From the time that they pronounced me that was
a good 45 minutes They cut my clothes and then
they paddled my heart my heart stopped and I
could see people screaming and crying But I didn't
realize that was actually my physical body because
I was somewhere else The only thing that I could
feel if you can imagine Absolute love and peace
there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was
greeted by people I'd known in the past I'm back
home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home.
Welcome, welcome to Round Trip Death everybody.
We are going all the way over to Portugal today
for a really amazing story with Ishtar Howell.
Good morning Ishtar or evening for you. How are
you? Well yes, good morning and good evening
from over here. I'm very well. Good. Hey, I forgot
to warn you of this, but one thing our listeners
love is getting to know the guests that we have
on the show. So if you wouldn't mind just taking
one minute, tell us a little bit about you. Who
is Ishtar? Actually, I think in a certain way,
I feel like in a very positive way, I'm increasingly
more of a nobody each day with each meditation
practice that I do. But that doesn't really help.
I'm a fellow who was born in Wisconsin, born
and raised over there, moved to the West Coast
to the US at 18, to the beautiful state of Oregon,
and then ultimately ended up here in Portugal.
I have a lot of interests, a lot of hobbies.
I love playing the drums when they're around.
I love meditation. I love gardening. There's
probably, I love learning Sanskrit and playing
and studying Chinese and cooking. I've done all
sorts of crazy jobs in this life, including once
cleaning up a crime scene, which was, that was
an odd job. And I probably have more stories
in the vaults than I can tell in a hundred podcasts.
Awesome. Very cool. Well, if you need a new hobby,
we'll get you into beekeeping one of these days.
You know, actually that that's one of the I got
really excited when I found out that you were
into that because that is one of the hobbies
that I've been hoping at some point to pick up.
That's a whole other podcast. We love beekeeping,
but that's not where we're going today. Today
we're talking near death experiences. Let's jump
right into it. So what was going on? You were
13 years old. Paint the picture. What was happening
that day of the accident? Oh God, it was it was
even kind of the the night before I I had played
the sort of the first baseball game of the season
It turned out had broken my arm getting hit by
a pitch learned that immediately after at the
at the doctor having gotten an x -ray and And
that was I was kind of bummed about that because
that was like a highlight of my year was was
sort of a summer baseball season and I was just
talking with my mom before I went to went to
bed at night, and all of a sudden I just had
these words just sort of fling out of my mouth
without any forethought, just right there. And
I was asking her, are you going to die soon?
Whoa. Just out of the blue. Out of the blue,
yeah. It wasn't anything I'd ever really... I'd
never worried about my mother's health. I had
worried about my father's health. because he
had his gallbladder removed a few years before
and we had to, you know, it's kind of a emergency
sort of thing and I've never worried about my
mother so I think she was a little bit surprised
by it as well right there in the moment and she
maybe took a couple seconds to kind of compose
herself and before sort of reassuring me that
oh no I'll be here for as long as you need me.
You know, I'll be you know, of course, I'm gonna
die someday but I'll be here for as long as you
need me and then I said Yeah, okay. Okay. I'm
just gonna go to bed now Which is which is what
I did and went to bed. Well, no anxiety or anything
like that. No worries and Then I woke up the
next morning as if I just jumped into my body
from somewhere else. I Say that because I even
literally my body sprang up in the bed And it
was exactly at the moment that my mom and dad,
it was about six a .m. or something like that,
were walking outside my bedroom door. And so
I shouted at them. Again, without any forethought,
there's something I have to tell you. There's
something I've got to tell you. And then when
I went to say what I thought I had to tell them,
it wasn't there. And I was like, oh God, I forgot.
I forgot what I was supposed to say. And I was
so frustrated. I was really... They had to take
a few minutes to calm me down, to kind of get
me settled. And so then I shook that off and
said, OK, time to go to school. And it was a
good school day because I think it was the second
to last day of school, which meant you're not
in seventh grade, you're not really doing much
of anything. You're kind of having an award ceremony
and doing some activities. And there's no strain
or worry on those days. It's you know, I went
and did the school went to school and then came
home and and my mother was insistent that she
drive my sister out to her new job at the edge
of town, which was a movie theater and and so
we did that and it was in pulling it was in the
act of pulling out of the the parking lot and
trying to go across a four lane sort of divided
highway Right like making a left turn making
a left turn. Yeah. Yes, you're dealing with Traffic
going both directions. Okay. Yeah. And of course
it's, I don't know, it's like 4 PM or something
like that in small town, Wisconsin. So usually
there's not much and there wasn't, you know,
we looked and there was, you know, one car that
was well off and, and kind of, you know, going
slowly and there was no, no cause for alarm at
all. And we, we started driving across and I
was looking out the window to my right. When
I turned to the left to talk to my mom, all of
a sudden there was a large kind of, I think it
was big Lincoln or something like that, like
a Lincoln town car, a big car, clearly what must
have been hidden behind the other car. And perhaps
they even had started to accelerate quite a bit
because it was much further along than the other
one. And it was just outside my mother's door.
So maybe I have no idea, maybe certainly less
than a foot. Looking over there to in that moment
basically I could only register one thought which
was shit and Had some more thoughts after that
I was I was fairly certain that this was the
end of my life as well that this didn't look
like a good situation it was And instead of you
know kind of freezing up because at the time
even at 13 I was I was consciously very afraid
of death I had developed a fear of death somewhere
between age 6 and 13 that was pretty formidable.
So instead of finding myself clamping up and
tightening, I found myself loosening and relaxing,
which was very strange, as I would have expected
myself to do the opposite and go into a panic
mode or something. But instead I found this involuntary
relaxation happening. Instead the next thought
was a calm, detached, philosophical kind of thought.
Well, not really philosophical, but calm and
detached. And it was, I really thought this one
was going to go more than 13 years. I wasn't
attached. It was just, okay, this is it. So as
if it was a voice from somebody else, not from
your head? No, it was mine. From you? Yeah, absolutely.
The deep voice. And I was familiar with that
deep voice. I think more familiar when I was
younger. When I was five or four or six, but
as I got older each year, I think Incrementally,
I started to lose my connection to that That
that depth of presence or consciousness or awareness
that that you know had that kind of clarity in
it And so that the next thing I knew also involuntarily
of I found myself going through a life review
which also was interesting to me consciously
at the time because I'd heard of the phenomena,
at least the phenomena of the life flashing before
one's eyes, and I was very skeptical that the
whole thing could be packed in. Of course, it's
like, come on, I can barely remember my life
as it is. And sure enough, it was perfect detail.
In fact, it was detail better than I consciously
remembered it. And in fact, in that life review,
I have to say that the quality of consciousness,
the clarity was much greater than in normal waking
consciousness. And so as each sort of moment,
finally it did go and rewind, but in a non -confusing
way. So as each moment happened, another thing
that surprised me was it was as if I was with
either a deeper aspect of myself or another presence
altogether. whether we want to say higher self
or God or whatever word, I'm not really even
now attached to any particular framing. But it
was as if I had like a soul guide there that
was omniscient and perfectly objective. And so
it basically went through my whole life with
kind of a fine -tooth comb. Can you give me some
examples? Do you remember any specific things
that you saw or experienced there? Oh, yes, many.
So where to start? Well, first, broadly, any
time that I had lied in life, or any time that
I, and lying here also included such things as
didn't say exactly what was in my heart at certain
moments, or any time I sort of put a mask on
because I was afraid. All those things were sort
of pointed out very compassionately. And they
said, yeah, you don't need to do that. Some of
the highlights of life, for instance, I would
not have picked up myself. One of the highlights
was a memory. I think it was from third grade.
So at that time it was only four years before,
something like that, second or third grade. It
was a memory of getting out to recess, walking
around on the blacktop, and it was just starting
to rain. And I was looking at a puddle on the
blacktop and looking at the drops and this kind
of omniscient guide. pointed this moment out
to me, because I wasn't just looking at it. I
was falling into a deep mystical state, only
I didn't know I was in a mystical state or have
words for it. I was in complete silence and complete
peace, just looking at the raindrops going into
this puddle. And the omniscient guide said, more
of this. This is it. Basically, suddenly, this
is the bullseye for this life. And even use that
language, for this life, this is the bullseye.
Another experience that was added to that along
the same lines was from my second grade year
I was in a really very pretty school that had
these big really quite tall windows and And so
I remember looking out looking out one of these
windows again on a rainy day Going into sort
of a daydreaming space, but instead of daydreaming.
I was in this big vast infinite flavor of consciousness
And this experience was pointed out as a particularly
good one. I also went through a lot of the traumatizing
experiences that I had been through. And by going
through them, it was as if a great deal of their
content was sort of washed away and healed. And
probably a certain amount of the psychological
hangups that otherwise would have been more pronounced
had they not been washed were sort of taken off.
One example I had done, I think I... The circumstance
of it was I was protecting somebody from being
bullied. I did that. I stepped in, but instead,
by stepping in, I found myself definitely outnumbered
in a fight. I'm not going to win. And so I remember
that the memory that's clearest was my face,
the left side, being thrown against the chain
link fence. In the NDE memory, it was interesting
because my consciousness was being experienced
not only in my own body, but I was in the fence
as well. And I was in the people who were either
throwing me against it or the ones behind them
who were sort of taunting and egging on. And
I was in the tree that was right next to the
sort of the scene of the crime, so to speak.
And I was in the big, vast sky. And then I also
experienced what at this point I call maybe a
particular aspect of divinity. consciousness
or whatever word we want to use, but it was as
if there was a consciousness that was everywhere
in the whole thing that was actually laughing
in joy at this and was even specifically aware
of my tiny little speck of its much vaster tapestry
going through these tiny little dramatic experiences.
The more I went into that, there was even narration.
There was narration like, oh, this is excellent
because because he's getting beat up here he's
going to develop these sorts of things and then
he will get to get over those sorts of things
as if it was sort of delivering commentary on
the arc of my life. So this laughter wasn't like
some evil presence going ha ha he's getting beat
up it was it was some kind of beings on your
team on your side seeing the good in what was
happening even though it was not a fun thing
you were going through. Absolutely, and it was
not derisive at all. And the laughter wasn't
simply engaged, wasn't in response simply to
my thing, but it seemed to be a mirth, a completely
mirthful laughter that was in all things everywhere,
all at once, completely, almost in thanksgiving,
almost in appreciation for the wonder of simple
existence. I simply tuned into the part of it
that was at the time tuning into my dilemma,
but it was clear that it was everywhere. Life
reviews fascinate me. So if you don't mind, I
want to dial down a little bit more on this.
Sure. Even on this one particular piece of yours,
if you were, did you say you felt like you were
in the tree and in the fence? Yeah. What kinds
of feelings was that tree having? Seeing you
get beat up or was it even feelings? I I'm trying
to understand here Yeah, actually there were
I mean in a sense everything It was almost as
if I'm sure I'll use the word holographic loosely
here as a metaphor But in the sense that something
of everything was everywhere in every other thing
The total of this holograph was also in all the
little bits of it. And so that yeah, I do remember
the tree The tree, funnily enough, the tree was
feeling me and just basking love onto all of
the homo sapiens. It doesn't matter me or the
person who threw me into the fence or the taunters
or the sympathetic ones or the oblivious ones.
Didn't matter. It seemed to be showering the
whole recess crowd with unconditional positive
regard. Now, I'm not going to make a leap and
say that that's what trees are doing all the
time. I think they probably have a mixed range
of... Feelings but that was simply the what was
the case and in my own experience I can actually
feel it also making a humming sound at least
in the NDE life review There is a sense that
the humming sound was as if I was hearing stuff
trickling up its trunk In a way that this later
came back as I got into meditation later in life
a very very similar experience It's just not
without the hassle of the of an NDE or the life
review. So that was happening now the fence was
Also in my NDE life review kind of animate it
wasn't just dead matter I think it was that had
a very different perspective from the tree though
because I didn't get as much detail with the
tree I could almost the tree almost felt like
a human in a vegetable form the fence was like
I am metal so so That's all I could pick up in
the thing But I just want to say it was almost
as if like everything Experienced had eyes or
some some kind of consciousness, but in a non
-confusing way All right. Well if you think of
the quantum realm and quantum physics everything
has vibration of some sort even things that are
inanimate like metal or asphalt But usually we
don't think or hear anything about them having
any sort of consciousness or thought But it was
very different than the tree. I know we're getting
off a little into the the woo -woo weeds here,
but I find it interesting The thing that to me
is most interesting about the life reviews is
there's always things for you to learn and generally
the emotions going through the review are very
positive. This is what most people report to
me. Hey, I hurt somebody. I had this huge amount
of empathy. I felt what they felt. I learned
from it, but I didn't feel guilt and shame. Was
that your experience also? Yes, absolutely. Which
also struck me because normally at the time my
personality structure probably would have felt
more guilt than it needed to. And so that was
very interesting to be shown all of these mistakes
that I had made. And I mean, not huge mistakes.
I didn't really have the time enough. Yeah, you
were 13. Yeah, yeah. But nevertheless, you know,
all the mistakes and there was just complete
complete saturation of love. There was no room
for any of that stuff. Corrections were made
with grace and love and compassion. Quick break
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by insurance then at the end of the life of you
was i mean through it it kind of felt even tangibly
like like some kind of thin suit was being peeled
off of me put it that way by the end of it like
the suit was totally gone and i realized that
basically that suit In language that I would
have learned later that suit was the suit of
sort of my overgrown Separate sense of self the
misplaced ego being being used for jobs It doesn't
need to be used for and it was gone and it was
it was like good heavens the relief So that was
part of it. I mean in those few moments between
the end of the life review and Getting hit by
the car. Those were the most alive at that point
in life that I'd ever been also there was a Even
in the language that I had at the time as a 13
-year -old, I was not reading a lot of metaphysical
books and stuff like that. But even in the language
I had available at the time, the sentences going
through my head to match my understanding was,
oh my god, everything was love the whole time.
That was a thought that moved through my mind.
As I was looking at the dashboard of our car,
the car again about to hit us. The the clouds
in the blue sky out the windshield in the distance
Everything of the scene the grass on the side
of the highway early summer grass everything
clearly was was love all of it that was that
that was the word I I had available to to give
to these things and God, you know, it was and
such a relief to realize that every moment in
my past everything that I thought was unfortunate,
good, bad, ugly, all of it, and an emanation
of this singular vastness, this vast love. And
so that was where I was sitting until Impact,
which came very quickly afterward. That's the
breaking point in the story. How badly were you
hurt? That's strange. I should have been hurt
I'm like, if I saw how far the car was moved
and I might've flipped, I don't think it did,
but I was knocked out. I already had a broken
arm. We were already going to head to the same
hospital we ended up in anyways to put a cast
on my arm that day. I didn't aggravate that.
I was concussed. I remember being knocked out
when my head hit the car window to the right
of me. No bruising, no bumps. I think I was probably
spared because I had been made like completely
loose. by going through this experience before
Impact. I think that's the only way I come out.
The only thing I broke was the middle finger
on my right hand. So I walked around for about
a month or a month and a half or two that summer
with a cast that had me in this position all
the time, which was, I think, poetic and a little
bit of humor to sort of soothe the grief and
everything else that was going on. It wasn't
my side of the car that was hit, so that also
spared me some. I woke up with the sound of the
seatbelt makes when like a seatbelt's not on
or something, that beeping sound. My mother over
there and the emergency crews were having to
use sort of like the big kind of skill saw thing
to get the doors off our car and get us out.
And I was definitely concussed because Although
I was conscious, I really didn't know much. I
wasn't able to answer a lot of the questions
that the emergency folks were asking me. But
I remember them being very good at their job.
I could feel in their hands on my body, like,
oh, they know what they're doing. Being put on
a gurney, then being put in the ambulance. And
in the ambulance, I remember them asking me more
questions. It's like, I don't know any of these,
but I know that's my mom over there. That's all
I know. That's that's where I had sort of I suppose
an in -body and out -of -body type of experience
So like a very non -local experience of consciousness
because at the same time that I was looking up
through my eyes on this gurney I was also looking
down from the top of the ambulance at the same
time My mother called my name out a couple times
a couple times. I answered on the second answer
I could tell I'm assuming that she registered
Because basically I just told her I'm okay And
after the second time telling her, her breathing
went from sort of a breath pattern that was,
you know, she was definitely struggling to stay
around, to let go. And I didn't, you know, put
it together at the time, being concussed, but,
you know, that was the, you know, last time I'd
hear my mother's voice. And I remember when she
let go, the part of my consciousness that was
at the, sort of at the top of the ambulance,
I kind of felt as if a breeze kind of you know
sort of wished by me. Now again I didn't put
that together with you know something of my mom's
soul was was letting go or releasing. It was
all a blur and next thing I knew I'm outside
of sort of the screened hospital operating area.
I'm myself still made horizontal on a gurney.
I guess they figured I was probably okay. And
then I have my sister there and then my dad and
sister had arrived and I just remember my dad
saying, your mother's gone. And so that was the
hardest thing I'd heard in life. And then it's
all quite a blur. We're leaving the hospital
and going home and friends and family are rushing
to our house and like anybody in that case. where
sort of my story continues past that is in sort
of in the week or a few days after after like
the real shock of it all sort of has really worn
off was I started to realize that I did I no
longer had a commenting self -conscious voice
in my head nor was I afraid of anything and in
addition there was this big sense of a big, vast
silence in my heart and in the back of my head
and ultimately throughout my whole body. I could
go into this silence and whenever I would do
that, I wouldn't have used the word bliss at
the time, I don't know why, but now I would use
the word bliss. A bliss or a joy would flood
through my body like I hadn't experienced since
I was having mystical experiences as a much younger
child. only now it was just on steroids. And
so I was experiencing that novel thing while
at the same time I was going through all the
stages of grief one goes through, like a textbook.
And so while, you know, I remember sort of a
dual experience where I'd be in the garage, you
know, where I could have some privacy, and I
was, you know, hitting the walls with my hands.
You know cuz i was so angry and i didn't know
if i believed in a deity or not at the time but
i think if there's a deity you know basically
cuz you know why would you would you take my
mother away from me no you know what you do this
to our family. All that kind of anger at the
same time that that was moving through me very
freely there was also this profound peace. And
so i was like what's all this. My mother her
last profession in life was as a counselor as
a therapist so she had a big sort of stack of
books above above her work desk and so I you
know, I picked up an Elizabeth Kubler Ross book
and yet another one and I was thinking I must
be going through shock Still and I was like,
oh my god shock is so awesome because I realized
that that like a lot of the limitations that
just two weeks had been a singular Block of my
life. We're just not there at all. I Remember
one day I was curious to know if anybody else
in my family was having a similar experience
So I was about to ask my dad the question would
have been hey dad. Are you this time? I learned
the word bliss. Are you experiencing the the
bliss that I'm experiencing and I did not say
it because right as I said Hey, hey D. Hey da,
you know without even finishing a That same calm
deep inner voice came up and said the answer
to that question is absolutely no and you should
not ask that question. You should keep the adults
and other people from sort of meddling in your
experience and you need to sort of explore this
experience while you have it. Yeah I can't imagine
how hard that was as a 13 year old. Well it doesn't
matter what age we are it's so difficult to have
that kind of loss but when you're 13 but also
what a blessing. to be able to draw on that bliss
and go through the stages of grief and and then
get comfort right so you could kind of deal with
it at your pace i mean i mean i had that that
blessing was there for about two and a half three
months so basically my summer break yeah if that
wasn't there Whoa, that would have been a lot
harder because that eventually faded that that
that sort of I'll call it a state of consciousness
at this point and later I would learn words like
Samadhi that kind of ongoing Samadhi Yeah, that
that allowed all sorts of things to pass through
where if I had like a rigid sort of ego structure
Which often you know serves to fight back and
repress? experiences or feelings that we feel
are difficult that we're afraid of. If I had
that in place, the works would have been so gummed
up. Instead, at least for that two and a half,
three months, the works were just like going.
So if I needed to cry, I cried. If I need to
hit a wall, I hit a wall. If I need to laugh
in joy and sadness, it would happen. There was
no editor or filtering mechanism to be an encumbrance.
So thank goodness. Nobody really know what's
going on internally cuz i was like i'm not gonna
i'm gonna keep these cards close is that that
deep voice was suggesting but one person i remember
if i forget who they were but they were older
students i think they were in high school i was
in middle school. And they approached me at the
school playground as i think i was walking tour
from the library. And they're like hey something's
definitely different in you know like i want
in on this. Basically, I told they're like, how
did this come about? And it's like, well, you
just got to go and like come really close to
death and not die. You know, so I was like, maybe
get in a car accident. And we both laughed because,
you know, it was, you know, absurdly sketchy,
you know, advice. But you were different than
you were prior to this. And then other 13 year
olds were. Yeah, that was that was Again, it
was like a few days before that Completely different
arrangement after it a completely different arrangement.
I mean I still had Certain my personality was
still there to a certain degree My memories it
wasn't wasn't like an amnesiac or anything. I
was like it's just like I had all the Individual
stuff, but without like all that extra tension,
you know without the ego structure being inappropriately
given tasks that I don't think it was really
meant to carry out. And you used the words no
fear. Now that changes somebody also. That was
the best bit. That was absolutely the best bit.
I was so, I realized how afraid I was. I didn't
know how afraid I was from age whatever to 13.
I mean, I had a pretty easy life in the grand
scheme of things. I had good parents and good
friends and You know difficulties aside it was
it was it was wonderful, but that was that was
a huge eye -opener Was like oh my god, even me
with an easy North American life I was parallel
pet paralyzed and with fear and then when I would
go out on walks walk around my town Afterwards
with with without it. I could clearly see I could
feel and see everybody's tensions And it didn't
bring me down, but I was just like, watch. And
previously, certain people, I thought, oh, that
person really has their shit together. They must.
And then going around, it's like, oh my god,
no, they're faking it. Oh my god, there's so
much effort going on under the surface there.
And I even had this other visual stuff happening,
like walking around and seeing this kind of,
I'll say golden light, for lack of a better word.
I'd see this golden light around people as if
it was trying to come into them. I realized,
now they weren't going around batting at it,
but I realized like internally, sort of a psychological
or psychic level, they were pushing it away.
And I was sort of asking, you know, the universe,
like, what is that light that everybody's pushing
away? And an answer came back, very, very in
short order, like, oh, that's just love. And
that was like, oh my god. The answer was like,
oh yeah, everybody's basically pushing away against
love itself without knowing it. For the most
part, it's like, oh okay, no wonder. People often
also appeared like 50 foot tall angels that were
now sort of crunched into little personalities.
The bodies weren't an impediment. I could tell
it was the psychological structure, even at the
time. So I was like, oh, oh. And yeah, that was
a very interesting time in life, yeah, to go
around like that. Yeah. All right, let's talk
about semantics for a minute. Because people
like to define exactly things that we've been
through. You know, your mom passing right next
to you, and you kind of feeling her leaving.
You know, we have a term, shared death experience
for that. The term near -death experience Some
would say well you have to actually die and your
heart stop and you come back And that's not exactly
what happened to you So what would you call the
experiences that happened to you if you had to
put words to him? And you don't have to by the
way. Oh, yeah I don't really that and that's
kind of a funny thing because I never Partly
because when I was a kid, I watched the film
Flatliners with Kiefer Sutherland. I remember
that. I love that film. Yeah. And so they're
like putting themselves into NDEs, you know?
Yeah. And so like I thought, well, that kind
of intensity, that's not what I experienced.
Who knows? Maybe in the time after Impact, my
heart did stop. I have no idea because I was
out. Probably not. I never had a word for it.
And so NDEs at the time seemed like the closest
sort of thing because in a sense, I got to go,
I did die spiritually. I mean, I suppose people
use a spiritually transformative experience,
whatever. There's all sorts of acronyms that,
you know, one could throw at it. But I remember
I watched the film. It actually doesn't really
have much bearing on my experience, but I also
love the old Warren Beatty film, Heaven Can Wait.
And so the premise being that, you know, his
angel screwed up because he was actually an athlete
with great reflexes and he would have dodged
the truck. And I felt in a way that I got It's
more of an antinom experience. I felt like if
I had been in my ego structure, I would have
bloody well died in that crash because I would
have been resisting. But they made me, as the
Taoist, as Chuang Tzu, the Taoist would say,
they made me like a baby again, or consciousness
of the universe decided. And my higher self said
like, let's take the ego off of this guy and
have him be just like made of jello. our listeners
under the age of thirty i think you've got some
homework to do to go watch a couple of these
old films you do need to go watch heaven can
wait actually it holds up it holds up in terms
of pacing now the key for southerland one flatliners
that one that one was a whole lot more fiction
The writer of that really didn't study NDEs before
making that, but still it was an interesting
idea. The people wanted to die, see the other
side and come back. I mean, who wouldn't? You
know, it's a film about forgiveness and redemption
at core. All right. Let me throw a couple other
questions at you. One of the things that you
learned was that everything was love. Everything
was love. Okay, how did that change your life
moving forward too? So you've got fear is gone
And by the way fear and love opposite emotions,
right? So fear left I imagine you were filled
with a lot more love And feeling that there was
love around you now i'm putting words in your
mouth. I apologize But tell me how that affected
you feeling all that love That was in this case.
It was for two and a half three months eventually
it faded out but in those months it was like
being in a completely different life completely
different nervous system and there there's a
lot of adjusting but i could talk to people that
i was petrified of talking to before that's a
very simple of a simple change i mean i could
talk to girls for instance i have to use term
girls because i was a boy then but you know that
was definitely not you know beforehand that would
have been quite a nerve -wracking experience
and Also i didn't really have to have to feel
i needed i didn't have an angle with anybody
i didn't have the sense which i hated to have
anyways but you know you get it when you're a
teenager you know. Manipulate if you're a nice
person but i don't have any angles. And i was
like okay what you know what's death ain't so
scary so nothing so scary and so good life is
much more fun and i found in a very brief time
and i wasn't a huge social butterfly when i would
have a conversation with someone. It was like
I could really find out about who they were at
the essential level because I was relaxed and
often then they would be relaxed as well, Tamir.
And it's like, wow, I had no idea. I had no idea
that that's what was going on below your facade.
Now that mine's dropped, yours can be dropped
too. So on a practical level, that was just a
much nicer way of getting along and getting to
know people and going through the world. And
I have to say also, it was at that time that
my love for nature and gardening. Really opened
up because I somehow I think I was sleeping on
the natural world because I was so Most teenagers
so kind of caught up in your own, you know little
little dilemmas But my god trees were no longer
trees anymore People were no longer people people
were these beautiful interesting complex songs
in that time period It's so beautiful. It's like
I didn't even quite have time to explore All
the all the little corners of nuance and everything
and then like the trees came alive so i look
at a leaf i could cry. I look at look at look
at the daffodils went out so i think it was black
eyed susans and echinacea perpura there's a lot
of those in my town and like of course i'd seen
them my whole life but never saw them. And so
like like like william blake i was seeing universes
in flower heads where before i wasn't and that's
love. You know that that's I didn't know that
that was the effect of like more love and less
fear, but that was looking back I realized yeah,
absolutely All right couple more things before
we wrap up You mentioned that this only stuck
with you for two or three months, but you can
remember it very well Are there times when you
can bring this back when you can feel this again?
The most important thing in my life was I'm glad
that I didn't just stay there because I needed
to get back to it So five years after I became
a monk at 18 Became a monk and meditation teacher
I before I became a monk. I was like a monk in
my house. I started meditating for six hours
a day as a 17 year old I was a little bit too
extreme and too intense I'd get up at three in
the morning and take a cold shower and do like
three hours of yoga and meditation practice and
then I realized you know, I because I've walked
into a metaphysical bookstore I was like I need
to get back to whatever I was experiencing right
after mom died and I walked into a metaphysical
bookstore My sister's idea. I picked up a book.
I looked at it and I was like, oh my god Whatever
this person in the Himalayas was experiencing
it sounds a lot of it sounds a whole lot like
what I was sort of just Getting into there. I
slow -walked it. I didn't start meditating like
right at 14 I was kind of afraid to but at 17
I was like I've got to do this Between 14 and
17. I also had all these wonderful guides You
know humans not invisible guys but real people
in my town who were meditation teachers and psychics
and she gone teachers who had that same presence.
That i experienced in the wake of the car accident
so i was really a half time teenager and a half
time spiritual seeker. For about three years
and at the end is like i gotta do this thing
full time i gotta see what i can do and slowly
but surely meditation started to take me. back
into that space, you know, little bits at a time.
And then I learned this practice called the Ishaya
Ascension, meditation practice. And my God, did
that blow the doors off. That was when I was
18, 2002, a kind of a bridge was formed in a
sense, you know, that like a bridge between now
and some of those experiences at 13 for sure.
that's that's been my whole life was was getting
back to that because i knew just telling people
to go get in a car accident was something in
me knew as soon as i said that said actually
it even told me when right there in the park
is a 13 year old that said oh yeah you're gonna
you're gonna lose this state when the next school
year starts because the purpose of your life
is to teach people like simple methodologies
that they can do to get back get back to that
starting with yourself So I was like, okay. And
so yeah, that's what my Dharma, if you will,
or my vocation has been for 20 some years as
a meditation teacher. And that's what I love,
seeing people without having to get into car
accident. I love seeing people get back in touch
with their original innocence. Get back in touch
with that sort of primordial. Consciousness pure
consciousness whatever word we want to use for
it the pure self with a capital S in that sense
I'm grateful. I remember an early spiritual teacher.
I think she even knew the the details of my life
shit She's she's they were tears like, you know,
your mom kind of had to die for this and it was
her choice and it was a deal that you two made
because otherwise you would have been a very
happy person and a very successful person sort
of outward ways But that's not what you want.
You you want to wake up You know, you want to
experience waking up from the waking dream of
having the ego be the dominant filter over life.
I very much think that was true. If my mom had
lived, I would have enjoyed that and I probably
would have been a happy lawyer somewhere. Ain't
nothing wrong with that at all. Absolutely not.
All lives are beautiful. But yeah, it wasn't
the one. That wasn't the one that was trying
to happen. The deeper one was the mad monk. All
right. I'd like you to leave us with some just
on a really great positive message of hope. And
here's my thought. You had a lot of fear prior
to age 13, fear of a lot of things, but especially
a fear of death. Tell me where that level of
fear is at now. And for those that are feeling
that fear, what message do you have for them
to help alleviate that? I want them to be able
to be filled with love instead of fear. Well,
I'm actually grateful that Some fears came back,
because then I can be sort of a normal person
who's in the trenches of life. Fear of death,
though, no. That one remained conspicuously absent.
But I have to say, just as much as the next person,
I'm not keen on having a great white shark bite
me in half or something like that. I don't necessarily
want to be run over by a London city bus. Yeah,
fear of death is not there. And I'll say, yeah,
you don't have to get into a car accident. I've
seen people who haven't had near -death experiences
touch this what I could call the deathless cut
part of ourselves That there is a part of ourselves
and we've all actually all experienced it if
we've had a and Almost all of us have had a peak
experience as Maslow coined the term In fact,
I say all of us have at the core of the peak
experience and we don't necessarily notice it
at the core of the peak experience is is an immersion
even if it's ever so briefly Into the deathless
part of our own consciousness and when people
systematically just a little bit of time each
day doesn't have to be In an ashram, you know
24 7 or whatever an hour each day could be pretty
robust for most people of touching that deathless
space and It's it's it's a wonder the things
that fall off. It's it's just it's it is a wonder
Including the fear of death. I think actually
other fears are more difficult in a sense though
For most people, I think the other fears are
a little bit more intractable than the fear of
death. But there's a space that knows, not up
here, but in here. Or as Heinlein would say in
Stranger in a Strange Land, there's something
in us that grocks that no matter what happens
to us, we'll be fine. And you can't plug it in
up here. You have to dive into it. You have to
immerse yourself in that gear. Yeah, life has
been very, very different. for me, both in that
period after the NDE and then later. I'll call
it a slow burn NDE of about several years of
lots of meditation. Life changed permanently.
Ishtar, I really enjoyed it. I hope we can do
it again someday. We will do it again someday.
We'll talk again in the future. That'd be lovely.
Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast.
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show, send an email to eric at roundtripdeath
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that you're looking for in this life and the
next.