Everything in the Universe is connected, somehow. Everything is all right! There is no need to be afraid of anything - even death. I know this surely, so deeply - and it brings utter peacefulness and real understanding.

The moment of awareness - which I only later learned to label a peak experience" - happened to me in 1968 when I was an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. I was returning to the airfield in my single-person aircraft. It was sunset. On this particular evening, the sun was setting into the horizon directly at the end of the runway. As I lined up to make my final approach, I was momentarily concerned. Flying directly into the sun, it was difficult to see. That was my last conscious thought before "it happened."

Words fail to adequately communicate what next took place. The best I can tell you is that I merged totally with the sun - I was one with the light. There was no longer any sense of "me." There was no separation between Bob and everything that exists. All personal boundaries were completely dissolved.

Nothing mattered. There was no fear. There was no sense of time - no sense of space. All was One and all was Right. My next awareness was that I was on the ground, moving in a perfectly straight path down the runway. "I" had been "gone" - but yet "I" had made a textbook landing. I knew I was completely safe. I had no sense that I had gone crazy. There was simply nothing to fear.

Despite the fact that this happening was totally outside the realm of everything I had ever known, l never doubted it, I never questioned it. I just knew it. I walked away feeling that something exciting and powerful had taken place. Yet I felt no compulsion to do anything about it. No sense of "mission" to go out and change myself or anyone else. Nor has there been any need to seek out some way, some means, to bring it about again. It was complete. I was complete. All I know is that I can say with total clarity that I no longer fear death. —From a conversation with Bob Arnold, Educational/Aeronautics Consultant, Loveland, Colorado

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