Divine Encounters Episode 072 | Near-Death Experience Story
Maria Lupita Gurulé says her very first experience came before she was born, when she was not sure she wanted to be. Years later, on the day her daughter was born, she says her heart and lungs stopped and she spent about eight minutes in a world of white light, a healing temple and a council of beings. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari what she was shown and why she came back.
Key Takeaways
- Maria says her experiences are tied to birth and death, beginning with a pop in before she was born, when she did not want to come.
- She describes being out for about eight minutes after a reaction in the delivery area, an interval she says felt infinite.
- She says she was consumed by white light, “like the light of a million suns that didn’t burn my eyes.”
- She describes working with four groups of beings: a healing group, a life review with a living, holographic book, a council, and a valley of souls.
- She says her life review was not about blame. As she puts it, “It was more of, let’s look at the life.”
- She says she returned in a panic when she saw the Blessed Mother hand her newborn daughter to her own mother, and remembers a whispered “it’s going to be okay.”
| Guest | Maria Lupita Gurulé |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 072 |
| Setting | The day her daughter was born |
| What Maria says happened | A reaction during the birthing process stopped her heart and lungs |
| Time away | About eight minutes, which she says felt infinite |
| Where she says she went | White light, a healing temple, a council space and a valley of souls |
| Who she met | The Blessed Mother, Jesus, four groups of beings and a wise council |
| The message | We are not left alone, and there is always hope |
A Soul Who Was Not Sure About Coming
When Alex asks about life before she died, Maria answers with her birth. It was very challenging, she says. Her mother was three weeks late with her. “I did not want to be born,” she says.
She describes what she calls a pop in, a glimpse from the other side. She remembers seeing her mother pregnant and deciding whether she even wanted to come into this life. Her mother had a miscarriage before her and another after. In Maria’s telling, her hesitation and the three week delay were connected.
She was named Maria Lupita after Our Lady of Guadalupe, and she says that was by design. Her mother had promised that if Maria was born safe, she would carry that name. She says her mother had seen the Virgin at the basilica in Mexico City.
A Deep Knowing She Pushed Aside
Even at three years old, she says, there was a deep knowing that something wasn’t quite right, something she could not put her finger on. She wanted to sing of something. Then she went on, she says, denying that inner knowing. She followed the path of the picket fence, the marriage, the two kids, the pet and the job, denying all of her spirit sight.
She calls it the universe sending subtle voices in a direction she resisted, which is everything she is now. She says her experiences all seem to be tied to birth and death. This episode centers on the largest one.
For some background on how people describe memories from before birth, our glossary has an entry on pre-birth memory.
The Day Her Daughter Was Born
The largest experience, she says, happened on the day her daughter was born, about three hours after the birth. Her pregnancies had been difficult. She says both brought a condition that is life threatening, and that her first child was born ten weeks early and her second about three weeks early. After her second, she planned to have a tubal ligation, and the catheter from her epidural was still in her back.
She says she was given a spinal block, and that it stopped her heart and her lungs as they were moving her out of the birthing room toward the operating room. The team had to resuscitate her, intubate her and breathe for her. This was not anesthesia, she explains. She was meant to be awake and numb. She says she was out for approximately eight minutes, which on the other side seemed like an infinite time.
She says it is hard to explain. She feels she is still partly there, as all of us are, and she is very aware of her full presence there.
Consumed by White Light
The first thing, she says, was a consumption of whiteness. It felt like floating, but it was more like an immersion into pure energy, pure crystal, “like the light of a million suns that didn’t burn my eyes.”
The very first thing she saw were ladies and the Blessed Mother, she says, and she knows that relates to her belief and upbringing. Then she saw intertwined hearts, the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Mother’s heart, which she says is also Jesus. Beyond them, she saw a pinpoint of energy, a light that she now calls the god center of the universe.
She did not want to return. So, she says, there followed a process that involved a multitude of beings in a total of four different groups. For a broader look at how people describe light like this, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
A Life Review That Was Not About Blame
In the first group, Maria says, she understood what she was experiencing through a review of her life. She says it was like technology, “a soul technology that we’ve lost.” There was one particular being with her through every group, and it seemed to separate into three, each with its own task.
The first task was reviewing her life events: the traumas, the abuses, the pain we all carry. It was not about what she had done wrong. “It was more of, let’s look at the life.” She stood on a platform where an expanse of infinite pixels could be stretched out and fast forwarded. She could find a moment and pull it up in what looked like a book.
That was more than twenty years ago, she notes, before Harry Potter films and moving pictures like that, so she had no reference for it. It was a moving, living book. She could cast it onto a screen, and it became interactive and holographic.
One of the experiences she revisited was among the most horrific of her life, and she was projected into it again. But she could also switch roles and see what the other person was experiencing: the decisions, what made them who they were. It was an entire immersive process. For more, see our glossary entry on the life review.
The Healing Temple
When one was overwhelming, she was taken to what she calls a healing temple. She was immersed in an effervescent, pure life force energy that de-atomized the experience, she says, and cleansed and purified it. It was like a reset.
Because she was still half in the human experience, she understood that this is how we acclimate after we pass: we understand the painful things, receive healing and cleansing, and learn how to apply what we received. This happened several times.
The Wise Council and the Life Agreement
Then she worked with a council, which she calls the wise council. There seemed to be four groups of four, she says, and one was always primarily with her. They were looking at what she had set up in her life’s agreement. What was her purpose? What had she chosen? How did this happen? What was she going back into?
She says she was able to see spirit family, the souls who incarnate together, although that was a separate matter. She understood that we are not left alone to it. And she understood the hardest part of the human plane: we live by rules that include forgetting, an amnesiac experience for our seeking.
She says all of this is part of the understanding she was given about what we are and why this happens.
The Valley of Souls
The fourth group showed her what she calls a valley of souls, which she says is our soul group on Earth now. She saw a field of flowers, and understood that this is what we are. We are intricately attuned, she says, in every possible color: “a sea of reds and blues,” and every shade of red there could be, each representing a single, unique soul.
She was also shown things about the universe and Earth. Finally she felt she had enough understanding to come back and fulfill her purpose, with the same excitement she remembers at three and a half years old. For a short entry on this idea, see our glossary on soul groups.
Falling Back Into Her Body
At the very end, she says, she found herself where she began, in the white space with the Blessed Mother. The Blessed Mother was holding Maria’s newborn daughter. Maria’s mother, who was alive and had been at the birth, was standing right next to her. The Blessed Mother kissed the baby and handed her to Maria’s mother.
Maria realized she had a child. “I can’t leave her motherless on the day that she’s born.” It was not an angelic, gentle parting, she says. It was an instant panic. It felt like “I slammed it back into my body, falling 10 stories.”
She felt every bit of the pain. She was still intubated, and she felt as though she was being buried alive. She could not move, only shed a single tear. She remembers someone cradling her head and whispering into her ear that it was going to be okay. She thought it was a nurse, but now she thinks it was that angelic God energy. She had a long recovery.
A Past Life Memory, in Her Own Words
Maria later trained in hypnotherapy at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, after an experience with hypnotherapy as a child in preparation for surgery. In one training exercise, a past life regression, she was asked to go to the lifetime most impacting her reason for being in this one.
She says she saw herself on a ship with a blue glowing light, then a planet ahead of her. She was asked when, and said it was 30,000 years ago. In an arid area, she says, she was 14 feet tall, loving the people, over a span of 300 years. She was hovering above a sea of people, like the National Mall in Washington, DC, hundreds of thousands of them. She recognized that some of us have been on this planet to help.
We share this as Maria’s own account. It goes to the heart of how she understands her purpose.
Placing Maria’s Story Beside Others
Maria’s account includes many features that people describe in the wider literature on near-death experiences: a vivid light, beings who guide, a review of life, a choice or a push to return. In 1983, psychiatrist Bruce Greyson published the 16-item NDE Scale as a tool to describe the experience. And in a 2001 study in The Lancet, Pim van Lommel and colleagues found that 62 of 344 cardiac arrest survivors, about 18 percent, reported a near-death experience.
What stands out in Maria’s account is how much of it she places in the technology, the councils and the healing, and how little in the usual tunnel. Researchers still debate what these experiences mean, and we share hers as an experience, in her words.
What She Says We Are Waking Up To
Maria says people are awakening, and that something has happened on the planet that has trapped many souls in the reincarnation process. We are also traveling through a sector of the universe, she says, like moving from a 55 mile zone to a freeway on-ramp. “People are awakening like no other.”
The people who are awakening are discovering that they know who they are and what they are here to do. “We have this incredible power within us that has been hijacked,” she says, and it is time to remember it. The choice, she says, is up to us. She calls it New Earth.
Her hope is simple. May we know we are all in this together. “The greater part of ourself is safe at home,” and “we don’t have to feel so alone.” There is always help in life, she says, and “May that hope be like a seed,” that grows into the field of flowers she saw.
Questions to Sit With
- Maria says she denied her inner knowing for years. What part of your inner knowing have you been setting aside?
- She says her life review was not about blame. What would it feel like to review your own life with curiosity instead?
- She says we do not have to feel so alone. Who or what reminds you of that?
Spend five minutes looking at one hard memory as if you were a kind observer, asking only: how did this happen? Then close with one deep breath and let it go for today.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Maria says she is not left alone, and that we each have a council that works with us.
- She says a life review can be a place for understanding, not blame.
- She says healing can feel like being immersed in pure life force energy.
- She says each soul is a unique color in a field of flowers.
- Her message is that there is always hope, and it can grow like a seed.
Please enjoy my conversation with Maria Lupita Gurulé.
Guest Links: Connect With Maria Lupita Gurulé
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Maria Lupita Gurulé?
Maria Lupita Gurulé is a hypnotherapist and near-death experiencer who tells host Alex Ferrari about experiences tied to birth and death, including one she says happened on the day her daughter was born.
What does Maria say happened on the day her daughter was born?
She says a reaction to a spinal block stopped her heart and lungs, and that she was out for about eight minutes, which seemed infinite on the other side.
What did she see first?
She says she was consumed by white light, like the light of a million suns that did not burn her eyes. She then saw the Blessed Mother, intertwined hearts and a pinpoint of energy she calls the god center of the universe.
What was the life review like?
She describes a living, holographic book on a platform where she could stretch time and even switch roles with others. She says it was not about blame but about understanding.
What was the healing temple?
She describes being immersed in a pure life force energy that cleansed and purified overwhelming experiences, like a reset.
Who was the wise council?
She says it was a group of beings, four groups of four, who worked with her on her life’s agreement and purpose.
What was the valley of souls?
She describes a field of flowers in every color, each flower representing a unique soul in our soul group.
Why did she return?
She says she saw the Blessed Mother hand her newborn daughter to her own mother and realized she could not leave her daughter motherless on the day she was born.
What does Maria say about the future?
She says people are awakening, and that we have a choice about where we land. She calls it New Earth.
Is a near-death experience proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death 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 is a near-death experience? (glossary)
- What is a life review? (glossary)
- What is a soul group? (glossary)
- A woman dies giving birth and has a divine meeting with Jesus
- A woman meets her soul group and sees her past lives
- A woman is taken to the Book of Lives after dying on the operating table
- A teenager is shown many worlds and the purpose of life
- 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.
Maria Lupita Gurulé 0:03
My own birth was very challenging. So my mom was three weeks late for me. With me, I didn't want to be born. I did not want to be born. So when I was on the other side, I had this experience of what's called a pop in. So I remember my mom being pregnant, seeing her pregnant, and then deciding if I even wanted to come into this life. And that was my very first experience. So in in here, in present time, it was a three week delay, so I was late by three weeks. And when I had the experience on the other side, that was the awareness of, I don't even know if I want to do this. My mom had had a miscarriage before me and a miscarriage after me. I was also almost all. I was almost another because I didn't want to be born, to be quite honest with you. And so it was this constant thing of so at three years old, of, remember, I'm excited, no, no, not time yet go back, you know, like it's okay. And then went through life and this whole experience, and then had the full and in the and that was the kick back into gear. So at three years old, knowing that this was I had seen the Thelma in Mexico City at the basilica Val Lady of Guadalupe, and named after and that was by design, because my mama said that, you know, if I was to be born, born safe, she would name me after her, so I carry her name and had that experience. But it was always this deep, profound knowing. But there was something more, something wasn't quite right, that there was just something that I couldn't put my hands on, my fingers on, and I wanted to sing of something. And then I went through and I would denied, this inner knowing. I went in a path of, you know, the the picket fence, the marriage, the two kids, you know, the animal getting the job, denying all this spirit sight, and that was the big kick. So it's like the universe with these subtle voices of going in a specific direction that I was resisting, which is everything that I am now. And then I had that massive experience. And I can honestly say now that I am so thankful that I came back. I'm so excited about what I'm here and sharing and being able to express. So it's pretty exciting. So all the way back then was more sole purpose and remembering and an excitement to just hold on, it's going to get tough. And then the other one was, get back into gear. You're not doing what you said you were going to do. Let's, let's do this. At three and a half, I had a pop out with my son. It's all mine are always intrinsically tied with seems, birth and death. So 1,2,3,4, and then I had a scan heart attack this past October, on October 3, it'd be exact, and that was what I'm calling a fifth dimension, like inner healing, where the first near death experiences, like I had to it wasn't taken anywhere like traveling, although it felt like a sense of floating. It was more like a consuming in the room. But this other one was like, not even going into another location. It was like literally brought to me. So that happened on the day that my daughter was born. It happened three hours after her birth, and not because of the birth I had. Because my pregnancies were so difficult, I ended up with a condition called help in both of them. It has to do with elevated enzymes and platelets and all kinds of things. It's life threatening. The only way to cure it is delivery of the baby. My first child was born 10 weeks early. My second was about three weeks early, so I was induced, and they said, There's no way that you can have another child, so I plan to have a tubal ligation. They kept the catheter in my back, and I had an epidural, you know, with no complications during her birth. And with that same catheter remained, they gave me a spinal block, and that stopped my heart, stopped my lungs. And they, as they were filling me out of the birthing room to go into the operating room. And so they had a full on resuscitate me. So they had to intubate me, breathe with the bag. And they actually had to resuscitate my heart. And this was not anesthesia. This was not to be put under. I was supposed to be entirely awake, alert and just numb from, you know, that point of the spinal block down, just so that I wouldn't feel the pain while I had a reaction to it, and I was out for approximately eight minutes on the other side. That seemed like an infinite time. I still feel like I don't know how to explain it quite fully, because I still feel like I straddle I'm still partially there, which we all are. That's a lot of explained, but I'm very aware of my full on presence there. So that was my full biggest one. And that with eight minutes on the other side, that's when I had the biggest that was the one that sent me into, oh my goodness, what's this? How do I resettle and acclimate back into life? And that was the biggest one. So the very first thing is that consumption of whiteness. It was, again, like a floating feeling, but it was this immersion into this pure energy, pure crystal, like the light of a million suns that didn't burn my eyes. It was an energy. The very first thing that I saw was ladies and the Blessed Mother that, and I know that has to do with my belief and my upbringing and all of this. Secondly, I saw intertwined hearts of the Sacred Heart with the blessed heart, which is also Jesus, and then passed and beyond them, I saw. Like this pinpoint of energy, this light that I knew, what I now call the god, center of the universe. I had this experience with them. I have not shared a lot of those communications up to this point, but a profound experience. And because I did not want to return, I it was an entire process of working with a multitude of beings, a total of four different groups. Part of it what had to do with healing and being taken to like a healing temple. Part of it was a life review to understand what I was experiencing so that I could understand it. It was intricate, like a technology on the most incredible. It's a soul technology that we've lost. So I was exposed to that. And then there was also, like working with a group and a council to be able to, how do I apply this when I get back? How do I do these things? What happened? And so there was all of these different process. And I was in the the fourth group was about seeing what I'm now knowing as a Valley of souls. I'm calling it a Valley of souls. So it's our soul group that is here. Now on the earth plane, I saw a field of flowers, you know, being shown that that's what we are. That how we're intricately attuned every possible color that you could think of, you know. So, a sea of reds and blues, and every color of the spectrum that represented every single soul and every color of red that you could possibly think of, so unique. And I was shown things about the universe, our Earth, you know, what we are. And then lastly, after all of that feeling like I had enough to be able to understand, come back, fulfill my purpose, that I felt that three and a half years old, that excitement to come back, you know, and have enough of understanding and be able to be here. So that was the entire process. The very end, I found myself kind of where I began, in this consumed white space with the Blessed Mother. And at this moment, you know, she was holding my daughter that I had just had hours old. She happened to had to notice that my mom was standing next to her. My mom was alive. My mom was present at the birth. And the Blessed Mother kissed my daughter, handed my daughter to my mom. And it was that awareness of, oh my god, I had a child. I can't leave her motherless on the day that she's born. And it was not like this, oh angelic separation with this beautiful, like healing thing. It was like an instantaneous Panic of, oh my god, I had a child. So it felt like I slammed it back into my body, falling 10 stories, and I felt every single bit of the pain. I was still intubated and felt like I was being buried alive. I couldn't move whatsoever in just one single tear. And I remember someone cradling my head and whispering into my ear, it's going to be okay. I thought it was a nurse, but I now think it to be, you know, that that angelic God energy and I landed back and, you know, had a long recovery after that. So after the the very first one was really about more of of like a healing. It was a two part thing. So these two kind of interacted intermittently, and this was probably the primary activity at the beginning after that, full experience with the Blessed Mother and all of that is like being transported when the location moves, but yet I would simultaneously move. There would be, like, one particular being always with me through every single group. And it was as though there was one particular being that would somehow separate into three kind of, like separated. I don't know how to fully explain it a very specific task. The first one is about reviewing what was going on, what was my life event, the traumas that I had experienced, the abuses that I had gone through. Like everybody I've gone through abuses and even as a child, what happened to us? What is that, that pain that we carry? So it was a process of not like, look what you did. It was more of, let's look at the life. Let's see how these things happen. It would be. It was a platform of which I stood, and it was like this technology where a span of infinite pixels, if you would, I could, like, stretch it out fast forward, find a time, be able to pull it up on this like what looked like a book at the time. Again. Mind you, it's 22 years ago, way before Harry Potter, right before the movies and moving, you know, images and stuff like that, but that's what I saw. I had no reference of this prior to that time, so it was like a moving, living book, and then I could cast it up on a screen and then actually interact and see but there it became something more, where it was, like interactive and holographic. I have one of the most horrific experiences, and I was like in projected into it again, but then I could also switch roles with the other individual to understand what were they experiencing, what was the decisions, what made them up? So this entire immersive process, and one of them, was so overwhelming that from then, I would be into this healing like, taken to like a healing temple. I would be immersed in what I am calling like, this effervescent, most pure life force energy, it would like de atomize and kind of just cleanse and purify the experience. And because I was still with the human experience, while still soul experience, when we're there on the other side, all of this makes total sense, but I was still in that half space knowing that this is. We go through after we pass, how do we acclimate and receive all that information through our awareness and apply it? So it was about understanding the painful things I had gone through and then healing, receiving the healing and the cleansing of it in this, what I'm calling the healing temple, like a whole of the purest life force, like a reset, if you would. And so this kind of happened several times. And after these two occurrences, then it was more of working with a council like and again, it was always seemed like four different groups of four. One was always with me. So it would be like but these time, and I know that they were all together, and I know that they each serve as my full council. So the next thing was, like sitting with all of them, but there was always a group of that primary with really working. What is it that I set up in my life's agreement? What was it that my purpose is? What did I choose? How did this actually happen? What am I going back into now, that's the catch I'm going back into, and understanding those pieces. So I was able to see spirit family. So there's a there is spirit family, so that we actually do incarnate with. But that's entirely different. I did have some other engagements, but it was primarily just working with this wise counsel, what I call the wise council. But it's exactly that different names, same thing that we each have, you know, group, and that we all work with, and then technology and this understanding we're not left alone to it. The hardest part is that, you know, our plane is we have to abide by the rules, and what governs this is this amnesiac experience for our seeking. That's, I know I'm kind of skipping ahead, but that's understanding that I was given at the time what we are. Why does this happen? What are the experiences? And so it was definitely that wise counsel. I had an experience as a child with hypnotherapy in preparation for surgery, and I was always fascinated by it, so I pursued hypnotherapy. Well, I went to the hypnotherapy Academy of America, and part of my training was receiving all of this while. There was an experience where we are doing past life regressions, okay? And every single person in my group had a present, you know, pretty near past, you know, recent history experience when it came to me and what in the end, the question through that experience is, go to the lifetime that is most impacting your reason for being in this lifetime. And what I saw was myself in this ship. I was there was a blue glowing light. Okay, go to the next event. What am I looking at? I'm looking at the planet ahead of me. Okay. When is this? 30,000 years ago? Where are you now? Go next. I am in this arid area. They're like, okay, look at yourself. They're like, how big are you? I'm like, 14 feet tall, and I'm loving the people. And I see myself in that 300 span of 300 years in an arid area and on a humid area, and that we were in a sea of people in this place that I would like, and similar to Washington, DC, of like the mall, where there was hundreds of 1000s of people that I'm hovering above, and we're looking at this alignment, and I recognize that there are Some of us that have been on this planet here to help and aid for this thing that is occurring. When I say that there's a soul technology, it is a technology, and something has occurred on the planet within our recent history that has actually trapped a lot of souls here on the planet in this reincarnation process. And so why is it happening now? Well, two things, one, that it was shown that we are actually traversing in the sector of the universe, and something that is extraordinary and unlike anything we've experienced before. So if you can imagine that we are hurling through space at an unfathomable speed, and that there we are a part of a cluster of galaxies that is living, breathing, vibrating energy. We're going from a 55 mile zone, you know, headed on to an on ramp of a, you know, a freeway, 75 miles an hour. Our Galaxy is transitioning. We're getting extra energy from the sun, which is also getting there's a network of communication throughout the entire universe, and it is being fully transmitted onto us right now. People are awakening like no other. So most of us are awakening. The people that are awakening to this are now discovering like I know who I am, I remember where I'm from, I know what I'm here to do, and in here on a mission so that we can share that, because what we are has been taken from us. We have this incredible power within us that has been hijacked. We are so powerful, and it is happening on the planet now so that we can awaken and learn and discover all of that. That's why now New Earth is now we are the ones making it where, and the choice is up to us. Where are we going to land? May we know that we are all in this together, that no matter how difficult it may be, that we are actually can be, that there is something else, and just knowing that the greater part of ourself is safe at home, and that we can tap into it, that we don't have to feel so alone. We do health help in life, and that there is always hope. May that hope be like a seed. That grows to be like that, that feel the flowers that I saw.
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