El's NDE Experience and Not Wanting to Return to Earth

Some weeks ago -- I believe it was in late March -- I had a very interesting conversation with my friend Bob.  Bob is interested in all things theological and spiritual.  At one point in the conversation, Bob told me he hoped that reincarnation didn't exist, because he never wanted to return to Earth.  And in my great surprise, I told him that I had had the exact same thought over the years, and I said in a half-joking manner that if we ever came face to face with God that we "should ask to be designated for assignment somewhere else," rather than come back to Earth.

Then I watched an episode of Jeff Mara's podcast.  In this episode, Jeff interviews El Serumaga.  El experienced a profound near-death experience while in a coma.  Among her many fascinating observations from her NDE:

- Everything alive is conscious, including plants.

- That Earth is a sort of "boot camp" for the soul.

- Thoughts on extraterrestrial life and their interactions with humanity.

- El gaining psychic abilities through her experience.

- That humanity is living in a dystopian existence right now.

Then I read some of the YouTube comments from others who also listened to the interview, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the conversation Bob and I had several weeks earlier.  From "Jennifer":

"My 15 year old nephew told me today that he knew when he was 13 that this earth was a terrible place. He says he's not going to have children (his 19 year old sister says same). And, he says he's not going to come back here (reincarnation). I think a lot of us are waking up to the fact that this is a prison planet."

On a somewhat more humorous note, there was this comment from "Amy":

"In my humble opinion, the Earth is basically like that Summer Camp we all went to with the runny oatmeal, the cold dorm rooms and scratchy blankets complete with the instructor that had not yet realized he was no longer in the Marines. I wonder if on the Other Side they advertise Earth with glossy photo images like they use in pharma commercials with scenes with strolling on the beach with a loving partner at sunrise and a happy puppy and a shiny SUV in the background for good measure."

All of this brings up a fascinating yet disturbing possibility: if our souls existed before our births, is it possible that a lot of us were duped or misled into coming to Earth in the first place? If coming to Earth was necessary for our spiritual growth, is it possible that there were spiritual entities that convinced us to come here without fully explaining the disappointments and trials and grief we would encounter, knowing that we would likely decline the offer to come here if we knew?  Until now I never had even conceptualized of such a possibility.  On the surface, I know this sounds like a ludicrous and far-out concept, but sometimes I just have to wonder.

As a counterpoint, some people in the comments mentioned that life on Earth in itself is not miserable, but that many of the people who hold huge amounts of wealth and/or power make it miserable for everyone else.

Anyway, if you're a believer in NDEs, I strongly encourage you to watch Jeff's interview with El in its entirety.  I do think that listening to stories such as El's can give us reassurance about the life that is to come for us and our deceased loved ones. Jeff is a wonderful interviewer with his calm and inquisitive demeanor, asking relevant questions while allowing his guests to talk without interruption.  And El tells her story with such thoughtfulness and genuineness and sweetness -- it's just an amazing interview all the way around.

Personal Musings: Brian D. Smith's Podcast & Amy Call's NDE

I was listening to the Grief 2 Growth Podcast -- I think it was a little over a month ago -- when I heard Brian, the host, speculate on how we humans have such a limited perspective on our own troubles and sorrows in life:

"Because when we’re going through life, these traumas seem insurmountable. They seem permanent. They seem like we’re not going to be able to endure them. So we would say why would I in my right mind, choose this type of trauma, this type of tragedy. And I heard this teaching, it was actually frankly, after my daughter Shayna had passed away....So the question then becomes why? Why would I choose to endure this type of trauma? Why do I choose to endure this type of pain?....I would never choose things like cancer, I would never choose things like death of a loved one, those types of things I would never choose. But then that’s just a matter of degree. And I think about people, I really think of us ourselves as kind of like toddlers in some very real ways we as even as adults, as we think we’re all grown up. And if you look at a toddler, and a toddler falls to the ground, so they skinned their knee. And as an adult, we look at them, we see them, they scream, and they moan. And they're like, it’s the end of the world, like they broke their leg, like they’re never gonna walk again. And we kind of smile at them. We ....empathize with their pain, but we know it’s going to be okay. Because it’s relative, we realize that that scrape on the leg is not that bad. But for a toddler, if that’s all they’ve ever known, they think this is terrible. Similarly, if we tell our young ones.... we’re going to go somewhere, we’re gonna go to the movies, but we’re not going to go today, we can’t go today, we’re gonna go tomorrow. For them tomorrow is just never gonna come. It’s the end of the world again. So it’s a matter of degrees and the way that we take things, I believe, when we’re in these bodies, we look at the tragedies in the world. And we look at things like the death of a loved one. And we say, No, this is too much. A good and loving God would never allow this to happen. I as an intelligent human being, would never choose for this to happen. But what if you had a higher perspective? What if you knew that this thing that happened to you is only temporary is only going to hurt for a little while. And what if you knew [that what happened] to you is going to make you a better person?" 

You can read the whole transcript of that episode and/or listen to it here. When I heard Brian explain this concept, it reminded me of reading something similar somewhere else, namely, Amy Call's recollection of her near-death experience.  You can read about her entire experience at the NDERF website here. (For those of you not familiar, NDERF is short for the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation).  I have found Amy's NDE one of the more insightful and profound I have read to date.  She relays a lot of thought-provoking information concerning Spirit Guides, people who die with addictions, people who commit suicide, and so forth.  The relevant excerpt from her experience:

"It was actually comical at moments. I could feel how the 'Elders' as I will call them (these are those who are Helpers on the Other Side who have Mastered themselves in many or all ways, and help work with us) see us and find so much humor in the way we do things. (Humor is so valued, there!!) It might seem brutally annoying to consider when we are in the midst of a great argument or drama that is playing out in our lives, that the Elders view these things very much like when a mother sees her two-year-old scream and cry and bop another child on the head with a stuffed animal. The mother doesn't want her child to fall apart, become hysterical and cry. She feels for her child, but at the same time, she sees a little bit of comedy in how seriously the child takes what is usually a trivial drama. She continues to love her child and thinks the world of it, hoping it will go on enjoying the day, living and learning."

After reading Brian's and Amy's words, I'm left to wonder: are so many of us, myself included, so mired and stuck in our grief that we've lost all sense of perspective?  Or maybe we've just forgotten what is so obvious over the course of our lives: things that seemed like an awfully big deal to us when we were younger don't carry much importance anymore.  Certainly there were issues in my personal life that used to cause me a great deal of sadness and disappointment -- now, I don't give them much thought anymore.  Maybe the same is true of our grief, albeit over a longer time span.  Maybe when we leave this earthly life behind, we will come to realize that the grief and sadness we carry with us now will fade away, because we will be fully present and tuned in to the opportunities of our new post-earthly lives.