Realization Lab

S1 Ep16: How Dying Changed My Life / Jonathan Ashford

• Jay Scherick • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Jonathan Ashford never expected to become one of the most compelling voices in the near-death experience community.

Before his death, he was a successful technology executive living what he describes as a "James Bond lifestyle"—wealthy, ambitious, intensely driven, and openly dismissive of spirituality. Then, at just 46 years old, his body suddenly began shutting down – and Jonathan died.

What followed completely shattered his understanding of reality.

In this deeply moving conversation, Jonathan describes leaving his body, experiencing overwhelming unconditional love, witnessing a profound life review, encountering what he calls "Love Itself," and being given a choice: remain where he was... or return to help others.

He also explains why he no longer fears death, why he believes consciousness survives the body, and how the man who came back bears almost no resemblance to the person who died.

Whether you're skeptical, spiritual, or simply curious about what may await us beyond this life, Jonathan's story is one you won't soon forget.


Jonathan Ashford 

https://www.jonathanashford.com/

You Can Text Us Here

SPEAKER_02

We don't know that we've died.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, you didn't know you were dead.

SPEAKER_02

Well, what did you think was going on? That's the thing, you don't think. So you're in a space that you would say you've originally come from. Right. And that feels so real that there's not a question about where you are. So this for me now feels like a cartoon compared to the experience, which is the other side, which I would say is the real side.

SPEAKER_01

Our world is magnificent. Filled with life in every imaginable form. But what if at the root of all these diverse forms there was one energy? One conscious energy that created everything we know by becoming everything we know. Including you. Come with us as we peek behind the curtain of what we call reality and explore the limitless wonders of consciousness in the realization lab. Welcome everyone to another episode of Realization Lab. I'm Jay Sherrick. There is David Ron. There he is. And this is a big podcast for us. Tell me why. This gentleman with us, right here, Jonathan Ashford, is someone that I have been pursuing for a while to come on the program. And you finally made your way to Los Angeles and we arranged it. And I'm so excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_02

I'm excited to be here too.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And in addition to that, we have your what can I say, significant other? Yes. Okay. We have your significant other with us here, Elise Phipps. Hi, Elise. Hi. We're so happy that you're going to join us for this uh podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Likewise, last minute.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Entirely last minute. David, you know nothing about I literally know nothing about these two human beings.

SPEAKER_02

Perfect. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And I just want to say that normally I actually do a ton of research. I don't really know much about your story. I mean, I know a little bit about it, but I don't know much about it, and I have no idea how Elise fits into it. So this is going to be like a mystery unfolding.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Are you ready to jump in? Sure. Who are you? John Kelly, where were you born?

SPEAKER_02

I was born in Framingham, Massachusetts. Spent most of my youth and formative years uh on the East Coast. Uh went to college on the East Coast, eventually became uh an executive on the East Coast. A very successful executive. Successful executive in marketing and technology. Uh-huh. And then COVID hit. Yeah. And I actually had just started a business a few months earlier. What kind of business was it? Uh consulting. Uh-huh. So marketing and tech consultant. And it was the time when it was six more weeks, six more weeks, six more weeks. So every time there were six more weeks, my clients would say six more weeks. So eventually, after about twelve months, I knew it was all gonna fold.

SPEAKER_01

And is this a situation where like you've put everything into this like for the most part, yeah. And now circumstances, the universe has conspired against you or so it would seem. Correct. And and is shutting you down. Yep. And is that terrifying? No. At the time it was kind of like What do you mean no? No. I'm panicking just hearing about it.

SPEAKER_02

I was in this place where I felt kind of trapped. Right. So eventually it did end, and it kind of gave me the room to say, yeah, maybe the East Coast isn't the best place for me. Uh so I eventually just picked up and left. To go where? Idaho. Idaho. Idaho. There's a change. Yep. So uh sight unseen, I sold everything, my house, all my possessions uh in the front yard and traveled across the country with my dog and moved to Idaho. Wow. Yeah. To do what?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. With what plan?

SPEAKER_02

Uh the plan was to work remotely, which I was fortunate enough to find a position as a chief operating officer. And I worked remotely for the first two years prior to death. Um, prior to what? Dying.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, you know nothing.

SPEAKER_02

So you died. Yeah. Yeah, I died. We'll get to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Small detail. So for two years here in Idaho, pre-death.

SPEAKER_02

Pre-death. So I loved it. I moved to a ski town and lake and had all the toys, the boats, and the fun, and you know, was hanging out with an adrenaline junkie kind of crew. That's the kind of guy I was. I was making a lot of money, I had a lot of friends, I could do what I wanted. I had a sailboat on one side of the lake, motorboat on the other side of the lake. I would take one boat to the other boat. I just lived this James Bond lifestyle and was. I know. I was I I had I thought I had life by the neck. You did. I did. Until you died. Exactly. That's all. It's just one of these things where, you know, I it was I had reached everything I wanted to reach for, and now it was the degree, okay, how deep can I go into it?

SPEAKER_01

Were you still motivated? Were you still like, oh, I want this, I want this. Were there still those desires?

SPEAKER_02

You know, I was the CEO of this company and I looked at, okay, I'm gonna leave this company because the next step is a CEO. Oh change a letter. Yeah, and I'd been talking with an organization in Texas, there was a possibility there. So I enjoyed myself uh for two years, I would say I was an anti-spiritual person. Wow. I grew up Catholic, but when I turned 18 and left the house, I was like, thank God I'm done with that. I I never bought into it, and I was I was literally anti-spiritual. If you had mentioned anything to me, I'd be like, Yeah, I'll meet you in the bar after you're done talking about it. Yeah. Especially the last couple years when I moved to Idaho because I hung with a crowd that I would say was not very spiritual.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there was a little bit of foreshadowing when I left uh the East Coast, I had a going-away party with some of my friends uh and they said, Why Idaho? And I didn't exactly know why, but I was 10 to 15 years older than my friends. Uh-huh. And I said, Well, obviously I'm the old man here, so I'm going out there to die. That was your joke. Yeah, that was my joke. And they just laughed. And then I figured I would retire in Idaho, but uh sure enough, two years into it, uh, I did pass.

SPEAKER_01

A little sooner than you had anticipated.

SPEAKER_02

A lot sooner. A lot sooner. Yeah, I was uh 46 years old. I was at the pinnacle of health. I was a two-hour a day gym guy. I tracked every macro of my food, uh probably the most fit I had been in my life. A lot like David, right?

SPEAKER_01

You're tracking every macro of every macro. You can't get a macro past him. 5 a.m. Yeah. He's really relating to this.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and uh I collapsed in a grocery store. I wasn't feeling well, I didn't know what happened, and when I collapsed, I thought something was wrong because I'm bulletproof. You know, I was that arrogant.

SPEAKER_01

I thought you were gonna tell me you you went over too steep a twist. Right? But you just walking down a grocery store.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it was kind of like unplugging a light and plugging it back in very quickly. It's like as I started to fall, and right before I contacted the floor, it's like everything kind of came back on, the lights came back on. And I you could say there was panic in a way because I figured I was so fit. Like if something made me collapse, I I went to stroke immediately, I went to heart attack, I went like something's very wrong. And fortunately enough, I live in a very small town, so the grocery store is like half a mile from the hospital. Uh, so I immediately went to the hospital and they did the battery of tests, um, and they they missed a couple things. So I I was let out. I was given fluids and sent home, but I knew something was very wrong. It was off. I didn't feel well. I couldn't feel my hands, I couldn't feel my legs, uh, vision was blurry. It was just something was very wrong.

SPEAKER_01

I I also just have to introduce you to the panicking. David is also a little hypochondriac. Oh, you love this thing. So he's he's so worried about dying and illness. I was just like, can I feel my hands right now? You're in trouble when I get dizzy, and then you know start sweating and stuff.

SPEAKER_02

But uh Yeah, so uh for the next week, I just continued a downward decline. I was getting more and more sick. Thank goodness I I was working from home at that point, but I didn't have to leave the house. And I was having uh problems breathing at times. My I of course I had a blood pressure machine at home and I was checking my blood pressure every 10 minutes and it would fluctuate to high, high and low, low. My body temperature was all the same. I was taking that every hour on the hour. So a week went by and I just continued the health decline until the following weekend where I collapsed again. It was like I was feeling it. So I drove myself to the hospital, like death grip on the steering wheel, because I was having such a hard time like keeping my body focused. Yeah, online. And when I walked into the emergency room the second time, I had the same male nurse, and he goes back again, and I just looked at him like something is terribly wrong. And this time the battery test returned something in the blood test. Unfortunately, they missed it, so there was acidity in my blood, and they attributed that to the ketosis, so diet. Were you on the keto diet? I was, but it was like a modified keto. So again, they were like, Yeah, you're fine. And I remember the emergency room doctor saying, Okay, we're gonna let you go. We think you had an allergic reaction. And I'm like, No. And I got in a fight with him.

SPEAKER_01

I said, That's impossible. It must be a horrible feeling to know that there's something wrong, and the doctors are going, You're fine, leave.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it I knew it was wrong because I didn't feel my body felt foreign. It was like my eyesight felt foreign. Like everything everything that you looked at felt like you're seeing it differently. Everything I was hearing, like hearing would come and go. Walking was like I had to concentrate on walking. So everything was like slowly shutting down. And I'm like, listen, I'm not better, I'm worse. Right. And you're just kicking me out. And he he threw his arms up and he just said, You're a tough case to diagnose. And I was like, okay. Uh and he said, Circle back with your general practitioner. And I I just couldn't believe it. Like, to me, it was so obvious that I was sick. I had scheduled um a doctor's visit, like the earliest they could get me in was a week and a half. So I'm thinking, okay, I just gotta make it a week and a half. But that next day started a downward spiral that was uncontrollable. By the end of the week, I'd lost 10 pounds. I couldn't digest food anymore. Clumps of hair were falling out. I'd wake up and there'd be clumps of hair on the pillow. Um, my face would swell on one side and not the other. I was having trouble breathing. I was actually, I would sit on my couch with 911 pre-dialed and just say, okay, should I push it now? Like, or should I wait? Okay, it's it's getting better. And I just kind of sucked it up and figured, okay, it's just coming and going. I'm having a reaction to something because I I had this thing in the back of my head, the doctor's saying, Yeah, you're just having a reaction to something. So now I'm like, okay, is it the detergent? Is it the food? Like paranoia. Yeah, you're just reading every label, and then it was like the sixth day of the second week, I turned completely yellow.

SPEAKER_01

Now hold on, let me interrupt you because David is an encyclopedia of disease. Okay. So what do you think is going on with Jonathan? He's dying.

SPEAKER_00

Well, if he's yellow, I mean his liver's shut down, right? John does.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, he's right. So what was happening is the day I turned completely yellow, and I mean completely yellow, like dropping dropping the drawers and checking everything, you're yellow. Wow. But I didn't feel different.

SPEAKER_01

What do you mean you didn't feel different? I don't understand. You feel really sick, but you feel just as sick as you did before you were yellow.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I was at the bottom. I didn't realize I was at the bottom. Oh, I know. And I was like, I'm just super sick, and I'm just sleeping, and I'm like, okay, I'm fighting something, something's making its way through, and I just figured if I'm worse tomorrow, I'll call. Right. And that night I woke up at 4 30 a.m. Well, it's like 4 28 on the phone when I woke up and I recognized something was very different, and that started the near-death experience.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, now hold on just a second. So Elise, is Elise at all in your story yet? Has she so at this point you you don't know Jonathan at all? Okay. No. Yeah, she comes three years later. Three years later. Okay, okay. All right. So you woke up at four o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_02

I just thought, well, I'm awake. I figured, okay, I'll get out of bed and go pee, right? And when I tried to get out of bed, my legs couldn't hold me, and I fell right into the wall, which is about three feet away, and I just kind of caught myself and I I kind of laughed. Like I was like, oh, I'm really sick. Like, okay, now it's now it's really sick, right? Like I can't walk. Bathroom was down a short hallway to the right. And I was kind of using the wall, and I get to the doorway, and I remember looking at the sink, which was maybe here to the wall, maybe like six feet, and I just remember saying, I don't know how I'm gonna make it to the sink, and I just kind of like fell for it. Like it just like and was able to like get it and kind of prop myself up. But when I did, my hands kind of went into the sink and I saw them, and they were completely gray. It was corpse-like in a way, and when I saw that, I immediately thought, Oh, I'm hallucinating, I must have a bad fever. The unfortunate part is when I looked up, I saw my face, and I saw what my face looked like, and it was the same gray, and all the fluid in my face was gone. So my skin was hanging, my eyes were in the back of my head, everything was my ears were gray, like everything was this deathly gray, my neck, and it was just like you're looking at your corpse, and there's something that clicks within you that you know how to die. And the weird thing is it's familiar, it's not foreign. Yeah, and when that click happens, I also recognized there was no coming back from it. It like something had just happened, that domino had fallen, there's no picking that domino back up. At the same time, your brain, something happened to my brain in that point, which was the release of all the human desire. Right. Like I'm too young to die, my dog's in the next room, what about my parents? What about my friends? Like, this can't be happening to me. All of that was like miles behind me. It kind of just evaporates. It was gone. It was like the most peaceful thing because it was a gift. It was like a loving gift because if I had been in that state, there's panic, right? You know, there's this place where I would say, No, no, no, no, no, where's the phone? Like I no, right? But that was gone. It was it felt like it was two to three miles behind me. And the last part was my personality was the last to get it. And it was like, oh, here we are. We're just going through this. Like it it was just this realization there's nothing you can do. There's no part of you that can fight it, there's no like clinging to life, there's no like I don't want this. Like there's this realization that hit me, which was I'm going through this, and it's almost like somebody's speaking in your ear in a comforting way, like you're just walking into something. Death to me was something it was actually the smallest part of the experience. It was so easy and it was so graceful to just step into it, and then the next thing I know I'm out. It's it's a darkness that that isn't darkness. Um that's the closest word we have for it. But it's kind of like you're uh you're being swaddled as a newborn and pressed against the uh chest of a loved one, and it would be dark for you, right? You'd be in the darkness of of being carried, but you feel cradled in a way, and that darkness was not void of anything. It's not cold, it's not scary, it's not it's like this it just incredible cradling to somewhere other place.

SPEAKER_01

If you're being cradled, you're f I'm assuming if you're an infant, you're feeling loved too. Is there that sensor?

SPEAKER_02

Unconditional love. Yeah, if I could call the darkness something, like we we see darkness as the state of something, right? It's a state of the room, the room is dark, right? But the darkness in that experience is very much alive. So the darkness is kind of hugging you, and it's unconditional love like you've never felt. Like there's no worry, there's no like what's happening. I like to say the ego doesn't make the trip, it doesn't make the flight, so it's not like what's going on here, right? And I don't know how long I was in that darkness, but it felt it almost felt like there was movement, but there was nothing to show you movement, right? There's no distance being passed.

SPEAKER_01

There's nothing to be relative to.

SPEAKER_02

No, but it feels like a transition or movement in a way, and then I call it the long blink. It's kind of like you blink, and then you open your eyes, and you're somewhere else, and it's a completely different experience. And that for me was a landscape, a glowing landscape, light-filled landscape, colors like you've never seen.

SPEAKER_01

Landscape of nature, like nature.

SPEAKER_02

I'm a part of a number of scientific research studies, and especially this the studies on near death experiences were all welcomed by something that is welcoming to us. Right. You know, the type of life I lived, I was not a great guy, but I always had an affinity for nature. Right. So I woke up in this landscape that was just incredibly welcoming for me. Grass that was all six inches flowing, like it was underwater, light emitting from everything. Everything was alive, everything was loving. The light, it's like if you put your attention on it and your intention to go into the light, you could go into it for infinity. It never stopped. The light didn't feel like light, it felt like somebody saying I love you. It was just all unconditional love.

SPEAKER_01

And you're experiencing this tremendous love.

SPEAKER_02

Not only just the tremendous love, the freedom from the human the human body, the freedom from the human desire, the freedom from all the things that cause us suffering. Yeah. Uh, and it's like taking off a thousand-pound t-shirt. It's like you don't know what it feels like, so you take it off, and you take it off, and you're like, my, it's just like glorious. You're you're free of anything that's weighing you down, any thoughts, any physical issue. The fact that your heart beats takes a lot of energy that you carry around every day, and when you you realize you're free of it, it's amazing. It's the most amazing feeling.

SPEAKER_01

We're all carrying these thousand-pound t-shirts all day, every day. And the contrast is incredible.

SPEAKER_02

It's it's not even really describable. Like the words that I'm using will try and give you some contrast between the two states, but it it is so much beyond what I can describe. We don't have words for it. But in that space, I recognized I could see 360 degrees around me immediately, but sight wasn't sight. So when we see sight, we see it by definition. Oh, that's a curtain, oh, that's David, right? Uh-huh. But sight there is felt. So sight for me was feeling everything around me as well as seeing it. So it's almost like feeling comes to the forefront, and you would say sight is secondary. Feeling is also hearing, feeling is also speaking in a way. So uh I recognized I didn't have a body. I felt upright, but I I didn't have a body. I felt like in essence, there's a sense of amnesia that happens in that transition. Every one of us in the studies uh says the same thing. We don't know that we've died.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, you didn't know you were dead. I mean, to whatever extent you existed. Yep.

SPEAKER_02

Well, what did you think was going on? That's the thing, you don't think. So you're in a space that you would say you've originally come from. Right. Um you could call it the source of all things, and that feels so real that there's not a question about where you are. So this for me now feels like a cartoon compared to the experience, which is the other side, which I would say is the real side.

SPEAKER_01

So when you were dead, you're feeling like, oh, this is obviously reality, and that do you even did you even reference your life? You have a lot of memory of it.

SPEAKER_02

You had forgotten your life on all of us, pretty much all of us who go through the experience of going to what I would call the other side, right? A place, but it's not a place, it's a state. Right. We all have the same experience. There you wake up with a sense of amnesia, you're in the real side, but you don't know you've just passed. You won't know the odds of you knowing that you've died are pretty slim until you're welcomed. We're all welcomed by somebody.

SPEAKER_01

You're so informed because you've been part of this study, so you've seen sort of the patterns that exist in all these different types of experiences, which are very varied. Correct.

SPEAKER_02

But there are some consistencies. There's a ton of consistencies that we all have. We'll all see something different and be welcomed by something different, but the underlying consistencies are so scientifically tracked now that you can test and whether to tell whether you've had an experience or not. And I needed those tests. So yeah, so in this place it feels very real. And like I said, the part of you that likes ice cream or hip hop music doesn't make the trip, so you're not like, where am I? What's happening? It feels more real there than rolling out of your own bed here. Right. And I just remember I was there was a border around me. There was like a foggy border that just I was in the middle of, and if I moved, it moved with me. I was always in the center of it. And it's kind of like driving a car, and uh, down a foggy road, like trees start to come out of the fog. Things like take form as you move through the fog. And as I moved, the hillsides would take form. And there was a gentleman sitting on a rock sticking out of one of these uh hillsides. And he looked like a hiker, just like somebody in this landscape that you might be like, hey, as you walk by a trail, and he was dressed in hiking gear and brown hair, brown eyes, you know, a beard. And when I made what I call eye contact, I know I didn't have eyes, but when I made eye contact with this being, it's kind of like you get a three-hour conversation just placed into you immediately. So it's telemoted, sort of telepathic, instantly telepathic. Uh whole conversation, you've passed, you're dead, you know, the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, he's explaining to you. He was the welcome for me. Do you know who he was?

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah, I don't use the name a whole lot, but I I'll call him Love itself, uh, the manifestation of love. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um a little awkward with the word in there.

SPEAKER_02

You know what? And the reason why is because what's written here in the box we place this being in is like so small compared to the experience with it. I'm like, we do a disservice saying, Oh, use the name. I'm like, he would tell you just replace the name with love. So he fills you in. He's immediately welcome, which was surprised. No, because there's it's like it's so real. Yeah, it's so real there. It's like and there's like this memory, like you've done this so many times, and it's just kind of like you shake off the rust in a way, and it's like, well, of course I am. Yeah, right? It's like there's no question, there's no ego to say, what do you mean I'm dead? Send me back, please, right? Like it, I didn't have that part, and I think there probably are some near-death experiences experiencers who have some of that, yeah, but I think it serves a purpose. Yeah. For me, I didn't have it, and I was like, okay, you know, all right, we're dead. This is cool. And that being, I will I'll say walked and looked like walking, uh exited that rock and came down, and he he could tell telepathically, I was trying to figure out who it was. It's like seeing a long-lost friend, it's like, imagine if you saw David but you forgot David's name. Right. You're like, I know you, I know, I know you, I've known you forever, but I don't know how I know you. Right. And he he just kind of grinned, and then uh when he stepped forward next to me, he said something that just kind of shook the landscape, which was, I am you and you're me. And I recognized my eyes were his eyes, and he started flipping through identities and things and showing me all these other lives that I had lived until he landed on me who had just passed. So I'm looking at the dead executive, and it kind of hits home, like, okay, that's definitely done. And then I went into what you may have heard called a life review. Okay, hold on a second.

SPEAKER_01

So when you look in at these past lives, do you remember the past lives?

SPEAKER_02

No, you feel them. It was kind of like, you know, it was so varied. There were some famous people in there, but it was it was varied in like, okay, you're a you're a sailor in like 1850, right? And it's just like blip, and you're like, wait, I know that, but I don't know that, right? One of the more uh interesting ones is I was uh I was either a Vietnamese or a Chinese woman with the hat who worked in the fields back in like the Middle Ages, and it's like you see that and you're like, wait, like but it's like you're not here to experience it, you're just here to be reminded that you are all these different beings. And as you flip through, the last one, of course, was that executive.

SPEAKER_01

So I have to tell you something though, because after this podcast, we'll I'll show you that we have a little introduction for the podcast, and that woman is prominent. It says consciousness is you, and we land on that woman, and it's you from the middle of the yeah, it very well could be. It very well could be. Okay, so you have these past life reviews. So now you go into your life.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I went into the life review, and you experience in my life review, I experienced three different views of my life. Um, it's kind of like you slip back into your body as an observer, and you experience the things you've said or done in a way not from the brain necessarily or from the touch, but as an observer. And you're experiencing these things from a filterless state. So it's kind of like, well, I was really tired that day and really aggravated, and that's why I treated this person badly. Well, that doesn't exist. So it's just like you just treated somebody poorly. Um, so I would experience in that state, and then there were times where I'd slip into um just another being that I had mistreated in a way.

SPEAKER_01

You would come into the perspective of the person who maybe you didn't treat so well, and now you're experiencing what they're going through.

SPEAKER_02

Not just the perspective, like literally what they felt. So it's like when you spit venom at somebody and you don't think about it, you're you're not thinking about what they're feeling. Right. And now you're inside of them feeling what they might not be showing. They're not crying in this moment, right? But you're feeling you just gut them. Yeah. And you're again you're feeling it in a filterless state. And then I had a third view, which was I was having an argument uh with somebody, and we were outside by a blue car and a brick building, and it was a sunny day, um, very few clouds, and I was feeling it from the aspect of two people basically spitting poison at each other, and I was feeling the tar, I was feeling the painted lines, the brick building, the blue car, the consciousness within all these like in all things, and just feeling it kind of like wince. Like every time like somebody volleyed, like through another missile at somebody, you just you felt it all. All of creation. You felt the sky wince, the sun, the clouds, like everything. And you just wake up to the facts going through this experience that reality isn't what you think it is. It's far greater, it's far deeper. And I think if we all felt it, the world would be a much more beautiful place because you would realize what you're doing to others, right? You would feel that reflection back.

SPEAKER_01

And so, what is your experience while you're seeing this review? Is there a sense of regret? Is there a sense of, oh shit, I wish I had known this? What's the feeling?

SPEAKER_02

A little bit I would say that's a close feeling, like how how I would intellectualize it here, but it's more of a feeling of missed opportunity, which is not just missed opportunity. It's like you're letting this being down, you're letting that person down. It's like there's a not a disappointment, there's probably not a word for it, but you just feel like ooh, I missed another one. Right. Oh, there it is. Oh, I missed again, I missed it again.

SPEAKER_01

And you're letting the building down and the concrete and the line.

SPEAKER_02

You're just like, you're like, oh no, I let all of creation down. It's it's just this overwhelming feeling. And did you feel judged by this person who's running through? No. The interesting part is there was zero judgment in this place. Um, I will confidently say there is no hell other than what you experience, how you dealt to others. Right. So I will say what I experienced was very spicy, yeah, considering the life I lived. I cared nothing for people uh being that executive. I just saw it for myself. So I was experiencing the fullness of who I was, and I will say there's hell in that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's an experience where you start to recognize your connection to everybody here, even though you haven't met everybody here, you're still connected to everybody here. So it's kind of like how you treat others affects those people you haven't even met. What is it, the two degrees of separation or whatever? Butterfly. Yeah. So it kind of travels. And coming out of this experience, you realize not only are you not judged, and I was I could say I was somebody who broke every commandment that is written, and I even murder because I was a hunter that who only hunted just to hunt and not to eat it. And it was like not only are you not judged, but you realize that things like that or belief systems were only put into place as guardrails. You know, the commandments, guardrails, sin, guardrails. Like I was according to a belief system, I was a big sinner. Uh-huh. On paper, you would say this guy should be burning in hell, but to feel unconditional love as if you're a child here, given a pack of crayons, and you've now drawn all over your parents' walls, and your parents show up and they go, Nice job, here's another pack. And it's it you just sit in this understanding, you're loved regardless. I was loved doing the worst thing I'd ever done in my life, unconditionally loved. Yeah, no wavering, no wavering, like you were good here and you're bad here, right? And the love felt different. It was the same regardless. And coming out of that, you realize okay, you are a manifestation of love here. Most of us can't remember or recognize it, and we serve all, even not remembering it. Like you serve, I I need you to be the guy who's upset at me today in traffic so that I can be loving, right? You're my opportunity. So um leaving that, I just understood my connection to all others. When that ended, I was given a choice, and the choice was to stay there or return. Oh. But there were it was deeper than that. It was return to help, it was return to share, it was um a sacrifice in a way. I knew I would not be coming back to that life, and that was told to me. I was told that my recovery would be long. I'm still recovering years later. Um I I was told things like I would be persecuted for things that I've said, and sure enough, that's happened, and that my life was going to be one of sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01

Persecuted for things that you've said post-death or pre-death.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And in that place, when you're given this stuff, when you're given it telepathically, you're not in a place that goes, Oh, wait, what do you mean what do you mean? Um there's no part of you that that thinks about it. And it's kind of funny, it's I I say it has a sense of humor because it was a choice, but it wasn't really a choice. It's kind of like you can stay here with me and deny your connection to all others and the fact that you can go back and help, or you can go back and help. So it's like, is it really a choice? Um so when I said I would return to help to share the experience.

SPEAKER_01

Um did you feel an obligation, or were you actually eager to do it?

SPEAKER_02

Or yeah, there's an eagerness because there's two things that you immediately recognize. One, you're connected to everybody here, like everybody's family. There's no such thing as family, it's the whole planet is family. And then the other thing is you recognize that um we're all actually here to help each other. Um, and now I've experienced something where I could, and you could say there's a third aspect, which is you understand time doesn't exist, so it's not like I'm coming back for another 50 years of work. Right. A life from that side was shown to me as a spark. So as as quick as a spark happens and dissipates, your life is over. We see it in the slow motion version of a hundred years, but it's not. So to say yeah, I'll go back and help from there is like I'm going back for this long to help others. So uh after that, after I had said yes, I had a second part of my experience, and it was like the landscape kind of dissipated, and you realize that the landscape is just the formless taking form to welcome you. Like there is no landscape there, right? There's no being that looks like a hiker there. It's all just to welcome you. Uh the being changed and into a different look, I will say, a more religious look. And everything just kind of disappeared into I will call it a void. Um it's just you understand it's the place from which all form takes shape.

SPEAKER_01

The void is not actually emptiness, it's actually the matrix of all things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you would say it's the source of all things in a way. And in this space, I was just given information. Just it went on forever. It seemed like eternity, far longer than I was there. Just about everything time, people, um psychic things, things like the sky, uh, what's alive, what isn't. It's like how death happens. It just went on forever. Was it fascinating or there's just no it's it's more like you already have it, and like a piece is removed from you that allows it to come forward. And it's just like given to you, but it's all it's also like you are it. Like I come back with all this information, but I also know you have it and you have it, you just don't realize you have it. It lives in all of us. And are you sure it lives in David?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. I mean, let's let's before we somebody it's not living in thinking you're looking a little yellow. I'm still stuck on I can't see my doctor for a week and a half.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the divine joke, and it I I say this because it does have a sense of humor. The divine joke is we look to certain people for answers, and I'm like, you already have them, like it's already there. And most of us don't realize it. We've all lived lives where we've been David. It's not there, I don't feel it, and you've lived lives where it has been there, right? But you're living life this way because you help others by living life this way. So if the whole world woke up to the answers, it was shown to me that the world stops. Like we need the contrast, yeah. We need people that get it, and we need people that don't. There'd be no game if we were all. You actually wouldn't be able to express love. So you can express love because there are people that don't get it. You're right, you can be loving towards them, you can you can forgive and all these things. So as it was shown to me, this experience is truly about contrast. And I say there's nothing to do, nothing to change, or nothing to fix, only to experience consciously. So if you can sit in that space saying, Okay, I'm on I'm just experiencing this, but I'm aware I'm just experiencing this, then you have the opportunity to become that loving being in which we all are. And you've given yourself that room to make that choice. It's not about fixing the world, it's about accepting it and what's the what's your perspective, what's your attitude, what's your experience within the reality that we that and if you want to get even deeper to what I was shown, it's recognizing that the things in the world that you want to fix are the very opportunities to recognize the love in which you have, and without them you wouldn't be able to. So the thing that you want to fix is actually a gift. Right. So when you start to recognize that the darkness is the gift that allows you to be the light, then you're like, wait a second, why am I trying to fix this? I'm actually supposed to be love through it, and that's everybody's challenge, right? Yeah. So yeah, I I experienced the second half in which I received knowledge, information, or it was given to me in a way that I can retain it.

SPEAKER_01

Because you're gonna come back to the earth and you're going to now play this other role, you're not gonna be the asshole executive anymore. You're gonna be the guy with the long hair and the beard who comes on podcasts and and and helps people expand.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yep. The next thing that I realized is there was a light in this void, and I I'll refer to it as a sun. It looked very small, like the size of a basketball out into this darkness, and it just kept growing and growing and growing very slowly, just a managed growth, and it just started swallowing everything. Everything started to become the light. The being who is now on my left side was swallowed by this light, and then I can't see darkness anymore. All I can feel and see is this light, and it's a color I can't quite describe. It's like a golden, white, silver, but also the entire spectrum of a rainbow, and then the rainbow you don't know exists.

SPEAKER_01

I've heard that there are colors that we aren't even aware of on.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I feel bad calling them colors because they're very much alive. It's like, oh, green. If I call it green, it's kind of an insult to green. Yeah. It's like very much alive. Everything is is just living in a depth that we can't feel here. But it's like color is also music. It's like it's all integrated into some weird being light that's very much alive. And this light was like all of them at once, and none of them, it was all things in a way. And the next thing I recognized was I was the light. There was no separation between me and this light. And what is the feeling when this light is sort of engulfing you? I'll try to describe it as you tend to not add that piece to it, but it's so hard to describe, and I I almost like steer away from it because whatever I describe is going to be so minuscule compared to what it actually feels like. But it's kind of like like you've lived a million lifetimes, and every second, every breath of every lifetime, you're unconditionally loved on a scale that you can't recognize, and it's all at once. And while you're feeling that all at once, you can feel every follicle of hair on everybody's head for all time, all past, present, and future. You can pick a blade of grass in like 1757 in a random field in England and say, I know how much that blade of grass grew on a Tuesday afternoon at three o'clock. All knowing, yes. All knowing. But when I say all knowing, we go to knowledge, right? And I will say knowledge is so much greater than we think it is. It's like I can tell you how many drops of water in the ocean, kind of thing. I can tell you which fish dies next in which ocean at what time. So it's like so much more than knowledge, it's it's literally creation itself. So you're feeling and experiencing all of creation itself, and you have access to all of it beyond time.

SPEAKER_01

Because you are it all, correct, and so there's no mystery. Correct.

SPEAKER_02

The interesting thing is you're feeling this and you also understand that you are an expression of the whole, so you are the whole and aren't the whole at the same time because it's like the whole still retains a personality of which you are a part of, but you aren't it. So you have this thing you feel loved, you're loved by, and you feel like you are a part of it, an expression of it, but you also know you're not the entire circle of it.

SPEAKER_01

And is it exciting to be part of that this thing that you are also the beyond comprehension?

SPEAKER_02

It's like an amazing feeling of just recognition of what you are. Yeah. Like you are a manifestation of something, and that something can't be described. That something it it shows up as a light, uh love, a feeling, but you can't give it an it's I know it's bigger than any name, and I know there's no such thing as a belief system that fits it and a particular religion or anything. So it's more of it the experience of it.

SPEAKER_01

I have to say, for for these experiences which are indescribable, you do very well.

SPEAKER_02

I try. I've had a lot of time to think about it and feel it. It's it's one of the interesting gifts I received was I can shut my eyes and be back in the experience.

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna ask you that. So you it's not you're not just you just haven't memorized the script here. You're actually going back and checking in with that experience and relating.

SPEAKER_02

The the strange thing is it's like I never left. Yeah. So there are particular times where I feel like I'm still there, I'm still in that light, or I'm still receiving something, and there are other times where I'm like, oh, I haven't felt it in a moment, and I'll shut my eyes and I'm there again.

SPEAKER_01

In those studies that you're part of, is that a common thing? Because I don't know. That one I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

I do I do know that a lot of us as near-death experiencers come back being able to feel through existence rather than think through it. So it's kind of like you can feel things in rooms, you can feel things in places or geographic areas, you can feel different things in meditations. Um, you just have a different it's kind of like it opens a door to something. In my case, it's allowed me to walk back and forth through that door many times. So after being integrated with that light, um, I had the tunnel experience that some near-death experiencers have going in, right? You gotta it's like uh 50-50 actually those who see darkness and those who have the tunnel. Uh-huh. And it's only like 40. Um, I'm probably misquoting this, but I believe it's only like 42% of us that have life reviews. It's not all of us. Oh, really? Yeah. So I received this kind of tunnel coming back out, and it felt like I was being laid down in a way, and this light was regressing, it was pulling away. Right. Um, but I just felt like I I describe it as a a tiny raindrop falling off of a tree branch in slow motion. It's like it builds, it builds, it builds, it builds, and then it slowly drops. And in slow motion, you're just watching this raindrop fall to the ground. This is you returning to the returning to the body to earth. Felt like I was just a slow motion cradling in a way. It's you're not falling. It's like you're in this giant hand and it's just slowly putting you back. And then I felt something excruciating, which was the human body. Uh it's gotta be so hard to come back. Which is it's It's heavy on a on a scale I can't quite describe, like the density of reality here is it's such a sharp contrast to what you feel there. It's freedom there, it's bliss, it's light, it's an essence, it's just pure love. And then you're dropped into something that's hard and heavy and requires things. And I just recognize I was back in a body, but I didn't recognize my body. It was like I was in the center of the cavity of the body, and I describe it as something Dr. Rudolf Steiner described as like you're f putting sand in a shoebox, it's just slowly expanding into the shoebox, taking the shape of the box, which I just recognized in his words. Somebody actually just told me that a few months ago, and like the hair stood up on my neck. I was like, that's exactly what it felt like. It's it's at this time where I recognized things were starting to move. My heart tried to take its first beat, uh, which I will just tell you, thank your heart every day for every beat. Because if you recognize how much energy it takes to take one beat, um it's it's a miracle in itself. I felt the first beat, it couldn't m make a first beat. It was like a half beat, it was like a little thump, but before the first full beat. I it was like I was inside the cavity in a way. It's like you have a view of things, which is weird. Um I've my I noticed my lungs were um pancaked. They were just flat, I collapsed, and I was kind of on my back. But I could see my lungs, and then I could see them slowly inflate before I even breathed. And then my first gasp, a gasp for air like you had been underwater for 20 minutes, like something How long had you been dead? I didn't know at the time what had happened, and after that gasp, and when I my eyesight returned, I recognized I was looking up at the ceiling of the bathroom, and my phone had fallen out of the pocket. It was the only thing I could reach. It was kind of like I was a crumpled, twisted mess, and the body couldn't move yet. But slowly I could kind of reach over with my right hand, and when I clicked the button, it said 7 30 a.m. So that's three hours. Three hours in there. Yes. So three hours. So I'm not breathing. Yeah, yeah, which should be scientifically impossible. But there are two people that have me beat. Uh there's one that's been six hours, and there's a woman who's, I think it's like 16. They found her on in the morgue shelf. Oh my god. Um that's rough.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I'm not dead. She was dead, and then she wasn't.

SPEAKER_02

So um I just laid there on the floor. I didn't know what had happened right away, but I knew something happened. I felt completely different in a weird way. I couldn't quite explain.

SPEAKER_01

Do you know at this point you're back in your body? Do you know that you were just No. You you don't. You just you're back in this reality. I'm a sick person on the on the floor of the bathroom.

SPEAKER_02

Not even that. There was a strange thing that happened, and I say it's part of the experience. So back to when I was having side effects during the week, sitting there with the phone ready to dial 911. For two weeks now I've been sick, waiting to push the button for the ambulance, and here I am laying on the floor, knowing I've collapsed, and there's no part of me that says push a button and call 911. There's nothing in me that says something bad happened. It was the strangest feeling, and I say it's part of the experience. It's kind of like you're placed here, but you're still there. Like you have one leg there and one leg here. And I reached for the sink uh to pull myself up with my right arm, my strong arm, and there's the thermometer that for two weeks I've been taking my temperature every hour on the hour. So I when I tried to pull myself up, I looked at this thing, and there I am laying there looking at the ceiling, and I was like, meh, and I stuck it in my mouth, and I just laid there. And when it beeped and I took it out, I saw it said 94.0 degrees Fahrenheit, which is emergency hypothermia. Growing up a hunter, I knew that's like you're gonna die if you don't get to a hospital. Yeah, and I looked at it and I just was like, huh, interesting. And I put the thermometer down on the floor, and there was just no part of me that was like, you should probably call for help. And I just laid there. I was just like in this weird reflective state. My body felt physically different. I, as the intellect, the ego, whatever you want to call it, just felt completely different. And eventually I got up off the floor, and when I looked in the mirror, my face had filled back in. I still looked sick, sickly, but color had started to return. I wasn't gray anymore. And I just remember looking into my eyes in the mirror again, and it was like, what happened? Like something just happened. It's kind of like you're looking at a stranger almost. Like, who are you? And I remember during that look, uh, I kind of had a laugh in a way, an internal laugh. It was um, I hated my neighbors two doors down for me, hated their guts, like please let their house burn down, kind of hate. I hated them because I had all white mailboxes in front of my house, and when they replaced their mailbox, they put a black one. And I wished them death for it. I was that type of person. And I was sitting there looking in the mirror, laughing because I loved them so much. Oh unconditionally, like You came back different. First thing that I thought of was the neighbors I hated, and I j I was just like laughing, like, what is going on? And I walked out of that bathroom, my leg was working again, walked out of the bathroom, and went to the bedroom to find my dog. And when I looked at my dog, he looked through me. He gave me a look, and I loved this dog. He was my best friend. You know, I would have I would have massacred an entire country for that dog. And it was like he was everything to me. And when he looked at me, it was like he didn't recognize me. And I just I I looked at him and he's like looking through me, almost like nervousness or scared in a way, and I just said, What's your problem? And I didn't recognize it till later that he probably gave me the same look that it maybe I gave that being on the other side. Like, I recognize you, I know you, but I don't know you. I made his food, uh, I put it out for him, and then I walked over to my couch and I sat there and stared at a wall for four hours. I could feel life in all things. I felt life in the sofa, I felt like the sofa hugging me like alive. I felt life and the pain on the wall, the sun coming through was glorious, like that light I experienced on the other side. Everything was basically speaking to me, very much alive, which is why I could sit there for four hours and just literally look at the walls. And I just felt different. I felt like this weird connection to all things, like literally all things around us, a new connection with my dog, a much deeper one, and I had a week and a half to go. To go till when? The doctor.

SPEAKER_01

You're still focused on the doctor's appointment.

SPEAKER_02

I had a week and a half to figure this out. So I'm Googling everything, looking for everything. And to make this medical aspect a little bit shorter, I ended up visiting doctors for the next six months for them trying to figure out what had happened. But I also didn't release all the information to the doctors.

SPEAKER_01

And what were you withholding?

SPEAKER_02

The fact that I had died. So it wasn't until I had seen a number of specialists, and they just kind of like, we don't know what's wrong. And I went to see a homeopathic doctor who came back and said, I think you went septic. And I was like, What's that? And she said, You know, I think you have some damage in there. Like, I couldn't eat solid food for the first seven months. She put me on a cancer grade food supplement that I could just take. Right. She suggested a DNA test. She found one thing in my DNA, which was I have a pain mutation, which means I don't feel pain like everybody. It's muted. Uh-huh. And in some aspects, it's not there. I always just thought I was the toughest guy in the room. It turned doesn't turn out that's the case. And she said, I think you had something get stuck and you went septic. So she said, Go back to the doctors, tell them you want imaging and more tests. So I went back to the doctors and they said, sure enough, you've got all kinds of damage. You probably went septic. And they said, You're lucky to be alive, and I would just grin. Like, uh, okay, yeah, I am. Something was stuck in wet organ. Between, I guess, between the gallbladder and the liver and one of the tubes, they figured I had a gallstone get stuck. I couldn't feel it because of the pain mutation. So normally you'd be doubled over in pain. Eventually, the liver stops working. In one of the research studies, they have a panel of doctors that looks over the medical aspects as part of the near-death investigation. And they figured that I my heart had actually stopped. It just couldn't deal with everything, and I'd gotten so sick, the yellowness was the shutdown of the organs. Part of that message on the other side was you will have a long recovery, was very true. When I could start eating food, I could not digest fruit, could not digest vegetables, grains, no salt, no butter, no nothing. So I was eating broiled meat for over two years. Wow. To try and recover.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Physically, you're you're going through hell. You've just been through one of the one of the craziest experiences I've ever heard, honestly. But I have a sense it's about to get a whole lot crazier.

SPEAKER_02

You have no idea.

SPEAKER_01

In part two of this episode, Jonathan and Elise reveal the highly unusual way in which their lives were brought together.

SPEAKER_00

Like they had taken the batteries. And it's still going off. They were all still going off. And how do you explain that? You can't. You can't.

SPEAKER_01

And the firemen are looking at this thing, going, that shouldn't be happening?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I can explain that. What was going on, Jonathan? And Jonathan reveals another life-altering experience that he's never spoken about before.

SPEAKER_00

And then he had another experience.

SPEAKER_01

You died again.

SPEAKER_02

I see both the heads turned.

SPEAKER_01

What was his other experience that lease he's referring to?

SPEAKER_02

I had an experience in the Moab desert where I came out kind of changed, out of the desert, changed. What happened? Ended up dying again. You did. I was right. You died again.

SPEAKER_01

You died again? Yeah. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to Realization Lab on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.