My Light Experience

Excerpt from “Lessons From The Light” The Story of My Light Experience at The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem, Israel, July 20, 2007

At the time of the trip, I was teaching English at the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center, and I was also a trainer with the Anti-Defamation League. I had been nominated and then selected along with 39 other educators nation-wide to participate in a 10-day scholarly intensive at Yad Vashem, sponsored by the ADL, where we would be trained in teaching a pioneering multimedia Holocaust curriculum – Echoes and Reflections.

Our days in Jerusalem were spent in intensive study not only in formal classes but in equally intense learning experiences as we toured all the monuments, memorials, and museums during our days at Yad Vashem. Evenings were spent learning too on special tours in Jerusalem and the Old City designed to immerse us in Jewish culture and history and Holocaust education.

After our last day of classes on Friday, July 20^th we were scheduled for a special tour, the Via Dolorosa also known as The Way of the Cross, which was Jesus’s final journey through the streets of Jerusalem carrying his cross to the site where he would be crucified. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands on that site.

Due to another exceptionally large group touring at that time, we started our tour at the end, which is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. While we were in the church, I had what many have called an NDE (near death experience), but I was of completely healthy mind and body.

This experience changed everything about me and for me. Although I had already been following a spiritual path for many years, this experience marked a turning point. I began an earnest pursuit to understand this experience and learn how to use what I was given to serve and empower others.

In the years that followed, I attended as many classes, programs, workshops, conferences, talks, retreats, and events as I could pertaining to holistic health, energy, energy healing techniques and the healing arts, the science of the brain and the mind, the universal laws, world religions and philosophy.

I became insatiable and read and studied the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and other world religions and eastern and western philosophies. I read and studied the Bhagavad Gita and other Vedic texts, the work and teachings of the Dalai Lama, Lao Tsu, Epictetus and other Stoic philosophers.

I studied and read the work of Joseph Campbell, and Holocaust survivors including Viktor Frankl and Elie Wiesel.

I amassed and eclectic library trying to learn as much as I could from scholars, philosophers, leaders, writers, and poets from ancient to contemporary – from Rumi, Kabir, Tagore, Yeats, Emmerson, Thoreau, to Rilke, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver and David Whyte – my list of inspirational poets and writers is so very long. I studied leaders who worked for peace like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela.

I studied and read the works of other spiritual leaders who have also overcome adversity and teach how we can discover and then use our connection to the Divine and realize our highest potential. Some of my favorites include Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Jerry and Esther Hicks, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach, Andrew Harvey, Osho, and Don Miguel Ruiz. There are so many more, of course, but these remain among my “go-to” collection. 

I studied the work and teachings of Tich Nhat Han, renowned Vietnamese Buddhist Monk and Zen Master and joined a local sangha (meditation group) that follows his Order of Interbeing.

I was already a Reiki Master/Teacher at this point, but I upgraded my Reiki training and became a Holy Fire III Karuna® Master/Teacher.

Realizing the power of our mind and how beneficial hypnosis can be, I became a certified consulting hypnotist and certified in past life recall and Soul Entrainment®.

I took the MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) course twice and was trained in Wu’s Health Qi Gong. I continued to practice yoga and was trained in a variety of meditation techniques.

I then began giving sessions in Reiki, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, past life recall, and Soul Entrainment® and offering certification training in Reiki.

I found many of my clients were also in need of and asking for guidance and counseling. I wanted to address that need as fully and professionally as possible. To that end I sought training in spiritual counseling in the thorough and intensive spiritual counseling training course offered through the Ananda Center based on the foundational and inspirational teachings of Parmahansa Yogananda.

I gave talks about my Light Experience and what I learned at local holistic and healing arts centers. That led to giving workshops on hypnosis and self-hypnosis, Soul Entrainment®, The Art of Manifestation, The Power of Your Heart – Learning to Love Yourself (based on the teachings of Louise Hay), and Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements.

Ultimately, my journey led me to study Kabbalah which has been a whole new and deeply profound awakening. When I read The Power of Kabbalah by Yehuda Berg, I knew it was my turning point. Kabbalah is the source of all spiritual wisdom and teaching. It is the science of spirituality. For me it is the single most powerful and inspiring practice. It has brought me to deeper levels of understanding not only about the soul and the self, but about creation and most significantly the Universal Laws. It is not a religion. It is a system of how to live life to the highest and fullest. It explains my Light Experience and everything else.

I have read and follow the teachings of many of the renowned ancient and contemporary Kabbalists. I belong to a Kabbalah study group and take weekly classes through the Kabbalah Center. Kabbalah along with my Light Experience continues to influence, inspire, and inform every aspect of my life and my work as an educator and a healing arts practitioner. 

What I realized because of my Light Experience is that there are 3 vital and important things in life, and if you do these 3 things, everything will fall into place.

Love. Love – unconditionally – then all things are possible.

In that moment of profound clarity, I knew where we came from, what we are, where we are going and why we are here. The answer is the same for all – Love. Everything in this universe comes from G-d which is Love energy – the highest energy vibration possible.

Live and work from a place of love. Let your intentions come from a place of love. Learn to love yourself and love everyone and everything. Louise Hay said, “When we really love ourselves, everything in our life works…”

Love is the most powerful energy force and the strongest vibration in the universe. It is the vibration of creation. We are here to be and give love, and by doing so we raise our vibration which benefits us and has a ripple effect benefiting others. Thus, it is good for the entire world.

We are a soul. Learn to connect with yours.

We do not have a soul, we are a soul – a spiritual being having a physical, human experience. Just let that sink in a moment.

We are each a Divine spark. We are a ray of G-d’s/Creator’s Light.

We are here to live and realize our soul’s purpose which is to expand and connect us with the Divine so we can shine our Light and reveal the Light of the Creator in our own beautiful, unique way wherever we are and in whatever we are doing.

Establish or strengthen your relationship with G-d/Creator.

Our relationship with G-d/Creator is the single most important relationship we can have. It influences, informs, and inspires every other relationship and everything else we do.

Our ultimate purpose is to keep evolving and becoming better in every way. Involving
G-d/ Creator in our lives is key to that evolving process and key to strengthening and improving all relationships and living our purpose.

This experience and all I learned was a large motivating and influencing factor in creating Margaret Pearl Healing Arts.

On an experiential and cellular level, I realized the limitless power and potential we all possess and can access when we learn how.

It is my desire to share these lessons with others in order to empower and provide opportunities to live abundant lives with passion, purpose, well-being, and peace.

Please read on to find out what and how it all happened…

On that Friday, July 20, 2007, we had just finished our last day of classes and said our goodbyes to our teachers and the staff at Yad Vashem. It was a gorgeous afternoon and what I had come to know as typical Jerusalem weather at that time of year; warm and sunny with a cloudless, remarkably blue sky.

The color of the Jerusalem sky intrigued me. It was unlike any blue I had ever seen in any other part of the world. The only comparison that comes close is the blue of the Virgin Mary’s robe often seen in statues. The Jerusalem sky also seems to have a denser visual texture than other skies. There is a thickness about it that reminds me of diner coffee mugs as opposed to skies elsewhere that seem to be less dense and more like bone china. It was as if Jerusalem were in a constant heavenly blue embrace.

Deep in that blue afternoon, we began our tour of the Via Dolorosa from the end point, The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This large limestone structure that had seen so many centuries of destruction and repair seemed to be a metaphor for survival. We entered the massive wooden front doors. Original, weighty, and impressive, I wondered how many hands had pulled and pushed them, how many times had they opened and closed to welcome or release. I could feel the sacred invitation of their history as they closed behind me.

The first place we experienced was the Altar of the Crucifixion. Underneath the altar was an opening in the floor revealing the stone where Christ’s cross had stood. We saw many visitors ahead of us kneeling and reaching under the altar to touch the stone.

Our group followed suit. We stayed in this area for a short while, and many from our group lit candles for loved ones.

We were then led to another huge room to see the Stone of Anointing. It commemorates the place where Jesus’s body was prepared for burial.

From there we entered the Rotunda, another huge room. This space was round with a dome ceiling ornately decorated in bas relief. There was a hole in the center of the ceiling like the Parthenon, and there were arch shaped windows around the dome’s perimeter. In the center of the room was the Edicule, a small stone structure enclosing the sepulcher where it is believed Jesus had been entombed. This room, like the others, was packed with tourists.

There was a unique point of interest here also. Due to the angle of the late afternoon sun streaming through one of the windows, the bright sun rays could be followed from the ceiling down to a circle formed on the floor like a spotlight.

Sunbeams danced like snowflakes in this generous shaft of light. It was the perfect invitation for a photo op to ham it up or strike a dramatic pose, and many tourists were taking advantage of it.

One of our group members, Bill, had become our unofficial trip photographer (it is his photo of me that you see pictured above). Bill thought it would be a great photo op for our group too.

Finally, it was our turn to have our pictures taken in the “spotlight.” As each one of our group members stepped into the light, they responded a little differently. Some hammed it up and struck a dramatic or crazy pose. Many shielded their eyes from the light because it was so bright and blinding if you looked up at it.

I was last. I stepped into the spotlight, and for some reason I felt compelled to kneel. I knelt on my right knee and looked up toward the light. Bill said, “Move forward just a little because you’re in the shadow.”

As I leaned forward my gaze was met by the most beautiful, magnificent, gorgeous white light!

I was compelled to lift my left hand to it – I looked right into its glory! I did not need to squint, and I was not blinded. I just kept looking into it, mesmerized, and in that instant – it took me!

For a moment that felt like eternity – I was taken. I was no longer me. I felt only total joy, peace, and complete love – a love like I had never felt before. It was deeper, richer, and more encompassing than my mother’s love and deeper, richer, and more complete than the love I feel for my daughter. I thought nothing could ever compare to that, but this was bigger than anything I had ever known or imagined.

Also, in that moment I was not only feeling totally loved, but I was giving total love – all at once. I just loved everyone and everything! It was such a complete, consuming, and powerful feeling and again unlike anything I had ever experienced.

In that moment I was all. I was everyone and everything past, present, and future. I was not me; I was only and all love and felt only joy – total, complete joy like I had never ever experienced. However, most of all, in that moment I felt like I was home.

Looking into the glory of that white light, I was home. I was complete. I needed nothing. I wanted nothing except to stay there forever.

All I could say in that moment was, “Oh wow!”

In that instant, Bill said, “My God, Alisa, you look like an angel!” and he took my picture! It is what you see here.

I do not know how long I was in that space with the Light. It felt like time had stopped. There was only me being so completely at peace and in joy and in love and home.

Then suddenly it was as if someone snapped their fingers, and it was over. It was like coming out of an hypnotic trance or like the clock in Cinderella striking 12:00, and there I was dropped back down on the cold marble floor completely transformed resonating with the gift of this gorgeous white Light – a new knowledge and completely new perspective.

I knew in that moment the answer to the three questions that I had been pondering ever since I encountered them when I saw Gauguin’s final masterpiece in 2004 titled, “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” The answer to those questions – and to everything else is – Love and Light – the Love and Light I had just experienced in that moment. Divine Love. It is the reason we are here. It is the connection we have to Creator and each other.

Love is the energy of G-d/Creator, the energy of the universe, the energy of our soul and our spirit, and we have access to it inside of us!

This opened a floodgate of feelings, realizations, and questions – questions that lead to more questions eventually propelling me on what my life’s work in this spiritual journey and quest would be – which is to shine my Light and be of better service to others in everything I do.

The biggest questions though were – What am I supposed to do with this? How can I use this experience to help and serve others?

All of it was coursing through me, and all I wanted to do was to go somewhere by myself and cry and try to make some sense out of what I had just experienced which I knew was a miraculous gift from G-d/Creator.

I felt as if I had been in some suspended state where time and everything else had stopped.

Where I had been was so real.

I had never experienced that feeling before either – of complete detachment from all things material, and in that state, I experienced a fine sharp sense of total clarity.

It felt truly real, and the contrast to what I felt when I came back to the rotunda with Bill and all the others felt like I was falling out of reality and back into a dream.

From somewhere far away I heard Bill, who was standing now right next to me, asking me to take his picture. I felt like I was transitioning through a dense slow motion time warp. I saw myself saying “Oh sure” as he took the camera off from around his neck and helped me place it over my head and around my neck – like a rosary. It felt sacred. I knew it contained the precious captured moment of my transformation – my Light Experience.

He showed me which button to press, and he then positioned himself in the spotlight. He tilted his head back a little to meet the gaze of the light. In his moment with his eyes gently closed and a smile radiant with welcome and peace, he looked like a blossom – or – like an angel too.

I took his picture and gave him his camera back. I stood alone for several moments stunned and just trying to collect myself while the rest of the group went on ahead of me following our guide through a hallway to another part of the church.

I wanted to tell everyone that I had just experienced the greatest gift – the realization of what exists within each of us – that we all are from this Love /Light energy that is G-d/Creator – that we truly are powerful beyond measure, and that this energy is ours to use to tap into and connect with Creator and ourselves – our soul – and each other.

This Light and Love energy can be used to manifest what we want and desire, to solve any problem, to answer any question and to live our lives connected to and in total flow with
G-d/Creator because it is also His Light and Love energy which empowers us to help us help ourselves and others.

But who would believe me, I thought? I realized that the telling of this experience would sound so preposterous and just so cliché. I “saw the light.” Oh please! But I really did, and I was not blinded! I experienced the truth of what G-d’s Light (wisdom and love) is and the power it has because that Light – that wisdom and love is the energy of creation, and it is what we are made of too.

I knew I needed to really reckon with this, sit with it and just learn so much more if I wanted to share this with the world.

I felt like I had experienced a different dimension and at the same time grown a whole new dimension. In that experience, I knew the Truth. The answer to everything is Love. The only thing that is True, constant, and never changes is G-d/Creator and the Light and Love energy that He is and that we are. It is eternal and infinite.

We are this powerhouse of G-d’s/Creator’s Light and Love – Divine energy vibrating in our being – we are each a ray of G-d/Creator. This energy is “His image”, and we are that. We are so beautiful and so capable, and we can tap into that power because it is in each of us – It is our soul! This energy is there for us and in us all the time.

We walk around with this huge powerhouse inside of us, and all we must do is recognize it, and connect with it instead of ignoring it.

However, the trick is learning how to connect with that powerhouse – the Light of G-d/Creator that is in each one of us. That is what I have spent these last 14 years learning about and exploring and what I will continue to do because there is so much more to learn and experience.

I felt my capacity for compassion and love expand and become unconditional as soon as I collected myself after being dropped back onto the floor. That capacity has not only continued to be ever present but also has continued to grow.

No matter what we think, say, or do let it be from a place of Love. It takes work, but it is the most freeing, productive, and transformative thing we can do.

It is what so many poets have been writing about for centuries. It is what so many songwriters have expressed for centuries too. This wisdom is ancient and accessible, and although it has become cliché, John Lennon and the Beatles had it right when they sang, “Love is real.” “Love is all we need.” and “Love is the answer.”

It is my desire to empower you to connect with your own powerhouse of Light and Love so you can live your life to your fullest potential with passion, purpose, well-being and peace.

Providing Pathways for Total Well-Being in Body, Mind and Spirit
margaretpearlreiki@gmail.com • 203.671.9610