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Vision of Heaven and Hell (My Spiritual Rebirth)
by Dushan Yovanovich
of Kragujevac,
Serbia, part two.
Once alone,
I looked at my watch:
it was the 11:30 AM.
I remembered every word my passengers said
from the moment that they got into my car
until they inexplicably disappeared when we arrived.
Their last caution was that for three months
I should not tell anyone what happened
and, what would still happen that day was the most confusing.
I started to talk aloud,
"Oh, Lord,
what can still happen to me?
I will go immediately to the health spas.
I will not be eat lunch;
instead I will go right to bed to rest.
What can happen to me?"
I repeatedly asked myself,
"maybe I will die?"
Then, I remembered
I must not tell anything to anyone for three months.
so I concluded I would live at least that long.
It seemed a little funny, then,
that just a moment ago I feared for myself;
but I was still unable to understand and explain any of these events.
After a brief rest I continued my journey to Mataruska spas,
but to this day I do not understand
how I managed the drive while so upset.
Luckily, I arrived at the spas without incident,
but I was very confused and exhausted.
It was a few minutes before noon
when I passed the hotel "Zica".
Guests were going into the restaurant
for lunch. I was not hungry;
more than anything else I needed rest.
I took my belongings from the car and went to my room.
There I lay down to think in greater detail about the morning.
Contrary to my habit,
I laid down on the bed dressed.
Soon thereafter, I felt a pain
in the middle of my chest
which was followed by something resembling a strong pinprick
directly into the heart.
I became irresistible sleepy
and fell into a deep sleep.
What happened next was more vivid
than any reality.
The door of my room opened wide.
The whole room was filled with light.
An angel with wings entered.
He was very handsome,
and had long hair tied in a ponytail
at the back of his head.
He wore a long shiny tunic,
over which he wore another shinier, sleeveless one.
On his feet were apostle's sandals.
The angels said: "Dushan, get up,
we are going for a walk!"
Obediently, I got up.
As we were about to leave,
the angel said, "Dushan,
you are very lucky to have picked up the monk and the nun,
and to have answered their greeting with "God help us."
Do you know who they were?"
I shrugged my shoulders
and was about to speak when he said,
"they were the St. Apostle Peter and St. Paraskeva,
your Krsna Slava!"
I remembered that my father celebrated St. Paraskeva
and it was immediately clear
who my passengers were.
The angel led me out of the room
and then uphill,
along the left side
of the entrance to the spas
as you look from the monastery Zica.
We walked a while without talking
But, before long the angel said,
"Dushan, you work with people,
you have many friends.
You have said,
"all a man can do is eat, drink, get dressed,
and have fun while he is alive.
When a man dies he only needs
about two meters of ground lengthwise
and a little dirt above, yes that is all."
"You should know, Dushan,
that death is not the end of life.
Rather, it is a gate, a station
through which every human must pass.
God created man from earth
and breathed into him the spirit
and thus humans became living souls."
The angel ended this story
as we reached the top of the hill.
In that moment a dense cloud descended in front of us.
We went into it
and immediately began to rise.
As the cloud carried us, the angel continued to talk.
"Dushan, because of your kind heart
which loves justice and honesty,
the Lord has decided to have mercy on you
and to show you the true road of salvation."
After these words,
the cloud stopped,
and the angel said, "look at the earth!"
I saw the whole earth,
countries, cities, villages, rivers, seas and oceans
animals, and people.
I recognized their faces very well
I then turned toward the angel
and saw behind him many other angels
with trumpets standing in three rows.
They glowed with an enormous intensity
and were beautiful beyond description.
My guide then said, "Dushan,
look down to earth
and you will see how all the dead shall rise
when the archangels sound their trumpets
and the Lord Jesus Christ comes to earth
to judge the living and the dead!"
When I turned my eyes downward,
the archangels sounded their trumpets.
At that moment graves started to open
and the dead began to come out of them.
I was surprised,
but I was much more surprised when I saw men, women and children
coming out of the rivers, seas, fires, from animal jaws,
and from many other places where they vanished from their earthly life.
I was speechless
but the angel explained these events to me.
"Dushan, why are you surprised?
At the sound of trumpets they return to life
just as they ended their lives on earth,
regardless of whether they were swallowed, burned, or eaten by animals.
In the presence of God
everything is possible,
and nothing is dead;
in his presence everything is alive!"
I was also surprised to see on each forehead a piece of paper with writing on it.
Some papers were filled,
and others had very little writing on them.
I wondered what the writing was
but before I had a chance to ask,
the angel answered that question.
"The written text describes the deeds
from their earthly lives and with them they will appear for judgment
before the Lord Jesus Christ."
He also mentioned
that all of their thoughts were written there, too,
so that nothing remained concealed.
Among the resurrected I saw my relatives, friends, neighbors,
and many acquaintances
whom I met over the years.
I was very glad to see them
and they were very happy to see me.
They stretched their arms and spoke to me,
but I could not hear a word.
Judging by my relatives and friends,
I concluded that they were grouped into families
because relatives stood beside each other.
Then the angel told me,
"we must continue our journey,
but we will come back to this place later."
After these words
the cloud moved in an easterly direction and higher.
As we moved
I saw a lot of people, looking like glowing shadows,
moving around us in all directions.
Their arms, legs, heads, and faces were easily recognizable
I wondered who all these people were when,
as if he read my thoughts,
the angel said, "these are not humans,
but only human souls.
God is the light
and after creating humans from earth,
he breathed his spirit into them.
Humans then became living souls,
which is why the souls glow.
When a soul leaves a human body
it retains sight, hearing, speech,
memory, feelings and some other features
which it had when it was in the body."
He also told me that the soul is present in every part of the body
and that it is the moving force of the whole organism.
Without the soul there is no life in the body.
Then he explained to me that when the soul leaves the body
it relives its earthly life
in the next 40 days.
Everything the soul has done, said,
or thought is reviewed,
and after 40 days
it goes to heaven to be judged
and sent to the place it deserves.
We concluded our observation
of resurrection of the dead
and our conversation on human souls.
The cloud took us still higher.
We traveled through the cosmos which is impossible to describe.
Its complicated and frightening appearance
constantly caused such terror in me
that I continuously pressed against my angel.
These fears practically disappeared
when we arrived at a beautiful meadow
surrounded by a huge fence resembling a wall without visible beginning or end.
On that fence was a gate
in the shape of a cross.
to the right of the gate stood an angel-guard.
The whole fence, and the gate in particular,
where beautifully decorated and shiny.
At this place, which I do not know how to name,
where many of those souls I saw while traveling through the cosmos.
Some were shinier than others.
There were many angels around them,
but also many demons in monstrous shapes.
The demons tried to prevent souls from getting through the gate
after the souls obtained permission to do so from the angel-guard.
I could not understand this scene
and asked myself
why some souls stood in troupes,
why this and why that.
Again, without hearing my questions, my angel answered,
"Dushan, you could not endure it
if you were told everything."
Then he led me through the gate.
The road from this first gate to the next
was straight as an arrow and very narrow.
Right and left from the road edge, along its entire length,
was a very steep, bottomless gap.
The areas between the gates were similar,
but the road became increasingly narrow.
At the last gate it had only the width of a human foot.
After a brief journey
we arrived at a gate more beautiful and shiny than the previous one.
Here, too, I saw souls with their guardian angels,
demons, and another angel-guard.
The demons tried even harder
to prevent permitted souls from passing through the gate.
But they were able to go through
since souls which have gotten permission
to enter the cross-like gate
are freed from the onslaught of the demons.
We passed through all the gates,
none of them exactly alike.
Each was more beautiful than the previous one,
and the angels standing at these various gates
were dressed differently from one another.
At the last gate stood an extremely handsome young man
who closely resembled my angel.
In his left hand he held a book
and in his right hand a sword.
He smiled at us kindly and bowed as we passed on the extremely narrow path.
Immediately after this gate
we found ourselves in light
of enormous intensity.
Before the light
was as bright as normal daylight.
The difference between this new light and normal daylight
was like the difference between the sunniest day and the darkest night on earth.
Surprised, I looked around to find the sun
but my angel told me that we left the solar system long ago.
We were now in the firmament of our Lord,
which is lit by the eternal brightness of God's face.
The fear and trembling I felt continuously before we came here, suddenly disappeared
and I was filled with an indescribable serenity and joy.
From the top of the firmament I saw below a beautiful picture of an endless city.
Houses, churches, parks and many other divine beauties
were scattered all over heaven.
Everything shone and sparkled with unusual brightness.
My attention was attracted by two large rivers, one yellow and one white,
which flowed slowly through this city.
My angel saw my confusion and explained that these were rivers of milk and honey.
I noticed many small creeks like branches,
going from the rivers watering each plant.
Deeply impressed by this scenery,
I felt a light tremor in my soul, which filled me with such a thrill that I unconsciously
spread my arms in that direction.