one person can change the world. It's about what you think. Focus your
mind on sharing positive energy. Recognizing that the people who don't have what you have
probably want what you have, but you can give them, even if you don't have money to give,
you can give them your energy, your thoughts, your emotions, just the thought of, oh my
God, that poor person is going through such a hard time. Just that sends out healing energy.
On a scale of 1 to 13, how afraid of death are you?
Negative 900.
Perfect.
I've been there.
And came back.
I have no fear of death whatsoever. I'm not looking forward to any astronomical amount
of pain that gets me there, but the actual act, it's a doorway. That's all it is. It's
a doorway. It's not an end. It's a new beginning. So no, I have no fear of death at all.
How freeing would that be if other people felt that way? Because we kind of, as humans,
walk around in this world having this fear of not only the unknown, but is there really
something after this? Wouldn't we live a little bit differently if we knew that there was?
Well on the one hand, when we were younger, we all thought we were bulletproof. And thinking
you're bulletproof tends to lead to really unconscious behavior. Tends to make people
do really stupid things. So I have to qualify my belief about this. If everybody knew that
this one life is not the only life, and that even the laws of physics make it impossible
for this to be the only life, energy doesn't die. We're made of energy. So okay, we breathe
our last breath, but the cells within our bodies are still vibrating. It's still going
on. There's still life there in the basic laws of physics.
I'm looking forward to it. Brick Chones, thanks a lot.
Thank you. This was fun.
Yeah, good having you on today.
Thank you for inviting me.
Thanks again for listening and remember to share this podcast. To be notified when the
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looking for in this life and the next.