Operation Chop-Chop
By Near-Death Experiencer Tom Sawyer
I know that I experienced a total life review, but I have never been able to fit it properly into any of that basic chronology. It had to have happened from the center of the tunnel or the movement within the tunnel, prior to what I call the confrontation with The Light. And the best way to describe it is to give you an example.
When I was around eight years old my father told me to mow the law and cut the weeds in the yard. We had a cottage in the back and a double house in the front. Aunt Gay, my mother’s sister, lived in the cottage out back. Aunt Gay is a very delightful person; she’s a friend of mine as well as my aunt. Aunt Gay was very clever, as was my mother I’m sure it’s a genealogical trait! Everybody liked Aunt Gay. She was always fun to be with. Certainly all the kids thought she was a cool person to know. She had described to me her plans for some wild flowers that grew on little vines in the backyard. “Leave them alone now, Tom,” she said, “and as soon as they blossom we’ll make tiaras for all the girls, and flower necklaces for some of the guys.” And then everybody could pitch in and she’d teach them how to weave such things. That was typical of her. We were looking forward to that.
However, my father told me to mow the lawn and cut the weeds. Now, I had several choices. I could explain to my father that Aunt Gay wanted the weeds left to grow in this particular area. If he said to cut them all, I could have explained to Aunt Gay that father had just told me to mow the lawn and said to cut that patch of weeds. I could ask if she wanted to make her request to my father. Or, I could methodically and deliberately go ahead and mow the yard and cut the weeds. I did that. Well, worse that that, I even came up with a name for the job. I called it “Operation Chop-Chop.” I deliberately decided to be bad, to be malicious. And I went ahead, feeling the authority that my father gave me when he told me to cut the grass and the weeds.
I thought, “Wow, I got away with it; I did it. And if Aunt Gay ever says anything I’ll just tell her father told me to do it. Or if father asks me I’ll say, well that’s what you told me to do.” And I would be vindicated. It would be okay; it would be a perfect Operation Chop-Chop. End of story. My Aunt Gay never said a word to me; nothing was every mentioned; I got away with it totally.
Guess what? I not only relived it in my life review, but I relived every exact thought and attitude; even the air temperature and things that I couldn’t have possibly measured when I was eight years old. For example, I wasn’t aware of how many mosquitoes were in the area. In the life review, I could have counted the mosquitoes. Everything was more accurate than could possibly be perceived in the reality of the original event.
I not only re-experienced my eight-year-old attitude and the kind of excitement and joy of getting away with something, but I was also observing this entire event as a thirty-three-year-old adult; with the wisdom and philosophy I was able to attain by that time. But it was more than that.
I also experienced it exactly as though I was Aunt Gay, several days later after the weeds had been cut, when she walked out the back door. I knew the series of thoughts that bounced back and forth in her mind.
“Oh my goodness, what has happened? Oh well, he must have forgotten. But he couldn’t have forgotten, everyone was looking forward to — Oh no, knock it off. Tommy is… He’s never done anything like that. I love him so Oh, come on, cut it out. Gee, it was so important. He had to know … he couldn’t have known.”
Back and forth, back and forth, between thinking of the possibility, and saying to herself:
“Well, it is possible. No, Tommy isn’t like that. It doesn’t matter anyway, I love him. I’ll never mention it. God forbid, if he did forget and I remind him, that will hurt his feelings. But I think that he did, though. Should I confront him with it and just ask him?”
Thought-pattern after thought-pattern. What I’m telling you is, I was in my Aunt Gay’s body, I was in her eyes, I was in her emotions, I was in her unanswered questions. I experienced the disappointment, the humiliation. It was very devastating to me. It changed my attitude quite a bit as I experienced it.
I experienced things that cannot be perceived. I watched me mowing the law from straight above, anywhere from several hundred to a couple of thousand feet, as though I were a camera. I watched all of that. I was able to perceive and feel and know everything about my Aunt Gay regarding our relationship in that general time frame and regarding Operation Chop-Chop.
In addition to this, and what is probably more important, spiritually speaking, I was able to observe the scene, absolutely, positively, unconditionally. In other words, not with the horrendous emotional ill-feelings that my Aunt Gay experienced not knowing for sure, and yet being afraid to question for fear that she would inflict some kind of dis-ease, or ill feelings on my part. God forbid, if I did it by accident and her reminder would hurt my feelings. And yet she experienced hurt in losing the flowering weeds, not being able to do the things for all the children she had promised, and constantly questioning whether I could have done it on purpose. I did experience that in this unconditional way, with this unconditional love that is only God’s eyes, or the eyes of Jesus Christ, or the light of Jesus, or the light of Buddha enlightened, the spiritual entity.
It is that combination that is God unconditionally, not “Boy, Tom, you sure did a good rip-off,” or “There, Tom, now do you feel bad enough?” Or, “You sure were bad.”
None of that, only, as in the eyes of God, simple, pure, scientific observation, complete, totally, non-attachment. No judgmental aspect whatever. This is simultaneous with the total devastation of what I created in my aunt’s life. And the arrogance, the snide little thoughts, the bad feelings, and the excitement of what I created in my own life at that young age, that was one event.
I wish that I could tell you how it really felt and what the life review is like, but I’ll never be able to do it accurately. I’m hoping to give you just a slight inkling of what is available to each and every one of you. Will you be totally devastated by the crap you’ve brought into other people’s lives? Or will you be equally enlightened and uplifted by the love and joy that you have shared in other people’s lives?
Well, guess what? It pretty much averages itself out. You will be responsible for yourself, judging and reliving what you have done to everything and everybody in very far-reaching ways. Very small, seemingly inconsequential things such as the day when I, nine years old, walked through Seneca Park and loved the appearance of a tree. In my life review I could experience a bit of what the tree experienced in my loving it, two little photons of love and adoration. It was somewhat like the leaves acknowledging my presence. Can a tree experience that? Yes, it can. Don’t go kicking trees anymore!
You do have that effect on plants. You do have an effect on animals. You do have an effect on the universe. And in your life review you’ll be the universe and experience yourself in what you call your lifetime and how it affects the universe. In your life review you’ll be yourself absolutely, in every aspect of time, in every event, in the over-all scheme of things in your lifetime. Your life.
The little bugs on your eyelids that some of you don’t even know exist. That’s an interrelationship, you with yourself and these little entities that are living and surviving on your eyelids. When you waved a loving goodbye to a good friend the other day, did you affect the clouds up above? Did you actually affect them? Does a butterfly’s wings in China affect the weather here? You better believe it does. You can learn all of that in a life review!
As this takes place, you have total knowledge. You have the ability to be a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst, and much more. You are your own spiritual teacher, maybe for the first and only time in your life. You are simultaneously the student and the teacher in a relationship.
My life review was part of this experience also. It was absolutely, positively, everything basically from the first breath of life right through the accident. It was everything.
During this life review I experienced what I can only describe as “in the eyes of Jesus Christ.” Meaning, I watched and observed this entire event as if I were in the eyes of Jesus Christ. Which means unconditionally.
It does not mean, “Gee, Tom, by being Christ-like, you don’t hit people, you love people.”
No to that. Nor was it, “Wow, God has really made you a very good specimen and your reflexes are superior. You did an excellent job in beating that man up.”
No to that either. It’s not judgmental or negative. I can’t describe it other than with the unconditional love of Christ, the Christ who has absolute unconditional love. You will have the experience of observing something without any emotion or righteousness, or judgmental attachments. You will be able to observe history only as history, without the emotional attachments to the facts and figures. I want to also say that, to offset that, there were experiences of absolute love and joy…
