My View of God

This is a very very touchy subject... I'm actually quite hesitant to even post this for fear of my family reading it and being reminded of this period of my life. But, this is something that is extremely important to me, and I do believe it could change lives... So I'm sharing it.

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When I was younger, I was in a fatal car accident. I briefly remember waking up after the accident. I was sitting in the front seat, slumped over the dash; my seat belt latch had broken if I recall correctly (I have memory issues from around that time). I saw the paramedics running towards the car, and that is the last thing I remember until I was in the operating room. I died in that pile of twisted metal. The paramedics revived me in the ambulance, and rushed me to the hospital. The MRI showed that my brain was bleeding and I was taken to the operating room to have a craniotomy to find and stop the bleeding.

I do not actually remember dying in the OR, but what I do remember is leaving my body. I did not float out of my body, or any of the things people hear about when others claim to have an out of body experience; I simply snapped out of my body. There was no ligh, no tunnel, etc... One second I was there, another second I was looking at myself from above. I saw the surgeons standing around the OR table.

When I died, I had a very vivid specific feeling. I honestly cannot think of a single feeling to describe it. Imagine how one might feel without flesh, bones, or skin, just nerves. Now imagine if gravity was greatly increased... I felt very dense and heavy, almost as if I was being pulled back down towards my body. I felt everything around me. I could feel the panic in the air. Suddenly, I felt this immense jerking feeling. I felt like my head was severed from my body, even though my body had not actually moved. Suddenly, I was above myself, looking down at myself on the operating table. Everything was very blurry, but if I recall correctly, my head was in a circular brace, face covered, and my body was held down by straps on the operating table. Most people would think I would have been terrified, but oddly, I felt extremely at peace. I saw the world for what it really was, through the eyes of an outsider. Then within seconds (I'm assuming, time basically stopped), though it felt like an eternity, I was pulled back into my body. I could feel my body pulling me back as if I were still somehow attached, though I couldn't see myself above my physical body. Suddenly I was back... I felt pain... I was alive.

Just before I snapped back into my body, I felt a very odd sensation. Almost as if I could feel the thoughts of someone that was thinking about me. I say I felt it, but I did not actually literally "feel" it, not physically anyway. I sensed whatever brought me back to life. Once the surgeons did pull back that chunk of my skull, what they found was amazing. My brain had stopped bleeding, and showed no physical signs of trauma. Yet, I had experienced death. I felt something indescribably amazing. It was not just mental, it was physical, or something on a whole different level that I can hardly describe. It was something spiritual; call it religious if you must.

I believe I felt god. It is something that is all around us, in everything. I can still feel it sometimes if I meditate on it. Every time my heart beats, I am reminded of it. Every time I close my eyes, I can see it. It is all around us, inside of us, and everywhere in between. There is something real, though not tangible, that surrounds us, something that connects us with each other. It is not good, nor evil. It does not judge or guide us, nor does it create or destroy. It is simply there, connecting us all to one another. I believe the thoughts I felt just after my death were prayers, meditation, whatever you prefer to call them. One might say that is absurd, but hear me out before you close your mind and jump to a rash conclusion.

A simple thought can create something physical. No? You don't believe that is true? You're completely wrong, and I can prove it. For example, if I get a cut my body creates white blood cells and sends them to the wound. I do not even have to think for this to happen, it just does. So, one could say that the human brain is capable of creating something physical from a simple thought. It's just enery, electricity, static pulses... If this is true, and it obviously is, then a prayer, meditation, or deep-thought can feasibly change something that is tangible and real, or at least have some kind of effect. Meditation does truly work. I believe it is fairly reasonable to conclude that what I felt were the prayers of my family and friends. This leads me to my general idea of god.

To me, god is this force that exists all around us, in everything, and it connects us all. It does not intervene in our lives, nor can it hear prayer or perform miracles. However, I think god is what allows prayer or meditation to actually work; simply a pathway, a medium to allow us to spiritually or mentally interact with one another. These are my own personal beliefs, and I urge everyone to come to their own beliefs based on personal experiences, not the words or experiences of others.