I have forgotten the name of my guess Lin K Russell is that right did I get your name right yeah okay sorry I just I had your name and I just I forgot it but you're a Unitarian Universalist and you're also something of an expert on near-death experiences do you all just introduce yourself to my listeners and talk a little bit about what you're excited about well I'm NK Russell I'm a writer um I had the opportunity to research 2,500 near-death experiences and what I was mostly interested in was the learning I mean behind the experiences that I didn't after a few hundred I wasn't interested in what happened because I predicted that I but but I was more interested in knowing where to from there and that was the people of messages was what I was watching okay you're talking about ultimate reality the spirit world afterlife and a sort of thing is that we talking about yes yes and what did you learn what have you been learning have you been streamlining what you've learned into a teaching or a book I've written I wrote a book back in it was published in 2014 and it was called oh it is called and the wonder of you what the near-death experience tells you about yourself and because it did such a it was so well received and everybody just loved it with out now in second the second edition and I've added quite a bit to the new one and so it's just been released on their 3rd 1st of February this year so it's new ok can people find that online like on Amazon or something like that yeah it's also in stores okay and can you tell me and my listeners a little bit about yourself bit of biographical background how are you were raised and what sort of belief systems you might have we gone through and growing up and then as an adult and how old how old you are today and what you did for a living and all its really okay okay um well I'm 81 mm-hmm and so my voice so little cracky that's why I'm right I was raised by an atheist my mother didn't believe in anything and and so I never I didn't really get any spiritual training at all in her home but I was very curious because my grandfather had died and I was about eight or nine around there and so when he died I realized that everybody does I mean we never talked about this stuff at home but I realized that I was going to talk and that was terrible I didn't want to die and so I was quite frightened by the thought of dying and so I am I went to my mother and I assume er what happens when you die and she said nothing you just disappeared there wasn't such a good idea to tell that child but that terrified me I thought oh no I don't want to disappear so um I became very interested in all kinds of religions from that well I think from then but I really started in my teens too and to research religions um we had in earnest and I read just about every kind of religion there was in the world and and the offshoots as well and so uh and I also took catechism by the way just as an added little piece there um because I married a Catholic but I after the marriage was not a good marriage and so we I divorced and after the marriage I went back to school and eventually became a family counselor and I had three kids um so I was a single parent mom with three kids two of them are hyperactive it was like it was quite the story um but I didn't I worked as a family counselor for about thirty years and absolutely loved my job I loved what I was doing and then that when I retired um which was 50 loved almost 15 years ago I am I started to I wanted to write a book that was uh I knew I wanted to be a writer that that that was all that was given but I wanted to write a book and so I had to do research for my book because in my book the woman that was in my book was after projecting or out-of-body experiences and so I wanted to find out could my character in my book um actually do what I had given her to do so I was researching that and I came across nder app which is near death experience Research Foundation and they had a segment on Obie's out-of-body experiences and so I went there and I did some research but I also got hooked into all those cool near-death experiences and uh so I stayed around and just chatted with people provided every day and dr. long dr. Jeffery long asked if um if anybody would be willing to do to volunteer to do a research and I said yeah sounds like a cool thing I was - I was retired now so why not so I that's when I did my 2,500 near-death experiences and and in the beginning as I say I was more interested in I was fascinated by what happened to people what experiences they had but then later I became much more interested in the deeper deeper lessons that were coming back from death experiences mm-hmm so you said you studied a lot of religions you went through a lot of exploration did you settle on you you almost immediately after that or just described the journey into in it Unitarian Universalism if you would yeah I sorry about that I am I am I became a unit too early sadness I became a Unitarian when I was about eighteen so not too far after but I continue to study because Unitarians don't have a Dogma and they're up their principles up they have seven principles that they live by and and the two toothache can be boiled down to two main points if one is respect for all life no matter what and the other one is a search for truth whatever that might be so there isn't one direction with thee with the Unitarians which was perfect for me so that's when I stuck around but as I see it I kept I kept study and even after even in later years and even now I still continue to study I can't just stop I just love hearing north what different thinking's and different ways of seeing things great I want to ask you a little bit about near-death experiences and what you've learned and how it conflicts or contrasts with Roman Catholicism because you mentioned in an email that it's not really compatible do you want to go into depth on what sort of conflict or mutual exclusivity there is between what you've learned and the doctrines of the Catholic Church place yeah sure well one of the things that I learned that I was surprised at was that we don't necessarily have a death experience that echoes what we have been taught but we followed here in the physical life and that was surprising because I assumed all Christians are Christians and and that primary is true but it's not just not the only true so that was one thing the other thing I learned was that the one thing that excited me most was that we gain all complete knowledge everybody know that everything that there is to know and that that was fascinating for me because I loved learning and I I just couldn't get enough and when I found out it like I mean I doubt you find out everything so that was cool is there any difference between the best case scenario and the worst case scenario for any human yeah women T other things the big important points are that um that we create our own death experiences each one of us has an active role in creating the experience that we have and so here's my so we create our own experiences oh no I'm sorry about that example um can I get this sure go for it so okay so my guest is actually on the phone right now and I'm gonna continue asking her questions I've muted her and she's actually speaking to a friend who was ill so I'd want to air that I hope it's muting properly but she said it wouldn't she said she had if I've understood her properly I think she said she's she's back now so here we go he's just anything at all thank you sorry wrong and not a problem um and one of the other things that aside from creating our own experiences there is no judgement and that's one of the big things that's quite different from what religions teach and I would say all religions pretty much okay today and and so um but that doesn't mean that we get out of it that we that we don't have to take responsibility and the consequences we haven't what we call a life review and during the life review we experienced exactly what we have done to others whether that is um good or bad both both directions and so our stoles actually expand actually feel in real life what it was like to that person so if we did something kind and caring and that's what this that's what they would feel and if we did things that were difficult or hard for the other person that's when we would feel but then it doesn't stop there it goes on to those persons the people that those people had um so we were relating to the people they had contact with so that that works very much and that's good um and so that's how that's how we feel that's how we live or experience the consequences of our actions and and feel you know the responsibility and there isn't any chance of saying things like well he did such-and-such first so just paint a little picture hypothetically of the very best case scenario versus the very worst case scenario so let's say there's someone that was only good only kind only patient only virtuous only loving and then on the other end of the spectrum there's someone that was the opposite they lacked every virtue and they lacked humility and they lacked love and what is the ultimate outcome meaning after they've reviewed everything after they live and everything that they've inflicted on others and after they believe it everything that those people that they inflicted on inflicted on others and so on and so forth down through that hierarchy of that web of interconnectedness of interpersonal relationships after all of that when all is said and done what is the outcome for the best-case-scenario person and the worst-case-scenario person okay all right I'll try and see if I can remember is that the soul feels great great joy just overwhelmed with drill legend more happy than we can ever imagine here because we just don't know that level of happiness but they are so thrilled that they were able to help somebody and you know that there isn't a level of helping we they feel the same thrill if they picked up a package for somebody that better dropped it at the same level of joy in the soul as there would be if they took person in and bedlam in o'er orbit or saved someone its if there's no difference kindness is kindness is kindness and so that the other thing that needs and with the worst case can scenario there's a lot of shame and a lot of um anger with oneself and why did I do that and how could I in that kind of thing and to be honest while we nbe i well the life used is happening the person is feeling um great um a great deal of love is still coming - I don't they don't stop feeling this overwhelming amount of luck that just pours to them we're whether they're it doesn't matter where they are or what they're doing or the sadness whichever but it the love is the same always the same now the people who have done things they wish they hadn't will sometimes become very angry or disappointed with themselves and then their guides which by the way are there with them will tell them that it's ok it's just learning experiences and it also depends on our intentions even if the day my wrong what was in our heart when we started to do whatever we were going to do that is more important than the attend than whether email better life so that that's important um and some people who feel that they are not worthy will stop themselves from being able to go all the way to wherever they're going to wind up like I have a kind of experience they they will make themselves stock and they stay in the halfway point but they do it to themselves that that's important to know and so they get to this halfway point and they stop because they don't think they're worthy to continue on and that's very sad because I bet that's their home that's the slowest home and so the soul has stopped itself because but it's learned so it somehow has them learned them it's ok can go on some people some people create hell for themselves and I say it deliberately that way because as I said we take an active role in the experience that we have and um hell is just part of that active role that we create because we are great creators we are amazing creators and that is one of the big things that I learned um in the deeper at the deeper sense of how much we take a role in creating because well it think about it from the histological sense of um if we were if we were created by a source or by a god or by whatever you want to call it when before creation there was nothing nothing but to be nothing nothing nothing and so creation happens instantly because really you know it that would be very very very painful to be above what does that create what does God use to create with well God uses itself its own energy and I'm sorry I apologize to anybody who doesn't like me saying it but I have to because that feels most so we really do create we're creating right this very second and we create everything that we that we experience and sometimes that's blatant that we can see it and sometimes we just don't get it and I certainly didn't for a long time that's for sure and so those are really important lessons another thing happens with people when they get to the other side is they feel so overwhelming that everything is thin and they are everything that it's all connected and that there's only one huge it'd be so what what did God use to create it but had to reduced its own love energy and so that means we are loved power your love and it is that that we've created that we create and how many persons are there in what we what is ostensibly the human race is separation and illusion is there only the one being or are you and I two separate beings really and truly and actually for all eternity you and I will be two separate beings and there are billions of us human beings do you understand my question the question is the one in the many is there only the one is that the only reality or is there individual or you and I different separate individuals for all eternity we are one and and there is nothing but one that's all there is is what okay so this is like the eastern some of the Eastern religions Buddhism and certain forms of certain understandings of Hinduism and a certain thing there's only the one so there is no possibility of being trapped in hell forever ultimately everyone's going to be reabsorbed into the one reality of I guess for lack of it right absolutely and people who put themselves into a hellish kind of experience um when they they can tell all the ones that I studied God out when they when they felt that they couldn't like they would call out for help and they would be taken out or one man was an atheist and had been an atheist most of his wife and but he remembered he found himself in hell and so he remembered of the song Jesus loves me and so he started singing that and he was pulled out of Hill so sometimes our guides come and help us to get out of that nests or anything and another thing that that you like the interested in is that people do see the a being that is like Jesus or Buddha Buddha or you know some some kind of that represents their um idea the I the per could be um but being ruled that that that youth equipped I for example in in their experience is exactly the same as the guide so I think it's just their guides but we create that it looks like our alright deity yeah I mean from my Catholic perspective I just to be perfectly blunt and honest with you I see the guides as demons that are fooling people in this life because they're not they haven't passed on to the afterlife yet they're still alive I think other demons that are fooling people into thinking of it it doesn't matter what you do because you're everything is one and seperation is illusion and ultimately it's only the one reality of God and heaven that awaits everyone doesn't matter what you do so that's from that's my Catholic perspective that's the danger of the Eastern religions and the danger of monism and the danger of your point of view is that it doesn't matter it ultimately it doesn't matter what you do you're gonna end up in heaven because that's the only reality right yes that is you'll be on your right so you can understand why from my Catholic perspective that's that's an evil teaching because we will not strive for heaven if we think that heaven is guaranteed at least I wouldn't if I thought heaven were guaranteed I would relax all of my morals all of my you know right now I'm striving to control my appetites but I'm gonna give that project up if I'm guaranteed to go to heaven right interesting no I wouldn't just see that way and I think people who are atheists can be very moral yeah I agree I agree but I agree that everyone can be moral but there there are you know there are certain things we need to do if we want to go to heaven in from from the judeo-christian point of view there are things that we need to do we need to like Jesus said in the in the Bible if you love me keep my Commandments so there are there are obligations that we have to if we're a monotheists we have to strive to be virtuous and if you tell me if I if I came to believe and it's not going to happen but if it if I came to believe that it doesn't matter what I do I'm going to end up in heaven because the seperation is illusion and the only reality is God in heaven then I'm gonna relax all of my efforts which are you know laughable efforts to today because I've only been Christian for 10 years but I'm gonna relax all of my efforts to control my appetites and I'm going to indulge in my appetites because it feels and I don't know what what to say um because that's your believes and that's I don't I don't interfere in other people's thoughts and believes that I respect that that's where you come from and so well yeah but how do you how do you understand virtue and vice how do you understand that how do you fit that into your worldview when ultimately it doesn't matter if you're vicious or if you're virtuous you're gonna get the same outcome because but for me it means first of all I think we're trained at least in my life I was trained to me virtuous and caring and kind as much as possible but the other thing is that um I think knowing a that I am a part of the source really matters to me and that in order for me to be all that I can be and good and to get back to the source I must be kind and must be good I must help others whatever we are yeah okay so there's a possibility of not getting back to the source to being come on I don't know I know that it will yeah not to clean my breeches it's gonna happen emotionally my brain says well you better look at you know okay so what about I want to ask you about theater and drama and sort of going through the motions pretending okay this is the this is the game life is a game and we're players on a stage and it's theater and you're gonna play the role of mother grandmother sister whatever daughter you have different roles to play family counselor you're a member of this religious nation no I'm talking about you right now in this life you're playing a role you and I are playing roles and we have a lot of drama that goes with that the ups and downs the highs and lows the emotions and all this sort of thing and the drama in and of itself is the point it doesn't matter that ultimately we're all destined for heaven and the unity of the Godhead what really matters is raising the diversity in the drama of this world the theater of it what do you think of that idea a partly right and partly not hmm um I think partly I can because because there is only one only one one being and we are part of it then it really doesn't matter because the we're really just things experiencing this existence and so we can we can experience this existence or we can experience a different existences it doesn't matter you know it doesn't matter that that's irrelevant whether there's different roles people play it's just it's relevant it's all just be which is back to what you're asking yeah I mean I do dairy definitely feel but I take it a step further that there's a reason for the B and not just because we're playing a role um I think there's a reason I believe is that we and we give back to the source in our experience who ever experienced that we have what we are doing we are giving back to the source and so by giving back to the source we um that's the significance of are we not the rules after laws miss cream I want to ask you a two-part question there's sort of two different ends of the spectrum on the emotional spectrum so well on one end you have humor and jokes and levity and laughter on the other end you have tragedy and tears and stuff like that so if you flip through the newspaper I don't know if they have paper newspapers anymore but back in the day used to have the paper newspaper and you could you read the tragedies that happened so many people died or were murdered or raped or whatever on the first couple pages and then you have near the back you have like sports and comics and you can hear it you can have a laugh okay so my question basically is anything funny is anything really funny and or is it just the illusion is it just some sort of trick that we're falling into when we find ourselves laughing at some cartoon or some comic or whatever it is and the other part of that question is is anything really sad or tragic like when we see someone ax-murdered their grandmother is that really tragic is it really sad so can you just talk about those two ends of the spectrum and the reality of joy and sorrow I'm sorry I'm like him joy and sorrow is anything funny is anything really funny like when you find yourself laughing a joke yeah yeah there was a fellow actually yes I mean I'm all like you said I'm 81 and I often laugh at myself I'll be doing something that's jolly I don't mean silly it can be a normal ordinary thing and like for example fretting about so and and I start laughing at myself oh you silly you know that way so and in that way I see life is being you know oh we we we create this silliness for ourselves or we tractor we worry about things that are irrelevant just they really don't matter that they're you know it doesn't matter tomorrow or the next day or you know that kind of thing so that um but but I also have um have-have one man that I that I research that he spend his time inside the light when he was at the other side it was there just humongous light and he entered into the light and while he was in the light he joked around with love with the with the source um and had a great old time together you know so you're certainly humor in that way too I think the things that bring joy are that we are children we really really really are we just we're so naive and so um we don't understand and it's sort of like watching a child struggling or playing and and sayin and finding joy and watching that child be so innocent because we are really are we're not from the point of view of the world above from the spiritual point of view we are as far as pain and sorrow if that been real more difficult because source is is pure love absolute 100% pure love and it doesn't recognize sorrow and M and it knows that we it knows that we have sorrow that's not the point it also knows that we have the ability to take ourselves out of that for so um it's it's like a man-made kind of thing and also um when we have done something really bad like for example you know we're really horrible kind of person and we harm others kill them or whatever um we are still 100% accepted it doesn't matter it's like it's wiped completely away and we are part of the source immediately let's say someone you know and love a young person like under 20 came to you and said well first of all it made sort of paint out a little picture of this person this person is always loving giving generous and joyful happy everything all the positives okay this young person is like a saint and you know this person you know that it's real it's genuine and there's no dark side that's being hidden to the public life this is just who this person is and this person comes to you with a smile on their face and says I'm going to go to the source and you say what do you mean then basically the basic idea is they're going to kill themselves because that's that's the ultimate happiness so you know you can organize a party and everyone's happy and then the person slits their wrists or whatever and goes off to the thesaurus and everyone just as a drink and toasts the memory of this person I mean we could just turn it into a very joyful occasion from your perspective from my Catholic perspective suicide is evil it's intrinsically evil it's always evil and we must avoid it and we have to we have to suffer through this life and all that life brings us but from your perspective this happy-go-lucky joyful person proposing suicide and everyone's prepared for it no one's surprised by it and everyone is in complete agreement with it because it is the ultimate path to happiness is to go back to the source it sort of presents you with a situation where you'd have to admit from your perspective that it's okay to kill yourself and it's a it's something that we should celebrate and not only that but we should all follow this person's example no no but I don't understand where you're coming from suicide is probably the one thing that we do not have an opportunity to choose and people who have committed suicide are told very clearly that this is not a decision you can make oh and if the body that they have left is still functioning now I'm going to qualify it because there are circumstances where this might not happen but I would say 99% of the time when a person commits suicide if their body that they've left behind can still hold life and continue on then they are sent back and they have to deal with the injuries that they get into themselves they need you know because they come here for a purpose we all come here with something a chore or goal or something that we have to do and that's a written in blood that's a contract and we can't get out of it and if we committed suicide we need to go back and finish that now um and the other thing is that we also um have a part in saying the life that we're going to be living before we come into this life and so we need to go back and finish the goal but the other thing is that if the person's body is too destroyed you know we've jumped off a bridge on themselves or something like that shot themselves and they can't live so the body cannot sustain life anymore then that person has two options number one option is they can stay at least at the spirit level and go over and over and over and they have to physically actually relive it by the way um that is they like the pictures left and come to a decision of how they could have worked that out without committing suicide or they can go into the next life into reincarnation and go to the next life and um and it will have all of the exact same elements that the life that they tried to read to get away from and it will have all of those and they just have to do it all over again so you don't get out of what it is that you're trying to escape from at all okay yeah it sounds very very much like Hinduism it's what about the neutral case where someone just says I'm just gonna I'm not gonna be good I'm not gonna be evil I'm just gonna sort it watch TV and eat snacks it's sort of like you know that would be evil from a Catholic perspective but from your perspective it might be sort of a neutral position like I'm not going to be really good really bad I'm just gonna chill take care of myself what what do you have to say with that sort of neutral stance I think that's probably most of us oh yeah yeah I do I think most people get up go to work come home do their thing pay their bills as much as again get into debt you know have anger have joys you know we're just people and so I think that that is that is a very average okay what about the Saints I have Catholic saints do you have Saints in your type of monastic worldview are there like hindu saints or buddhist saints or uu saints who are the heroes of your point of view I don't have a hero no I don't dare there is no no Jesus or no boudoir no um Muhammad or whatever you know it just isn't there my my only thing is is the sort that's my that's why I guess deity okay there's no one that believes what you believe in the history books that believed what you believe now and who lived even better than your living your philosophy they lived it even better than you did and they're an example that you could strive to live up to there's no one in the history books that believed what he believed and lived it better than your currently we go okay there's people I look up to I mean you know any mother tree so I think is fabulous um Albert Schweitzer um you know and and there are wonderful in you know um both the Indian guy I can remember um Gandhi honey yeah so I mean like I I have people that are human beings that I very much look up to but I don't see them as being anything more than human beings that are making better choices then then some of the rest of us yeah yeah that's what I meant the Saints are just human beings they're sinners just like you and I from my Catholic perspective but they're they're examples of how to live and how to sacrifice on how to love and how to die so speaking of death I guess it's the end of our interview here but before I let you go I want you to sort of have a chance to say anything that you wanted to get in on this particular interview maybe there were topics we didn't cover or maybe you want to promote your book or direct people to a website or is there anything you want to say before we wrap up well I would say first of all that the main focus of my book is to teach each one of us how magnificent we really are we are so down on ourselves in life and stress and problems and we really are very very beautiful and that's what I want to teach people how beautiful we are um and you can find me just about anywhere just google my name and you'll find me um I'm on Facebook LinkedIn Twitter and I'm also answer questions when I have time on Quora but I don't do that too much these days because I'm busy with my book so that I guess is it not child and the name of my book is the wonder of you what the near-death experience tells you about yourself excellent well thank you so much for taking the time and for putting up with my Catholic perspective I know it's it's it's different from your own but I love and respect you for who you are and I agree with much much of what you what you teach and what you believe so there's not there's no white agonism for me there's only love okay okay all right thank you very much for the opportunity to chat with you my pleasure hopefully we'll keep in my pleasure hopefully we'll keep in touch okay god bless bye