This other being was much larger and more powerful than I was. I felt no fear of it. There was only a complete acceptance of the rightness of the moment; I knew I was safe and loved. I only felt more curious. I wanted to understand what was happening to me. I wanted to know this powerful "other self" that held me.

DEATH:   My breathing slowed, I could hear my heart beat slowing, then it became erratic. I wasn't worried about anyone finding me too soon. I lived alone and it was Friday night. The hallucinations stopped. I couldn't get my thoughts together. They wandered without purpose. I was too relaxed to care. My eyes fell shut. I couldn't open them. I quit trying to open them. I quit trying to do anything. I quit on life.  I died.

Let me make this perfectly plain. I killed myself. I died.   I did not "almost" die. I did not "only think" I died.  The part of me that animates my body was detached from it. There was no power to make that body function. We call that dead.  I know I was dead.

There was a feeling, an awareness, of something like a tiny "click", a pull like a cork, a release like the tension taken off a spring, as I "died". The body let go of me or I let go of it.

I knew I was "dead". If you have ever handled a dead body you know something you can't describe is gone from it. If you have seen anyone die you know the difference between a live body and a dead one. I have done both those things.   I was dead.

That's a bold statement but I stand by it. I knew I had succeeded in killing myself. I hear you asking, "OK, if you were dead how did you know you were dead?"  The answer is what I have been trying to share with each person I think this experience might help. It is, to me, the point of sharing this story.

I did not "die". You will not "die."  My body was dead. "I" was still alive. I knew it then, and know it now, as a truth.  My body stopped working. The self I am did not.  I lived.

LIFE:  It was quiet; Complete silence. There was no apartment noise, no neighbor noise, no traffic noise, not even body noises - nothing. I liked that, it was so peaceful.

There was darkness all around me. In that darkness I was even more aware of the complete peace of the silence. It confused me that I was aware. I knew silence, dark and the meaning of the words. I knew they were words to describe something. I knew I was thinking them. I also knew that "I" was "moving" through that dark peace. I felt no air over skin, I saw no markers, I heard no sound of passing but I felt I was going somewhere.

I continued on for what seemed a very short time in elapsed time. I had a million thoughts as I went. Having time for so many thoughts made it seem like it should have been a longer time. That I had thoughts confused me. I tried to understand what was happening to me. "I" was still "me". I was, apparently, alive. I could not see myself. I could not raise my hand to look at it, but I was something - I still felt like "myself."

I was still thinking and feeling - but not in a body. I was moving without legs. I couldn't see any part of myself so I assumed I had no legs, no hands, no arms, no feet or anything you would normally look at to see if it was there. I felt surprise and wonder. I knew the meaning of those thoughts, too. I floated "higher" or further. I lack a better word for the sensation or the direction. Still, I knew I was moving to someplace. There are no words that describe it well. I moved toward some other place from where I was. I was drawn there, not going there. It was not my power that moved me.

I was no longer in my body. I knew I was not on this planet. I knew that "I" was not dead, not the way we mean the word. I was not un-alive, not unaware. I was "dead", had no body I could see, but I knew I lived. I just didn't know why or how. I couldn't figure it out. I felt alive but I knew I was dead in our way of believing in death. I probably can't explain it better than that. To discover that I was not dead , when I had just killed myself left the me confused and amazed. A thought came to me. For one moment I was so sad my children and my mother would be grieved by my death. I regretted the pain my death would cause the family.

Then something changed in me. That sad thought faded away and I was overcome by a deeply peaceful joy. It was like I left all the cares and concerns that are so much a part of us with my body. They were gone from me. It was a healing of my heart and a removal of my pain and grief so complete I felt it like a rock was lifted from me. I was all done with the responsibilities we create here for the living. I had no fears, no shame, no pain, no broken heart, no thing left to do. I was released. I didn't have to pay the bills or go to work ever again.  All the hurt I knew in life was gone from me. I had no responsibility toward others now. They would be loved and cared for still. I would always love them. I had no shame or sadness that I had hurt them. It was gone from me and I was filled with the comfort of knowing they would be cared for.

I was filled with joy by that knowing. It was a joy that was real. I could have danced it, sang it. I had NO emotional pain, no physical hurts. What I had seen as terrible pain, shame, grief and lack of love on this earth were no longer were hurting me. They had no effect on me anymore. I felt only the JOY of the release from the pain, the shame, the feeling that I could never take care of the ones I loved right. It was all lifted from me. 

How much of my life's pain was of my creating and how much of it was from others didn't matter anymore. Not one thought of what I believed was bad in my life hurt me. I could not feel a pain anywhere. I tried to remember the things that made me chose death and could not feel the pain of them. Like sitting down a heavy load after a time of holding it up, I was released from the pain of everything that ever hurt me. If I had had a way to do so I would have cried with the joy of it. I was Free!

Even though I knew these things had happened, I had the memories, I could not feel any hurt or shame in myself. It was such a relief! That pure joy filled me up. I can't tell you how wonderful that feeling is with words. I can only repeat myself trying.

Bliss; It's a small word. I think it is one we only feel here like a shadow of what it really means. Anyone who has ever been hurt and had the medicine take effect to stop the pain knows the relief that "absence of pain" can be. Something that to many here is not even a reality to be lost, just the lack of pain, is a treasure to someone who hurts.

When I began this I was in a deep, black heart hurt clear to my bones and now I was freed of that and bliss is the only word that even whispers of the feeling in me as the pain not only was stopped, but removed. The pain was gone and all threat of pain in my heart or body was gone. No one could hurt me again, not even me! I could hurt no one again, ever! I was so comforted! I didn't hurt anymore. I was at peace in myself. Finally, I knew the meaning of peace in my heart. I believe it was the first touch of the Love and Grace reaching out to me.

As this feeling passed through me I saw, off to my right, a golden glow, a light in the darkness, like a city's lights on the night sky. It lit the way for me. The light was shining, just over there from me.

I say "I saw" but I had no eyes. It's another confusion with words and concepts I can't say well here. But I could see the golden light. It was like a candle behind a gauze curtain. Muted, but against the darkness, showing a vivid brightness.

I turned to face it but I had no face. I had no body I could turn. But I did what felt like turning to face it.

I looked toward it, wanting to be there and not alone in the dark. I was moved. Instead of feeling like I was moving toward it all of a sudden I was just there. Like the transporter on Star Trek; first you are here, then you are there. I arrived.   The curtain effect was gone. The light was crisp and bright now. I felt like I belonged. I was in the right place now. Whatever this place was it was where I was supposed to be. There was no fear, only curiosity and yearning.

In front of me was an opening in a barrier built of golden light. It appeared to be a low wall, that ran in front of me. It seemed to be built of glowing, golden rocks. Like a stone wall with a small opening for a gate it seemed to me. It was a border, not a defensive wall, it seemed. Too low for protection it just marked the boundary of what ever place this was.

I was aware of another, smaller "glow" behind me and to my left, on the same side of the barrier as I was. It stood between me and the dark I had come from. I didn't know what it was. It felt like a protector is the closest I can come. The being who stood behind me felt like it had my back, if I had one still. I never saw this one very well. It wasn't much larger than me, but it felt bigger and stronger.

Beyond the opening and over the top of that barrier I could see an immense, golden, glowing globe shape that seemed "way over there." I don't think it was a far distance but I had no way to measure. I just knew it was "over there" and I was "over here". It was golden and white with the light it gave off. It seemed huge yet far away.

There were more glowing globes, smaller ones, that gave off their light in the distance. There were some at the rear of the base of the large one, in a cluster or group. They were right up next to it but not part of it.

I saw some more "glowing globe shapes" off to my left. It was like a line of them approaching the largest sphere. They appeared to be different sizes, but that could have been distance. There was no way for me to know that, either. I had no concept of my own size except in relation to things appearing smaller or larger than I seemed to be. All these words are comparative, not absolutes. I had no way to judge.

It felt as if I remained by the place I call the gate for a short moment, taking it all in and processing it. Suddenly, I changed position. Again, I did not feel the movement of the change, only that the power that moved me was not mine. I went from where I was to another position without willing it myself. Something besides me moved me. I can't think of a better way to say it.