This is a past-life I experienced during meditation about five years ago.

I don't know the year, but I'm betting it's at least a few hundred years ago. I'm quite positive I'm somewhere in Egypt, as I'm in a temple with hieroglyphics covering all the gold-coloured walls. I'm a girl, but I see I'm wearing suspenders, a white tank top, and long-ish cargo-type shorts (perhaps I was pretending to be a boy to get into the temple?). My hair is long, thick, dark brown, and in many small curls. I don't know my name, but I feel I'm French, despite where I am, and "Renée" or "Helène" sound like they're connected to me in this life. I am sixteen years old.

I've never seen my life, but only my death - and my death is in that temple. There are a few candles hanging on the temple walls, but the place is still practically pitch black inside. As I stand there, the temple starts to fill rapidly with water, and I look around for a place to get out. (Perhaps I've been locked in for pretending to be a boy?) This seems impossible to me, as there's no way I can be about to die in this temple! So young! And how would one lock someone inside?!

But as the water fills faster and faster, I find myself surrendering to whatever God has planned for me. After my minute of panic, I find myself calming down and lying on my back in the water, readily accepting my fate and staring at the temple ceiling. It's dark as I calmly watch the water rush all around me, and within seconds, the water level in the temple is over my head.

My eyes still open, the images above me wavy with the water against my eyes, still gazing at the ceiling of the temple, I know my lungs are filling with water - but I feel no pain or fear. Instead, I feel an eerie sense of peace surrounding me. Even though I know I'm about to die, I feel God holding me in his arms, so everything is perfectly as it should be. Where the ceiling was once dark, a small burst of light appears and grows larger and ever brighter - it's as if someone has lifted the "lid" off the temple and opened it up from the top. But it's even brighter than the sun - it's like staring into the soul of the Heavens.

Still lying in the water, still staring at this incredible light, I feel myself being pulled from my body, being lulled into the light. It feels like I'm in the middle of a hypnotic dance. It grows bigger and bigger, and I'm engulfed in the light. In fact, I AM the light - and everything I've ever needed to know is now known.

Holly Lindin

Posted Feb. 2, 2009