You were created you, and will never be anything or anyone but you. You were created whole, perfect, and with everything you will ever need given to you.
The physical life wrapped you into a body, and your parents, teachers, friends, loved ones, and peers taught you who you believe you are at this moment. Your beliefs, your thoughts, your emotions, are a result of not who you are, but what you have come to believe you are. It is not bad, nor good that you have become a physical person, believing in physical concepts and teachings, it is for the purpose of learning about yourself. In your physical interactions with others you are really interacting with yourself, for you are a part of everyone and everything, and everyone and everything is a part of you. We live in a Oneness of consciousness. How you treat others is exactly how you treat yourself. Physical life is a journey of self-discovery. By discovering the warmth, goodness, and love in others you discovery it within yourself. You will learn to honor, and respect all life for it is a part of you, an eternal part, as you are eternal. The path to enlightenment is the path to self-discovery, self-love, self-confidence, and the realization of the greater good is your good. The greater picture is your picture.
By Dimitri Vassilaros
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, May 23, 2008
Fred Tregaskes saw the light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam after his body was tagged and bagged and placed in refrigerated storage.”I won’t wear a jacket to this day,” says the retired master sergeant, now 71. “I can’t stand the sound of a zipper.”
The tunnel went on forever, Tregaskes says. “I saw people I had known and served with, all dead. The light was brighter than the sun but pure white. You could not turn away but it did not hurt your eyes. It kept coming, kept coming. It was drawing you in.”
The career soldier — a paratrooper who led squads and platoons through very unfriendly fire — didn’t realize it at the time, but he was marked for life with a band of brothers who had a similar experience.
“I made a conscious decision to come back,” he says. His wife and their six children in 1967 were his motivation while U.S. military doctors, in what was then South Vietnam, were desperately trying to keep him alive after enemy fire blew him apart and eventually put him in a wheelchair.
Tregaskes and his wife Frieda (the childhood sweethearts have been married 51 years) live in Armstrong County. And he has a place in the Hall of Valor at Soldiers & Sailors Military Museum and Memorial in Oakland. Tregaskes also heads the Keystone Paralyzed Veterans of America.
He was awarded the Silver and Bronze stars and Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. None were for his biggest battle against the most ruthless of friendly fire.
The wounds were so bad that his wife, a registered nurse, could still see his internal organs through them months after the doctors saved his life. But they kept trying to tell him that it would not be much of a life. He was warned that he might be better off than a vegetable — but not much.
Seven rounds of enemy fire went clear through the hip and took off part of the spine. Right hip? Gone. A kidney gone, too, and a lot more of his insides. In a coma for six months. “They really messed me up,” he says.
And no feeling in his legs.
The shrinks tried to convince him to accept the fact — the fact — that he never would walk again.
So when did Tregaskes finally realize that?
“I have not accepted it yet,” he says. “I refused to accept it. I really believe that some day I will be able to walk.”
And he did, sort of, with braces and crutches — braced with a iron will. He “waddled” like a duck, he calls it, and leaned a lot, for all but the last two years.
Tregaskes claims he spots others who had similar near-death experiences by that aura or glow he sees around them.
And he claims, they, about 15 people so far who also “crossed over,” have spotted the same around him.
“How are you, my brother?” a stranger asked when both were shopping for tractors. “I told him, ‘I’m fine,’ and then I asked, ‘When did you have your experience?’ ”
Mrs. T. calls them his “visitors.”
And as for a Memorial Day thought for the Trib’s readers, Tregaskes says: “Do not give up. Keep on trying. As long as you can get one foot forward, the other will follow. Maintain your faith.
“And never forget your fellow soldier, your fellow man on your right and your left. You watch out for him and he will watch out for you.”
Dimitri Vassilaros is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page columnist. His column appears Fridays. He can be reached at dvassilaros@tribweb.com or 412-380-5637.
(Posted with the gracious permission of the author.)
When I was 41 years old and a mother of 4 small children, I was in liver and kidney failure and had been a patient for 2 months in Presbyterian Hospital, Pittsburgh Pa. I had a sudden lethal gastric hemorrhage requiring 12 units of blood . This happened in a small bathroom beside my bed and the other patient in my room (near the window) immediately used her call light.
As the nurses helped me into my bed, I suddenly experienced a penetrating blinding white light in my eyesight and I asked someone to “turn off the light” — (please) — or to “close the windows.” I had undescribable pain through out my entire body — it seemed unbearable and I was moaning and shivering.
Next I remember feeling “heavy medical equipment” on my body and the activity of many people around me. I heard someone say “60?” “30?” and immediately I felt that I was becoming “numb” and “cool.” I pressed my fingers against the side of my leg under the covers — and “yes” — I had no feeling!!
The next moment I felt that I was traveling feet first, at a very high rate of speed, down a never ending hallway. I raised my head a few times and it seemed that the floors had a “converging checkerboard” look…it was an unending tunnel. Next, I realized that I felt no pain and that I had wondrous mobility and intelligence and peace. I looked downward and I saw a hospital bed? and I wondered as I looked at the figure in the bed — if it was me? It didn`t look like me…it looked so very small! and I saw the room was full of doctors and nurses. I felt pity and sorrow for them — as my sense of well being was overwhelming!
I saw my husband entering the front entrance to the hospital, and I saw him talking to a man at the elevator entrance in the lobby. I seemed to be moving “further away” and it seemed that I had some sense of direction. I was surrounded by the warmth of the most wonderful love I can ever describe and I felt that I was not alone. I felt that I was “speaking” without words. I felt exhausted.
I knew that I was going on to a new life or some new assignment. It seemed that I was “moving to the right” and traveling further and further toward my “new assignment”. I was so intensely happy and secure basking in this sense of well being and intense love. The atmosphere of where I was did not seem new to me at all…I had no intention of ever leaving…and in a split second, I felt a “heaviness” and then excruciating pain through out my body.
I was aware that “I was back” and I also realized that I was indeed going to recover! I wanted to tell the persons working around my bed….I tried and tried…but I was too weak or unable to speak.
Immediately following this episode…I could hear them talking in ICU…and they told me that all my liver and urine reports were coming back normal. Previous to my collapse, my body was ridden with toxins and my urinary output had been only 1cc. per day. I finally returned home to my family after a total of 3 months hospitalization.
I was frail and weak…89 lbs. I was laying on a bed in our upstairs bedroom. I always needed help to get out of bed, but this day I was alone. I was laying on my back, so I tried to sit up forward, bracing myself on one arm. As I did, I looked over my shoulder to my pillow and realized that I had seemed to separate from my body…I was sitting forward…but I saw my body and head still resting on the pillow!! I immediately dropped backward onto my pillow!!! And, of course, stayed there until I could call out for help!!??
For many years I could not talk to anyone about my experiences…and when I tried I became very emotional and would begin to cry. But I am happy that now people have become more open with the NDE subject.
I am a RN, went back to work part time after a 1 year recovery and worked often in ICU or the ER and it seemed to me that patients in my care seemed to rest and generally do so much better when I was present for the shift.
I am a totally changed person since my NDE. I see life in a very spiritual way…and recognize that we are all indeed living spirits in the divine master plan of the universe. We are all living moving parts in the riddle of life!!!
I was in Phoenix, AZ on March 15, 1997. I thought I got food poisoning so I decided that I wanted to go home to Denver, Colorado. I left Phoenix early in the morning of March 15th and I went directly, 12 hours by car, to Denver. I was able to drive, but I did not eat or stop for rest breaks, just refueling. On March 16th, I was truly exhausted. I felt so sick. I made a doctor’s appointment for that day. My doctor examined me and stated that I had the flu and I would get over it.
I rested for several days, but I had not improved. I returned on a Monday to be examined again. The doctor was amazed to see that I had a very low oxygen level. I returned home with an oxygen tank and endured seven hours before I returned through the emergency room. My heart rate was racing at 190. The emergency room quickly began to work on me. I remember asking if I was “out of the woods”. The nurse told me I was not.
I was taken to the intensive care unit. I proceeded to go into a coma. On the first day I went into liver failure. The second day I went into kidney failure and on the third day I hemorrhaged with internal bleeding. On the fourth day, I had by the professional’s opinion, a positive day of health improvement.
At this time family and friends were sitting in the waiting room and being informed that my survival was doubtful. On that day I started having my out of body experiences and communicating with the other side. I have no recollection of this, but friends in the room became very fascinated with my one sided discussion on my left. I answered many questions and asked questions in my usual business manner. I was able to turn to my right and answer questions posed to me by the people who were physically in the room. Later my friends told me they heard a one sided phone-like conversation and they could not find out who the questioner was on my left.
Saturday, March 31st 1997 was the big fun day. My dear friend Dorothy came into the room and I immediately went into heart failure at 12:30 P.M. The doctor in the care unit climbed in bed and straddled by chest and began beating it. I decided so to speak, “I am out of here”. I rose up to the ceiling and watched as nine hospital medical personnel worked on me. I was fascinated with how each one had a specific job and that they came from all parts of the building. I then left the room and went to the waiting room where my friends were sitting. I have never seen this room in the physical realm. I was able to identify each one in the small room and who was sitting in what colored chair, but more importantly I was very specific to what each wore. There were five people and they all have agreed with my assessment of their arrangement in the room and their clothing. One lady said that it would have been impossible for me to identify her clothing because it was the first time she had worn that new blouse. Everything that I saw was in indescribable colors. I have never seen such colors since.
I then left the waiting room and went to where I grew up on a farm in northeast Colorado. I was floating above it and once again the colors were beyond description. I then took a quick turn and went into the light. The beautiful heavenly light and the warmth and serenity was now my certain destiny. I started my journey down the tunnel of bliss and two people were there waiting to greet me. I wanted to reach them, but I got zapped. The paddles came down on my chest and I was back in the physical presence. I was very, but very angry. I also remember the excruciating pain in my chest. It was awful. I was then in the present place in the intensive care unit. I watched as the medical personnel filed out and my nurse was arranging my body and washing the blood from my mouth. I fell asleep.
At 4:30 P.M. my friend Dorothy entered my room and I immediately left again. Once again the hospital medical personnel were filing in. The crash cart with paddles were right by the bed. I left immediately and went for the light. I was entering the tunnel. I knew how to get there fast from my previous experience and I remember saying I did not want to be stopped this time. Zap again! I was back in my pain filled body. This time I was really furious and I told them so. That moment forward to this day I have been in this physical plane. Dorothy held my hand as the technicians once again left the room. She had such comforting words. She told me that everyone was praying for me in the waiting room. She stated they all wished I would stay, but that she would understand if I choose to leave. She further stated that if I stayed I would make so many people happy. She then posed a question to me, “what are you thinking about”? I very angrily told her I was trying to decide if I would stay or not. She broke out into laughter. My friend, Dorothy is a nun, she understood all my indecision’s and has been a wonderful support since that time.
Unbeknown to me in the intensive care unit I had five broken ribs from the resuscitation. The days, weeks and months to follow would be excruciating. I became very angry that I survived. I ordered from my doctor who had done the resuscitation a form for a medallion that I wear around my neck stating no CPR will be performed on me. I want to live a happy and healthy physical life here, but I am anxious to make the transition as soon as I am called back.
My life has changed. I worry not. I work as a consultant when I so desire in the petroleum industry. I counsel people in health crisis and in their days of transition to the next plane. I am somewhat at a loss today as to what my real purpose for surviving has been, but I have resigned myself to accept each moment, day and time and move forward. I have basic spiritual beliefs, but I can not specify a deep devotion to any one religion. I have disappointed some friends by stating that your beliefs one way or the other will not change your outcome, so be you Muslim, Jewish, Christian or undecided, the outcome is the same. I truly believe this. I am so blessed to have had this glorious experience of near death. I am just an average person with no grand accomplishments, but I am very content, happy and secure with the future.
Presently, I am hoping to meet other people who have had a NDE, just to have a sense of belonging with other individuals who can relate to my experience. To date I have not come into contact with anyone in the Denver metropolitan area who can understand my desire for recognition of my NDE.
D.O.
