If you have ever asked yourself, "Why would a good and benevolent universe allow terrible things to happen?" you may want to visit the website of Mellen-Thomas Benedict. I was just made aware of this man's extraordinary "near death experience" and wanted to share a portion of it with you here. He and Byron Katie are essentially reading from the same script, even though his "awakening" was experienced as a NDE and hers was experienced as an ego death.
It's helpful to read his words without getting caught up in the spiritual jargon he sometimes uses. Behind it you'll find the same universal truths as taught by the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddha, Advaita Vedanta...and also those which we teach ourselves through inquiry.
Here's the part of Benedict's experience that resonated most deeply within me. What better reason to be an activist than to come together in love? How else can the planet be saved?
"I went over to the other side during my near death experience with a lot of fears about toxic waste, nuclear missiles, the population explosion, the rainforest. I came back loving every single problem. I love nuclear waste. I love the mushroom cloud; this is the holiest mandala that we have manifested to date, as an archetype. It, more than any religion or philosophy on earth, brought us together all of a sudden, to a new level of consciousness. Knowing that maybe we can blow up the planet fifty times, or 500 times, we finally realize that maybe we are all here together now. For a period they had to keep setting off more bombs to get it in to us. Then we started saying, “we do not need this any more.” Now we are actually in a safer world than we have ever been in, and it is going to get safer. So I came back from my near death experience loving toxic waste, because it brought us together."
Something terrible is going to happen...is it true?
©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.
1 comment:
Carol,
A friend introduced me to this site, Mellen-Thomas Benedict about a month ago. For me, it brought great clarity to some issues I was struggling with. Thanks for bringing it to further light!
I especially loved the opening paragraph ...
"...I began to believe that nature had made a mistake, and that we were probably a cancerous organism on the planet. I saw no way that we could get out from all the problems we had created for ourselves and the planet. I perceived all humans as cancer, and that is what I got. That is what killed me. Be careful what your world view is. It can feed back on you, especially if it is a negative world view. I had a seriously negative one. That is what led me into my death. I tried all sorts of alternative healing methods, but nothing helped."
To me this shows how powerful our thought-beliefs are. His experience brought clear demonstration of this. So I feel Bryon Katie's work is exquiste in helping one "break-through" thoughts.
Ok ...I've posted way to much lately (I'll do some inquiry on this)!
Thanks for sharing your journey.
love, patty
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