by Paul Elder
Through several previous months, my work and other commitments had kept me extremely busy and I hadn't had much contact with my guides. I was sure that another week at the Institute would help to bridge the gap.
Time passed quickly. Soon I was back in the beautiful blue hills of Virginia meeting a new group of explorers. Although the relaxing surroundings of The Monroe Institute were just what I needed, it was not without some anxiety that I approached the week to come. The idea of trying to help people who had already died was more than a little unnerving.
The first days of the program reacquainted us with territory we had explored in previous programs. As usual, I ended up falling asleep during most of the early sessions with very little to report. The full day in noisy jets and airports always seemed to take its toll. I came to the conclusion that arriving a day earlier, to catch up on sleep, would be a good idea for future seminars.
On the second day, I awoke rested and eager to get into the program. Although I couldn't remember much, I knew that I had been dreaming about my spirit guides. I looked forward to reconnecting with them.
The morning session began and, in the quiet darkness of my CHEC unit, the relaxing Hemi-Sync tones carried me quickly into a deep, altered state. Within moments I began clicking in and out of consciousness, hovering tentatively at the edge of sleep. After three or four clicking-out episodes, I found myself in the grip of a strong vibration. My body shook from head to toe. Fighting for control, I willed the slow choppy cycles into higher, smoother frequencies. In a short time, the pulsing tremor rose into a high-pitched whine. Soon, a series of small energy rushes coursed through my body. Although I couldn't seem to exert any control over them, I lay back and welcomed the experience. It wasn't long before I realized that someone else had taken charge. My body rose into the air as if being drawn by a huge magnet. A light briefly flashed before my eyes, and the next thing I knew I was speeding towards a familiar energy.
The iridescent beauty of what I now called the Park greeted me with the warmth of a long lost friend. Meldor's powerful presence was pervasive. I could feel his distinct vibration flowing through me. Within moments he was standing beside me, softly touching my shoulder. “Hello again,” he greeted me. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” I eagerly responded. “Meldor, this is so incredible. Why can't I come here everyday?”
“Actually, you do, quite often. Most nights while your physical body sleeps, at some point you travel here in your spirit body to join with those who love you. You come to learn and to rejuvenate your energy within the vibration of The All.”
“The All?”
“Yes, The All That Is. Many refer to it by various names, but the energy you feel here permeates all things. It's the universal energy of Love. Nothing can avoid or escape its power. It is essentially the energy vibration of all souls. Considering the religious concepts that you've been taught, you may think of it as the energy of the Holy Spirit or the essence of God. It's all the same, and it's the source of All That Is.”
Deep within, I felt the truth of Meldor's revelations, but I was still puzzled. “It's a wonderful feeling, but if I come here every night, why don't I remember it? In fact why doesn't everyone remember it? Wouldn't the world be a much better place if everyone knew and remembered that this is our real home? If everyone could experience this and remember it, there would be no wars, there would be no crime, and no one could hurt another being.”
“That is true,” Meldor acknowledged. “But if everyone knew and remembered, there would be little reason to incarnate. There would be little challenge to the human experience. The challenge and the quest to improve, to overcome and to remember, is what gives real value to the experience. The value and power of human existence is in the experience itself. We all benefit from the lessons and experiences of each soul. We are, in reality, all one.”
His answer made sense to me, but I struggled with the idea of being all one. I needed more of an explanation. Meldor sensed my confusion. “To truly experience something,” he continued, “is the best tool for understanding. Knowing is better than believing. The human mind experiences itself as distinct and separate, but this is an illusion. To fully understand the reality of ‘all as one,’ and the connection of all things to each other, it is helpful to experience the polarity of separation and connection.”
With that, Meldor placed his index and middle fingers on my forehead. A surge shot through me and I felt as though I was about to lose consciousness. Where just moments before I felt clear and rational, now I couldn't seem to hold a coherent thought in my mind. I was dizzy. Nothing made sense, and very quickly my entire existence seemed to be closing in on me. As I fought to maintain consciousness, the image of a television screen loomed before me. It was as if my entire view of the universe was from inside a television tube from where I looked out.
There was an electronic snap as if someone had shut off the power to the television. The screen to my perception of the world went blank. All that seemed to remain of me was a tiny dot of energy in the center of the screen. A virtual sea of blackness surrounded me. The feeling of isolation and darkness creeping into my spirit was almost too much to bear. I was alone in a universe of emptiness. A profound sadness overcame me. I wanted to cry out in desperation, but even my thoughts had begun to fade. My consciousness, my awareness of self was dying, and I knew that in another moment I would cease to exist. Then everything went black, and I was no more.
As if from an eternity of sleep, I slowly began to reemerge from the nothingness. Vestiges of dream images and fleeting thoughts tugged at me like the rescuing hands of a loving parent. In a few moments I was again awake, my consciousness fully restored. I was still me, but I felt somehow different—changed in some unfathomable way.
I'm not sure how to best describe this, but I was no longer aware of being in any particular form. I felt instead like I was a floating sphere of microscopic particles. I had no idea where I was, but it felt as if I was hovering in outer space.
With each passing moment I felt the power of spiritual energy growing within my form. Even though I was composed of hardly more than a mass of seemingly nonconnected particles, I felt more alive and together than I had ever been. My awareness of self was acute. Somehow, every individual particle of my being seemed to contain the totality of my consciousness.
As I floated in space, relishing the immensity of the experience, I became aware of a concentrated power approaching me. It was nothing that I could see, but the energy of this presence, whatever it was, was awesome. Every fragment of my awareness began to shake and then to resonate in harmony with the vibrations of this enormous force. Suddenly, I found myself exploding into the universe.
It felt as if the very essence of my spirit was being blown like dust into the far reaches of the cosmos. Expanding and growing in perception, it seemed that I had somehow joined with the energy of every living thing. I felt a baby's cry and the anguish of its mother. I experienced the joy of a puppy as it bounded happily after a child. I felt the power of a whale swimming in the ocean. From the mindless destruction of war to the purposefulness of a hummingbird in flight, I experienced and became a part of everything that I touched. It was at the same time an explosion of emotion and a mystical encounter with the love of God. I suddenly understood the perfection of creation. The entire experience was so overwhelming, so illuminating, that I became lost in the beauty and complexity of it all.
It began slowly at first—small shifts of consciousness tugging at me, reminding me that I was still attached to a physical body. Tears of gratitude and joy started welling up in my eyes until I could no longer resist the pull of the physical. In an instant the experience was over and I was back in my CHEC unit.
My heart pounding, I remained in the silence of my room, contemplating the emotions and images newly imbedded in my mind. The montage of revelations had been almost overpowering. So much had happened simultaneously that I couldn't even hope to remember, much less describe
the totality of the experience. Sitting up, I tried to make notes of the session, but the effort seemed futile. After scratching out a few inadequate phrases, I summarized it with one word: “Wow.”
Initiations complete, we were ready to get down to business. With the help of Hemi-Sync, the trainers slowly led us into new territories of exploration. The basic plan of action called for us to be guided by the frequencies to the Park. This was a place Monroe often came across in his journeys to the Other Side. Others had described it as the “meeting place,” the “receiving station,” or, more elegantly, as Heaven. This was where the souls of the newly deceased arrived when they first made the transition. Here, they were greeted by spirit guides and deceased loved ones, who then accompanied them to their place for orientation to their spiritual surroundings. In the program's Hemi-Sync terminology, the level of consciousness where the Park could be found is referred to as Focus 27.
This part excited me. I felt sure that I had already been to the Park. Focus 27 must have been where I first met my guides. We were told that this level was where we could unite with our guides or other helping spirits who would then escort us to other levels of consciousness where the lost souls were trapped.
Although nervous, I couldn't wait to get going as we began our first guided tour of the various levels. With the powerful, brainwave-altering frequencies humming in the background, Monroe led us through the steps we would repeat many times in the coming days. After several palpable changes in vibration, to my delight, I suddenly found myself standing in the Park welcomed by Meldor and Raylon.
“This is a wonderful service you've made yourself available for,” Meldor began. “And we are very happy to assist you.”
Nervous, I remained silent as Meldor continued. “There are many beings that require assistance and we hope to help as many as we can. We do want to make you aware that you may be faced with some very powerful emotions and disturbing scenes, but we are certain you will be able to handle it. We will first accompany you on a tour of this level to help you understand and acclimate yourself to the coarse and sometimes uncomfortable vibrations that you may encounter.”
With those words, Meldor and Raylon positioned themselves on either side of me. “When we begin to move through the various levels,” Meldor continued, “we may not be visible to you, but you will be able to feel our energy and know that we are with you.”
At that point, they placed their hands on my shoulders. I felt a dizzying shift in vibration and my senses seemed to turn inward. Within moments I had the sensation of moving at high speed through a dark, mistlike atmosphere. On and on we flew, until without warning, it felt as if I had burst through the other end of a dark tunnel in the sky. The landscape dropped away below me, and I found myself shooting through the air a couple of hundred feet above the ground. A scream caught in my throat. I felt like Wile E. Coyote shooting off the edge of a cliff, desperately clawing the air when he discovers there's no ground beneath his feet. Shocked, I virtually hit the brakes in midair, finally coming to something of a skidding stop.
“Holy shiiiit!” The words blew out of my mind before I could stifle them. Floating motionless in the air, I needed a moment to calm my thoughts and regain my bearings. “Jesus! Meldor,” I muttered, “take it easy.”
From somewhere beside me, I heard Meldor chuckling. “Oops, sorry about that.”
The whole thing suddenly struck me as terribly funny, and I burst out laughing. It occurred to me that Meldor had probably done it on purpose. I had been nervous, perhaps a bit too uptight, and needed to relax a tad before taking on whatever lay ahead.
My wits somewhat recaptured, I began to check out my surroundings. It seemed like a real Earth environment. Below me was a large body of water, like an inland lake. A 12-foot-high cliff wound its way along the perimeter overlooking a thin strip of beach at the water's edge. I noticed a couple of people swimming in the lake, perhaps a hundred feet or so from the shore. I floated down for a closer look.
As I drew closer to the surface of the water it dawned on me that these people weren't swimming. They weren't even moving. The bodies of a man and a woman appeared to be floating just below the surface. They were dead, obviously drowned. It was then that I first noticed a man sitting on the beach, agitated and distraught. Just as I was about to move closer to him, I heard Meldor's voice in my mind. “Don't worry about him; we'll come back for him later. He'll be okay. But for now, we should continue on. There are other souls we want you to see as well.”
With Meldor's reassurance, we resumed our travels. The scene below began to fade and I was soon floating over a small country home in a flat agricultural area. I noticed the absence of roads in the prairie below. There was only a small, worn, rutted path leading to the property. A short wooden fence surrounded a large, well-treed back yard containing a huge vegetable garden. Dropping lower I was drawn to the back of the house and a pathway into the garden. It was then that I understood why I was there. A rather plump elderly woman in apparent difficulty lay on her side at the edge of the path. I knew we'd be returning to try to help this poor soul, and at Meldor's bidding, we continued on.
Through scene after scene our tour continued: from visages of armored soldiers fighting bloody sword battles in medieval times to more modern forms of warfare, we journeyed on. The brutal reality was numbing. I wasn't sure that I was prepared for the depth of the emotional trauma I was witnessing. Still we continued, mostly just flying over the sites, but occasionally stopping to get a closer look at some of the souls we would return to help later.
Two of the more traumatic scenes stunned my senses, leaving a heaviness in my heart. While flying over a barren, hot and dry grassy plain of what I took to be Africa, my attention was drawn to a small, one-room, stone building. The roof was gone. It looked like the structure had been destroyed by fire. Meldor's voice surfaced in my mind, telling me that two African tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis, had been at war. In one of the skirmishes, a number of the local people had been rounded up and locked into this building, which was then torched. There was a young soul there who needed assistance. We would return for him.
In the last encounter, we floated down into a jungle in South America, perhaps Columbia or Peru. Vegetation was thick and green. As I neared a small clearing I spied the body of a young man draped over the bottom rail of a ranch-type fence. It looked as if he had been crawling through the fence when he died. A large wound cut through the back of his neck, nearly severing it. I wondered about the circumstances of this gruesome scene, but knew we'd be back.
With that, Meldor brought our tour to an end. “It's time for us to depart,” he said. “Your emotional energy needs to be restored. You will have much to process before we return for this work.”
A second later I was back in my body. The session hadn't ended yet, but I pulled off my headphones and stretched out on the bed. Meldor was right; I would need some time to think about all I had witnessed. As shocking as these scenes were, I was surprised at my calmness and detachment. In my physical body, the horror of the experience would have been difficult to deal with, but in my spirit body I understood that there was no such thing as death. There were no accidents. Each and every event had its purpose.
Stark images still playing in my mind, I got up and headed out into the warm Virginia sunshine. Enjoying the peaceful sounds of nature, I wandered aimlessly through the lush grounds of The Monroe Institute. In the shade of a large old tree I sat down, resting my back against its trunk, and while the birds and frogs sang a lazy lullaby, I fell asleep.
Sometime later, I awoke to the chirping of an angry squirrel in the branches just above my head. He was, no doubt, scolding me for invading his territory. With the fading images of a dream retreating into my subconscious, I crawled to my feet, apologized to the squirrel, and headed off to dinner. At the dining room I was surprised to find that most of my friends had already finished their meals. I had slept for more than an hour.
The following morning, rested
and alert, I couldn't wait to get going on my first soul rescue mission. Following breakfast and an early briefing session, I anxiously headed to my CHEC unit. By the time the vibrations of the Hemi-Sync tones surfaced in my headphones, I was already deep in an altered state.
As Bob Monroe's voice guided us through the various levels of consciousness, I was having trouble focusing on his words. I kept clicking in and out of awareness. The stereo frequencies were designed to lead us through the various levels in ascending order until we finally reached the Park at Focus 27. Halfway there, I began to feel a familiar vibration that could only be coming from Meldor. In anticipation, I relaxed and waited for the sound of his voice. Instead, I was unexpectedly jolted by the sound of a squirrel. It was so startling, I almost sat up in bed. Then I heard his distinct laugh.
“That was you waking me up under the tree yesterday?” I asked.
“What, you didn't recognize me?” Meldor chuckled. “You'd probably still be out there if I hadn't awakened you.”
“Very funny, Meldor,” I replied. “You do that type of thing often?”
“Only when I need a good laugh,” he chortled. “You'll never be able to look at a squirrel in the same way again, will you?”
“Not likely,” I mused. “It's a neat trick, though. You'll have to teach it to me some day.”
“Oh, I can assure you, that was no trick. What makes you think I can't be a squirrel if I want to?”
“I don't know. But trick or not, I'd still like to learn how to do it.”
“You already know how to do it, you've only forgotten. Someday you'll remember.”
Meldor changed the subject. “So, are you ready to get down to business? We have a busy day ahead, you know. Places to go, people to meet.”
“To tell you the truth, Meldor, I'm still a bit nervous about it. How will I know what to say? What if I screw up or can't get through to them?