Blaženko K STEs

Experience Description

I did not have an NDE, but I had two major STEs, or “close encounters with God,” in 1989 and in 1995, when I was 25 and 31.

--- First experience, 1989. ---

Awakening from a dream

In the afternoon of a random day, while sitting on a bench under a large tree in a secluded square of a city center, suddenly and out of the blue I had a strong feeling of awakening, literally as in awakening from sleep. I felt as if I had just awoken, and my whole life before that was but a dream. I also felt that the person experiencing that dream was only a character in a story: transient, ephemeral, and non-substantial; and the “I” that awoke in that moment was not really him. In other words, I awoke into an “I” that was as much more real than him as he is more real than a fictional character in a novel.

The astonishing size of space and time

Next I became extremely aware of the incredible vastness of both space and time, and my exact position in it. I saw how extremely large the universe is. By “saw” I actually mean “felt with my whole being.” “Mind-boggling” would be an understatement. It felt as if my being expanded to the whole of existence, both spatially and temporally. I felt the incredible vastness of the universe with all its galaxies, and the incredible, immeasurable length of time with all its eons, while at the same time feeling the precise position of the present moment and the place I was at in all that vast space and time. Right here, right now, in all that astonishing vastness. I was on this bench at this square of this city in this country on this continent on this planet in this system in this galaxy of all galaxies and the staggering empty space between them; and in this minute of this hour and day of this month in this year of this century of this era. I strongly felt the particularity of that exact place and moment in the context of the whole universe and its history.

Eternal Now

Paradoxically, even though I was witnessing the mind-boggling size of time itself, I clearly saw that in fact there is no time. Or, more precisely, that nothing is passing. It exists, but it is standing still, not coming and not going. All of its eons, eras, millennia, centuries, days, and minutes are in fact just one single moment, and it is the only moment there is. It is the very first moment of existence, it never passed, never passes, and the “next moment” never came and never will.

One

I could also clearly see that everything in that existence is in fact just one thing. Somehow, the infinite multitude of things and beings in existence is an illusion, and everything is in fact some nameless, formless One: single and undivided. And this One is conscious, and it is me. The “I” who awoke from the dream of this life was this One itself.

Omnipresent presence

At some moment, I strongly felt being seen. I became aware that someone, some person, was quietly watching me sit on this bench and have this mind-boggling experience. But this Person was everywhere, in all points of my visual field. Even though they were invisible, they were in fact more visible than anything else. As if they were hidden not behind or inside, but in front of everything, invisible yet more visible than all that was around me.

Father

In a heart-stopping moment, I felt that this omnipresent and everlasting Person is my Father. Father in a literal, human sense. My direct parent, who created me. And He was emanating pure bliss. His blissful smile, which was felt, not seen, is like the shine of a thousand suns. Still, even though I strongly felt that the name of this person was Father, there was nothing patriarchal about Him. In fact, the persona He emanated was of an extremely motherly disposition: warm and loving. Hence, I can fully understand that someone else could experience the same Person as Mother, or as a gender-neutral personage. To me, “Father” was simply what I strongly felt, and that is why I call Him that.

One with Father

The next equally astonishing surprise came soon, when I realized and felt that in fact I am Him. “I am you!” I almost audibly exclaimed, shocked. And perhaps I even did, who knows. And yet, even though we were looking at each other, I felt no paradox in me being Him at the same time, and both of us being one and the same person. After all, I was just fully aware that in reality there is just one thing, which is conscious and therefore also a person, and it is the only person there is.

Love

I also clearly saw that He is love. Again, literally. He simply is Love, and Love is Him. Love is, so to speak, Father in liquid form; the warmth that we feel in our heart when we see a person or a thing we love, or are doing something we love, that warmth is God, silently flowing through our hearts.

It was clear that Love is all there is. Love is literally the material, and the only material, of the universe. There is nothing but Love in the universe; and no one but God, and God and Love are just two names of the same thing, and it is the only thing that exists: The One. And this only thing that exists is also a Person, a person in a very human sense: Father.

Maya, the cloud of worries

Since at that time in my life my spiritual journey had brought me into eastern spirituality, at one moment I asked Father: “From the literature I understood that the world around us is but an illusion, the Maya. But now I see that everything is actually infinitely more real than I ever imagined!” For that was another aspect of the experience: although this life's narrative is but a dream on some level, everything around me was just so present, far more here and present than it feels inside this dream. Maya is a Sanskrit term for the illusion of the world.

To this, Father said: "That’s not Maya. I'll show you what is not real. This is the illusion, this is Maya" and He moved my attention to the multitude of people walking along the alley behind the cathedral which was in front of me at the square. He was very saddened by what He was showing me.

I looked, and people were passing on their way to shops, jobs, schools, and homes, each in their own thoughts. And above the people, there was a thick layer of something, stretching in all directions where there were people, starting from a few meters above their heads and being about a dozen or so meters thick. Something ghastly, a floating layer of permanent spasm, a kind of soul-cramp. Like a smoky dark cloud, but I did not physically see it, so it was not literally dark. I somehow felt it from the inside, like a kind of magnetic field.

I clearly felt that this cloud is made from worries. It was somehow connected to the people under it, and was feeding off their worrying thoughts and emotions, and feeding them back in a vicious loop.

These worries, these imagined futures that worry us, these visualized bad situations in our imagination that put fear in our hearts but we still imagine them, these possibilities that we fear although they have not actually happened, these bad scenarios we churn in our heads; these projections of ours, that is the illusion. It does not exist, because it is only imagined. That is Maya.

---

The scene with the Cloud of Worries was the last part of this experience, and as soon as thoughts, more precisely words and thinking in sentences, started reappearing, the feeling was flying away, unstoppably and fast. Within seconds, I was again just myself sitting on a bench, now only remembering the waking state from a dream, just as we usually remember a dream from the waking state.

--- Second experience, 1995. ---

Intro and context

This time, the experience was not wholly spontaneous. I invited it by sitting in meditation during a certain spiritual crisis, determined not to leave the spot until I got any kind of answer from Father about an issue that was bothering me greatly. I was not in fact practicing any form of meditation at the time; I was just very determined that I would rather die sitting and waiting for an answer than continue my life without it. So I sat there in a park on a lake islet for hours, not moving my body or even my eyes, staring at one point and just waiting. After about four or five hours, it suddenly happened.

Roaring Silence

First, I heard The Silence. I suddenly became aware of some omnipresent and ever-present Silence, inaudible to a normal ear, but actually much more audible and paradoxically louder than all the sounds of the world. It is an absolute, deaf silence, but incredibly loudly silent; there is no other word. Or incredibly silent, but enormously big is another way to describe it. Sounds of the world may be louder than it, but then again the Silence is much larger than the world. It was like suddenly hearing the absolute silence of outer space, beyond the confines of our planet. And yet, just like the invisible Father, this Silence was hidden not behind but in front of all other sounds around me. Only later in life I found out that some eastern schools know of this phenomenon and call it the Roaring Silence.

Wall of Light

At the same time, this Silence felt like some incredibly and indescribably huge Wall of Light. This Silence is the sound of that Wall. And I saw and knew that this Wall of Light was God himself, in his unimaginable and incomprehensible size. I call it a wall because I had an impression of an infinite and vertical surface of light; that is, God, is endlessly larger than the created world. I clearly saw how the physical universe, the same universe whose seemingly incomprehensible size I witnessed and felt directly six years earlier, was but a tiny dark speck on this immeasurable shining expanse which is God. So much greater is the Creator than his creation, or at least than this physical universe.

Playful child who is Father of all beings

After a while I suddenly saw Him again in front of me, again invisible yet visible, and everywhere around me at the same time. And again He was smiling with his incredible shine. But smile is actually not a good term for what I saw this time; a giggle is a more accurate description of what I now felt. It was just like a little child having difficulty restraining its laughter with a hand while playing hide-and-seek when spotted by a third person not playing the game. Because I saw that He saw that I see Him, and I could almost see a finger on His lips, and hear a silent “hihihihi, ssshhh!” This time it did not feel as if we did not see Him by our own mistake; it was as if He was almost intentionally hiding from us in a cheerful and merry game. “Ssshhh! You see me now, but don’t tell anyone!” I could almost hear through this incredibly cheerful, shiny smile and giggle and laughter.

However, this time I did not explicitly feel that I was Him. And since I knew I was looking at the only person there is, I was puzzled as to who I was then. “Who is seeing you then?” I asked in my heart. Instead of an answer, I was suddenly immersed in a strange vision.

Hall of sleepers

Namely, I suddenly found myself on the floor of a large hall, waking up from sleep along with many other people. The hall was full of people lying on the floor, many sleeping, some also waking up. Apparently I had been asleep on the floor, and now I was waking up, just like many of the other people around the hall. And the dream that I was waking up from was my life, this life. I remember being so surprised that it was all but a dream. So this time life turned out to be even more of a dream, literally dreamed while I was lying unconscious. Standing next to me was an extremely cheerful little old man, and at the same time somehow standing next to everyone else without being visually multiplied in my memory, that I immediately knew was my father. Actually, I and everyone else was recognizing him from before the sleep. And as we were waking up and rising from the floor, we were all rising directly into his waiting and loving embrace. And remembering our dreams in this waking moment, regardless of them being just dreams, we were all astounded, suddenly realizing how selfish, arrogant, and stupid we were in our dreamed lives, and especially upon seeing and recognizing the all-good Father, we were terribly ashamed of how badly and selfishly we behaved in the dreamed lives. We wanted to apologize and to cry with shame, but the little old man did not even want to start to listen to our self-loathing moans. He already knew everything about it, and He was shutting us up immediately with an indescribably shining smile that was actually barely holding itself from bursting into laughter, because there was some incredibly great and merry thing, or even a joke, that He had on His mind and could not wait to show us. To the still confused and ashamed us, He was saying, "Hush, I know! I know what you did and want to tell me, but don't worry about that! It’s really all okay. Hush, it's not important, come here, look at THIS!" He totally could not wait for us to stop moaning over our shameful lives; He was in a hurry to show us something much more important, something incredible in the other room, or simply outside of this hall. He was calling and escorting us towards the only door in the hall's walls, in a corner. Behind this door was this incredibly great something He wanted to show us, the beautiful something because of which it did not matter how bad we were in our lives, some fantastic surprise that would instantly erase the sorrow and guilt from our hearts, a magnificent thing that is somehow connected to our dreamed-up lives but in some super-special way that none of us dreamers expects. And this something is so glorious, great, and most of all so much fun that He literally has difficulty restraining Himself from bursting into His incredible, endearing, shiny laughter.

I did not see what it is.

Just before we reached the door, the vision ended and I returned to myself on the lake, sitting stunned and looking at the thin rain falling among the trees.

But I sure cannot wait for the day the dearest Father will show me His thing, the God's unimaginably great incredible cosmic joke.

Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date of NDE: 1989

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? No

How do you consider the content of your experience? Entirely pleasant

Did you feel separated from your body? I lost awareness of my body

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? From the very first moment, when I 'awoke from a dream', and equally till the very end.
My normal everyday consciousness was/is clearly only a kind of dream of the higher consciousness into which I awoke.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness? More consciousness and alertness than normal

Were your thoughts speeded up? No

Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning
Just as the answer says, everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning.

Were your senses more vivid than usual? No

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience There was nothing different. Although in the first experience, there was a feeling of it happening - and my 'self' being - somewhere above my body, and that the 'fictional' Blaženko character 'fell off me' somewhere below, nothing in fact changed in my visual field. I didn't literally left my body (as in OBE), I was still seeing everything around me through the eyes of that body.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience No difference in the first experience. In second, I was able to hear this 'hidden' Roaring Silence. But as for the sounds of the world around me, also no difference.

Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere? No

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? No

Did you see any beings in your experience? No

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased beings? No

Did you see or feel surrounded by a brilliant light? An unusually bright light

Did you see an unearthly light? Yes
I saw that the Universe is a small dark drop in an infinite 'ocean' of light, which is God. Except the 'ocean' was flat and vertical, which is why I'm calling it 'wall of light'

Did you seem to enter another world? No

What emotions did you feel during the experience? Main emotions would be: exhilaration at experiencing something I've only read about before that; astonishment at he 'real size' of space and time; joy at seeing my Father and how much he loves us; sadness at how selfish and stupid I was in the dream dreamt on the hall floor.

Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness? Incredible peace or pleasantness

Did you have a feeling of joy? Incredible joy

Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe? I felt united or one with the world

Did you suddenly understand everything? No

Did scenes from your past come back? No

Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure? No

Did you come to a border or point of no return? No

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Other or several faiths
I was born and raised in a 'standard' Catholic family of believers and occasional church-goers, who were respecting major Catholic rites, but not very religious past that. Although I did go to Sunday school as a kid, in my early teens I already became an atheist, realizing the emptiness of the rites and inconsistencies of what priests were teaching us with their behavior and the Church's history. This changed when I read Dr. Moody's 'Life After Life' book in my late teens, which was new then, and understood that there is life after death after all, and especially that what we do in life affects that afterlife (i.e. importance of being a good person). This sent me on a journey of studying the teachings of all major religions, while I also never felt a need to 'belong' any one of them.

Have your religious practices changed? No

What is your religion now? Other or several faiths
I belong to, nor practice, no particular religion. For my main beliefs, my own (described) experiences are 'alpha and omega' of things I believe. In fact, those things I don’t consider belief at all – this is what I KNOW. Apart from those, about details of everything 'between' my earthly asleep self and the ultimate level of existence (God) which I experienced, and in regard to sources and teachings outside of my own experiences, I mainly tend to believe things that Emanuel Swedenborg experienced and wrote about; but I don't belong to the 'New Church', i.e. organized form of his following, either. But his descriptions of God, His reality and persona, most closely match my experiences; and things he says about how various levels of existence (spiritual worlds) 'function' make most sense to me of all spiritual literature and teachings that I researched throughout life.

Did your experience include features consistent with your earthly beliefs? Content that was both consistent and not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience
Everything being One, everything being Love, eternal moment... those were things I read about and 'knew' (in a weak sense) before, but it was great experiencing just HOW TRUE those 'commonplaces' are. The greatest surprise, and the thing that was most inconsistent with previous beliefs was God being my/our father. Even though by the time of the first experience I already researched all major religions, and have read Bible, Koran, Vedas, Gita, buddhist Sutras etc, I never really 'resonated' with abrahamic religions, and their image of personal God, let alone of the idea of God the Father. With time, I was much more into eastern schools, Buddhism, and especially Zen. I was sure that the western idea of God as a person was just an approximation of Brahman, for 'less spiritual' western minds. Therefore I was shocked to learn that God really is (also) a person, even if His own reality is much more than that. And especially that this Person really IS our father, in a quite human sense.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes
Not really in values, because I was already on spiritual path, but for beliefs, knowledge of Father and His presence was definitely a change in how I looked at world afterwards.

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? I encountered a definite being, or a voice clearly of mystical or unearthly origin
I met/saw/felt God, under a 'name' Father. I have no qualms calling him God, because I saw that this Person is just a personal aspect of One; in other words the Ultimate Reality, the only 'thing' and person there (really) is. All other beings, persons and things are just content of this Ultimate Consciousness' mind.

Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)? No

During your experience, did you gain information about premortal existence? Yes
Not specific information, but in the hall of sleepers I definitely 'remembered' Father from before the dream; meaning there must have been a time before I fell into sleep; even though I didn't (or didn't have enough time to) remember it.

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? Yes
I witnessed the oneness itself, loud and clear, when I saw that everything and everyone in fact is just One.

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? Yes
What we call God is the conscious aspect of the Ultimate Reality. Not only God exists, He is the ONLY person who really really exists. It is we who exist only relatively and not substantially.

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes
Pretty much every aspect of the experiences was a kind of special knowledge.

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? Yes
In the hall of sleepers, Father was impatient to show us the real purpose of life, which will incredibly pleasantly surprise us when we see it. Since I didn't get to see what it was, I have no specific information, but I definitely have the awareness that there is - even a specific - purpose to life.

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? Yes
In the first experience I knew that I am in fact One/God and therefore eternal by definition. In the second experience, earthly life proved to be literally just a dream, from which we wake up; and God is beside us all throughout the 'sleep'. Even if that scene (hall of sleepers, and Father standing beside us) was just a symbolic representation, I am positive that what it is communicating is true. We are dreaming this life in a sense, and we will definitely wake up from it (and continue life 'there'), and God is always with us, even if he's not really an 'little old man' standing next to a sleeper.

Did you gain information about how to live our lives? Uncertain
Not sure if I forgot to mention or describe something else

During your experience, did you gain information about life's difficulties, challenges and hardships? Yes
Only insofar that it will all become irrelevant the moment we see what it was all about.

During your experience, did you gain information about love? Yes
Yes, on the 'level zero' of reality, Love is literally all there is. Everything is even MADE from love, although it's impossible to comprehend from our earthly perspective.

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Moderate changes in my life
One might think that after having seen the Cloud of Worries and its abomination, and the unnecessaryness of worries, I would no longer have a single worry in life; but it’s not that easy. It still took me decades of life experience, combined with this knowledge (about the superfluity of worry), for this knowledge to bear fruit. Fortunately, over time it did, and I can say that today worry is a very rare phenomenon in my spiritual and emotional life. But I remember the Father's constant presence much better and it hasn't left my mind since then. The knowledge of it colors my view of life and during the day I turn to the Father many times because I know that He is here, and that He hears and sees me.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? No

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes
Although I am forced to write out - and even remember - various aspects of the experience in a succession, it was all happening at the same time' in a really timeless context.

How accurately do you remember the experience in comparison to other life events that occurred around the time of the experience? I remember the experience more accurately than other life events that occurred around the time of the experience

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? No

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes
After about 10 years from the first experience, I wrote a lengthy description of both experiences, and I was sharing it occasionally with particular people when I felt they may understand or appreciate it. I avoided sharing it, verbally or in written form with people who will discard it as hallucinations etc.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience? Yes
As described in one answer above, finding about NDEs was exactly what moved me from atheist to a believer, about 6-7 years before the first experience. It started with Dr. Moody's seminal book, and after that I was reading other published NDE accounts when I could get some. I didn't have access to Internet by the time of 1st experience, so books were the only source. The knowledge did not affect my experiences, they were both too direct to be influenced by anything.

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was definitely real
From the first moment after the first experience and to this day I considered what I experienced not only real, but the most real things I ever experienced. As to why, the sense of being 'thrown' into a level of reality compared to which this here is but a dream was so strong it's beyond a shred of doubt.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real
Answered in previous point.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes
Not as a whole, and never so strongly, but in years after the second experience I had a 'psychonautic' phase in life, whereby I was experimenting with various psychedelic substances, not for fun but to research consciousness. Sometimes, in psychedelic trips I was able to see Father present in the picture, shining and blissful as ever. Most often, it would be a cheerful 'Hey, I see you!', to which he would merrily 'wink' (in feeling) 'Yep! Long time no see! Enjoy your trip son' :)

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience? Yes