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Near Death Experience of a Hindu • Murli Menon Moments that change you forever

“Nainam chindanti shastrani
nainam dahati pavak
na chainam kledayanti apo
na soshayati marut”

Being born into a devout Hindu family whose great granduncle was Swami Tapovan, I was drawn to the Bhagavad Gita like a magnet. The sixth chapter (Dhyana Yoga), always fascinated me but the above shloka in the Gita about the soul, had me intrigued. This shloka means, "Weapons cannot cut me, Fire cannot burn me, Water cannot wet me, Air cannot touch me. I am the atman (soul) which is immortal."

On January 12th 1980 I was flying kites on the terrace of my building at Ahmedabad when due to a quirk of fate, I slipped and plunged feet down from the 6th floor. I hit the floor with a thud and as a thirteen year old, I had my first NDE (Near Death Experience).  After three weeks in hospital due to the grace of Lord Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh and with the blessings of Goddess Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati, I had a miraculous escape and was back to normal except for a few scars on my right foot. I escaped with a fractured ankle and minor bruises.

However, the memory of my first near death experience has stayed with me as if in slow motion and I had realised that the atman is immoral. The Near Death Experience I underwent had a profound impact on my life and made me extremely spiritual.

I developed a deep interest in numerology and began trying to understand how numbers affected life and how the future could be predicted based on numbers. I passed out of school and college and after graduating in Biochemistry, in 1987, joined a multinational diagnostic company at Kochi for two years, where I purchased my first two-wheeler. I got my first driving license from Fort Kochi and drove for two years in Kerala without incident. I joined another multinational company in a senior position at Bangalore in 1989 and continued to be in Bangalore till 1991. My scooter accompanied me without incident. Later I relocated to Ahmedabad as a Product Manager at a pharmaceutical company in 1991 itself.

In 1992 I quit my job and relocated to Pune for my MBA which I completed in 1994. I drove my scooter in Pune for two years without a scratch. After campus placements I joined a Swedish multinational (Astra-IDL, presently Astra Zeneca) at Bangalore as a Product Manager and relocated to Bangalore from Pune on 4th July 1994. Numerologically, my birth year is 1966, so I had my first near death experience at the age of 14. In 1994, I was 28. On 31st December of 1994, I was returning home on new year's eve from a party on my scooter, when a drunk truck driver careened into my scooter and I had my second near death experience in my 28th year. This accident, caused organic damage to the front temporal lobe of my brain and I slipped into a coma.

The subsequent surgical interventions and craniotomy meant total dependence on powerful antiepileptic drugs for the rest of my life. However after my second Near Death Experience, I was spontaneously healed and have not had a single epileptic seizure since 1995 till today, though I have gone trekking to Kailash Mansarovar thrice, Everest base camp, Mount Kota Kinabalu and several unnamed peaks in Uttaranchal, Himachal, Ladakh, Nepal and Tibet since 1995.

Slowly but surely, I recovered from paralysis by combining meditation and NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) which I was practicing regularly since my first Near Death Experience. After the first NDE, I had turned vegetarian. After the second NDE, I became a vegan and have strictly abstained from consuming or using any products of animal origin. 14 years later, in 2008, during a visit to Gangotri, I had a spontaneous awakening of my third eye, and started learning Palmistry and Astrology. I  started reading palms of total strangers and found that I  could narrate the past of total strangers with surprising accuracy.  I have retained this gift, since 2008 and have accurately predicted the future of several friends and acquaintances over a twelve year period.  As per numerology, I will be completing 14 years since my Agnya chakra awakening in 2008, at the age of 56 in 2022.

After my spiritual awakening and two NDEs, I wrote  20 books on ZeNLP and after publication of my first book titled ZeNLP- the power to succeed, started getting invitations from large corporates to conduct ZeNLP based stress Management workshops for their management teams. Since 1995, more than 9000 managers have attended our ZeNLP sessions where we align their soul's life plan with their physical, mental, family and spiritual goals. In the 40 years since my first Near Death Experience, I had found my mission in realising the immortal soul for myself and my favorite shloka from the Holy Gita was validated in my NDEs.

The first thing one realises, when you die, or slip into coma, is that though the body is mortal, the atman is immortal. The atman leaves the body through the agnya chakra and consciousness  remains after death. Post death consciousness  is more vivid than in real life. One can see colours, unseen during earthly life. One can hear the holy sound OM and the gayatri mantra in afterlife. Consciousness survives death and souls experience an awesome sense of love, connectedness and peace. Just as gravity attracts the physical body downwards, The Hindu cosmic trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh combined with the divine feminine (Saraswati, Mahalakshmi and Durga) appear as a beam of dazzling light, brighter than the brightest light on earth, pulls one's consciousness through a divine tunnel. Your whole life flashes infront of you starting from your birth on a cinemascopic screen, where one's soul experiences, the emotions encountered in our soul's earthly journey.

Before reaching the light, one gets a chance to review one's life from a 360 degree perspective and one realizes how other souls felt during your earthly interactions. You get the chance to experience emotions other souls experienced during your earthly interactions. Love, forgiveness, gratitude and unconditional apologies to souls whom you unknowingly or knowingly hurt including animals, pets, birds and all sentient beings is part of your learning experience on this earthly plane. You must not carry any illwill or resentments or hatred into afterlife, so rather than accumulate karma, it is better to forget, forgive, beg for forgiveness and express gratitude to fellow souls on the earth plane itself rather than in one's life review after death.

After the life review, the Akashik records which track the journey of the soul during Kaliyug, which started at the death of Lord Krishna  are shown by Chitragupta, the record keeper. The more spiritual experiences you have on the earthly plane, the more evolved is your soul.  After one analyses one's Akashik records, the choice is yours. You could choose to reincarnate immediately  or choose to continue your spiritual learning in the afterlife, with group souls, till you decide to reincarnate to continue your spiritual journey on the earthly plane again. Spiritual development in the earthly plane is much sought after  by evolved souls after the Akashik records are studied in-depth.

In 1995, I set 20 impossible goals, while lying paralyzed at a hospital bed at Bangalore after a road accident on New Year's night. My goals included reaching Kailash Manasarovar in Tibet. In 2006, I completed the circumambulation of Mount Kailash.  One of my other goals was to take a dip at four consecutive kumbh melas on the most auspicious days.

Coincidentally, In 2010 I attended the  maha kumbh mela at Haridwar and took a dip in the Holy Ganges on 14th January 2010. In 2013, I reached Prayagraj and took a dip in the holy sangam of the Ganga and Yamuna. In 2015, I went to Nashik and took a dip in the Godavari during the Kumbh Mela.  And finally in 2016, I went to the Shipra River near the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain and took the customary dip in the holy waters of the Shipra. In 2010, I had just landed at Haridwar Railway station where I ran into a two young American girls, with their backpacks. I made small talk with them and found out that they had come from Chengdu in China, where they were teaching English and were going  to  Rishikesh for a yoga workshop. These two young women, were not aware about the kumbh mela and its significance. So I explained to them that they were fortunate to be at the right place at the right time and requested them to join me for a dip  in the Holy Ganga at Haridwar on makar sankranti, which they did. To my surprise these two American ladies were destined to take a dip in the Ganga and were blessed. After we parted, I realized that these two American English teachers from China were my Group Souls.

Next, at Allahabad Kumbh in 2013, I met a photographer from Delhi who was an alumni of Lady Shri Ram College who had come there to document the Kumbh for a coffee table book for a client.  I had randomly requested her to click one of my photographs which she did. And after we started talking, I explained her the significance of taking the holy dip during the Kumbh Mela. It is no coincidence that she accompanied me on the most auspicious day for taking a dip at Prayagraj. She took a dip at the holy sangam though she had come on a official assignment. I had met another Group Soul.

The same thing happened at the Nashik kumbh in 2015, where I met two other group souls, in the bus from Shirdi to Nashik.  This German couple were backpacking but decided to take a dip in the Godavari on the most auspicious day of the Kumbh Mela in 2015. In 2016, after I reached Ujjain at midnight. from Ahmedabad , all the hotels were completely booked so I had no other option but to sleep on the banks of the Shipra river inside the Mahakaleshwar temple. I slept at the Ghat itself so that I could get up at 2:30 a.m. in the morning and take the customary dip between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. during the brahma muhurt, which is the most auspicious hours of the day to take chant 9 malas of the gayatri mantra. Each mala contains 108 rudraksh beads as per Hindu numerology.  As soon as I entered the waters of the Shipra river at 3 a.m. and started chanting, I happened to bump into a group of seven rishis, who were waiting at the edge of the waters!

One by one, all seven entered the waters and I could take a dip with these seven rishis, as I was completing nine dips, because as per Hindu numerology, nine is an auspicious number. This was a dreamlike moment for me.  And it was like a dream come true. These seven rishis were again Group Souls and we were destined to meet on at Ujjain In 2016. The goals I had set in 1995, had actualsed within 21 years. And I had met ten group souls in the process.

How do you identify Group Souls?

Synchronicity will attract group souls into your life. It could be a random WhatsApp message. Spiritual messages often reach the right person at the right time. If you are searching for group souls follow travel_storytelling_2019 on Instagram.

What is synchronicity?

I had gone to Bhavnath Mahadev in Junagadh for celebrating Mahashivratri a few years back. Bhavnath Mahadev is a spiritual holy place, where Lord Shiva himself is present every Shivratri night. At midnight, the Lord comes to take a dip in the kund, inside Bhavnath Mahadev Temple on Mount Girnar in Junagadh.

That is exactly why during Mahashivratri millions of Shiva devotees from all over India and sadhus from the Himalayas descend on Girnar mountain in February. Now, In 2016, I went to have a darshan of Mahadev, reaching Junagadh at 11 p.m. and while walking up Mount Girnar for a dip in Bhavnath Mahadev, my wallet and phone were stolen in the crowd and I lost my debit cards and I also lost all my cash and mobile phone. I lost my driving license and PAN card too. Everything in my wallet was stolen and I was stranded in a strange place miles away from home.

Having travelled to several dangerous countries in the world including Tibet, I did not panic. I had travelled to Junagadh from Ahmedabad. I had no money to go back, but I did not lose hope as I knew why fear, when Lord Shiva is near. I went into the kund and had nine dips at midnight when I met a gentleman from Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Sayla, who willingly offered me his phone to make calls. I called Dr. Chaya who referred me to his cousin brother Dr Bakul Buch who is  the leading psychiatrist at Junagadh. Fortunately for me, his brother, Dr. Buch had a psychiatric hospital in Junagadh. So he spoke to his brother at midnight and asked me to contact Dr. Buch and stay at his house in Junagadh. I spoke to Dr. Buch and looked to thank my benefactor, who had given me his phone, when he took a dip in the water and never emerged from the kund and the mobile phone too vanished from my hand as if it had dissolved into thin air.

In the morning, I walked from the kund after my morning bath, to Junagadh town. I walked and reached Dr. Buch's hospital who gave me breakfast and also loaned me Rs. 500 so that I could take a bus back to Ahmedabad. I spent the day with Dr. Buch resting and took the night bus to Ahmedabad and reached safely without incident. This is my miracle story of Shivratri. It's an important and critical incident in my life. And well, I must have met Lord Shiva in disguise at the kund, as he helped me to reach home safely after being stranded in a strange place, without a single rupee in my pocket. And as for the driving license and other documents, I have got the duplicates. And in 2019, I invited Dr. Buch for my Travel Storytelling Workshop at Ahmedabad International Literature Festival and to my great happiness, he was there and met me after the session. This Shivratri, I plan to go to Kashi Vishwanath temple at Sayla and Bhavnath Mahadev, Junagadh again for thanksgiving.

During the life review and Akashik records review, one is guided by ancient rishis of antiquity, in their soul form. These rishi munis are advanced souls as per the Akashik records and are close to merging with the Holy trinity, effectively ending their reincarnations and merging with the Parabrahman.

The Vedic Mahavakya, Aham Brahamasmi, which translates to I am the Supreme Godhead rings true at this stage. Each human being on planet earth has undergone death and has reincarnated from the Divine. Once you realise that we are in a learning experience for spiritual development, life will become more fulfilling.

The most profound truth in Hindu scriptures is from the Garud Puran which traces the thirteen day journey of the soul from the date of death till the Akashik records review. For a Hindu soul preparing for death, Kashi or Benares, is the preferred place to leave this mortal body. Those who cannot die at Kashi, can be given gangajal (water from the holy Ganges river) before they leave their mortal body. If Gangajal is unavailable, water from the Sindhu, Kaveri, Narmada, Shipra, Yamuna, Puskar Sarovar, Mansarovar,  Narayan Sarovar (in Kutch), will help the soul to reach the divine without fail. The other important fact to be kept in mind by the person who is about to travel to the divine plane is to chant a shloka from the Holy Gita, if this is not possible,  family and friends should recite shlokas from the second, sixth and eigth chapter of the Holy Gita.

Lord Krishna says in the Holy Gita

“Among the vedas I am the Samaveda
Among the words I am Om
Among the mantras I am Gayatri
Among the mountains I am Meru
Among the rivers I am Ganga”

So the best option for souls about to transition from the earthly plane to the divine after the life review and Akashik review and meeting with the rishis of antiquity, the atman willingly enters the womb of the would be mother on earth based on past karma, spiritual learning experiences needed in this rebirth and based on the Akashik records which tracks the time, place and womb to be reborn. The consent of every soul is the deciding factor before the soul undergoes temporary amnesia and forgets its past lives and a innocent newborn baby is born with the reincarnated soul. Till a child is one year old it remembers few incidents in its immediate past birth and that is why some newborns cry or smile based on their past  life memories.

Group souls are souls who are at the same stage of spiritual development and could be classmates or schoolmates or collegemates on the earthly plane. If they happen to transition from the earthly plane to the divine plane at the same time and if they have similar karma and are spiritually evolved, the rishis of antiquity will receive them and guide them in groups and prepare them for their future lives. All actions in the divine plane are directed by the Holy Trinity including the Divine Feminine which is the Viraatswarupa seen by Arjuna during the Mahabharata war. The Viraatswarupa is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient and pervades the bhuloka (patal), bhuvaloka (earthly plane) and swaha (divine plane). All atmans ultimately merge into the Viraatswarupa after they achieve liberation from the cycle of birth and death. The journey of the atman in Hinduism is to move towards the divine through dhyana Yoga, karma yoga and total surrender to the divine.  The vedas say the truth is one, people call him by different names.

© Murli Menon, 7.01.23
Murli is a travel writer, stress management consultant and author  based at Ahmedabad, India. He is the author of "ZeNLP-Learning through stories" published by The Written Word Publications, "ZeNLP-the power to succeed" published by Sage publications and “ZeNLP-the power to relax” by New Dawn Press. He can be reached at ceo@tips4ceos.com

Arunachaleshwar
Murli Menon 6.19.23
I have just returned after a memorable trip to Tamil Nadu, the ancient kingdom, of the Cholas.  


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