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RETURN WITH AS MANY AS YOU CAN
My Revelation On A Near Death Experience
On December 17th, 2022, I happened upon the story of a “near death experience” video on YouTube. The details of this man’s experience sounded very similar to many accounts I’ve heard about seeing Jesus and deceased loved ones.
However, one detail about it would not leave my mind.
When it was time for this man to return to his body, Jesus said to him, “Come back with as many as you can.”
I wondered about this statement because the man himself took that to mean he needed to share his story about meeting Jesus to convert as many believers as he could during the rest of his time here. He was a devout Christian, and according to the bible there is no other path to God, than through believing in Jesus Christ.
And though I myself deeply love Jesus; this didn’t feel quite right to me. I thought about all the areas of the world that still to this day had never even heard of Jesus. Were they doomed to stay in the cycle of birth and death just because of the culture they were born into? And what about the people of the past ages, who came here long eons before Jesus ever appeared? Had there never been any hope for them until He was born?
None of this seemed quite right, given that I believed in a much more merciful and fairer God than this sounded.
It was then, the Voice of the Holy Spirit intervened in my mind and answered my question with: “Do not forget. Jesus was not His body. He embodied His message. He was His message; the living truth.”
The Holy Spirit went on to say, “A message can exist long before a body comes to deliver it, and the message of Jesus was to love one another as God loves you and as you would love yourself. As your One Self. This is to say that you should look upon all people with loving kindness, mercy, and compassion as you would have them see you. Your love includes them all, because you see them all as part of God – of Whom you also are a part – and therefore joined together as One Body. Just as your finger is a part of your body, so too does it share existence with your hair and your legs. All parts are very different, yet all experience the body together as one.”
I thought about this and realized that indeed it was fine if someone never heard of Jesus specifically, because His message was universal. Anyone could understand and practice the idea of Unity. It wasn’t that they had to believe in Him, but rather, His message. This sounded much fairer and more reasonable – and in alignment with the compassionate, all-loving God I believed in.
I then asked the Holy Spirit about the man’s deep desire to convert believers – is that what Jesus was asking him to do when He asked him to “bring back as many as he could?”
The Holy Spirit gently replied, “As always, the thinking of the world is backwards from that of Heaven. Living on earth is not about how many people notice you, converge around you and believe in your cause. It is not about how others see you, but how you see them. It is about how many people you can see through the eyes of Love. It’s about how many you can include in your circle of loving unity – the circle of Atonement; our At-One-Ment. The message of Atonement is not about how many are in love with you, but how many you can love.”
This thought started to tilt my world on its side a bit as these words began to sink in. We are not here to gather followers or convert believers to any message we have to share, no matter how loving. We are here to see how many people we can love. The more we include in our love, the more we “bring back with us.”
No one ever has to know I even exist!
This made total sense! My heart leapt with joy at the idea that the task at hand involved so little effort on my part. I didn’t need to have a website, a booming YouTube channel or a huge following on my Facebook page. I didn’t have to talk to a single person. I only needed to extend my love to everyone I interacted with or thought about in my daily life.
With this thought the Holy Spirit entered my mind again saying, “Now look at just how small that circle really is, compared to all creation. Can you expand your circle to include all those on your entire planet? Can you include all those who were born before you, extending all the way back to the beginning of time? And can you extend your love to include all those in the future, who are not yet born?”
My inner world tilted sideways even more at this thought. Could I include all people, past, present, and future in my circle of Love – my circle of Atonement?
For a moment my thoughts drifted to all the heinous deeds as well as the glorious deeds of legend and history. In truth, I had no idea what was true and what was false. Could I simply allow my love to encompass them all, without judgement? Could I let go of all I thought I knew about anyone, in any time? Could I include in my love, those whose deeds I did not yet know of, to be done by people who would come after me in the future?
“Yes,” I thought back to the Holy Spirit. “Yes, I certainly can do that.”
“Now,” He replied. “Can you also expand your circle of all-inclusive love to include even those on other planets, with physical bodies so different from your own, you cannot even imagine them? Can you include all of them, along with their entire past, present and future on their planets as well?”
I hesitated at this idea, having never even considered it before, and replied, “Yes,” as my inner world continued to tilt further on its axes.
“And lastly,” replied the Holy Spirit. “Can you even include those beings who exist in the vast realm of eternity? In realities you cannot imagine or conceive of? Can you include the known and unknown, the physical and non-physical, the living and seemingly non-living? Can you include those you understand and the unknowable to your human mind?”
My world shifted fully at this idea. The tilt became completely vertical as my mind processed what was being asked of me here. I was being asked to love as part of my One Self, the full sphere of God’s Creation – all that ever was, will be and is now.
I processed this idea with awe for a few moments, then replied, “Yes! Yes, I can.”
The Holy Spirit then said to me, “Good. When you practice loving in this way, you practice loving even as God does. You learn what total forgiveness is. Forgiveness is to see the sameness of the Light of your Creator within all things – even a grain of sand – and feel a loving completeness with it. It is to know thyself at last. It is to know the Wholeness of Me. For to know Me, is to know your One Self within My Love.”
My mind was blown away at this point. I repeated to myself that Jesus was not a body, but a message. A message of loving one another as God loves us; as each a part of His One Self. And we are not here so much to evangelize this message or gain any type of following, but rather, to learn to extend our love to others in this way. “Bringing back as many as we can,” simply means, loving as many “others” as we can. Because there are no “others.” There is only our One Self, which includes the seen and the unseen as part of All Creation. And we must be determined to love Them All.
A Course In Miracles states: “Through your holy relationship, reborn and blessed in every holy instant you do not arrange, thousands will rise to Heaven with you.” (A Course In Miracles T. CH18 V.3:1)
So, let us take more than thousands with us. Let us take everyone, everywhere and for all time. Let us expand our all-inclusive love to the point we complete the Circle of Atonement.
As the Course states:
“When the peace in you has been extended to encompass everyone, the Holy Spirit’s function here will be accomplished.” (ACIM T. CH19 V.3:6)
And so it is, we heal the world, ending time itself as we accomplish the goal of our coming here; we are here to help extend God’s love and peace to everyone. We need not personally know about Jesus the man, but we must all learn His message of all-inclusive love and peace, for we all belong to God.
And as always, let God’s Will be done, and not our own.
This work is funded entirely by donations alone. Though not expected, if you feel guided to make a love offering, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION. Thank you for your support!
To WATCH THE VIDEO VERSION (as narrated by Beth) PLEASE CLICK HERE