Lessons From a Near Death Experience

When our house burned down in the middle of the night last year, my husband and I escaped death by a series of amazing coincidences. 

We got out with just seconds to spare, wearing only our pyjamas.

Everything  we owned was lost  — but miraculously we were alive.

House on fire

We were woken from deep sleep by the person who saved us.

In that moment it was clear: I hadn’t outwitted death, and  I wasn’t a victim either.

I was simply — gratefully  — alive.

I felt light, joyful and completely at peace.

My bed side

Life suddenly looked so simple and clear —we are given life until we aren’t.

The idea that I  have “ my own life’; that I exist as a separate entity with control over it,  just wasn’t plausible. Something I had known in theory was suddenly blindingly obvious.

As Einstein put it,

‘The notion of individual consciousness is an illusion, albeit a tenacious one’

Within that illusion we often find ourselves at war with life —striving to survive, trying to extract something from it; working to get and keep things, people, achievements, experiences…. and everything we acquire comes with the fear of losing it.

We live trying to forget that death  is certain and its timing unknown.

Life feels random and fragile and our best weapons are control and distraction (getting)

By turns it’s  stressful, anxiety ridden, melancholy making, exhausting — and ultimately futile

the flyer that survived

So what can we do?

A couple of days after the fire, when we were able to return to the ruins of my bedroom which had been reduced to charcoal, I found a scorched flyer from the meditation that I practise. My heart leapt.

It felt like a sign, a quiet confirmation. All the dots connected.

This meditation method has shown me how the illusion of the separate self can be gradually dismantled, revealing the Truth within. The same Truth that religions throughout history have pointed to — only now there is a clear and practical method.

I just wanted everyone to know about it.

It is the most joyful news!

Helen Raffal, Sydney