Yury STE

Experience Description

In June 2012, when I was 35 years old, I traveled to Egypt with a small group of people. For about five years before that trip, I had been interested in meditation and various esoteric practices. I was also a businessman with a family and children, so this spiritual interest existed alongside a normal everyday life.

For about six months before the trip, I had been studying ancient Egyptian mythology and mystical traditions. The trip was planned as a ten-day journey through different temples and ancient sites, ending with a special visit to the Great Pyramid of Giza on June 22. By about June 19, after several days of travel, fasting, and meditation, I had not experienced anything particularly unusual. I remember actually feeling disappointed.

That day, we entered the Great Pyramid. There were very few people inside. I lay for a short time in the stone sarcophagus while members of our group placed their hands on me. I expected some kind of unusual experience, but nothing happened.

Later that same day, we visited an underground archaeological or temple complex near the pyramids. While there, I suddenly began to feel very unwell. It was extremely hot outside, but this felt different from ordinary heat. I became weak and physically heavy and returned to our minibus. About an hour later, I was taken back to our hotel near the pyramids.

At the hotel, my temperature was measured. As far as I remember, it was around 40°C, possibly a little higher. I had never experienced such a high fever before. The fever did not seem to respond to medication. I became nauseous and developed severe diarrhea. I remember that my stool became extremely black, almost completely black. I may also have vomited something dark, although I am less certain about that detail because fourteen years have passed. I was barely eating, and the condition continued for many hours, possibly close to a full day.

At that time, there was serious political unrest in Egypt, and I believed that access to normal emergency medical care was very limited. I remembered a friend who had once become critically ill from an intestinal infection and had developed organ failure. He survived only after receiving urgent hospital treatment. Because of this, I became convinced that something similar might be happening to me.

At some point, I genuinely believed that I was dying. I called my mother in Moscow, then my wife, and said goodbye to them. I do not think they understood how seriously I believed this.

After I accepted the possibility that I might die, my state of consciousness changed completely. It felt as if I had entered another space or another layer of reality. This is difficult to describe because it did not feel like a dream or something I imagined. In fact, one of the strongest features of the experience was that this other reality felt more real than ordinary physical reality. Looking back now, the closest description I can give is that our normal physical world seemed like a surface image or outer layer, while what I was experiencing felt deeper and more fundamental.

I became aware of people close to me in a very unusual way. I perceived something like a blue flame in each person. I often describe it as being in the chest, but I do not mean that I literally saw a physical flame inside the body with my normal eyes. It was more like another kind of perception or vision.

The most important part is that the blue flame in me and the blue flame in another person were not two similar flames. They were the same flame. This distinction is very important to me. I was not thinking that all people contain something similar. I experienced it as literally the same underlying reality. At some level, the other person was me, and I was the other person.

Our bodies, personalities, personal histories, fears, desires, and identities seemed to be outer layers. Underneath them, there was something that was not separate. The blue flame was experienced as love, but the word "love" is too limited for what I experienced. It was not romantic love, attachment, affection, or even the strongest love I had previously experienced toward my family. It felt absolute, unlimited, and overwhelming. I had never experienced anything like it before, and I have never experienced anything of the same intensity in ordinary consciousness since.

During the experience, I understood this love as God. I did not experience God as a separate person or being outside us. God seemed to be this love itself. The blue flame, the love, and the deepest part of each person all seemed to be the same thing. The love was also present everywhere around me. The entire space seemed to be filled with it.

There was a powerful sense that separation between people existed only at the surface level. This was when I suddenly understood the biblical phrase, "Love your neighbor as yourself," in a completely different way. Before this experience, I had understood it as a moral instruction to treat another person as well as you treat yourself. During the experience, it seemed almost literal. I understood that your neighbor is, at some deeper level, yourself.

I cannot explain this logically. It was not an intellectual conclusion. It was directly experienced. The deepest reality in another person felt identical to the deepest reality in me. The body and personality seemed like outer coverings. The blue flame, this love, seemed much more fundamental. Because the same flame was present in everyone, the distinction between "me" and "another person" no longer seemed absolute.

At the same time, I had another very strong realization. I felt that I understood the purpose of human life. Again, this was not a philosophical conclusion. During the experience, it simply seemed obvious. The purpose seemed to be to allow this love to pass from one person to another.

I sometimes describe it as love moving from one blue flame to another, although even that description is imperfect because I experienced the flames as fundamentally one. It was more like allowing love to move freely through us and between us. At that moment, I could not see any deeper purpose to life than this. Everything else seemed secondary.

At the same time, I perceived another unusual image. Around what I understood as my personality or ego, I saw a yellow structure. It looked something like a honeycomb or a complicated maze. This is not simply a metaphor I created afterward. During the experience, I actually perceived this yellow maze, although not with ordinary physical vision.

I immediately understood that it represented my ego or personality. It seemed to contain my fears, self-interest, pride, resentment, dishonesty, desire for approval, attempts to control other people, and other psychological patterns. The love seemed to enter this maze and become distorted inside it. Instead of moving freely and directly from one person to another, it became tangled in these structures.

I then became very aware of aspects of my own behavior that I did not like. I saw my own dishonesty, indirectness, self-interest, and manipulation in relationships. I started crying. I felt ashamed and began asking people for forgiveness. This did not feel like punishment or judgment. The overwhelming quality of the experience remained love. From within that state, however, much of ordinary human behavior seemed unnecessary and almost absurd. I remember thinking, in effect, that if another person is fundamentally the same as you, then who are you really deceiving or fighting?

Another major part of the experience was that my fear of death disappeared. Only a few hours earlier, I had been frightened enough to call my family and say goodbye. During the experience, I was no longer afraid.

I am not claiming that I learned exactly what happens after death. I did not. But death no longer seemed frightening. What I was experiencing felt much larger than my physical body and much larger than my individual personality. There was no fear in that state. There was love, unity, and a sense of extraordinary beauty.

At the same time, I remember clearly that I did not want to remain in that state permanently. I had a family, children, and a life to return to. So the fear of death disappeared, but my desire to live remained.

The experience lasted for several hours, perhaps two, three, or four. I cannot reconstruct the exact duration after so many years. Then it gradually ended.

Another part of the event that I still find difficult to explain is that my fever also resolved. By June 22, I was able to get up, eat breakfast, and participate in the planned visit to the pyramid. I still felt weak, but the severe illness seemed to have passed very quickly.

After returning home, the experience had a major effect on my worldview. Before Egypt, I had been interested in gaining unusual spiritual abilities and in various esoteric practices. After the experience, much of that suddenly seemed unimportant. I got rid of many of my amulets and other esoteric objects.

I became much more interested in understanding the nature of consciousness, identity, and separation between people. Later, I discovered Advaita Vedanta and read authors such as Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi. Some of their descriptions of non-separation and the nature of the individual self seemed remarkably close to what I had experienced.

Eventually, I moved away from intensive spiritual practice because I did not want to withdraw from ordinary life. I had a family, children, business responsibilities, and a life I wanted to continue living.

Fourteen years have now passed, but the memory of this experience remains unusually vivid. I still think about it and continue to understand different aspects of it in new ways.

The hardest part to explain is the difference between saying, "Everyone had a similar blue flame," and saying, "It was the same blue flame." The second description is much closer to what I experienced.

I am not claiming to know objectively what happened. I was physically very ill, with a high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. There may have been an infection, dehydration, or another physiological cause. I am open to neurological and psychological explanations.

I am also interested in whether similar experiences have been described by other people during severe illness or near-death situations. The specific features I would most like to compare with other experiences are the direct experience that another person was somehow the same underlying "self"; the perception of a single blue flame or essence shared by different people; the experience of this essence as absolute love and as God; and the realization that "love your neighbor as yourself" seemed literally true because the other person was experienced as oneself at a deeper level.

I would also like to compare the sense that the purpose of human life was to allow this love to move freely between people; the perception of the ego as a structure that distorted or blocked this love; the feeling that this other reality was more real than normal physical reality; and the complete disappearance of fear of death while still retaining a desire to live.

I would be very interested to hear from researchers or other experiencers who have encountered something similar.

Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date of NDE: 06/22/2012

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Uncertain
I was experiencing a very high fever, around 40°C by my recollection, severe nausea, diarrhea and extremely black stool. The symptoms continued for many hours and medication did not appear to reduce the fever. I had very limited access to medical care and became convinced that I might be dying. I called my mother and my wife to say goodbye. However, there was no medical evaluation at the time, so I cannot know whether my condition was objectively life-threatening.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Both pleasant AND distressing

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? After I had accepted that I might be dying and the experience of another reality began. My awareness felt clearest during the period when I perceived the blue flame, the unity between people, the overwhelming love, and the yellow maze-like structure around my personality.
My awareness felt clearer, deeper, and more direct than in normal life. I was not thinking faster; instead, I seemed to understand things immediately without reasoning. The experience felt more real and more fundamental than ordinary waking consciousness.

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
Time seemed to disappear completely. I did not experience it as moving faster or slower. It felt as if I had entered a reality outside of time, where ordinary chronological time simply did not exist.

Were your senses more vivid than usual? Incredibly more vivid

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience My perception was far more vivid than normal vision, but it did not feel like ordinary physical eyesight. I perceived a blue flame associated with people and a yellow honeycomb or maze-like structure around my personality. This seemed to be perceived through a different kind of vision or awareness. The entire experience felt more real and more fundamental than ordinary physical reality.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience I do not remember any significant change in my hearing. The unusual aspects of the experience were primarily visual, emotional, and a form of direct awareness or understanding rather than auditory.

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? Yes
I became aware of living people close to me, but not as deceased spirits or separate supernatural beings. I perceived them in an unusual way, as if their physical bodies and personalities were only an outer layer. What seemed most real was a blue flame or essence associated with each person. Most importantly, these flames did not feel separate; they seemed to be the same underlying reality.

Did you see or feel surrounded by a brilliant light? No

Did you see an unearthly light? Yes
I perceived a blue flame associated with people. It did not seem like ordinary physical light and I did not see it with normal eyesight. It felt like another kind of perception. The blue flame was experienced as absolute love and, during the experience, I understood it as God. Most importantly, the flame in different people did not seem separate; it felt like the same single flame.

Did you seem to enter another world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm
It felt like another layer of reality rather than a physical place. The people I knew were still somehow present, but I perceived them in a completely different way. This reality felt more fundamental, more vivid, and more real than ordinary physical life, almost as if our normal world were only a surface image or outer layer. It also seemed to exist outside ordinary time.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? I felt overwhelming, unconditional love, extraordinary peace, unity, beauty, and complete absence of fear, including fear of death. At the same time, I felt deep shame and sadness when I became aware of my own dishonesty, selfishness, and the ways my ego distorted my relationships with other people. I cried and felt a strong need to ask for forgiveness. These painful emotions existed within an overwhelming sense of love and acceptance.

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? Everything about myself or others
I suddenly felt that I understood something fundamental about myself and other people: that our separate personalities were only an outer layer, while at a deeper level we shared the same underlying reality. I understood this as love, and during the experience I understood this love as God. I also felt that the purpose of human life was to allow this love to move freely between people, while the ego distorted or blocked it.

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? I came to a definite conscious decision to return to life
I did not encounter a physical border or barrier. The experience was extraordinarily beautiful and I was no longer afraid of death, but I clearly felt that I did not want to remain there. I wanted to return because I had a family, children, and a life here.

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Other or several faiths
At the time I was not committed to a specific organized religion. For about five years I had been involved in various esoteric and mystical practices, including meditation and other spiritual practices. I was also studying ancient Egyptian mythology and mystical traditions before the trip. After the experience, my interest in esoteric practices changed significantly, and I later became interested in Advaita Vedanta because some of its descriptions seemed very close to what I had experienced.

Have your religious practices changed? Yes
Yes. Before the experience I was deeply involved in esoteric practices and was interested in developing unusual abilities and influencing reality. After the experience, these goals suddenly seemed superficial and unimportant. I got rid of my amulets and many of my previous esoteric practices. I came to feel that the real spiritual work was not about gaining special powers, but about reducing the distortions of the ego and allowing love to be expressed more directly between people. Later I became interested in Advaita Vedanta because some of its descriptions of non-separation were very close to what I had experienced.

What is your religion now? Other or several faiths
Currently I do not belong to any specific organized religion. After the experience I became interested in Advaita Vedanta because some of its descriptions seemed very close to what I had experienced. I later moved away from formal spiritual practice, but the experience continues to influence how I think about consciousness, love, life, and death.

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
Before the experience I already believed that consciousness and reality might be more complex than ordinary material life, because I had been involved in meditation and esoteric practices for several years. In that sense, the experience was partly consistent with my previous interests. However, its actual content was very different from what I expected. I had been interested in gaining unusual abilities and becoming more spiritually powerful. After the experience, those goals seemed unimportant. The central message of unity, love, and the ego as an obstacle was not what I had gone to Egypt expecting.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? Yes
My values changed significantly after the experience. Before it, I was strongly interested in esoteric practices, unusual abilities, and becoming more spiritually powerful. Afterward, those goals suddenly seemed unimportant. I became much more focused on love, honesty, the nature of consciousness, and the relationship between people. The experience also greatly reduced my fear of death and changed how I understood the meaning of life.

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? No

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? No

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? Yes
Yes. This was one of the strongest parts of the experience. I perceived a blue flame in myself and in other people, but these were not separate or merely similar flames. They felt like the same single flame, the same underlying reality. At the deepest level, the distinction between 'me' and 'another person' seemed to disappear.

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? Yes
I did not encounter God as a separate being or person. I experienced God as infinite, all-pervading love. The blue flame that I perceived in myself and in other people was this love, and the same love seemed to be everywhere around me. During the experience, I understood this love itself as God.

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes
I had a strong sense of direct knowledge rather than intellectual understanding. I felt that I understood the fundamental unity between people, the nature of love, and the purpose of human life. This knowledge felt self-evident during the experience.

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? Yes
I understood that the only true purpose of human life was to allow this love to flow freely from one person to another. It felt as if a direct channel of love could exist between people when the ego did not interfere. During the experience, this seemed to be the only real purpose of life. Everything else appeared secondary. This did not feel like a philosophical idea or belief; it felt like direct knowledge.

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? Yes
During the experience I understood that death was not the end of existence. I did not see a specific afterlife or receive details about what happens after death, but I experienced existence as something much greater than the physical body and individual personality. I felt with complete certainty that there was no reason to fear death.

Did you gain information about how to live our lives? No

During your experience, did you gain information about life's difficulties, challenges and hardships? Yes
I perceived a yellow honeycomb- or maze-like structure around what I understood as my personality or ego. I understood that fear, pride, self-interest, dishonesty, resentment, and other aspects of the ego distorted or blocked the natural flow of love between people. It seemed that love was always present, but the structures of personality interfered with its free expression.

During your experience, did you gain information about love? Yes
Love was the central reality of the entire experience. It was not an ordinary human emotion. It felt infinite, unconditional, and more fundamental than physical reality itself. I experienced this love as God. It seemed to exist within people as the same blue flame and also everywhere around me. I understood that the purpose of life was simply to allow this love to flow freely between people without being distorted by the ego.

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Large changes in my life
After the experience, my spiritual interests changed significantly. Before it, I was strongly focused on esoteric practices and on developing unusual abilities. Afterward, those goals lost most of their importance to me. I became much more interested in the nature of consciousness, the sense of a separate self, love, and the relationship between people. I later studied Advaita Vedanta because some of its descriptions were very close to what I had experienced. Over time I moved away from intensive spiritual practice and returned my main attention to family, children, business, and ordinary life. However, the experience remains one of the most important events of my life and still influences how I think about death, love, and what matters most.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes
Yes. The experience changed the way I viewed relationships with other people. I became much more aware of dishonesty, manipulation, self-interest, and the ways the ego can distort relationships. I understood that at a deeper level another person is not truly separate from oneself, and this changed how I thought about honesty, love, and responsibility toward others.

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes
Yes. The most difficult part to explain is that the blue flame in different people did not feel similar or separate. It felt like the same single flame, as if the deepest part of another person and the deepest part of myself were one. The overwhelming love, unity, and sense that this reality was more real than the physical world are also very difficult to describe in ordinary language.

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
The central parts of the experience remain unusually vivid after fourteen years: the blue flame, the sense that it was the same flame in different people, the overwhelming love, the yellow maze-like structure, the absence of time, and the disappearance of fear of death. Some ordinary details around the illness and exact timing are less certain, but the core experience itself remains exceptionally clear.

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

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? The most important part was the direct experience that the deepest part of another person and the deepest part of myself were not separate. The blue flame I perceived in different people was not similar or separate; it felt like the same single flame. I experienced this flame as infinite love and as God. This was also when I understood the phrase 'Love your neighbor as yourself' in an almost literal way: at the deepest level, the other person was experienced as myself. Another very important realization was that the only true purpose of human life was to allow this love to flow freely from one person to another. I also perceived the ego as a yellow maze-like structure that distorted or blocked this natural flow of love.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes
I began sharing the experience with other people very soon after it happened. Over the following years I told family members, friends, people involved in spiritual practices, and several people whom I considered spiritual teachers. Reactions varied. Some were interested, but I often felt that the central part of the experience was difficult for others to understand, especially the fact that the blue flame in different people did not feel merely similar but was experienced as the same single reality. I do not know whether my experience significantly changed other people.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience? Yes
Before the experience, I had read all of Robert Monroe's books and was interested in altered states of consciousness and out-of-body experiences. I was familiar with the idea that consciousness might exist independently of the physical body, but I understood these ideas in a very different way and did not expect anything similar to happen to me personally. My own experience was also very different from what I had read. There was almost no direct correspondence with Monroe's descriptions. I did not experience a typical out-of-body journey, a tunnel, deceased relatives, or a bright white light. The central features of my experience were instead the sense of timelessness, the perception of the same blue flame in different people, the direct experience of unity, overwhelming love, and the understanding of this love as God. Because of this, I do not think my prior reading provided a clear template for what I later experienced.

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was definitely real
In the days and weeks afterward, I had no doubt that the experience itself was real. It felt completely different from a dream or ordinary imagination. In fact, during the experience that reality felt more vivid and more fundamental than normal physical reality. I did not know what had caused it or how to explain it, but I did not doubt the experience itself.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real
I still consider the experience itself unquestionably real as an experience. Fourteen years later, its central features remain exceptionally vivid. I do not know its ultimate cause or what it objectively proves about reality. My severe illness, high fever, dehydration, or changes in brain function may have contributed to it. I remain open to different explanations. What I am certain about is the reality and intensity of the experience itself, not the interpretation of its cause.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? No

Did the questions asked and information that you provided accurately and comprehensively describe your experience? Yes
Yes, overall. The questionnaire allowed me to describe most of the important aspects of the experience. The hardest part to communicate remains the direct perception that the blue flame in different people was not merely similar, but was experienced as the same single reality, and that at this deeper level the distinction between myself and another person disappeared.

Anything else to add? Another important consequence of the experience was a change in how I understood spirituality itself. Before it, I was focused on esoteric techniques, unusual abilities, and ways of influencing reality. Afterward, all of this seemed to me like activity on a superficial level. What felt much more important was the deeper level I had experienced: unity, love, and the way this love can pass directly between people when it is not distorted by the ego. I came to feel that the real spiritual work was not about acquiring special powers, but about how this deeper reality is expressed through ordinary human relationships. Over the years I became increasingly absorbed again in ordinary material life, business, responsibilities, and everyday concerns. Recently I have found myself returning to this experience and reconsidering what it means and how it can be integrated into normal life. One reason I am submitting this account is that I would very much like to communicate with other people who have experienced something genuinely similar, especially complete timelessness, the direct perception that different people share the same underlying self or essence, overwhelming love experienced as God, and the sense that this reality is more fundamental than ordinary physical life. I would also be interested in speaking with researchers who study unitive, nondual, or near-death experiences and would be willing to answer additional questions or participate in research.