Divine Encounters Episode 012 | Near-Death Experience Story
Sharon Kumara was a Texas bookkeeper who loved a night out when, on June 11, 2001, she says she fell from a tour bus on a friend’s birthday outing and found herself above the road with no attachment to her body. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari about the stepfather and the figure she recognized as Jesus who met her, a journey through the cosmos, and a water world where she says she met her family.
Key Takeaways
- Sharon says she lived in San Antonio, worked as a bookkeeper for an independent oil company, and was a self-described partier who had always sensed that someone was protecting her.
- She says that on June 11, 2001, after a day tubing the Guadalupe River with girlfriends, she fell from a bus when the back door popped open and left her body on the road.
- She says she felt no fear, only worry that her friend’s birthday would be ruined, and that she had no attachment to her body whatsoever.
- She describes her late stepfather appearing behind her and telling her it was not her time, followed by a figure she recognized as Jesus.
- She says Jesus laughed at her wish to stay, invited her on a journey, and took her through the cosmos to a planet she became one with.
- She says she met an aquatic family there, with a mate and children, and has been able to return in meditation.
- She says she agreed to go back on the condition that she could one day remember Jesus, and that this memory came slowly after her mother died.
| Guest | Sharon Kumara |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 012 |
| Date | June 11, 2001 |
| What Sharon says happened | She fell from a bus on a river outing, was run over by a trailer, and left her body |
| Where she says she went | Above the road, then through the cosmos to a planet with a water world |
| Who she met | Her late stepfather, a figure she recognized as Jesus, and an aquatic family |
| The message | We come here to experience everything there is to experience, and she is loved beyond measure |
| Return | She says it was chosen together with Jesus, and memory of the experience returned slowly |
A Texas Bookkeeper and a Reluctant Catholic
Alex asks Sharon what her life was like before. She says it was pretty normal. She lived in San Antonio, Texas, for about 15 years and worked as a bookkeeper for an independent oil company. That was her last career, she says. She was, in her words, a partier. She loved going out on the weekends to have fun, and in Texas, she says, that means drinking beer and dancing to country music. If you do not do that, you do not fit in. So she did.
Her childhood, she says, she does not remember much of. Her parents divorced when she was six. She and her sister went to live with her grandmother, after a short time with their father and stepmother that did not work out. A lot of her early experiences happened there. She says her memory has started coming back since her near-death experience, which helps explain why she did not remember much.
She was raised Catholic but was not a good Catholic. Her parents were both raised Catholic but were not religious, and did not take the children to church. She would fight her grandmother about going, she says, and make the poor woman chase her around the house. She feels bad about it now. Still, she believed Jesus existed and that some form of God or higher intelligence did, because somebody must have protected her. As a partier, she says, she probably should have died a long time ago.
A Birthday Outing on the Guadalupe River
It was June 11, 2001, in San Antonio, and she and some girlfriends went tubing down the Guadalupe River for one friend’s birthday. They had a really great day. Afterward, they were packed onto a bus, and Sharon, who was first in the group, ended up against the back door.
As the driver went down the road, shifting gears, she says, in third gear and a couple of miles from the outfitters, the back door popped open and she fell out. Her first thought was disbelief that she had just fallen out of a moving bus. Her back hit the trailer hitch and bounced her onto the pavement and then onto her side. Instinctively she grabbed for whatever was in front of her, which was a friend who was five months pregnant. Thank God, she says, she did not grab her.
As she bounced, she yelled in her head at the driver to stop. A trailer behind the bus, carrying the group’s ice chests and inner tubes, then ran over her. And that, she says, is when she popped out of her body, out through her head.
Looking Down, and Worrying About a Birthday
From above, she says, she looked down at the scene. She had to piece it together afterward. The bus was still going, and the driver did not know she had fallen. Another big commuter bus was coming toward her body, and she hoped it would not run over it, because that would really mess it up. But she was not afraid and she was not upset.
What did bother her was that she and her friends had just had such a good day, and here she was dying on them. It was going to ruin her friend’s birthday, she thought, and her friend would not want to celebrate on that day anymore. She says she “didn’t have any attachment to my body whatsoever.” She knew she had died. She says she simply knew, and thought, okay, I have done this many times before, and this is apparently another time. If the idea of repeated lifetimes interests you, our glossary entry on reincarnation offers a simple overview.
She thought about her boyfriend and decided he would be fine. He would be sad for a while and then get over it. She thought about her sister and her family, whom she is really close to, and decided they would be fine too. She thought about her mother, who lived down the road and whom she took care of.
A Presence Behind Her
As she thought about her mom, she says, she felt a presence behind her. She turned around. It was her stepfather, who had died. His passing, she says, changed almost everything for her. He had died of lung disease, and had been sick and on oxygen. He told her it was not her time. She did not understand. She said she wanted to stay there with him.
While they were talking, she saw a figure and gazed at it. A finger seemed to move out of it toward her, and as the figure came closer, she recognized it as Jesus. The moment she recognized him, she says, she flew to him. She was immersed in love and light that she cannot describe. The first thing he told her, just like her stepfather, was “it’s not your time.”
She protested, telepathically: I want to stay with you. He laughed and chuckled, as if to say, I know. He was communicating to her intuitively that her work was not done, that what she had come to do was not finished. She now believes that if he had let her stay, she would have been upset about missing out on what was going on.
A Journey Through the Cosmos
Then he asked her, “Would you like to go on a journey with me.” She said, of course. He extended his hand and she took it, and everything changed. It felt like movement, as if they were moving through the cosmos. She could not tell if the cosmos was moving through them or they were moving through it. She saw another light in the distance, a small portal, and they went through it. Then she saw a planet.
They hovered above the planet. Communication was not really in words, she says, but intuitive. As they hovered, she says “I become one with the planet.” She says her perspective became that of the planet: “I am the planet.” She felt so much love and empathy for every part of her planetary body. If you want to explore this idea, our glossary entry on the multiverse is a good place to start.
Her Aquatic Family
They moved closer and closer, dove into the water and were on the planet. And there, she says, she met her family, her aquatic family. At that point, she says, she did not feel Jesus’s awareness in hers as much, because she was just really happy to see her family. She was aware of a mate and aquatic children. She spent some time there, she does not know how long. As the memories came back later, she realized she was there quite a while and kept going back.
At some point, she says, Jesus told her “you can come back here any time in your mind,” in her meditations. So she did.
Why She Came Back, and Why She Forgot
Sharon says she and Jesus had long, intuitive conversations that she recalled afterward. They talked about the future of the planet, about her work here, her mission, and why she needed to come back. He chose for her, and they chose together, she says. She did not strike a formal agreement, but she told him she would go back if she could remember him on a conscious level. She realized, when she was with him, that she had missed him very badly in her life.
That was not given to her right away. When she came back, the memory was protected, she says, because her guidance knew it had to be a slow process, and that it had to happen after her mother passed away. Her mother died in 2003, and she says her mother then helped her remember the experience from the spirit world. You can read about how people describe that realm in our glossary entry on the spirit world. It was huge for her to be able to integrate it all. She calls it her quickening. It took a couple of years to put it together.
Slammed Back Into Her Body
When she returned, she says, she was slammed back into her body and jumped up. Her girlfriends were freaking out, and she ran around, asking what had just happened. She says her hair was falling out. The ambulance took a long time because they got lost, and she was in shock. They put her on a spine board and took her to the hospital, where they X-rayed her. She says she had no concussion. The only effect on her neck and head, she says, is nerve damage, which gives her a bit of a tremor. Nothing was broken, only road rash, since they had been wearing shorts. Her body was definitely protected, she says.
What She Took Away
Sharon’s main understanding is that “we come here to experience everything pretty much there is to experience.” She says if this one life were all God gave us, we would have been shortchanged, because there is so much to experience. Her biggest takeaways are that “we are multi dimensional,” that “Jesus is real,” and that she is “loved beyond measure.” She says he is there for all of us.
Beside Other Near-Death Accounts
Many near-death stories include a review of the body from above, a loved one who has passed, and a sense of being told it is not time. Sharon’s story adds a long journey through space and a world beneath the water, which she says she revisits in meditation. We share her account as her own experience and make no medical claims. For wider background, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
A Simple Practice
Sharon says she was told she could go back to that place in her mind, in meditation. You do not need to share her story to try something similar. Sit for five minutes, close your eyes and imagine a place where you feel completely loved. Notice what is there, and come back to it often.
Questions to Sit With
- Sharon says she had always felt protected by something, even during her partying years. Where in your life have you sensed unseen help?
- She asked to remember Jesus when she returned, and found it came slowly. What have you learned that only made sense later?
- She says we come here to experience everything there is to experience. What is one experience you have been putting off?
This week, choose one experience you have been postponing, such as a walk, a conversation or a new place, and do it without needing it to be perfect.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Sharon says her stepfather and Jesus both told her it was not her time.
- She says we come here to experience everything there is to experience.
- She says we are multi dimensional, and can return to places we have visited in meditation.
- She says Jesus is real and she is loved beyond measure.
- She says some memories come back slowly, when we are ready.
Please enjoy my conversation with Sharon Kumara.
Guest Links: Connect With Sharon Kumara
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Sharon Kumara?
Sharon Kumara is a near-death experiencer who shares her story in this Divine Encounters episode with host Alex Ferrari. She says she was a bookkeeper in San Antonio, Texas, when she had her experience on June 11, 2001.
What happened to Sharon on June 11, 2001?
Sharon says she was on a bus after tubing the Guadalupe River for a friend’s birthday when the back door popped open and she fell out. She says she was run over by a trailer and then left her body.
Did Sharon feel afraid when she left her body?
She says no. She says she was not afraid or upset, only worried that her friend’s birthday would be ruined, and that she had no attachment to her body whatsoever.
Who did Sharon meet first?
She says her late stepfather appeared behind her and told her it was not her time. He had died of lung disease, and she says his passing changed almost everything for her.
How did Sharon know the figure was Jesus?
She says she saw a figure with a finger moving toward her, and as it came closer she recognized it as Jesus. She says she flew to him and was immersed in love and light.
What was the journey Sharon describes?
She says Jesus asked if she wanted to go on a journey. They moved through the cosmos, through a small portal, and arrived at a planet. She says she became one with the planet before diving into its water.
Who is Sharon’s aquatic family?
Sharon says she met her aquatic family on that planet, including a mate and aquatic children. She says she was happy to see them and kept going back later in her meditations.
Why did Sharon come back?
She says she and Jesus talked about the future of the planet, her mission and why she needed to return. She says she agreed to go back if she could remember him consciously.
Why did it take years for Sharon to remember?
Sharon says the memory was protected because her guidance knew it had to be slow. She says it came after her mother died in 2003, and that her mother helped her remember from the spirit world.
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 the multiverse is
- What reincarnation means
- Sal Adatsi on infinite worlds and the multiverse
- Larrick Ebanks on countless worlds seen from a long coma
- Ginette Biro on seeing parallel lives in the afterlife
- Brian Hoyland on meeting Jesus and being sent back with a message
- Amber Cavanagh on her other lives and a free choice to return
- 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.
Sharon Kumara 0:08
My life well, it was pretty normal. I was a bookkeeper for an oil company. That was my last career before my auntie Eve for about 15 years I did live in, in Texas in San Antonio, Texas independent oil company. So I was, you know, I was kind of a partier. I'd love to party love to go out on the weekends and have fun, you know, and in Texas, that's kind of the law that you're supposed to go drink beer and, and dance country music, right. So. So yeah, if you don't do that, then you don't you don't fit in. So I did that. And as far as my, my adult life, that's kind of what what I did is I worked in an office that was in that type of realm of being a bookkeeper and administrative type of person. And my childhood, I don't remember very much. My parents divorced when I was six. And my sister and I, who grew up together went to live with my grandmother, when we were very young. And we're a little bit after that, because we did live live with my dad and stepmother. But that didn't work out. So we went to live with my grandmother. And that's where a lot of the experiences happened that I'll share a little bit as a child, and I don't remember a lot, like I'm saying, although some as my memory started coming to me after my nde realized okay, well this is why I don't remember that I was raised Catholic, but I was not a good Catholic. I would fight my grandmother to go to church. My parents were not religious. They were both raised Catholic, but they didn't take us to church or anything like that. And poor woman, I make her chase me around the house to take me to church. Yeah, I feel so bad afterwards, when I remembered that, but yeah, so no, I wasn't a good Catholic. I believe that, you know, Jesus existed and I knew that some form of God or higher, higher intelligence did, because somebody must have protected me throughout my life because I like I said, I was a partier. So I probably should have died a long time ago. So yeah, in 2001, I lived in San Antonio, and some girlfriends and I went into tubing down the Guadalupe River, and it was June 11 2001, was for girlfriend's birthday. And we had a really great day. So I got on and I was the first one in the group. They packed us on the bus and I was up against the back door of the bus. So as he's driving down the road, he packs his arm and as he's driving down the road, and shifting gears, I believe it was third gear as he's moving away from Red Line. It's just a couple of miles, I guess to the to the outriggers. Business, the back door pops open, and I fall out of the bus. Yeah, and I'm thinking did I just, I can't believe I just fell out of this bus as he's driving down the road, and are in my back, hit the trailer hitch. I remember all this, my back hit actually grabbed my just automatically grabbed the in front of me and my friend, who was five months pregnant was standing in front of me. So thank God, I didn't grab her. And so it was just an instinct. And so and so I hit the trailer hitch on my back, and then I bounced off that onto the pavement on my back again and then onto my side. And I'm thinking as I bounce on to the my side, I'm thinking I'm yelling in my head at the driver stop, you're killing me. As soon as I yelled that out my head the tire from the trailer, he was pulling a trailer which had our ice chests in our inner tubes in it, you know, when those trailers and it ran over my neck in my head. So then I then I popped out of my body, that's the point where I popped out through my head into my head out of my body. And I'm looking down and I had to piece this together afterwards. On the scene, as I'm up above, I'm looking down on the scene and I see what's happening. The bus was still going, he didn't know I had fallen out. And so there was another big you know, those commuter buses that was coming towards my body, and I'm thinking oh, I hope that they don't run over my body because that would really mess it up. But I didn't feel frayed. I didn't feel upset or anything like that. One thing that upset me was that I was thinking, this kind of really sucks because my friends and I just had a really good day. And here I go and die on them. That's really gonna ruin my friend's birthday. She's not going to celebrate her birthday anymore on that day kind of thing. You know, that was my thought. And I'm thinking about that. And I'm thinking because I didn't have any attachment to my body whatsoever. And I knew I had died. I just knew and I'm like, Okay, well, I've done this before many times. And this is apparently, again, another time. So then I'm thinking okay about my boyfriend at the time. And I'm thinking Well, he'll be fine. He'll be fine. He won't, you know, he'll be sad for a while but He'll get over it. And I'm thinking about my sister and her family because we're really close, I'm like, well, she'll be fine. Her, you know, she'll be sad for a while, but she'll get over it and I know everyone's gonna be fine. And then I thought about my mom, because that kind of took care of my mom, we were really close. And she just lived down the road from me at that time. And in a sense, I think about my mom, I feel a presence behind me. And so I turn around. And it's my stepfather had died. And Ida pretty much his passing changed. Almost it changed everything for me, he died of lung disease, and he was sick and on oxygen and all that. So he had Intuos. To me, it's not your time, and I'm like, But what but I I'm like, What do you mean, you know, kind of thing, I didn't understand it. But I want to, I want to stay here with you. And as, as he's in, we're having that conversation. And so I see a figure, and I'm just gazing at it, because it's just wow, that's so you know, so I'm gazing at it. And I see a finger moving out of it. toward me, as this figure comes closer, I recognize this figure as Jesus. And as soon as I recognized him, because I recognize him as soon as I did, I flew, flew to him, I was already having out of my experiences at that time conscious 100 My experiences, and I flew to him, I was immersed in this, this love and light, that's I can't even describe first thing he tells me is it's not your time, just like my dad did. It's not your time. And, and I say what I want to stay with you is telepathic, I want to stay with you. I want to stay with you. And he he laughs chuckles like, I know, I know what he's like, but he's intuiting. To me, your worksite done, what you went came here for that type of thing. And I know now that if he wouldn't let me stay at probably mad because I'd be missing what's going on? And he asked me, Would you like to go on a journey with me.
And I will be, of course, he extends his hand for me to take his hand. And I take his hand as soon as I take his hand, everything changes. And it feels like movement that we're moving through the cosmos. And, you know, it's, I can't tell if the cosmos is moving through us. Or we're moving through the cosmos, it just feels like movement. And so he takes me there. And then I see a another light off in the distance. And we move and it's a little portal, another little portal, okay. And so we go down this little portal, and then I see a planet. So we're hovering above this planet in there's kind of a communication there, where he's helping me understand what we're doing. So it's not really words, it's intuitive communication. So we're hovering above this planet, I become one with the planet, my perspective is one is the planet I am the planet. And I have so much love, and so much empathy for every one everything every you know, every part of my planetary body, and we move down closer and closer to the planet, we dive into the, into the water, and we're on the planet. And I meet my family, my water, or my aquatic family. At that point, I don't feel his awareness or feel him in my awareness as much as I'm just really happy to see my family really happy. And so I'm with my family, I'm aware of a mate their water and, and in aquatic children, that type of thing. So I'm, I spent some time there, I don't know how long in terms of with the met with them. As the memories came. I mean, I was there quite a while and I kept going back, I kept going back. And so at some point, or he did tell me, he said, you can come back here any time in your mind, you know, in your meditations type of thing. So I did. And, and when I would go later read you remember beam signing back into my body. I don't remember the conversation that we had, we had, we had a lot of conversation, intuitive conversation that I recalled afterwards, about the future of our planet, my work here on the planet or my mission kind of thing, and why you know, and why I needed to come back. He chose for me and we chose together. I didn't make an agreement with him. I said, Okay, I'll go back, if I'm able to remember you on a conscious level, but I need to be able to remember you because I realized at that moment when I was with him, that moment that I missed him really, really bad. badly in my life. Well, I didn't remember what when I came back that's saved that was protected from that because he knew they knew my guidance knew that it had to be a slow process for me. And it had to be after my mother passed, because my mother passed in 2003. And it was after that she helped helped me remember him. She actually helped me from the spirit world. And remember the experience. It was huge for me to be able to integrate that he calls it my quickening. There was so much of my Childhood and things like that, and being able to integrate a lot. And that's, it took me a couple years to be able to put it together so that I'm back in my body, I got slammed back into my body, I jump up at that point and what I recall, because I'm, you know, when you look at these things, you know, from an observers perspective in your memories, and so I recall that I was, I jumped up, my girlfriends are freaking out. At that point, they were jumping head jumped off the bus or jumping off the bus, and they're freaking out, and I jump up, and I run, right, I'm running around what just happened. And so I, my, my hair, though, is falling out because I got, you know, they made fun of me at the hospital, they call the ambulance. And the ambulance came and got me it took them a long time they got lost. So it took them a while they got lost for some reason they in the wrong address or something. So we're sitting there waiting, waiting for a while, and I'm in shock at that point. So they take you know, they put me on this spine thing and take you to the hospital, and they x rayed me, I didn't have a concussion and my The only thing that with my neck in my head is that I have nerve damage. So I do have kind of a tremor but but I didn't have anything broken. Got a road rash. So we were wearing shorts and stuff. And my body was protected. Definitely. So what I was taught how I understand it, and I see it and I can say how much it helped me is that we come here to experience everything pretty much there is to experience that's that's the good part of it. Because I was saying, if this is all that we got if this life is all that God gave us God source we will recall it gave us then we got gypped because there's so much to experience the biggest takeaway while that we are multi dimensional, that Jesus is real, that he does let me beyond anything I could ever imagine. And he is there for all of us for and we're experiencing so I know there's a lot of things that I'm loved beyond measure.
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