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Down the River

Diane Goble

Oregon

www.beyondtheveil.net

That summer in 1971 I was with my husband and children in the mountains of northern Georgia while he was working with the camera crew of the movie “Deliverance.” On weekends some of the cast and crew and their families would take the rafts out on the river for a little rest and relaxation.

They filmed on the same part of the Chattooga River we rafted on, and of the eight of us on this particular Sunday afternoon, four of us, including my husband and me, had rafted down this stretch before.

But the river was different this time—low from several days of no rain. Different paths had to be taken through the many rapids.

On the last set of rapids at Woodall Shoals, we made an almost fatal mistake. The raft I was in got turned around, went over a four-foot drop backwards, and became stuck there by the churning action of the water.

The raft was trapped in a hydraulic, a churning white-water phenomena, which held the raft against the rocks. The raft would fill with water and then buck, throwing everything inside out. Sue was thrown clear and washed downstream. I was thrown out and got caught between the raft and the rocks with the force of the river pouring down on my head and the suction of the hydraulic motion pulling me under. Skip and Wally were still inside the raft grasping my arm and trying to pull me back into the raft, but the most they could do was enable me to catch an occasional quick breath before the water sucked me back down. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place!

Very consciously and calmly, I knew I was going to die; it was just a matter of how. Since being smashed into the rocks was painful, I decided drowning was the better choice. The next time my head popped out of the water, with my last breath I yelled to whoever was holding my arm to let go, and he did. I felt the water pull me under, and I relaxed into it. I knew there was no point in struggling as I breathed in the water, and everything went black. For a moment . . .

The next thing I knew I was a hundred feet above the river, looking down at the raft stuck against the rocks below. I saw the two men in the raft looking for me to come out from underneath. I saw Sue, downstream, clinging to a rock. I watched as my husband John and my teenaged sister JoAnn, who had rafted without incident down the rapids ahead of us, came running back up the hill to find out why all the debris was floating down the river. We had taken everything out of their raft and put it into ours in case they flipped over, but because they went down so easily, we just jumped in, gear and all, to follow them down.

From above, I watched my husband climb onto a rock in the river. He couldn’t hear what the two men still in the raft were shouting to him over the roar of the water. He had no idea where I was or what had happened, but he knew I was missing. He looked as if he wanted to jump in to try to find me. I suddenly found myself at his side, trying to stop him because he wasn’t much of a swimmer, and I knew there was no point. When I reached out to stop him, my hand went right through him. I looked at my hand and thought . . . oh my God, I’m dead!

In that instant, total knowledge of reality appeared to me, and I saw the multidimensionality of the universe. My consciousness expanded so far beyond the physical plane that I was no longer aware of it nor was I aware of myself. I was so much a part of it all that there was no distinction. There was a brilliant flash of light, and I was allowed to see into it for a brief moment and experience a feeling of love so profound, powerful, and overwhelming that I can only describe it as pure bliss (even though that doesn’t begin to describe it).

And suddenly, I was whisked away and found myself traveling rapidly through a vortex toward a beautiful white light in the far, far distance. I continued to experience an overwhelming feeling of love within me and around me. There was no fear, no anxiety, and no worry. I even felt as if I’d done this before and was remembering that I was going home. I was filled with joy. I had no sense of a body, no feeling of limitations or boundaries. Yet, I was still me and aware that I was having this experience.

Before long, I realized I wasn’t alone. There was someone, whom I can only describe as a loving Being of Light, traveling beside me . . . at the speed of light! We communicated mentally. This was someone I have always known, and I knew that as soon as I sensed the presence of this being. Yet I cannot now tell you who it was. I didn’t have the sense that it was any familiar religious figure or deceased relative but rather a special friend who is always with me wherever I am—perhaps, my guardian angel. This Being told me telepathically that I had a choice about going back. I thought, “No, no, no, I want this to go on forever!”

Suddenly, we burst into the light, and a whole new reality was revealed to me, similar to the physical world but in this higher vibration, more colorful, more beautiful, more amazing. I saw plants, trees, mountains, lakes, animals, and shimmering crystal-like buildings, some very large and ornate. I saw beings moving about, light beings, going about their daily lives. They don’t have physical bodies, but they are distinct fields of energy. They don’t walk, they float. They have lives much like ours but without the struggles and sorrows. They are artists, musicians, dancers, singers, inventors, builders, healers, creators of magical things . . . things they will manifest in their next lifetime in the physical universe.

Again, the Being of Light told me it was my choice to stay or go, but that there was more for me to do in that life and it wasn’t quite time for me to leave. Still hesitating, I was told that if I chose to go back, I would be given certain knowledge to take back with me to share with others. After much discussion, I agreed to go back and suddenly found myself in front of a tall cone-shaped building—so tall that it seemed to go up forever. I was told this was the Hall of Knowledge. I entered the building and flew, spiraling upwards, through what appeared to be shelves of books just like in a library with many millions of books, and I flew through them all. When I reached the top, I burst through it into a kaleidoscope of colors and at the same time my head popped out of the water. I was down river about one hundred feet from the raft.

I immediately became aware of where I was and grabbed for the nearest rock. I was able to pull myself up, and I coughed up a lot of water. I was in a state of shock but needed no medical attention. I don’t know how long I was under the raft; no one was looking at his watch at the time. It could have been a minute or two or less; it seemed like days to me. There was no time where I was.

I can’t say that I was clinically dead, but I have no memory of struggling under the water or trying to hold my breath until I reached the surface. (I’ve been a swimmer, water skier, scuba diver, and surfer so I’ve had plenty of close calls under water before when I thought I might die, but nothing like this. These other times I remember perfectly well struggling to reach the surface with my lungs about to burst, trying not to inhale and totally aware of my physical experience.) What I do remember during the time my body was in the water under the raft is what I have told you.

I walked around in shock for months afterwards, not knowing how to describe my experience nor how to integrate it into my life. When I did try to tell someone what I experienced, I was patted on the head and told to forget it, that I was lucky to be alive . . . which is why I suppressed the memory and tried to get on with my life. It wasn’t until fifteen or so years later that I picked up a book titled Strangers Among Us by Ruth Montgomery which described my experience and I finally knew that I wasn’t alone . . . or crazy. It was several years after that I learned of Raymond Moody’s book, Life after Life, which defined the near-death experience and that it actually became acceptable to talk about it for the first time.

My life changed immediately and drastically after that day in the river, and I went through some very tough times because I didn’t know what was happening to me, including a divorce (my husband had no clue what I was going through after the NDE and just thought I must be crazy), child custody battles, trying to find a job after not working for almost ten years, being single again. My Kundalini (life force) energy was running amuck causing depression and suicidal thoughts. The dark night of my soul led me on a long, winding path to becoming a seeker of my higher purpose. I knew there was a reason I chose to come back when I was on the Other Side, but once back in body, it was a mystery to me that I even had a purpose.

A series of coincidences led me to go back to school (seven years later) at age thirty-seven to study psychology. After five years I had a BA and an MS in psychology and have been a counselor ever since. In college I realized the significance of the library I flew through during my NDE. All the books I studied while at the university seemed to be ones I had already read and had no trouble making the Dean’s List most semesters, in spite of working part time (cleaning houses, dog sitting, tutoring, typing) and raising three teenagers as a single mother.

I began my metaphysical studies several years after graduation, reading every metaphysical, religious, and spiritual book I could get my hands on and talking with many teachers and gurus over the years. I began meditating a few years after my NDE mainly to deal with stress. Eventually after getting my kundalini energy under control, I learned to reach and maintain a higher level of consciousness in everyday life. I became an ordained minister and a spiritual counselor. After that, I earned another master’s degree in Clinical Hypnotherapy, which led me to past life regressions as a therapy. My education beyond the veil continues to this day and has evolved my thinking into a higher consciousness perspective.

My purpose for coming back manifested in writing Sitting in the Lotus Blossom in 1989 followed by Through the Tunnel: A Traveler’s Guide to Spiritual Rebirth in 1992. Then in 1996 I developed my first Web site, www.BeyondtheVeil.net, about my near-death experience and included stories from many other experiencers. I also share the wisdom I gleaned from my NDE with those true seekers who stumble upon the Web site. In 2008 I developed an online self-study training program to certify alternative practitioners as Transition Guide Trainers (www.TransitionGuideTraining.org) to teach others to do this work with the dying. I also wrote a companion book Beginner’s Guide to Conscious Dying (www.ArtOfConsciousDying.com) and recorded meditation CDs for those who wish to learn for themselves the practice of conscious dying into the Clear Light to give them peace of mind while living. I’ve practiced as a psychospiritual counselor for three decades and have been a hospice volunteer off and on for many years.

My mission is to empower people with the tools and information they need to see beyond ordinary states of consciousness. Becoming someone’s guru or making someone dependent upon me for his or her spiritual enrichment has never been the goal of my work. I want everyone to be his or her own guru, his or her own spiritual seeker. My role is simply to try to awaken people to the possibility that there is more to life than we’ve been told, and it needs to be investigated if you want to evolve your consciousness.

I look forward to the glorious experience of returning home when my work here is finished, but I’m not in any hurry. I still have a lot to do here on earth before it’s time to leave this body to continue my education and development on the Other Side.