IMPORTANT: A sophisticated scam to get your money

Important to read as a warning:  This particular scam happened to a Brit, but the same kind of scam is taking place all over the world.  Thieves are getting more and more sophisticated about how to steal your money, your credit card and your good credit rating/name.

HOW I GOT SCAMMED (Think only an idiot would turn over their PIN number to a stranger? Think again!)

By Andy Welch

My landline rang. It was a Sunday morning and I was surprised because I’d given the number to only three people as I tended to use my mobile phone instead. 

‘Hello Mr Welch, Visa Card Services here.’ That was the line with which my nightmare started.

The person on the other end of the phone — Mark — told me there had been a number of fraudulent transactions on my bank account since midnight, adding up to about £1,100.

I’d never heard of Visa Card Services before, but then I’d never had money stolen like this before. Maybe this is what happens. 

Mark then confirmed the last genuine withdrawal I’d made — at a Barclays cashpoint in North London, opposite Highbury & Islington station. He then gave me a reference number and told me to ring the number on the back of my bank card.

I did just that, quoted the reference number and spoke to someone who knew all about the supposed fraud. 

These cunning tricksters had apparently cloned my card at the ATM I’d used and then treated themselves to a few things in the Apple Store on Regent Street.

Something didn’t ring true about the whole thing: why, for starters, would someone with a stolen bank card spend only £400 in the Apple Store? But I watch enough consumer TV to know these things happen.

The person helping me, Rajesh Khan in HSBC’s card protection department, had my full name, date of birth and, crucially, my address. He said a courier was on the way to collect my bank card for further examination. 

Initially I flinched, but when he explained they needed to analyse the chip, it seemed to make sense. After all, I’d called the bank myself: this had to be genuine. 

And that is probably the same reason I typed my PIN into the keypad of my phone when he asked.

I packaged the card as requested — wrapped in kitchen roll, packed into an envelope so it didn’t look like a bank card — and waited for the courier. 

Rajesh called back twice: once to say the car was five minutes away and again to say it was outside, quoting the car’s number plate and describing the driver.

He called again later that afternoon to say they’d received the card and that I’d have my money back in a few days. ‘Great,’ I thought.

So taken in was I by the efficiency of it all that I went through exactly the same process the following day when Visa Card Services called to say there was now a problem with my credit card. 

The fraudsters had somehow hacked into my online account, got my credit card details and maxed it out.

Good old Rajesh told me this time there was a shred of hope the criminals would be arrested as they’d made the mistake of buying Eurostar tickets to Paris on a specific train. The police would be waiting for them at St Pancras. Amazing news!

A few days went by and Rajesh stopped calling. By then I was about £4,000 out of pocket, so I called the bank, this time from my mobile. 

After explaining the situation to two or three people, I heard the most chilling phrase of all: ‘But Mr Welch, your cards haven’t been reported stolen.’

I’ve never been speechless before. I’ve never been able to feel the colour drain from my face either. But now I was, and I did. 

Why had I given my card to a stranger? Why had I typed my PIN into the phone? How did they know my landline number? How did they know my mother’s maiden name? How did they have my address?

The police still haven’t been able to establish the answers to these last three questions, but say that such criminals are remarkably adept at gleaning personal information from the internet and the electoral roll.

And, most infuriating of all, why hadn’t I checked my balance before I even called the bank that Sunday morning?

When I did check, things were far worse than I’d expected. The Apple Store story was all a lie. In fact, they had spent thousands in clothes shops and, best of all, treated themselves to a Dixie Fried Chicken each evening. To cap it all off, my rent payment had bounced. 

By then, I was panicking. What if I didn’t get a refund? The security expert at the bank said this was a possibility. It would take me years to pay off debt like this.

I called the police, who put me onto their dedicated fraud line.

After explaining my idiocy once again — it’s pretty humbling, repeatedly telling people you’re the type of person who gives your bank card and PIN to the first person who asks for them — they went through the likely series of events that led to this theft.

In the end, the total taken from my account was about £5,500. 

It all started, said the police, on the Saturday night when one of this gang will have watched me take money from the cashpoint. 

That’s details of my last transaction taken care of. The police then believe that I was followed home, which is how they got my address. My name and landline number they doubtless obtained with a bit of research online.

As for the call, well, it’s pretty clever. Only the person who initiates a landline call can cut it off. If the person who receives the call puts down the receiver, it doesn’t hang up.

So, when I went to find my bank card, the fraudsters were still on the other end, waiting for me to pick up the phone and call ‘the bank’. 

As I did this, they first played a dial tone down the line and then a ring tone. 

‘Rajesh’ will have been sitting next to ‘Mark’, the first person who called me, no doubt both laughing their heads off at how stupid I’d been. I was right to praise the bank’s efficiency, though. They got me all my money back within ten days, though I did have to get new bank accounts and cards. 

It was a pretty lean spell and by the time I got my money back, I’d spent my last 60p on a tin of beans.

My family and friends offered money, but I didn’t have a bank account for them to pay money into and there was a chance I had the sharp end of six grand to pay back, so I didn’t need to owe another £50 on top of that. 

The feeling of total financial ruin, of utter helplessness, isn’t one I’ll forget in a hurry. Setting up new direct debits was an unholy pain and even now, five months on, I’m still having problems.

My credit rating has taken a serious knock, while getting the various bank departments to talk to one another and not try to charge me a few hundred quid in overdraft charges was no picnic.

I’ve since had to sign up to a number of other bank schemes and government services to protect myself. I get a monthly statement of credit checks in my name, for example, so I’ll know if these  people are using the information they have on me. 

It took a few weeks to stop worrying about the same people coming back to my house, too, though spending hours online researching the link between bank fraud and violent crime — virtually non-existent — helped with that.

Out of everything, accepting that it had happened at all probably took the longest. 

I’m still coming to terms with it, but I think being a bit more suspicious isn’t a bad thing. 

Being paranoid, though? Well, hopefully that will just wear off in time. I like to think I’m a tech-savvy, culturally aware person. I read about internet security. 

I know about phishing: criminals masquerading as a friend or business to dupe you into revealing your passwords or bank details. 

Yet all that knowledge left me when it counted. 

Financial fraud is often deemed a victimless crime because, ultimately, it’s only huge companies footing the bill, not individuals. 

Having suffered the stress, upset and countless hours spent sorting it out, I know it’s anything but victimless.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384651/Think-idiot-hand-bank-card-PIN-number-thief-Read-.html#ixzz2b6snASMr

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Republicans choose more vacation over governing

THIS IS WHO THEY ARE
By Dave Johnson

This week was put up or shut up time for Republicans. After decades demanding unspecified budget cuts they finally had to put their vote where their budget outline was. So what did they do? They are taking a 40th vote on repealing Obamacare and then heading home for five weeks vacation. This is who they are.

This week the House Republican leadership withdrew its own transportation and housing appropriations bill. (Transportation, Housing and Urban Development is also known in DC as “THUD.”) The bill lined up with the Republican “Paul Ryan” budget outline Republicans have already passed. But even though Republicans completely control the House, they couldn’t pass THUD because the cuts in the bill were just too much for members to stomach. They understand that the public, having been promised for decades that cuts in “waste” will be painless, will not like it when the things that make their lives better are what gets cut, and will likely vote accordingly.

For decades Republicans have talked of the need to cut government, without ever specifying specifically what, specifically, they would cut. So here they are, having to put actual numbers on their eternal promises to cut cut cut, and they can’t even stomach it themselves. This bill was 9% below even sequester-level cuts. The worst cuts were to public works projects (construction jobs), Amtrak and community planning and development block grants. Note that while some Republicans couldn’t vote for it because it cut too much, others objected because they wanted even more cuts! (Note that they did pass large increases in military spending in exchange for large contributions from military contracting corporations.)

When they return in the fall it looks like they will try to divert attention from their failure to come up with specific cuts by passing something that Democrats cannot accept and the President will veto, then shut the government down and try to blame Democrats. Senate Republicans moved that ball down the road by filibustering the Senate version of the THUD bill. The country is left without a budget and the Congress goes home

The rubber has hit the road, the Republicans have been fighting for power, they have it, and this is what they are doing with it. They are obstructing and deflecting, not governing. This is who they are.

Read More

A near-death experience containing wisdom and love

Experiential Truth about our real nature is contained in the following essay. It touches the deepest part of us, where the spark of Divine Light burns brightly. 
As we read the words of the woman who is telling us her story from the depths of her heart,  her profound experience becomes our own and we are blessed, as she was.

This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/nde/near-death-account-nde

EXCERPT: "One of the most important things I gained was the feeling that there is a greater spirit of unconditional love to which we can turn continually for wisdom, comfort, and guidance through life’s challenges. The experience led to a belief that the Light of divinity exists within all of us, and that all discord arises from a sense of separation from this Light. As we align our minds and hearts with the Light, we can experience its qualities in the forms of peace, love, joy, compassion, and well-being."

Dear friends,

The moving near-death account below was the July 2013 selection for members of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS - subscribe free at this link). It was taken from accounts submitted to the IANDS archives and is provided here anonymously.

In this transformative account, a young American woman dies during childbirth in India, only to be reborn back in her own body with profound new understandings of life. She recounts the rich details of her experiences before, during, and since her time out of her body. Her struggles over the last 40 years to integrate all that she learned and experienced while dead are particularly enlightening. Enjoy this profound message and consider opening to guidance to receive the great wisdom shared.

With very best wishes for a transformed world,
Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info

My Son, My Light
As Anonymously recounted to IANDS
July 2013

My NDE (Near-Death Experience) occurred in 1973 during childbirth while I was living in Madras, India. Not long after the experience, I wrote down everything I could remember, yet it was years before I shared the account with anyone, and even then it was only with a few family members. For many months preceding the birth, I had had a prolonged illness that was eventually diagnosed as a rare tropical parasite. I had dwindled to some 90 pounds and was quite weak when I went into labor. After many hours in labor, fatigue had begun to set in.

When the time came to deliver, the doctor told me to push, so I began the process of pushing with each contraction. This went on for a long time. I kept expecting the baby to come any minute. However, after extended efforts, I was not making progress and I began to lose my strength. I still continued to push, but after endless rounds still yielding no results, I finally fell back in exhaustion.

The doctor instructed me to keep going but my body, in its weakened state, refused to cooperate. I began to feel panicky. It was clear that my prolonged efforts had failed to further any progress towards the birth. As my muscles went flaccid, I felt my entire body tremble violently. I could barely speak. Realizing my battery had gone dead and I had no control over my body, I was overcome with fear and felt as if the last drop of blood had seeped out of me. I thought, “I’m going to die.”

Seeing that I had no strength left, the nurse turned to the doctor and said, “She can't push anymore.” At that point, there was a sudden change in the room. The previous sense of alarm seemed to turn to crisis. Everything happened very fast. I had no idea what had gone wrong; only that it seemed to be an emergency. My last hold on myself started to go, and I could hear urgency in the doctor’s voice. This was followed by an acute wrenching sensation, as if I had been split in half, and then I went unconscious. The light went out and I slipped away.

There was a moment of darkness. Then part of me rose and floated up to the corner of the room. I hovered there briefly, observing the scene below. I saw my body lying on the delivery table, surrounded by people in white coats who seemed to be in great commotion.

Then slowly, I floated upward out of the room and building, above the trees, and up into a black, star-filled sky. In this studded darkness, I was carried gently into the distance like a petal drifting on the surface of a stream.

Eventually I came to rest in a dense, velvet-black space that enveloped me in tranquility. In this peaceful place, I had no fear. I became aware that there was no time. There was no yesterday or tomorrow. There were no boundaries. There was no pain.

While I floated in the darkness, the Earth appeared far below me and gradually came into my vision. Suddenly I knew without a shadow of doubt that I had entered another existence that was neither a dream nor a hallucination. I knew it was real: as true, as palpable, and as certain as had been my life on Earth. I became aware that although I had left my body behind, whatever constituted “I” was still alive and remained unchanged.

I sensed that this other form in which I now existed was like a transparent encasing for my soul, for the consciousness that was the essence of myself. In this body-less state, I was suddenly struck by the realization that I had been here before my life on Earth. I was remembering something I had forgotten, something that had been erased from memory when I was born.

This was where I had originally come from. I had come home. Some invisible, silent source of infinite knowledge seemed to surround me, with answers to things like “where do we go when we die?", "how was life and the world created?”, and so on. It was never clear to me why I became separated from this source and its infinite knowledge at birth.

Earth Pangs

Looking down, the Earth came clearly into my vision as if I had telescopic sight. I saw a dark vision of suffering and entrapment that was like a distillation of the human condition over millennia. It seemed this condition led history to repeat itself in an endless cycle of war, bloodshed, torture, deprivation, insanity, illness, and alienation. It seemed as if all the pain mankind had suffered through the ages had been distilled to its essence and funneled into one collective cry to be released from this prison.

From the chaos of destructiveness, faces advanced into the darkness, then receded back into their private hells, calling, “Help me!” I felt like I was looking directly into peoples’ souls to the raw fear beneath their protective shells. I felt great compassion for all those in pain. I wanted some miracle to release them all from their misery, but I perceived that nothing could deliver them from it as long as they remained there, separated, through ignorance and fear, from their source.

I sensed that the only thing that would release them from that condition was to break through the shield of separateness that divided them from themselves, from others, and from the infinite creative power behind this vast universe of space in which I now found myself floating.

I was deeply troubled by this dark vision, for it appeared that humans were destined to remain imprisoned in their suffering as long as they inhabited the Earth, and that only death would release them from this condition. Yet a thought passed through my mind: “If they could break through their sense of separation, look, and see this other realm here that exists beyond them, they would be released from bondage.”

Slowly the voices faded, the faces receded, the Earth fell away, and again there was only soothing darkness. Then I felt myself drifting again, farther away into the beyond, gently lifted towards a light in the far distance. I seemed to be carried further and further out into the universe at the speed of light, as if swept by a gentle, yet rapid current. I was drawn to the magnetic force of the light like a river is drawn toward the sea.

Then I came again to a resting place. I became aware of a compassionate presence that held me as I saw my life of 27 years on Earth unfold. I had lived and traveled extensively in India amid conditions of poverty, disease, destitution, and death that were all-pervasive and inescapable. As a result of my exposure to these conditions, I had become seriously ill. I had also struggled with my own personal demons from a troubled childhood. As negative thoughts and emotions arose, they were simply acknowledged and held by the presence, without judgment, with complete forgiveness.

Divine Light

Then I heard a voice. It was so gentle and tender, so full of love and compassion; I realized I had never experienced these qualities in my lifetime. The voice said: “If you had only known I was here, you never would have had to go through this.” Hearing this, I felt suddenly free of all that had held me chained like a stone to a condition of human bondage. While the negative states of my earthly life played out before this presence, it surrounded me with total acceptance and loving-kindness.

The next thing I experienced was being drawn into the Light itself. Now the Earth was so far away that it seemed to disappear from my consciousness. The intensity of this light and my direct experience of it transcends expression in words. It was a brilliant, white gold transparency, radiating warm and pure luminescence. It seemed to be a nucleus of energy that was the essence of life itself; that charged all matter, animating it with its life-giving power.

Cradled in this Light, I was suffused with a sense of joy, calm, peace, and beauty that were, until then, unknown to me. Unlike the beauty I had experienced on Earth, this beauty was eternally renewing and all-encompassing. It seemed to synthesize all opposing elements, dissolving them into the whole of itself. I perceived this light as the essence of divine love.

Inside this presence, I felt an indescribable sense of freedom, a release from all the burdens associated with human life. I was like an invisible, permeable membrane through which the Light passed and flowed, transforming me into the Light itself. It seemed to possess a universal spirit that was the consciousness and creative force behind human life. Bathed in its luminous warmth, I felt no longer separate but enveloped by a feeling of unconditional love. Here there was no desire, no pain, no fear. This was the final liberation, an experience of pure bliss.

On Earth, I had feared death. Now I saw that death was not an end but a beginning. It was a return to the home from which I had come. My soul had entered the divine consciousness of eternal life, where all wisdom and knowledge resided. As I lay cradled in this loving light, a phrase came to me: “Now I know.” This was where my true self belonged. I knew I had come to my final resting place, back to the source from which I had come, and to the end of all suffering.

Then the light communicated again. The ensuing communication was like a sonic energy penetrating directly into my soul. Thoughts were transmitted without words, silently and directly as if an extension of the Light itself, passing through me by osmosis. The Light was both inside and around me. I was aware that I was both a separate, individual entity while being simultaneously subsumed by the presence of this other entity. Its voice was distinctly its own, separate from me, yet I heard my own unspoken thoughts expressed by it, as if it were inside my mind. A conversation ensued, transmitted like air passing through my cells.

Held within this Light, I saw the essence of my life experience in a flash. It had become dominated by a deepening depression: nightmares, guilt, shame, fear, self-recrimination, and illness. I had been conditioned by the concept of “original sin” to expect recrimination, judgment, and punishment for my sins. As a result, I had anticipated the same response from this spirit of Light.

But there was no judgment. There was only unqualified acceptance and forgiveness. This came as a shock to me. It seemed impossible that I could be loved and accepted just as I was in that moment. Released from the burden of self-punishment, embraced in the wholeness of this forgiving presence, I was enveloped in joy. I seemed to become transparent, the light of divine love flowing through me.

Then I heard the sound of soft, benevolent laughter, which felt like the wise and gentle smile of the Buddha. Again, I was surprised and perplexed. I had not expected to hear laughter from a divine force. It rained over me like soft petals. Then it said: “My child, you mustn’t take things so seriously. You are just part of an evolutionary chain, in which all life evolves at different stages of development. You are only human. You need not judge yourself so harshly. Be gentle with yourself.”

I had gotten only the slightest glimpse of the limitless realms beyond the finite boundaries of the world we inhabit. I was eager to learn more. At the same time, I was content to float in the peace and joy of the Light, where I had come to know the certainty of love. This yearning of humans to be connected, to love and be loved, was so clear and profoundly felt that I could not face the thought of a return to a world in which this simple truth remained, to so many, unknown, unrealized, or buried. I wanted to stay forever in the presence of Light.

Rebirth

The Light knew my thoughts and said simply, “You must return.” Upon being told I must return, I feared being sent back to the same world I had observed from afar, steeped in its suffering, sent back to my human form, where once again I would be bound by the same conditions and limitations I had left behind.

“Please,” I begged. “Please let me stay. Don’t send me back.” A hand appeared in the Light, with beautiful, slender white fingers. “My child,” I heard it say with a tenderness that would haunt me forever, “I have given you the gift of love.” I tried to hold on to the hand, but with a wrenching in my heart, I felt it slip away forever, as it said, “Your life is not completed.”

The next thing I knew I was back in my body. Unlike the long journey into reaches beyond, my return to earth was abrupt, like the shock of birth. I had taken a trip to another galaxy light years away, so far away I could not imagine ever coming back; and then, by some feat of physics, been instantly repossessed by my body. No time had been granted to make the adjustment of having traversed a span of time and space so immense it would affect me for the rest of my life.

Having passed through stars, beyond planets and galaxies, into the far reaches of a universe in which time as we know it did not exist, my soul was not prepared to return to the limited confines of my body. It felt constrained and bereft of the freedom it had known, like a prisoner returned to a cell. I wanted desperately to hold on to what I had left behind, to remember clearly every sacred moment before I lost it. But the world drew me back into its countless challenges.

I found myself lying on something hard. Slowly I came into half-consciousness, into a glaring light. As I tried to adjust to my return, it seemed a hostile place. Someone was doing something to me, but I could not feel my body. Someone came to lift me and prop something soft beneath my back.

Suddenly a woman appeared with a bundle, which she put in my arms, saying, “You have a son.” Then she was gone as suddenly as she had appeared, and I wondered why she had been so brusque and left so suddenly. I had barely had a chance to hold him before the nurse returned to whisk him away. While holding him, I had seen that his head looked mangled, swollen, and bruised, with two red gashes that were like craters on each side of his crown. Shortly after, I was told that his badly injured head needed immediate surgery.

While my son was in surgery, I woke up in a dark room. In the deep quiet of the darkness, I felt the presence of the Light. It was alive and palpable in the room, infusing it with the same supernatural aura of joy and love I had experienced in that other world that now seemed so far away, beyond my reach. Though I had left it and some part of me behind, it now filled the room with a sacred light. Through the birth of my son, it had “given me the gift of love.”

A connection existed between the experience of the Light I had left behind and the birth of my son. He was linked to it, as I had been, and he had brought it with him. I had gone full circle – from life, to what was like death, and back to life again. I had revisited my home of origin. And he had made his journey with me from that home, bringing with him the gift of life and love.

Lying in the room, I was afraid that if I moved, the Light would stop flowing into me and be gone forever. I wished I could sustain the joy and beauty of the love I had left behind, the radiant bliss from which my son and I had been wrenched. I had come falling like a meteor to the gravity of Earth, felt its leaden density and weight. Back in the prison of my small self, I was constrained by my human limitations, never to see the light again. I was left for a brief time between two worlds.

Already I felt the Light slipping away. Now there remained the problem of bridging the gap between the two worlds and trying to comprehend all that had happened. I only knew that it had changed my life forever. I would never be the same again.

During my stay at the hospital, I learned what had taken place during my son’s birth. The American doctor from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi had flown down to investigate the case. He informed us that the doctor who had performed the delivery was unable to deal properly with the complications. The delivery had left two cavernous depressions on each side of my son’s crown, which had put pressure on the brain and had to be relieved to eliminate the possibility of brain damage.

The doctor said it would be a year before my husband and I would know if the post-natal surgery had reversed the trauma and prevented serious repercussions. A year later, when we returned to the United States to have my son examined for possible brain damage, we learned to our immense relief that the surgery had yielded perfect results. No damage had been done. We both wondered what might have happened if the neurologist, who was normally away on an international lecture circuit, had not been in Madras on that fateful day to perform the surgery. I give thanks daily for the miracle of that positive outcome and the blessing of my son’s life.

2012 – Forty Years Later: Changes and Effects

My journey some 40 years ago changed my life by leading me on a spiritual path of inquiry that continues to this day. At the time it occurred in 1973, I was not aware of the extensive literature that has since emerged on the subject of NDEs. Many years passed before I felt safe enough to reveal the experience to anybody. It felt too sacred and private, and I was also afraid people would either not believe me or think I was delusional.

Although I never found out exactly what happened to me medically at the time I went unconscious or perceived that experience as a clinical death, I had no doubts that I had glimpsed the experience of death in some form. It was years before I learned that thousands of other people had been on similar journeys in varying degrees and documented them. When I first read these accounts, I was incredulous, feeling as if I had found members of a lost family who would understand what I had experienced. For the first time, I felt less alone and isolated.

The phrase, “within a distant light” came to me because often, back on Earth, the Light seemed like a ‘distant’ power beyond my reach, while at the same time I believed at a deeper level that it existed ‘within’ me and all humans as our true essence or higher self. I continued to struggle with self-judgment and the conflict between feelings of unworthiness and fear versus feelings of love and self-acceptance.

This conflict became the source of a continued search to integrate more qualities of the Light into my life. I sought out spiritual communities, workshops, literature, and alternative healing therapies. I began to see adversities as opportunities to tap into the Light for spiritual transformation and to help others find their own inner light.

As part of my spiritual path, I undertook volunteer jobs to try to help others undergoing adversities. The periodic depressions I experienced when feeling disconnected from the Light allowed me to empathize with others through their pain and help them see the healing power that existed within them. I worked as a hotline crisis counselor to provide intervention for people struggling with suicide, domestic violence, and other crises, and counseled runaway youths.

I also trained and volunteered as an expressive arts therapist providing stress management to individuals and varied population groups in the community, including mental health centers, cancer and pain support groups, and senior rehabilitation centers. As an expressive arts facilitator, I discovered I could tap into the Light to find perspective and compassion in my own life, and help others find their own inner source of wisdom and healing. As an artist, I drew from the Light to overcome creative blocks and become more fulfilled in my creative life.

The Divine Light and Unconditional Love

One of the most important things I gained from the NDE was the feeling that there is a greater spirit of unconditional love to which we can turn continually for wisdom, comfort, and guidance through life’s challenges. The experience led to a belief that the Light of divinity exists within all of us, and that all discord arises from a sense of separation from this Light. As we align our minds and hearts with the Light, we can experience its qualities in the forms of peace, love, joy, compassion, and well-being.

Relative to that belief, my higher purpose has been to engage in practices that help me and others re-align our human personality with the light of our higher spirit. My mission is to continue to try to understand and integrate the lessons of the Light; to learn greater self-acceptance, non-judgment, forgiveness, and compassion; and to seek and find the joy that comes from being connected to the Light.

Over time, I experienced a marked increase in my commitment to the inner life and spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, mindfulness, visualization, healing arts therapy, gratitude, and journaling. I came to see the greater meaning behind the message of the “gift of love”: that the most important thing in life is to grow in love – love of self, love of others, love of life. I came to give less significance to such things as material wealth, fame, prestige, or power, seeing them increasingly as transient and ephemeral, unable to bring true and lasting fulfillment and happiness.

Self-understanding became an important part of my spiritual journey as I came to see that peace and love can only come through careful self-examination and transformation of the things that block it – hatred, resentment, anger, fear, etc. – so each individual must begin with him or herself, go through the darkness, and make the changes within, in order to effect change without.

After the experience, I wondered if there was some purpose or mission, I was meant to fulfill. Over time, as I engaged in spiritual practices to examine and transform the dark sides within myself, I developed an increased consciousness that a greater spirit was operating in my life, as opposed to viewing life as a series of random, meaningless events. I came to see my purpose as a call to awaken to the presence of spirit as an active and constant player in my life. This required attunement to the existence of spirit at work in every aspect of my life, seeing people, places, and things as teachers and as channels by which the Light was trying to communicate with me, offer guidance, and teach me what I needed to learn.

For example, early on, while still in India, I came across a leper with missing limbs and half his face gone. At first I felt repelled. But then I reached down to give him a rupee. When I looked into his only eye, I felt an overwhelming sense of connection and compassion that transcended appearances.

Much later, back in the U.S., a woman who was terminally ill with cancer came into my life at a time when I was struggling with questions about how to integrate the lessons of my experience more effectively in my life. Shortly after meeting, my friend declared with prophetic certainty that we were similar, that we were meant to meet, and that we had been put on our path together for a reason. As we grew to know each other during the brief remaining year of her life, it became clear that we were both struggling with the problem of judgment – particularly of harsh self-judgment, as well as judgment of others, an issue she was struggling to overcome while she was dying.

During my experience, the primary lesson that was revealed for me to learn was to be less harsh with myself, to learn greater acceptance and compassion for myself and others. During my friend’s lifetime, our get-togethers were focused almost exclusively on our spiritual growth, letting go of negative thoughts and judgments, learning to love more deeply and live in the present moment. She led me to groups, workshops, books, and tapes, the first being Eckhart Tolle’ “Power Of Now,” to help us learn a more mindful approach to life that would free us from the limitations and fears of dark thoughts and feelings.

I felt certain that the Light was communicating with me through this relationship. Through her life and her death, "G" accelerated my spiritual growth as a guide who had made her own spiritual growth the primary focus of her life. I had shared my NDE experience with her and was present as a source of love and compassion for her through her dying process to her death, offering her my vision of the Light of unconditional love that would await her after her death.

From her, I also came to see that the emphasis I had placed on achievement was misguided, and that love is the most important thing in human life. "G" introduced me to a beech tree she perceived as a channel for eternal consciousness whose voice can only be heard in stillness. We visited the tree frequently to listen to its messages. After her death, the tree became a symbol of life and love where her soul came to rest and loved ones came to visit her there in lieu of a grave.

As I grew in awareness of the Light within, I saw my life move from unhealthy patterns to healthier, more productive and spiritually-oriented ones. Yet in spite of all this, I still find that it is not always so easy or simple turn to the Light when I need to. When fear arises, I often forget the existence of the Light, my ability to access it and the knowledge that it is an ever-present source of wisdom and love that is capable of dispelling all negative states.

The other very important effect of the NDE was that it changed my view of death and the afterlife, taking away my fear of the unknown regarding what happens after we die. It convinced me that life does not cease to exist when the body dies; that we have a soul that is connected to a greater consciousness that continues to live in spirit form in another dimension – a realm where a higher intelligence of unconditional love exists. While I still fear the process of dying and the loss of loved ones, I find peace in the belief that our souls live on and are embraced in unconditional love.

Trying to integrate the Light into my life has been a lifelong process. After the shock of returning to a confined body, I experienced periodic depressions about returning from a heaven of unconditional love to a world of discord and suffering. I still struggle with periods when it seems that the healing power of the Light is beyond my reach. I have often wished I could go back or re-experience the bliss of that enlightened moment in time. But I know now that I was sent back to learn more and grow spiritually. I know that the adversities I have encountered and those needing help who have been put on my path have been part of that growth.

It was through the most difficult and painful times in my life and those I shared with others that I was brought closer to the Light. Through them my faith and trust deepened. My intuition was sharpened as I was led to cultivate an awareness that was open and attentive to receiving any messages that might be trying to reach me.

There has been an increase in moments of heightened perception in which I sense the greater spirit operating in my life. I have often felt led through certain people, books, or situations to solutions or resolutions that further my growth. Very frequently, when trying to find an answer to a question or resolution to a problem, I have been led directly to a specific book, sometimes a chapter, in which the answer lies. Also, because I have learned to be open to messages from the Light, they come with great frequency through people in my life.

For example, while I was struggling with resolving aspects of my experience, my son helped me see things from the Light’s perspective so that I could gain new insight on unresolved issues. It was clear to me that the Light was speaking through him. I came to see more clearly that the NDE, at least for me, was not a panacea that changed my life from one day to the next. Rather it served as a guide through the dark side of life, struggles and imperfections, which are an ongoing part of life’s journey.

Another example of feeling a communication with the Light is through a ritual in which I write down the issue I’m trying to resolve (e.g., I seek a shift in how I perceive a situation or relationship from a perspective of love) and place it under my pillow. I have found that the resolution is invariably quickly forthcoming.

Until now, I have reserved sharing my experience with a select few. Among the people with whom I have shared it are my son, who was so integral a part of the experience, and who has since often served as a channel for the Light, offering messages I needed to hear. My second husband, sister, and a couple of friends also supported me.

Comfort in the Light

On rare occasions, I felt the grace of the Light’s presence in my life. Once, in the pit of despair, while I was lying sick in bed, I felt its force so strongly that it jolted me upright to sit on the edge of the bed. A vision of the Light and a hand appeared; the same hand with the long slender fingers that had guided me back to Earth, and it repeated the words: “My child, I have given you the gift of love.”

On another occasion in India, not long after my NDE, I had climbed to a Himalayan mountaintop with my first husband and son. I was sitting by a stream in a paradisiacal meadow with wildflowers while my son played in the stream. After months of having been steeped in self-doubt and anxiety I suddenly felt the Light, fill me with a sense of unconditional love, freeing me from the bondage of all my dark thoughts and feelings. Everything that had tormented me on the plains far below the mountain peak vanished, leaving me with a sense that I had come home to my true self, which belonged with the Light.

The Light carried me forward through my deepest fears and sorrows, through illness, divorce, and the death of loved ones. It gave me strength to go on when I thought all was lost. It helped me learn to accept the frailties I share with my fellow human beings, and to learn to continue to forgive myself and others. I believe that this, and the common experience of the thousands who have shared their passage beyond this world, is testament to the existence of a spirit greater than ourselves.

The crux of the Light’s messages to me was that our souls live on after we die, our relationships are eternal, and we must love ourselves as it loves us: here in this very moment, unconditionally, just as we are. I came to see the Light as the compassionate teacher that lives within each of us as our highest self.

The Light seems to want us to experience its joy and wisdom, and to help us expand; to move beyond the limits and obstacles that prevent us from realizing the happiness and freedom we are capable of experiencing. I have come to believe that the divinity of this Light lies in and around every individual, and it is our life’s purpose to find and express that divinity which exists – not somewhere far away in some distant world, but right here, within each of us.

Though the Light’s message seemed to me to reflect the wisdom of the ages, it continues to elude so many. For me, it is up to each individual to find the way back to the inner light of our highest self, and to embrace rather than shun the darkness within us, for only by going through it can we find our way to the other side.

Note: This essay has been lightly edited for clarity and ease of reading. For an excellent information center filled with inspiring resources on near-death experiences, click here. For the IANDS website, click here.

 

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A much-needed topic for discussion

I agree with this author and his well-written, from-the-heart defense of "right to die."

Dying to Die
By Stephen Pizzo

"Better to live or die, once and for all,
than to die by inches."
— Homer, The Iliad

We've all heard - ad nauseam - about the "right to life." Views differ when life begins. So the arguments continue. And that's fine - so long as no one side is able to impose their view of this metaphysical issue on the other.

But there's the flip side of all that, the right to die, where just such imposition persists. So, we need another debate, with the same passion, on a person's the right to die.

I never gave this issue much thought until recently. I mean, hey, who wants to ruin a perfectly good day thinking about our inevitable demise? So I. like everyone else on the planet, just shoved it to the farthest back-burner of my consciousness.

But that strategy fails, and fast, when we are confronted by a family member who has clearly entered their final lap of life. And that's what got me thinking about all this. I'm of an age, 67, where death has become a frequent visitor. Eldercare has become more than just a term around our house over the past ten years. Sue and I have been there for her parents' deaths, then my father's and now my 93-year old mother has begun to decline, physically and mentally.

All four of them lived vibrant, active and successful lives. They raised children, had successful careers and built successful businesses. They lived well and loved life.

It was only the final year or two where things all went to hell, and fast, for each of them.

My Dad, who had built a successful home construction business after returning from the Navy in World War II, was on oxygen the last year, and he hated it. One day I arrived at his house to help him with some repairs and there he was, 91-years old, gasping for breath, his oxygen bottle under one arm, dragging a 60 pound sack of cement with the other. I got out of the truck, angry at him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked. "Kill yourself or something?"

He shot me an angry, fatherly, glance.

"Yes," he said. "This sucks. I hate it. Can't we speed this (dying) thing up a bit?"

Fortunately we were able to keep him in his own home to the very end. That was a huge blessing. But during that last week or two he would sleep a lot. One day I woke him up for his medications. It was very hard to rouse him, and I thought maybe this was it. But eventually he opened one eye, then the other, and looked a bit surprised. "Damn." he said. "Am I still alive?"

He was SO ready to go. And go he did, eventually. His final months were unhappy, painful and filled with daily humiliations for a once independent, tough and active man. When the end came I was more relieved for him than sad.

Now I am getting to go through all that one more time, this time with my mother. During her prime she was one amazingly sharp cookie. At a time in history when wives were supposed to be just homemakers, she raised two kids, ran the my father's construction company, and became a successful stock market wizard in her spare time.

Now she can't remember what she did a half hour ago. And she knows it. And she hates it. And she asks the same question, "Is there any way we can speed this up?" She is so ready to go.

But, in our culture, you don't get to go when you decide to go. The right-to-lifers have decided no one gets to make that decision. You own your life, but not your death. Instead your death belongs to some abstract philosophical/metaphysical/spirit-entity. You can't argue with them. You can't reason with them. You will live to the bitter end, no matter how long. how bitter, how humiliating, how painful or how miserable that end might be.

"I'm not afraid of being dead. I'm just afraid of what you might have to go through to get there."
— Author Pamela Bone

This nonsense is not only incredibly cruel, but financially ruinous for families and society as a whole. On one hand, medical advances have given us more years of health. We live better, longer. Terrific. I'm all for that. But when our body's machinery reaches its limit, and we enter what pilots call a "terminal spin." that's when the medical system morphs from friend to foe.

"The (old) idea said David Cutler, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, "life is a series of strokes, and medical care has simply gotten better at saving us. So we can live longer because we've prevented death, but those (final) years are not in very good health, and they are very expensive -- we're going to be in wheelchairs, in and out of hospitals and in nursing homes." (ScienceDaily.com)

Now don't get me wrong. I am not for one moment suggesting that we should expedite the death of any terminally ill person against their will. I know all the examples opponents of physician-assisted suicide; that some patients may not be in any condition to make such a decision, some will make the decision to die based on guilt about the financial pressure their illness is imposing on their family. All those problems are real, they exist.

But they are not the full story. They are individual situations, and should have to be dealt with individually, not collectively. In death, like life, one-size does NOT fit all.

"Death is a punishment to some, to others a gift and to many a favor."
— Seneca

Polls show that over 80% support the right to die and have done so for the last 25 years. Even 80% of practicing Catholics and Protestants support it.

On the positive side I think a lot of folks my age have faced this, are facing it now, or will soon. And I don't think they will emerge from it without thinking seriously about two things:

1. Shouldn't the medical system switch from it's role as life-preserver and life-saver, to a palliative care system and -- when a patient requests it -- actively help the dying, die. Just as doctors helped them in at birth, help them out at the end of life.
2. And what about our own, personal end? What are we going to do? What do we want then?

Everyone needs a living will and a motorized medical directive. But those things have limits. They stop at "DNR" - Do Not Resuscitate." Which just mean that if you are lucky enough to start dying naturally at the end, medical personnel will not jump in and try to short circuit the process.

But from what I've seen over the past decade in our own family, DNR is far from a complete solution. "They" will give you pills, blood transfusions, oxygen, whatever it takes to keep the old jalopy coughing along for as long as it can. I am sure this is mostly misguided good intentions. But there are also compelling financial incentives to keep failing persons consuming medical services and products for as long as possible. We spend about a third of our annual $2.6 trillion health care spending in the last year of patient's lives.

Surely not all those dying folks would have chosen an early exit, even if it were offered them. But some - many I would guess - would have made just such that choice, had they been offered a reasonable, legal, painless way to "speed this thing up."

But, if the never-ending abortion debates are any indicator, we will not be settling this matter any time soon. Surely not before I feel the Grim Reaper's cold breath on the back of my neck., given the choice.. .. ah yes, choice.. heard that before.

When fully aware adults in the final stages of life do not have the flip-slide right... the right to leave this world on their own terms and time, then something's terribly wrong with that.

Me? Well, after helping three folks through the last gasps of advanced old age, I see nothing whatsoever inviting there. So I'm with Hunter on this issue, and living accordingly:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!'"

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Rewriting history AGAIN - Romney-style

What a lying hypocrite!  Even when his own taped words refute him, he keeps on with his denials. "Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes/ears?"  No wonder the Tea Party had him as their candidate/role model. They probably still believe him.  He and they all live in the right-wing Bubble World of "factitiousness," and they rewrite history any way it suits them. 

ACTUALLY, I DIDN'T SAY THAT ABOUT the 47%
By Luke Johnson

His infamous 47 percent remarks were taken out of context, Mitt Romney told The Washington Post's Dan Balz in an interview published Sunday.

Asked about the oft-cited quote that 47 percent of Americans can't be persuaded to take personal responsibility, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee said, "Actually, I didn't say that ...That's how it began to be perceived, and so I had to ultimately respond to the perception, because perception is reality."

At a May 2012 closed-to-the-press fundraiser in Florida, Romney said, "And so my job is not to worry about those people -- I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like."

But Romney told Balz that the focus of his remarks was on swing voters, not on those who were already in President Barack Obama's camp. "[I]t was saying, 'Look, the Democrats have 47 percent, we've got 45 percent, my job is to get the people in the middle, and I've got to get the people in the middle,'" he said. "They’ve got a bloc of voters, we've got a bloc of voters, I've got to get the ones in the middle. And I thought that that would be how it would be perceived -- as a candidate talking about the process of focusing on the people in the middle who can either vote Republican or Democrat."

Romney's argument that the remarks were taken out of context is a new defense for him. During the campaign, he said at first that they were "not elegantly stated" and then that they were "completely wrong."

Also in the interview with Balz, Romney claimed that Obama had made a similar comment: "And I think the president said he's writing off 47 percent of Americans and so forth. And that wasn't at all what was intended. That wasn't what was meant by it. That is the way it was perceived."

Romney nonetheless acknowledged that the quote was "very damaging" to his campaign. Indeed, the Obama campaign seized on the remark, creating an ad based on it, and the former Massachusetts governor took a hit in the polls.

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We need to get rid of the Patriot Act

SCRAP THE PATRIOT ACT
By Jim Hightower

It’s back. The PATRIOT Act — a grotesque, ever-mutating, hydra-headed monstrosity from the Bush-Cheney Little Shop of Horrors — has risen again. This time, it’s got an added twist of Orwellian intrusiveness from the Obamacans.

Since 2006, Team Bush, and now Team Obama, has allowed the little-known, hugely powerful National Security Agency to run a daily dragnet through every American’s phone calls — all on the hush-hush, of course.

Now exposed, leaders of both parties are pointing to the PATRIOT Act, saying that it makes this wholesale, everyday invasion of our privacy perfectly legal.

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When the story broke, Obama dissembled, calling these massive and routine violations of the Fourth Amendment “modest intrusions” that are “worth us doing” to make us more secure. He added disingenuously that Congress is regularly briefed about the program.

In fact, only a handful of members are briefed, and they have been flatly lied to by Obama’s director of national intelligence. Yet, Senator Dianne Feinstein loyally defends spying on Americans, claiming it protects us from terrorists. The California Democrat also admitted she really doesn’t know how the mountains of data are being used.

This is nothing but a bottomless “Trust Us” swamp, created by the PATRIOT Act’s panicky passage and irresponsible reauthorization. Secretly seizing everyone’s phone records is, as the ACLU put it, “beyond Orwellian.”

As a New York Times editorial flatly and rightly says, “The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.” But no administration can be trusted to restrain itself from abusing the unlimited power of the PATRIOT Act.

It’s not enough to fight NSA’s outrageously invasive spying on us — the law itself is a shameful betrayal of America’s ideals. It must be repealed.

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Interesting article about death card game, etc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/my-gift-of-grace-death_n_3648832.html?ref=topbar

Good to see that death is now becoming a more socially acceptable topic of conversation.  Finally. (~.~)

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Any Goodman, Democracy Now and the TPP

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/6/obama_backed_trans_pacific_partnership_expands

Ye gods, what more can be done to us??!!!  Obama is in it neck deep -- and we're not allowed to learn about it and its ramifications.

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This article is a keeper and a "sharer"

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/24/diet-soda-dangers.aspx?e_cid=20130724_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20130724

THE DANGERS OF DIET SODA and artificial sweeteners

Story at-a-glance (but read the entire article at the link above. It includes a video by Dr. Sanjay Gupta)

• Despite being promoted for weight loss, foods and beverages with artificial sweeteners have never been proven to help weight loss. In fact, studies that look at this actually find people gain weight when they use them
• A recent review of diet soda studies found that diet soda drinkers suffer the same health problems as those who opt for regular soda, such as excessive weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke
• The watchdog group The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) recently downgraded its safety rating of sucralose (Splenda) from "safe" to "caution," meaning it "may pose a risk and needs to be better tested”
• The most comprehensive and longest human study looking at aspartame toxicity found a clear association between aspartame consumption and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and leukemia

The authors of the report—who were “shocked” at the results—looked at studies published in the past five years that examine the relationship between diet soda consumption and health outcomes:

“This paper discusses these findings and considers the hypothesis that consuming sweet-tasting but noncaloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages interferes with learned responses that normally contribute to glucose and energy homeostasis.

Because of this interference, frequent consumption of high-intensity sweeteners may have the counterintuitive effect of inducing metabolic derangements,” they wrote.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta discusses the report in the CNN video above, explaining that artificial sweeteners basically trick your body into thinking that it’s going to receive sugar, but when the sugar doesn’t arrive, your body signals that it needs more, which results in carb cravings. Most people give in to such signals and end up overeating on other foods and snacks.

In a study⁶ of artificial sweeteners performed on college students, there was no evidence that artificial sweetener use was associated with a decrease in their overall sugar intake either. These results indicate that eating arti­ficial sweeteners simply perpetuates a craving for sweets, and overall sugar consumption is not reduced—leading to further problems controlling your weight.

In 2005, data gathered from the 25-year long San Antonio Heart Study⁷ also showed that drinking diet soft drinks increased the likelihood of serious weight gain – far more so than regular soda.⁸ According to Sharon Fowler, M.P.H:

“On average, for each diet soft drink our participants drank per day, they were 65 percent more likely to become overweight during the next seven to eight years, and 41 percent more likely to become obese.”

This finding supports a 2004 study⁹ at Purdue University, which found that rats fed artificially sweetened liquids ate more high-calorie food than rats fed high-caloric sweetened liquids. The researchers believe the experience of drinking artificially sweetened liquids disrupted the animals' natural ability to compensate for the calories in the food. A more recent review, published in June 2010 in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine,¹⁰ delves into the neurobiology of sugar cravings and summarizes the epidemiological and experimental evidence concerning the effect of artificial sweeteners on weight. The author states:

“Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain. …Preload experiments generally have found that sweet taste, whether delivered by sugar or artificial sweeteners, enhanced human appetite.

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NSA/Military/Industrial complex going into high gear to self protect

NSA's Keith Alexander Calls Emergency Private Briefing To Lobby Against Justin Amash Amendment Curtailing Its Power

By Ryan Grim

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency kicked its lobbying into high gear after an amendment from Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian Republican from Michigan, was ruled in order and will get a vote sometime this week.

NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander scheduled a last-minute, members-only briefing in response to the amendment, according to an invitation distributed to members of Congress this morning and forwarded to HuffPost. "In advance of anticipated action on amendments to the DoD Appropriations bill, Ranking Member C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of the House Intelligence Committee invites your Member to attend a question and answer session with General Keith B. Alexander of the National Security Agency," reads the invitation.

The invitation warned members that they could not share what they learned with their constituents or others. "The briefing will be held at the Top Secret/SCI level and will be strictly Members-Only," reads the invite.

The Amash amendment would put the House on record when it comes to NSA snooping. The language of the measure, which would be attached to the Pentagon's spending bill "Ends authority for the blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act. Bars the NSA and other agencies from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect records, including telephone call records, that pertain to persons who are not subject to an investigation under Section 215."

The section of the Patriot Act that Amash is targeting was the subject of the first piece in The Guardian about NSA leaker Edward Snowden's revelations. A secret intelligence court has interpreted the law to allow the NSA to collect hundreds of millions of records on every American phone call under the theory that such records might be useful in future terrorism investigations. The intelligence community has claimed that the law is useful in thwarting potential terrorist incidents.

But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee with access to classified details about the program, said there is no evidence that the data collection had been directly responsible for stopping any single plot. Civil libertarians, meanwhile, are aghast at the NSA's broad interpretation of the law, and even the bill's author said he was surprised at how it is being used.

Just seven months ago the House and Senate approved a military spending bill that reauthorized the NSA's extensive foreign surveillance operations, and in 2011 the Patriot Act was reauthorized by broad margins with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. But Amash's amendment, cosponsored by former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and liberal Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, could capitalize on a new awareness of the scope of the intelligence community's activities.

The amendment could draw support from both Democrats and Republicans. Just how much is uncertain -- this is the House's first up-or-down vote on the NSA's domestic surveillance activities since Snowden made his revelations.

"This is the real deal: It's our first chance to roll back the NSA's spying regime, and we don't know when we'll have another one like it," said David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, a progressive policy group. "To invoke that expert on surveillance George W. Bush: After this vote we'll finally know who is with us in the cause to protect civil rights -- and who is against us."

Speaking at an event at the Center for American Progress on domestic data collection Tuesday, Wyden said that he hasn't read Amash's amendment but was encouraged by its progress.

"The fact that this has made it to the floor of the House of Representatives is unquestionably good," he said. "It is another step, as I've outlined, in the march to a real debate. We wouldn't have had that seven, eight weeks ago."

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