Ivanna Sees The Light

One great lecture at: http://tastethewind.blogspot.com/2010/12/major-problems-for-mankind.html

52 Stories in 52 Weeks: ## 41 Ivanna Sees The Light (Based On A True Story)*

By: Mr. George D. Patnoe. Jr.'s Ambidextrous Brain + Spiritual Mind.

While the human spirit wants to travel faster and faster, either on earth or in space, the human body and brain were never built for high speed traveling; nor were they built to stop instantly into a solid object such as another car or trick, a brick wall, or even the earth itself. While the human mind has developed intellectually over millions of years to design and then build fast cars, planes, and spaceships, the human body has basically remained unchanged over the millions of years it has walked the earth. Every time a human being who foolishly steps into a car thinking they are protected from death by the car’s steal and metal are sadly mistaken. With death, arrives a new sense of speed as the bodiless human speeds forward through the tunnel of darkness as the human spirit lives on. With each new crash, in whatever form, people are forced to deal with death and possibly a new sense of life.

Ivanna never wanted to be a race car driver, but driving around California’s highways often seemed like an unofficial race car track. With speeds from 0-80 or more miles per hour, drivers played with speed every second of their driving lives. Some drivers played with speed by dodging in and out of traffic, while other drivers respected speed by driving within the speed limits and using common driving sense. Yet, an unfunny dilemma exists between the human spirit and speed. In short, the human body was not made to survive a gun’s tiny bullet, so what makes drivers think it was meant to survive crashing into anything as it moved like a human bullet in a car?

Ivanna loved driving down California’s highways, just as the millions of other drivers who love driving on highways on the world’s highways. California’s highways were built just like most of the highways around the globe and even in America. And like the millions of California’s drivers and hundreds of millions, (if not more) of drivers around the globe, Ivanna enjoyed the luxury of her car: the leather seats, the radio’s music, the feel of being in control of her driving life. Sometimes, she simply enjoyed being alone as she explored the malls and coffee shops of California. She also felt safe from the world as she sat inside her car, just as hundreds of millions of people do everyday. She also enjoyed the simple contact of her car’s black rubber tires rolling over the black tar or the light gray cement highways. The relative hard rubber testing its strength against the very hard rock highway. To bad the human body and brain were not made of rubber.

One day, during a philosophical discussion about life and death, Ivanna and a friend were joking around about how they were going to die. It seemed a harmless discussion, as they smiled back and forth about the different ways to die. Tossing ideas around about life and death might be more serious than some could imagine. Without a forethought, Ivanna joked that she predicated that she was going to die in car accident. She forgot, or did not know about the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy; nor had she been taught the metaphysical law of mental causation on her human life and body, along with their future destiny.

Ivanna’s body and soul seemed safe within the confines of the car’s steel framed, as they traveled through earth’s realm of space at a speed of 70 miles an hour. Ivanna had relaxed her mind after a hard day at work; just as hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the globe do everyday of the year. Her free spirited soul enjoyed the moment of everyday. Speedily traveling through her world in a car seemed a safe bet in the mind of Ivanna. But speed travel always implies change, in one form or another. After all, speed implies change, whether a fast or slow change, but change nevertheless. Speed always also implies danger; even if people are not aware of the dangers of speed or words.

Life also implies change. From the moment a person is born into the world, most people are in a constant state of change. Both their bodies and minds are constantly changing. Some people change slowly, while other people change quickly; adapting themselves to life’s moments and the lessons of those lessons. There is a unique quality about learning and speed. Learning can happen in the blink of any eye. Or for some life lesson learners, it takes much longer to learn a life lesson; depending on the specific circumstances for each person.

On a sunny afternoon, Ivanna realized that she her mind was slowly drafting off into a sleepy mind. Ivanna knew that she could stop at anytime to rest on the side of the highway. But people usually do not drive on California’s highways to rest. Normally, it is not legally accepted to park anywhere and anytime you need to rest from a sleepy mind. Many highways do not have rest areas for people to rest; that is, to pull over to rest for a continued safe drive. But in the world of speedy drivers, the awake mind should never go to sleep, for any reason whatsoever.

Ivanna had tried and tried to keep her eyes open as she tried to keep her mind awake too. With both hands on the steering wheel and her foot on the gas pedal, Ivanna felt strong enough to stay awake. Ivanna felt her eyelids close for what seemed a few seconds. A mental blur of a mental blackout, so her mind could rest. Then they would open her eyes again, even as her mind was warning her to stop the car to take a rest for a few minutes. Her mind was shutting down!

Over and over again, she felt her eyelids close and open, close and open, until they could not open anymore. With each second with closed eyes and a drowsy mind, she had lost consciousness for a second or two; over and over again. Ivanna guessed, but she could not realize that her mind was falling asleep as the car was traveling at 70 miles an hour. She slowed down the car ten miles an hour below the legal speed limit, hoping that would help her stay awake. It did not help at all.

Yet, Ivanna’s body limped backward against the car’s seat, trapped within the seatbelt as the car’s speed increased as it roared toward the hill. As Ivanna’s speeding car began its crash into the mountainside, the speeding car quickly aborted its flight in its short distance through midair space. She did not know that her foot had fully pressed the gas pedal down to the floor. She could not know that her car was now an un-controllable ton of steel, speeding towards an unmovable hill of harden earth dirt and stone. She would not realized that her brain and body had become limp within the few seconds it took for her car to bounce off the highway, to go airborne, to touch down on the earth as the car crunched into a ball of steel as it rolled over and over again. It stopped as Ivanna still slept without knowing a trace of her earthly life.

Some may guess the both the body and the mind goes into some sort of defense mode before the moment of any death defying crash. Maybe the human soul of Ivanna had already left her body and that of the car before the ton of steel slammed into the soft green grassy hill.

But one thing can be sure! Her unchangeable divine, totally spiritual selfhood was always free from the car crash. Her true perfect spiritual selfhood is not made up of skin and bones and blood and other bodily parts. Her eternal perfect identity was never in a human body, nor was it ever in a human built car. Her true Christ-selfhood is never going to die, because her divine life is an eternal idea of the Mind of God and the Life that is eternal. Ivanna’s true perfect spiritual selfhood is never going to be unconscious, nor will it ever die. Of course, most human people do not know that, and neither did the human people who would be looking at her body, and helping her body and brain stay live in the following months.

As the police officers looked on the scene, the firemen were arriving with her shiny red fire trucks. Police and firemen are somewhat different kinds of humans than the normal everyday humans who do not observe the effects of car crashes. The police and firemen know that speed and the human body do not mix as good dance partners. No car has proven to be invincible after it has smashed against the earth’s surface. The police observed the firemen and paramedics and other emergency personal as they pulled the mangled human body from the tangled ton of crushed steel. They all knew something was happening that they wish they could forget. But they had learned to deal with the bad memories of car crashes and death.

Unlike the policemen and the firemen who pulled Ivanna from the car wreck, the sleeping Ivanna had no dreams of her body being pulled from the twisted ton of steel. A ton of steel protects the human body only when the car obeys the laws of do not crash into the hard earth. Bent inwards like a empty soda can, the car’s engine laid next to the body of Ivannak, in passenger seat, as if the two were going to die together. Nevertheless, Ivanna’s body was still functioning, although troubled times were now speeding towards her human body, her brain, her human life. But it would never touch her divine, perfect, spiritual, unchangeable selfhood.

The doctors at Sanford hospital began their professional work. Treating skin, bones, and internal organs is one set of problems, but treating the brain is another problem altogether. Ivanna’s brain was in total danger of never seeing the light of day, ever again. Ivanna’s body was in bad shape too. The threats to her body and brain are known to the medical professionals who deal with dying patients everyday of the week. But needless to imagine, or to even state as a practical medical truth, the parts of the body are currently understood much better than the brain. Ivanna’s brain was severely testing the limits of the thin division between life and death. Like her lacerated liver that would slowly regrow itself anew, after much work from the hospital staff and doctors.

Medical professionals were quickly bought in to analyze Ivanna and her brain. They began their work, using all of the modern day medical tools to pump oxygen into her brain. Her lungs too, were in need of oxygen, so in went a tube into her throat to feed oxygen to her lungs. In no time at all, Ivanna’s body was on a total life support system. A tube in her throat enable her lungs to breath, just as the steel instrument into her brain enable her brain to be feed oxygen. A steel tube in her skull enabled her brain to receive the needed oxygen it needed to survive. In no uncertain terms, Ivanna’s body and brain laid in the hospital bed as hope for life was all around her. Moreover, the medical machines that kept her body’s normal functions operating as if she was a conscious human.

Ivanna slept and slept and slept. The doctors knew that she was not totally conscious within her brain, even as the life support system worked around the clock, for every second of everyday. But even as she laid in the hospital bed, the medical questions surrounded her too. Is a person wholly depended only on the functions of the brain for life and consciousness? Some thinkers question this limited conception of life and consciousness. They also ponder the question, is consciousness depended only on a human brain, or is there a consciousness outside the human brain; even the issue of a conscious universe. So the argument is debated among scholars in many challenging fields of study.

Is intelligence limited to the human brain or is the universe also intelligent? Was not intelligence operating from the moment of the Big Bang or whatever happened billions of light years ago? Aren’t there different kinds of intelligence operating on earth and in the cosmic universes? Is intelligence only available only to the human brain and human mind. How about the brains of earth’s other smaller brainy creatures. Is intelligence limited only to the human brain, or does the human brain reflect a less material human mind intelligence which is connected to the brain? Or is intelligence a multi-dimensional Intelligence called God which operates on every level of life and even within the seemingly realm of death? More importantly, if there is an Infinite Supreme Intelligent Consciousness called God, and an intelligent conscious universe, and intelligent conscious humans with human brains? Are they all connected for in one grand design of Infinite Intelligence that operates on all levels of every single individual realm of intelligent conscious experience?

Ivanna’s brain rested as it repaired itself, but her intelligent soul drifted away to other realms of dreams of space and time. As her human body laid on the hospital bed, it was kept alive by the hospital’s life support system, her intelligent human soul was freed to explore some of the other dimensions of the multi-dimensional universe. A long rest from her body as she escaped to new adventures away from her body. Some vacations away from the body were dreamy while others were as clear as the sun of the day. Traveling through the dark tunnel like a slow moving human bullet, Ivanna did not remember her car crash. She only saw the light. Ivanna traveled closer to the point of light her in her new astral universe.

‘What am I now? I do not feel my skin and bone body anymore. I seem to be floating without that skin and bone body, so what am I now. Since I seem to be floating in some sort of astral space, what I am now, after the death of the body? I seem to be thinking without my brain, so am I a different kind of intelligent being? If I can think without a brain, is my immaterial soul thinking without a human brain.? I seem to be moving, but not in a speeding car. I feel no wind against my soul. So how can I be moving through this tunnel of darkness? I feel so at peace, without pain, but what is next for me?’ Ivanna asked herself in her new universe.

In no time at all, she saw the pencil point of light at a distance in the surrounding darkness. Not helping being curious to find the light in the total black darkness in the astral tunnel beyond the human brain and its very limited conceptions and perceptions of the multi-dimension universe, beyond the universe of space and time, Ivanna floatingly flew towards the light; the one thing all intelligent creatures of earth find enjoyable.

‘What is that white light?’ questioned the bodiless Ivanna. ‘Will it be my new universe or is it guiding light into a different universe? Is it a guiding light with a message for me? Or do I have a choice to either enter the light or not? Is the white light God or will I meet people there? What is there for me? Who will I meet? Is it in my brain or outside the normal universe of space and time? Will space and time be different than the space and time of earth? Who or what will be there in the white light? People or souls or supernatural creatures? What will be in the white light for me?

The plants rise up to touch the light of the sun, the moths fly around the light of the lightbulb, people enjoy the light of the fire, while other people bath in the light of the sun, while other people learn about the light of intelligence in its many forms. Few people on earth wonder about the metaphysical light of God and the afterlife. But some do and they are rewarded with many mental and metaphysical adventures even as they walk as humans on earth. Other people need a push to the light by way of experiencing a near death experience. (NDE)

Ivanna saw the pinpoint light in the surrounding black darkness and there was no way of turning back to her earthly life, so she floated towards the ever widening light. Wider and wider it widen until she was closer to the light; just as a spaceship would see the growing sun become wider and wider until the spaceship stop before it was burned up by the sun. Only her human soul was not burning up at all. Instead, she began to wonder what happened if she crossed over to the other side; would she be able to return to earth?

She looked at the bright white light as she rested in the astral space. She waited, as if she had a choice. To go into the white light or to return to her earthly form to tell her story to a writer. But more than that, to enjoy and see a new life on earth. To see the life beyond the material objects of the brain’s limited visual visions to a new life with a new dimensional sense of oneness with the cosmic universe and with life on earth. A new consciousness, with new visions of life, with a new sense of possibilities, with a new mental outlook, with a new opinion of death, and of light, and new sense of being connected to the eternal life called God.

She heard her mind heart telling itself that she was not ready to die. That she had more living to do before she truly left her human life. She heard these words flow out of the white light into her mind. "IF THERE IS FAITH IN THE WORLD, THERE IS HOPE.’ The words echoed deep within her soul’s memory, so she would not forget the words as she returned to her earth body and brain.

After her three months of deep sleep, and astral travels, Ivanna returned to her brain and human life. Her soul was completely rested and transformed by her near death experience. She woke up in the hospital bed. Ivanna woke up as a normal conscious human being; with skin and bones and their normal sensations. With the hospitals life supports still attached to her human body, Ivanna slowly opened her eyes as her brain slowly returned to its normal activity. Ivanna’s human soul returned to her normal consciousness, only as a different person, a different mental outlook!

After she opened up her eyes, Ivanna looked around the hospital room with its machines surrounding her body, with tubes of different sizes stuck into her body. She tried to remember what had happen to her body. But with a tube in her throat, she could not even ask the nurse or doctor why she was laying in a hospital bed. She realized that something tremble must have happened to her. She noticed the sunlight from the window and somehow, she found a bit of joy knowing she was still alive to see the sunlight again. She saw the sunlight anew.

She heard the words from her doctor, ‘Hello Ivanna. Welcome back to the land of the living. We did not expect you to make it back. You have been in a coma for three months, but you really surprised us all with your will to live.’ Little by little, information was given to her by family and friends. Ivanna looked around the hospital room trying with the disbelief she had lost three months of her life.

After she had been removed from the hospital’s life support machines, she learned to talk again, one word after another word, just as if she was a toddler. It was tough recovery for Ivanna, just as she had to learn to walk again, step by step. By one foot moving forward into space, her mind moved forward into time. Time was all she had for the moment. Time became a question of steps and words, not seconds, or minutes, or hours. Each fully and correctly pronounced word brought forth the hope of a complete and perfect sentence. After twenty (20) months of mental and physical rehabilitation, Ivanna was again walking and talking like most people, but she was living with her near death experience as a constant reminder that there is more to human life than meets the human eye.

Now that she being reborn into a new human, just as a baby who learns to talk and walk exiting the dark tunnel of birth, she now had the rare opportunity to observe and listen and think and learn. Slowly, she began to perceive her whole life differently. She saw new energy from the trees and plants that she never noticed before; an energized airy atmosphere by their own sense of life.

The church looked same from the outside, but she felt different on the inside. She saw her friend with who had joked about foreseeing their deaths. They waved at each other before her friend yelled out, ‘I guess you were wrong. You are not going to die in a car crash.’

‘I guess not. I do not think I am ever going to die.’ responded Ivanna. She was not joking.

Her first visit to her church was different than before. When she heard the preacher yell out the words, ‘And if you believe in me, you too will have eternal life.’ Ivanna would look around the congregation without a smile because she was trying to hold back the tears of gratitude for her gift of a second chance at life.

After the church’s sermons were finished, Ivanna began her walk out of the church. The preacher was standing on the steps just outside the church’s front door. The sunlight was energizing nature’s life. She slowly lifted her head up to the sky to see the round yellow sun. She dreamingly saw her human soul self floating up towards the sun, watching the sun get bigger and bigger, wider and wider. What would the sun tell me if it could speak to me? She wondered.

When the preacher saw Ivanna walk out of the door, he said, ‘Well Ivanna, it is good to have you back with us.’

‘It is great to be alive.’ responded Ivanna, as she walked down the church’s steps.

The preacher smiled down onto Ivanna with a smile as he stated, ‘IF THERE IS FAITH IN THE WORLD, THERE IS HOPE.’

Ivanna slowly turned her head back to the preacher with a grin. ‘I have heard that statement somewhere before.’

* Good Luck To Ivanna. Enjoy your second chance at learning about life.

DVD to watch: "An Unfinished Life"

The New Yorker: Oct. 15, 2007 pg. 38-43. Medical Dispatch: Silent Minds