“The Death and After Life of Mellen-Thomas Benedict”
(or How I died and lived to tell about it)

In 1982 I died of terminal brain cancer and to my great surprise I lived to tell about it!

The early years of my life were not a pretty story and the experiences of those years planted the seeds of my disease. Besides the fact that my biological father was a violent alcoholic and tried to kill my mother, brother and me several times, I was a child of a military family in the dark “Cold War” era. Even at that young age I could see nothing to believe in that offered hope or sane answers to the world of desperate problems that I was born into. As time went on I began to believe the “scientific and political experts” who preached that the destruction and eventual death of the entire Earth was going to happen within my lifetime. I had no real spiritual background to believe in. In fact, I did not believe in any form of a “God.” I could not believe that there was an “All Mighty, All Loving God” by observing the world around me. It was not until I died and experienced what is now called a life review that I realized my world view and hopeless attitude was the cause of my disease.

My short and sad life ended one morning in 1982 while in a Hospice Care home. I had been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer about 8 months before, but had already given up on this life of mine many years before this. For months I knew I was going to die and I wanted to die and so I did die to this world. I thought it would all be over and that I could rest in dust.

But at the moment of death I found myself before a Gate or portal of Light that was brighter than a million suns. It was an all encompassing vast sea of endless Light. It penetrated me to the essence of my soul. I felt illuminated, conscious and totally present in every moment of everything. Even though I had never believed in “a God” and did not know what to think of this.

This Light was a “presence” that felt as if it were embracing me with loving hands and looking directly into my eyes. In absolute awe, the only thought that came to my mind was, “Are You God?”
“Who and What is not God?” the Light whispered.
It felt like this Light knew me, like a parent knows a child.

I realized that this Light was trying to tell me something very important in a way that I would understand on every level of my being. It was the idea that if I tried to name who or what the concept of God is, I would have to name everything in the Universe and that would take forever! In that instance I understood that the entire Universe is the Body of God. There is nothing Real or Imagined that is not God stuff.

Then a most unbelievable thought occurred to me.

If everything is God, then I must be a direct part of God!
At that moment I experienced a ray of Light in my heart that was like rolling thunder through my being, it was the 'I AM THAT WHICH IS IN ALL.'

I was truly amazed by this thought and asked the Light, “How can this be?”
“I am so weak and unworthy. I am like a piece of dust floating in the air. My life doesn’t amount to anything. I have never done anything important with my life. I have wasted my life, what possible good am I to the universe?”

The Light whispered, “Oh, beautiful Human, you are the human part of God”.
“Everything you do is of universal importance, you have made your way from the beginning of time to this moment, your life increases the Whole of the universe and you have changed the universe just by being you. No matter how low or how high, no matter how well remembered or forgotten, no matter how diseased or how excellent, you personally have expanded the ALL in ALL. Without your life the universe would be diminished in so many ways.

I was so humbled by this revelation that we mere mortal humans can be of any importance to this great universe. To actually be the Human part of God is a blessing beyond measure.

I realized that I was interacting with a matrix of unimaginable super-consciousness and that this was a very real dimension of the most magnificent universal life energy.

I felt immersed in the purest love and the most complete non judgment and total acceptance I have ever known. This Light transformed me from a being who had been completely self centered and smothered by the worldly pressures of survival, judgment, petty thoughts, fear and self induced blindness. I was transformed from feeling worthless and mundane to experiencing the realization of “my” sacred nature.

To be accepted and loved in that way is beyond simple words. The instance the Light awakens within you, alive or dead, you will never forget it and you will never be the same again.

Everyone’s time to awaken comes when they are ready. It comes in the blinking of an eye and when you may least expect it.

My experience with the Light showed me all the good in this world that I was not seeing and receiving. It was the gift of deep hope and a new view of life that I could believe in. I was shown that we do survive death and we have many lives that add up to a Greater Life, greater than we can imagine.

I believe that humanity is so close to becoming the “new creation” that is talked about in legend and prophecy. All the hard work, blood, sweat and tears of mankind have not been wasted, nothing has been lost and everything has been gained in our “walk about” or journey through this brilliant universe. We may think of ourselves as ugly caterpillars in the jungle, but we are about to become wonderful butterflies in the garden. This universe loves us all beyond our wildest dreams.