Near Death: Moments that saved my life

I remember how I smiled warmly to my friend and began the next part of my conversation, beginning to pick up speed with my excitement to get to the other side of the large open London street as quickly as possible. As I did I felt a hand almost bruising my shoulder as it pulled me backwards. For a moment I had no idea what was happening, but when a huge truck pushed me further back with the shear force of its speed and weight, as it crashed passed, a matter of inches from my face, I felt everything slow to a moment of realisation. I turned to look into the eyes of the woman who had just saved my life - a total stranger. We exchanged no words, we were both simply in awe of what had just happened. We both clearly knew what it meant. We looked into each other’s eyes, the crowd and world around somehow invisible now, we were totally present, wanting to connect, to reach out to each other, but we didn’t know how. A moment later she was gone, ushered away by a friend, and I was left to think about a moment that could have been so very different, and the power that a single moment can have. It was not the first time I had come close to death. As an 18 year old I had been the passenger in a car being driven by a friend who had only just passed his driving test. We were on our way to a music festival, when we swerved down a country road and he lost control. Again, I remember that sense of time slowing down as I watched the wall approaching, the gasps from the other passengers and the numb helplessness of the situation. I remember the first impact and losing consciousness before becoming aware again with the feeling of the car almost suspended in mid air, my mind somehow preparing for the inevitable second impact as the car turned over and slid across the road. I was severely concussed, bleeding from my leg, and suffering from whiplash, when I climbed out of the mangled metal ball that used to be a car and sat by the road, dazed but alive. The defining moment in that crash was the decision to wear my seat-belt. In those days there was no law that you had to wear one in the back of a car, but this car was brand new and had them fitted. Most people my age at that time would have felt it uncool or restrictive, yet I think even then I could look outside of that kind of thinking and consider the impact that choices can have. If I hadn’t I probably would have been thrown from the car and killed or maimed. These were near death experiences of an earthly kind, yet I’ve always been fascinated by the life-changing power of near death journeys, the type in which someone floats free of their physical body to experience the most unimaginable light, happiness and sense of love. My own hundreds of out-of-body experiences have allowed me the privilege of exploring that state of bliss without the pain of almost dying. And like those who experience the edge of death, I have come to transform my life as a result of the perceptions I’ve experienced. In my book, Avenues of the Human Spirit, I explore how the most seemingly unimportant moments in life can be the most important, the moment before I was saved by a passing stranger, or my foresight to wear a seatbelt, seemed meaningless, yet looking back I am only able to write these words because of them - that is how significant a tiny choice can be. Take the woman who saved my life, consider the choice she made, the fact that she acted when many wouldn’t have. I’ve often asked myself since that day, what would I have done? If you ask yourself the same question, can you be sure you would act as she did, can you make the choice to step away from the crowd? There are moments in everyday life in which we know this is it. We make a decision now or the direction of our lives, or the lives of another, could be very very different. Having some sense of those moments ahead of time, looking at what drives us, empowers us. A decision, a moment, or a change, will send us in new directions, lead us to discover things we could not have imagined. My decision as a young boy living on an impoverished housing estate to explore my inner spirit, was what led to that boy with no education or prospects to essentially have freedom and fulfilment as an adult. My book is the true story of my spiritual and metaphysical experiences, but it is also a guide to spiritual fulfilment, a guide to having the strength to act, to seeing the door opening toward change and having the courage to walk through it... Buy from Amazon

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