Divine Encounters Episode 058 | Near-Death Experience Story
Lynn K. Russell was a single mother of three, doing dishes and picking up toys, when over a few days in 1973 she says she became an apple tree, watched the universe expand from an atom to a galaxy, and heard that where she came from is where she will return. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari about those three experiences and what her decades of studying near-death experiences have taught her about why we come to Earth.
Key Takeaways
- Lynn says she had three spiritual experiences on different days in 1973, while she was a single parent of three young children.
- She describes becoming an apple tree, then every kind of life form she could think of, with no separation at all.
- She says she watched an atom, the solar system and galaxies unfold, and received the message that “there was order and planning and an intelligence behind it all.”
- She says a presence surrounded her with more love than she could imagine, and a voice said, “this is where you came from, and this is where you will return.”
- From studying near-death experiences, she says the experience reflects what we expect, yet almost everyone feels a deep oneness.
- She says souls choose a task, the people and events that will guide them, and even their own bodies, though “everything isn’t written in stone.”
- Her motto: “to be the love that we are.”
| Guest | Lynn K. Russell |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 058 |
| When | Three experiences over a few days in 1973 |
| What Lynn says happened | She became a tree, watched the universe expand, and felt a loving presence |
| Where she was | At home in the kitchen and living room, while her children napped or were at school |
| Message heard | “this is where you came from, and this is where you will return” |
| Her research | Since childhood she has studied religions and near-death experiences, beginning after her atheist mother told her death means you disappear |
| The message | Be the love that we are |
A Single Parent in a Quiet House
Alex asks his opening question, and Lynn answers with her daily life. She was a single parent with three children, she says. Two older ones were in school, and the youngest was down for an afternoon nap. She says that mattered, because her kids were very active. A quiet house was rare.
She had three experiences on completely different days, she says, and she had no idea they were coming. Otherwise, she says, she would have noticed.
The First Experience: Becoming the Tree
In the first, Lynn says she was doing dishes. The place was quiet. There was a window above the sink looking into the yard, where an apple tree stood. She was looking at it and not thinking about anything.
Then, she says, “I became the tree.” Her consciousness was taken over, she says, and she literally became that tree, and the tree was her. There was no separation at all.
She says she was every kind of life form she could think of. She was the bird in the tree. She was the bug the bird was going to eat. She was fish and other animals. Everything she thought of, she was. It lasted maybe thirty seconds, she says.
Our glossary entry on oneness speaks to this kind of unity.
The Second Experience: From Atom to Galaxy
A few days later, Lynn says, she was wiping fingerprints off a wall. Again she was looking at the wall, not thinking of anything, and the place was quiet. Then she saw an atom with electrons going around it. Then she saw our solar system with the sun and planets going around. That expanded to our galaxy and to what she calls sister galaxies, which she thinks are called clusters. It was micro to macro.
While this expansion unfolded, she says, she was receiving messages. She received the message that “there was order and planning and an intelligence behind it all.” She really enjoyed that.
But then came a message she did not like at all. She says she was told that “my being was intricately connected with the operation of the universe.” It scared her. She thought: What do you mean? What am I supposed to do? She says she had no idea about any of this in 1973, and the experience ended there.
The Third Experience: A Presence of Love
A few days after that, Lynn says, she was in the living room picking up toys when she felt a presence with her. She could not see anyone. She could see only her living room. But there was more love, she says, than she could ever imagine. It felt as if she were surrounded and filled with it, and connected to what she called a positive energy force.
Then she heard words very clearly: “this is where you came from, and this is where you will return.”
That was the last of the three. And it taught her, she says, not to be so afraid of death, because it was such a beautiful experience. For a deeper look at the idea of returning home, see our entry on the afterlife.
Why She Was So Afraid of Death
Lynn explains why that last message mattered so much. Since the age of about eight, she says, she had been afraid of death. Her mother, an atheist, had told her that you just disappear. Lynn says she did not accept that, and she wanted a better answer. That was the start of her studies.
She says she began researching at 16, and the experiences came in her mid to late thirties. Back in the 1950s, she says, there was only religion. There was no spiritual thinking in the way we know it now. So she studied all the religions and their histories.
What she was really looking for, she says, was truth.
What She Found: We Shape Our Own Experiences
Lynn says her first finding is that the death experience is what we think should happen. That is why accounts vary, and why different cultures have different kinds of experiences. Her view is that we create them.
Her second finding is that nearly everyone feels oneness. They do not always call it that, she says, but they say, “I felt like I was connected to everything, and everything was connected to me.” Many people were blown away by that.
Because we are steeped in this existence, she says, we see ourselves as physical and keep seeing ourselves that way. People see their body lying there. But she says we take an ethereal body with us and create an ethereal world, which is our own creation. If your favorite place is the beach, that is the kind of experience you might have.
Entering the Light, and Becoming It
There is another kind of experience, Lynn says, that goes much deeper, and it involves entering the light. She describes two levels. At one level, people enter the light and still see themselves as themselves, have personal experiences, and communicate with the light, which she says is “a being with intelligence and great sense of humor.”
At the deeper level, people become the light. They melt into it and absolutely are the light, she says. There they become creators with the light. She says they can go back to the beginning of the beginning and watch how our universe was created and evolved, and gain vast amounts of information. Sometimes they bring it back, she says, and sometimes they do not.
She says they lose the concept of self, yet are aware that they were that person once, and other forms of light too, reincarnated lights. They remember it all, but it is just learning. She believes this is the most significant death experience of all.
For related ideas, see our entry on reincarnation and the consciousness page.
Which Religion Is Right?
One of the things people ask the light, Lynn says, is which religion is the best or the right one. Repeatedly, she says, they are told that “whatever religion fits for that person” is the right one. There is not just one.
If it brings a person close to source and closer to God, she says, that is what matters.
Why Creation Exists
Lynn offers a picture. Imagine an incredible intelligence, all alone in nothingness, with just blackness around it. No sounds, no sights. She says that entity would not know that it was, or know anything about itself.
So she says “creation is to give back to source.” That is what creation is for, she says, and that is what we are. The life we live gives back to source.
That is also why she believes the life review matters. Some people see it in detail, she says. Some see highlights, and how we affected other people. It does not matter how wealthy or famous we are. What counts is how we affected the world and other people.
In her view, there is no judgment in the life review, because we judge ourselves. But “we take the consequences of our actions” by reliving the experience we provided for others. Our entry on the life review covers how others describe it.
Choosing a Task Before We Come
Lynn says that before we come into this life, our soul says, okay, I am going to be a person, and chooses a task to accomplish. It then chooses the elements of life that will guide it toward that task. She says these include the significant people, not everyone we ever meet, and the major events, not every event.
We also choose everything about ourselves, she says: our color, nationality, our country. If it were significant to guiding us, she says, it would be our baby toenail.
She adds a caution. We do not always get to do what we came to do. The person we were going to meet may leave this world first. An accident may change things. Or we may just goof off. “Everything isn’t written in stone,” she says, and she does not like the saying that everything is meant to be, because some things that are meant to be do not happen.
Because there is no time at the spirit level, she says, it does not matter how long it takes. The point is that we will accomplish the task, whether in five lifetimes or one. Our entry on soul contracts explores the same idea.
Visits to Other Planets
Lynn also mentions what some experiencers have asked to see. Some, she says, ask to be taken to another planet where there is life in this universe, and they are taken. She recalls one person who asked to go to the most advanced planet, and went to a place where beings communicated telepathically and seemed almost ghostlike. The same person then asked to see one of the least evolved planets and saw something like cavemen and very primitive life forms.
God, Love and Being the Love We Are
Asked how she sees God, Lynn says God’s essence is love, and that love is the power it creates with. She sees God as a positive, creative force, and not as a person or a being. To be honest, she says, she does not even think there is a light. People see light because we need something to relate to. In reality, she says, source is just intelligence.
“Love is the essence of who we are.” She says we are created in love, and we are love. That is why her motto, which she puts at the bottom of what she sends out, is “to be the love that we are.” That, she says, is our reality of giving back to source and helping source experience and know itself.
For more background, start with our complete guide to near-death experiences.
Placing Lynn’s Story Beside Common Themes
Lynn’s three experiences are not near-death experiences in the usual sense, since she does not describe being close to death. They do share themes with them: oneness, a loving presence, a message about where we come from, and a lessening of the fear of death. Her research adds a wider lens, drawn from the many accounts she has studied.
As always, we share these as experiences in the person’s own words, with no medical claims. Researchers continue to debate what such reports mean.
Questions to Sit With
- Lynn says that for a moment she was every kind of life. Where in nature do you feel least separate?
- If your soul chose a task for this life, what do you sense it might be?
- What would it look like this week to be the love that you are, in one ordinary moment?
This week, take five quiet minutes with a tree or any living thing. Look without naming it, and notice if the line between you and it softens.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Lynn says we come from love and will return to it.
- She says almost everyone who has these experiences feels connected to everything.
- She says religion matters less than whether it brings you closer to source.
- She says the soul chooses a task, but not everything is written in stone.
- She says what counts in the end is how we affected other people and the world.
Please enjoy my conversation with Lynn K. Russell.
Guest Links: Connect With Lynn K. Russell
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Lynn K. Russell?
Lynn K. Russell is the guest of this Divine Encounters episode. She says she had three spiritual experiences in 1973 as a single parent, and she has studied religions and near-death experiences for decades.
What happened to Lynn in her first experience?
She says she was doing dishes, looking at an apple tree, when she became the tree and then every kind of life form she could think of, with no separation.
What did Lynn see in her second experience?
She says she saw an atom, the solar system and galaxies unfold, and received the message that there was order and planning and an intelligence behind it all.
Why did the second experience scare Lynn?
She says she was told her being was intricately connected with the operation of the universe, and she did not know what that meant or what she was supposed to do.
What happened in the third experience?
She says she felt a presence in her living room that surrounded her with more love than she could imagine, and she heard that this is where she came from and where she will return.
Why did Lynn start studying death?
She says her mother, an atheist, told her at about age eight that you just disappear. Lynn did not accept that and began studying to find a better answer.
What does Lynn say about different near-death experiences?
She says the experience reflects what we expect, which is why cultures differ, though almost everyone feels a deep sense of oneness.
Which religion is right, according to Lynn?
She says people who ask the light are repeatedly told that whatever religion fits for that person is right, as long as it brings them closer to source.
What does Lynn say the purpose of creation is?
She says creation is to give back to source, and that the lives we live give back to source.
Does Lynn believe everything is meant to be?
No. She says the soul chooses a task and the people and events to guide it, but things can change, so everything isn’t written in stone.
Is a near-death experience proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares these experiences as lived experiences told in the person’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate what they mean. Nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What oneness means
- What a soul contract is
- P.M.H. Atwater on what thousands of NDEs revealed
- Dr. Jeffrey Long on thousands of NDE reports
- Dr. Raymond Moody on the afterlife’s biggest secret
- Janice Holden, an NDE researcher, on the evidence for life after death
- Anton Grosz on discovering that we are one
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Lynn K. Russell 0:08
I was a single parent. I had three children. They were 3, 4, 5, and 6, so the two older ones yeah in the afternoon, and the two older ones were in school, and the youngest one was down from the afternoon nap. And that was significant, because my kids were very active. And so the fact that it was always I had three experiences on completely different days. I had no idea they were coming, or I would have noticed. And so the first experience, I'm doing dishes, and as I see, the place is quite quiet, and there's a window above my sink, and I can see into the yard. And in the yard there's a tree, an apple tree, and I'm just looking at the tree, and I'm really not thinking about anything, and all of a sudden I became the tree, and it was like my consciousness was taken over, and I literally became that tree. And the tree was me. There was no separation at all, and I was every kind of life form that I could think of. I was the bird in the tree. I was in Bucha that the bird was going to eat. I was everything, and fish and other kinds of animals, everything I thought of, I was it. And that was the end of the experience. It was like maybe 30 seconds long. And then the next experience was a few days later, and this time, I'm wiping fingerprints off the whole wall, and I'm just looking at the wall. And again, I'm not thinking of anything, and the place is quiet, and all of a sudden I'm seeing an atom with the electrons going around. And then I see our solar system with the Sun and the planets going around. And then that expanded to our galaxy. And Sister galaxies, what I call sister, I think they're called clusters. So it was like micro to the macro universe. And while I'm getting this into this, this expansion, I'm getting messages that this didn't just happen, that there was order and planning and an intelligence behind it all. And that was really cool. I really enjoyed that, but then I got a message that I really did not like at all, and that was the end of the experience. And that message was that my being was intricately connected with the operation of the universe, and I couldn't get that That scared me, because I thought, What do you mean? What am I supposed to do? I'm really, this was in 73 so 1973 so I really had no idea about any of this kind of thing. And then another thing that happened again, as I say, that was the end of that experience. And then a few days later, I'm in the living room, picking up toys and tidying up, and I felt a presence in the room with me. And there was, it was like I couldn't see anything. I could just see my living room. That was it. But there was more love. Like it was like I was being surrounded, impregnated with with more love than I could ever imagine, and it felt like I was connected somehow to this, whatever this, I called it positive energy force. So this positive energy force, I felt like I was connected. And then I heard words very clearly that said, this is where you came from, and this is where you will return. And that was the last of my experiences, but that one taught me that not to be so afraid of death, because this was such a beautiful experience. It was during my experience I started researching when I was 16, and this was when I was mid to 30s, and I before that, when I I was so frightened of death, that was what the whole thing was about. I wanted to find out what happened when you died. And my mother, being an atheist, had told me, I just disappear. And I was an eight year old when she told me that I didn't disappear, and so I wanted to find a better answer. And that was the beginning of my my studies. And then that branched out from there. And there was only in those days, because we're going back to the 1950s and so in those days, there was only religion. There was no spiritual kind of thinking at all. And so I studied all the religions and their histories, and what I found out I was looking for was truth. That was, that's what it down to. I was searching truth. But first of all, we. Create our own experiences. We the death experience is what we think should happen. So that's point one. So that's why the variation between them and why different cultures will have different kinds of experiences is because we created the other thing was that almost universally, everybody would feel this oneness. They didn't call it that. Some did, some didn't, but they would say, I felt like I was connected to everything, and everything was connected to me. You know, they really were very blown away by that. That was that was very significant for quite a few people. Well, many, many people, because we are steeped in this existence, we see ourselves as as physical, and we continue to see ourselves physical. We've seen our body lying there, but we take a body with us, an ethereal body, and we created an ethereal world, and that's our creation. So whatever is our favorite place, I want to go to the beach. Those are the kind of experiences. But there's another experience that even goes much, much deeper, and these are people who enter into the light. Now there's two levels of that. There's those who enter into the light continue to see themselves as themselves and experiencing personal experiences, and then leave and communicate with the light, because the light is us, is a being with intelligence and great sense of humor. So but the other thing is that people will become the light. They melt and absolutely are the light. And when they're there, they become creators with the light. And they can go back to the beginning of the beginning of the beginning, and they're, you know, I mean, there is no real beginning, but back to the beginning of our Newton universe, and watch how it created and how it all evolved, and gain vast amounts of information. And sometimes they bring that information back, and sometimes they don't, unfortunately, but anyway. But the point is that they lose that concept of self and become this delight. And when they lose the concept of self, they're aware that they were that person at one point in time, and that they were these other light forms, you know, like pop forms, but reincarnated lights. And so they remember all of those, but they're just learning experiences. It doesn't have any major significance. And so they I really think that is the most significant death experience of all, is when they melt, come the light. One of the things that's asked of the light is which religion is the best one, or the right one, or the whatever. And repeatedly, people are told whatever religion fits for that person is there isn't one. So if it brings the person close to source and closer to God, then reincarnation, go back to being source and source. Here's how I explain it, if we could just imagine being this incredible intelligence, and I don't even know how to save me, but just this entity that's amazing, and it's all alone in nothingness with just blackness around, no sounds, no sight, nothing. And if that were the case, creation would happen in a second, when a nanosecond, because the entity would not know that it was, or even if it did know it was, it wouldn't know anything about itself. So creation is to give back to source. That's what creation is for, and that's what we are. We are giving back our the life that we live gives back to source. And so that's the most important. Some people see it in detail. Some people just highlights and how we affect other people and how we Yeah, and that's the main point. Is it doesn't matter about our wealth, or, you know, how famous we are, or any of that. It's, you know, it's how we affected the world and other people. And so that is the significance. But the life review, there is no judgment, kind of because we judge ourselves, but we take the consequences of our actions by reliving the experience we provide for others before we come into this life experience our souls, the soul that says, Okay, I'm going to be a person. Chooses a task that they want to accomplish in this life, and then with that task, they choose all the elements within their life that will help them to guide them towards that task. And so they will choose significant people, not everybody they ever meet, but the main people that are going to be in their lives that will guide them or or that the interaction will be significant to guide them in the right direction. Then there's the events in our lives, whether you know, and not every again, not every event, but the major events and that will help us to lead us in certain directions. And then there's the ourselves. We choose everything about ourselves, the color, the nationality, the country, every single thing that is going to be significant, it would be our baby toenail, if it was significant to guiding us, however, there is a creep out on that, because sometimes we don't get to do whatever it is that we came here to do for various reasons, because not everything is meant to be. And I don't like this statement of everything is meant to be, because it's not some things are meant to be, but some things that are meant to be don't happen. The person that we are going to be interacting with leaves this world before we get to that, or some accident happens and changes things, or we just goof off and say, I don't want and we're just going to be you know, and so everything isn't written in stone. And because there is no time at the spirit level, it doesn't matter how long it takes us. We can have by place if we want to accomplish our tasks. The point is that we are going to accomplish that task, whether it's five or whether it's one, it doesn't matter. And some, some people will will ask, take me to a planet, another planet, where there's life, you know, in the in this universe. And they will take, be taken there. Okay, here you are. And then they'll also be taken. One person, I remember, asked to take me to the most advanced and he went to this place where they didn't communicate this verbally. They telepathic. And they were almost surreal. They were, you know, this, this life form, but, but almost like a ghost, almost. But then they asked to go to one of the least evolved planets, and they went to something like, you know, Caveman kind of thing, or very primitive life forms. I think that God love is the love that we feel is our reconnection to the power or the essence of our being, which is love. I think God's essence is love, and that love is the power that it creates with. So that would be one thing, but also consciousness. So I see God as a positive, creative force. I don't see God as a person or a being, or any as a matter of fact, to be honest, I don't even think there's a light. I think people see light because we need something to relate to. But I think, in reality, source, or the positive energy doesn't have anything. It's just being intelligence. Love is the essence of our being Love is the essence of who we are. We are created in love, and we are love. And so my motto when that dip at the bottom of my when I send things out, is to be the love that we are, because that's that's our reality of giving back to source, to being to helping source, to be to experience and know it so.
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