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Former C‑level executive Jonathan Ashford died from sepsis for three hours in May 2023, experienced a profound near‑death experience, and returned with a transformed life and understanding of awakening and divine love. In this conversation, he describes sepsis, organ failure, velvety darkness, a luminous landscape, meeting a radiant being he calls Yeshua/Jesus, a searing life review, and the guidance that reshaped his priorities, relationships, and work with others.
Jonathan begins by recounting his former life: a driven, non‑spiritual, power‑hungry executive who thrived on status, intense workouts, nightlife, and material excess, with little empathy for others. He then outlines the onset of sepsis, misdiagnoses, and the physical collapse that culminated in waking up jaundiced and gray, looking “like a corpse,” before blacking out in his bathroom.
On the other side, he first found himself in a velvety, womb‑like darkness, feeling swaddled, cradled, and safe, before awakening into a glowing landscape reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands, where everything felt alive and breathing with love. There he met a hiker‑like being who shifted through multiple forms, including Jonathan’s own, and announced “I am you and you are me.”
Guided by this being, Jonathan entered a life review in which he felt the impact of his actions on others and, more painfully, how his lack of empathy and elitism had “let down” this loving presence in everyone. He reports that he was not judged by the being; instead, he saw and felt for himself how denial of connection and love plays out, and how there is no external hell except what we manufacture, even though the recognition of having failed love itself can be intense.
Jonathan also shares teachings about consciousness, time, and choice, including the sense that lives are more “planned” than we realize and that contrast, even extreme darkness, can serve as an opportunity to choose love. He describes encounters with a golden, all‑encompassing light in which every hair, leaf, bird, and molecule appeared as love and existing for our experience, while each person’s perspective is likewise central from their vantage point.
Upon agreeing to return, Jonathan received what he calls a download: teachings and visual “props” about perception, time, and love that he can now access like a search engine when responding to questions. Back in his body, he knew the “old Jonathan” was gone — he could never again work in an office manipulating people for profit, and he walked away from a lucrative marketing role, sold his possessions, and reoriented his life around sharing love through speaking, group calls, and private sessions to support others in their awakening process.
We also discuss how NDE environments may be “customized” so people feel welcomed (an outdoor scene for his former outdoorsy atheism rather than churches), the accessibility of a true higher self versus sub‑celestial beings, and how unconditional love on the other side reframes questions of judgment and karma without condoning harm. Jonathan underscores that the deepest takeaway from his NDE is simple and challenging: how you treat people is how you treat the divine presence in them, and awakening is remembering that we are love itself learning to live that truth in everyday life.
00:00 Opening: the living light and love‑filled landscape
00:29 Buddha at the Gas Pump intro and NDE context
02:26 Jonathan’s former life as a power‑hungry C‑level executive
05:27 Sepsis begins: misdiagnosis, fear, and physical collapse
13:20 The moment of death: mirror, gray skin, and letting go
17:19 Velvety darkness: being swaddled, cradled, and carried
20:00 Waking in the glowing landscape of living light
23:35 Meeting the hiker‑being and realizing “I am you, you are me”
27:01 Encounter with Yeshua/Jesus as a vast God‑being of love
29:05 The life review: feeling others, no excuses, and deep regret
33:31 No external judgment, no fixed hell, and free will vs. soul plan
37:20 How extreme darkness and evil can become contrast for choosing love
41:20 Teachings on time, perception, and infinite possibilities
45:49 The golden light: feeling every being and creation as love
48:40 Each life as the center of its own universe of experience
54:00 Downloading teachings and answering from a deeper source
1:02:00 Returning to the body and realizing “the old Jonathan is gone”
1:15:56 Radically changing lifestyle, career, and relationship to money
1:18:28 From corporate manipulation to serving awakening and love
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Love when Jonathan goes deep in detail and emotion without leaving anything out … i could listen to his story over and over again … I feel his repeating this story is most important ….
Was great to see Johnathan in his spontaneous and natural mode on this one. A highly likeable guy. In some of this videos he talks as if he were sitting in the lotus position. Probably happens that way due to speaking to so many people each day.
This was a Close Encounter of the 3d kind for us. We got to listen to this yesterday while driving from Florida. This is a profound Encoubter with the cosmic intelligence of the universe and it is not human! Just blew us away. The Truth is out there but now it’s here and available. This talk takes you on a journey into deep space and brings you back home. Along the way we passed a Buddhist temple which was a wonderful sign.
Wise advice, Rick. Loved the interview. Blessings and love
The zoom calls while walking through the woods was a very loving suggestion.
Read the „Book On the Living God“ by Bô Yin Râ. However just reading it is not enough, living it is required for you soul to grow. „O mani padme hum“, the jewel in the lotus blossom. But as far as I can say after listening to Jonathan Ashword, his(?) words are revealing true facts except for the idea that there’s no hell!
The ego is the human animal, the will of which has to be surrendered to the higher will of the „I am“.
To the point about 25 minutes from the end, about understanding the "how." The one who asks "how" is the one who believes they are a doer and decision-maker, who must find control in the how or why. The "how/why" is not important to know because what is, simply is…and at no time is there a self that can influence it. What happens always simply happens (or appears to happen, because it's just an appearance).
There is no state in which there is a self who can be influenced to make this decision or that decision. That is an illusion reinforced by thoughts seeking to take credit for or explain an action after the fact. What happens simply happens. No need for a reason. If there must be one, then it is just the experience of being.
If awakening is to arise, it arises. The mind can say, "Well clearly these are the causal circumstances for this to have arisen," yet that can also be reversed…that awakening was to arise, therefore those things also appear to have happened. (I say appear to have happened because they only exist as thoughts/memories arising here.) Causality is a need of the self. Another belief obscuring clear seeing.
Everything that is arises as it must and can only be, and it cannot be anything other than what it is. Control is an illusion reinforced by belief, which is reinforced by the mind, which is all part of what is and cannot be anything other than what it is. So it's fine.
Awakeness is already the case…it just can't be seen through the truckload of beliefs that obscure it. If enough belief is allowed to drop so that the self can be seen for the illusion that it is, that will necessarily lead to clear seeing. There are many paths leading to the same destination, and what is seen is that the destination is the same place you started from. You never moved. It's the pathless path.
Anything is possible even being dead for 3 hours and returning, I believe every word
It's a medical paradymine for you(yes I misspelled that word,but you understood it didn't you)
Each time I listen to Jonathan my understanding deepens. Thank you, Jonathan I am so grateful xx
Rick thank you so much, it was such a joy seeing the sheer mutual delight in you and Jonathan. His NDE I’ve heard before and it was rich the first time, but the dance between you both deepened it and made it so much sweeter, thank you so much. Love to you both.
Very intrusive moderator
Thank you, Rick. You always ask the best questions. I've always wondered about how an enlightened being would fair in a prison. Jonathan's answer was perfect.
25:18 “.. but he didn’t have any eyes.”
I’m worried about his dog, whatever happened to his dog?
I enjoyed his way of explaining how love is the goal of life.
I watch this every day for inspiration! 😋
He can believe all this mystical stuff but the 3 hours is too hard😂😂. There's other people he should probably research before scrutinizing someone that is supposed to be there as a guest. I felt uncomfortable as a listener. It's obvious there's a lot we don't understand and 3 hours is hardly the hardest part to get through.
“The vast marvel is to be alive… The supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul… There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.” DH Lawrence
"Is the One I love everywhere?" ~Rumi~
Is it worth suffering just to re-remember? Also, is it kind of addictive?
Thank you again Johnathan. 😊❤
Thank you so much for this interview asking questions. Jonathan is the only human so far that captures my experiences.
I too, could help people spiritually with divine instruction 24/7. A joy. To give up ego self and only move in the direction guided is such freedom. Yes, even with eating. 🥰
this is the most detailed Jonathan has spoken ….. would love to listen to watch an intentional live story video/presentation of his entire experience …. Sort of a life listen of his " spoken book" that last about 3 hours from far back in his past to where he is today spiritually and mentally ….. it would be different and amazing ….. He is an important presence in. this world …. Also . a conversation bewtween Darius Wright and him would be exceptional …..
@1:33:00 The way I feel about this (perhaps you can call it a “knowing“) is that everything is conscious to the degree that it needs to be to perform its intended function. We have to remind ourselves that there are “beings“ that are far more conscious than we are. The question might be, “Does that make anything or anyone better or less than someone or something else?” It might be like humans comparing a dog‘s consciousness with a human’s. I don’t think that I would want my dog to be conscious in the same way that I am; then it would no longer be a dog. In fact, it may be that dogs, some pets and animals in nature are more conscious in certain ways than we are. It’s not a right or wrong thing or a better or worse thing.
It’s human nature to rank everything on a scale from “low” to “high.” A turtle could not function as a turtle if it had the consciousness of a tree. That’s just my take on it. I absolutely could be wrong.
There are many others whose near death experiences were longer than the kid in icy water but maybe not in official medical records. However Indian Yogis have been known to be "dead" by choice for long periods too.
2:02:40 "Love is letting go of fear" Jerry Jampoulsky
Ask for help from Spirit!
2:06:52 the word for beauty in Greek is related to the word meaning 'to call' aka the Holy Spirit. If have to look up the exact words again but kalein/ kaleo/paraclete… all related.
This interview is the best I've ever heard. I cried when I heard "God put everything here for my experience" ❤
It's contradicting. If everything happens for a reason because your entire life is essentially scripted, then how can the people who have had these NDEs say that they were told they had a mission to help others here stay on their right path? Whatever "path" you're on, you were meant to be on. Nothing happens by accident as this person himself said; so every path, every moment in life was already pre-selected, meaning "helping others" is meaningless because destiny and fate would have all people firmly in their spaces.
Wow! Thank you both. ❤
Before his NDE he was very cruel…hateful…selfrighteous, self centered etc…..this was a learned behavior he cultivated from his childhood. The BEST thing that happened to him was his NDE 🙏 he recieved a Divine gift inwhich brought him back to unconditional love ❤️ How miraculous !!!!
His NDE could possibly be a walk-in of another soul entering his body that he prescripted in his agreement before birth.
The vigil for the dead (usually 3 days) is an ancient Hungarian folk tradition, which was not only a communal custom ), but they knew that the soul could still return until then, so they waited. There are also records of saints resurrecting the dead, these are also real events.
❤
Amazing clarity, Jonathan Ashford! My heart sings. The interviewer though… his need to grill Ashford about his past wealth, or bring in Western medical skepticism to explain away a three-hour death is classic ego defense mechanism (the spiritual ego suit). Ashford's raw, radical, unscripted experience threatens the host's neat, tidy, book-learned spiritual framework. So, the host has to dominate, interrupt, and try to bring Ashford down a notch to maintain his position as the "expert examiner." that was very disturbing but I got to listen to Ashford and a number of different places after finding this video. Great and useful information coming from him.
I want to let you know, that the experiences that are described her by Jonathan are being experienced and explained to us for decades of years by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Some of us have exactly those experiences he is talking about. We just did not have a one near death experience but learned how to transcend by the practise he has brought to the west and around the world called by him transcendental meditation. with that method people learn to let go transcend and become more and more calm, relaxed and so on. Those in the early years the old hippies and rebells and as well seekers of truth of life that are the had been the real followers of his teachings, we discovered what is described here – the beauty, the light in all beings, celestial beings and so on and on, but while being alive on earth. concerning the body and breathing I want to let you know, that while transcending the nervous system gets cleaned from stresses of different kinds but in a gentle way and the morre it relexes the more the breath softens and it stopps even. If this practise goes on the persons lives becomes better in health and descision making and more exepting differences on the outside and so on over 600 studies had been made by it. Called collected papers in decades. Maharishis followers that were students they wanted to prove what he was talking about, therefore messurments started in the early beginning of that movement. You can have a look at it. If someone carries on meditating and transcending than live becomes more and more whole. When the nervous system gets more and more relaxed and the mind becomes peacfull, you become an observer that is being able to engage fully in live but not broken by difficult situations. The brain starts to rewire and connect more and more left and right hemisphere starts to work together. Inner peace grows and breathing is even in sport or what so ever you do lower than on other people bodys. This is because the nervous system is trained by transcending every day, it can uphold the silence that goes together with being more relaxed you experience in transcending. So we have been trained the mind and body to keep more calm while being fully active. Once the nervous system is full aligned you have a very low breath and the bodyfeeling is light as air. You feel flowing even. This happens because the system is able to stay calm relaxed while being active and this leeds to many outcomes like peacefull mind more health, deeper understanding every one more loveing experience unconditional love and live it on earth. You develope telepatic skills that feel normal, some see or can speak with love death once all kind of things and the greatest is when discoverd that life is a play. You are me and everything is only on consciousness. Because that is what it is. We are being given the tools for discouvering who we are realy where we are coming and going. If you have the oportunity to learn this and listen to MMY original tapes about nervoussystem and transcending you will find all the explanations and beyond all knowledge you may want and can discover. He said the future is bright and this is my delight. Heaven on earth will come and I turly understood this when experienced it and look around so many people having near death experiences and discoveries – all they need is I think to get the knowledge of this great saint he was. He was transcendence in motion. People who where with him and with him connected by heart know, some more. He said to his teachers spread this knowledge, I only bring what menkind has forgotten about. Some people use it to reach there goals but the true seekers got the experience what its all about her and how its all connected. From experiences of live I understood that you need to ask the question that matters most – and it is who am I where am I came from what am I supposed to do her what is it and how its all connected.. in the question lies the answer, but it gets answered always on the level from where you ask, if its only intellectual – you might be satisfied with some book – but knowledge from books stay in books – you got to experience it and live will be an adventure you are estonished even going through what you need to go through…we are all there to in the end love more play more and discover that life is a gift make full use of it – this is a saying of his master shankaracharya of joytir math Brahmananda Saraswati. He went into the himalayas at age 9 seeking god. And came to the conclusion live is to expand hapiness…
So, I am happy to see many great souls on the planet getting it and spreading it. The greatest work to do is to help than others to get it to – this is what MMY brought from the himalayas back to the world because the stress people are producing while not being educated who they are and how everything is to do with us distroying the world they live in – that is why he came. He came for whats called enlightenment and we didnt understand a single word… a technique and wisdom so huge, that it is for generations to come and discover it live it and make the world a better place by more heart connection. The near death experiences had become more and more and in my understanding of conactedness that can be seen I am sure that the awakening came because it is the cosmic law, before destoying ourself some being comes to get things straigth again, bring the real wisdom about we forgott. One time its jesus or others and many saints came from the east where the light arises always 🙂 even here you see the order in the universe ..Easterns have Maharishi Ramana , Ananda Mayama, Amma, Yogananda and Maharishi Mahes Yogi – the destoyer of ignorance – an incarnation of SHIVA Aspect of God – He is mentioned in old texts as well. Very interesting I was never religious or anything but seeker of whats going on here… thats why life lead me into his teachings and I can tell – no matter if some desiples do not understand it or made something wrong or what so ever. The original teachings on all means are the gift to menkind on earth – because he puted all together for anyone who seeks it or just wants a better life. His big groups and concern of humaniy destroying himself where a task he had to do on earht – his durty and his way in order to grow in consciousness – through spreading teaching many in transcending he created a field and enlivende through millions of people doing this that field made it posssible that others have for instance an instand awakening. We might not win the recognition for what have been done on that level – he did with and for us, no matter we enjoy that the love which is god is discovered by many through this teachings. And I truly encourage you – get it from some teacher who has this experiences and provide this teachings to you, because even though some teachers have understood some portion of it , the one who learns will discover and experience and understand more and more of it, because its ment to be by god the intelligence of the universe and your pathway of knowing all. By the way Jim Carrey got a wake up call by an experience for being one of those who learned TM and used it to stress release technique – but all who do that come on a point, where they think – is that all in live – having a great carrier and so on …than the question and seek arises for the real jouyrney and he listended to teaching of Eckart Tolle, who by the way was on teacher training course of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi his awakening went in another hard long way as he did not stay with MMY, but seeked everywhere else, got through what I call dark night of the soul – and got something to understand by intellectual awakening. Just he is not giving a technique with guidance how to experience it…but his teachings are describing how live is in that state – where your nervous system is pure and the mind clear and the transcendence are understood..people who are on the way like carry than got triggered with a tru question and as I said – if this is coming from real understanding that what is life who am I… because of his nervoussystem was already deep relaxed and mind as well also trained on holding transcendence he got the experience as an answere to the question…and once you know you know…all comes at the right time in live as an oportunity to take .
Thank you so much Jonathan ❤ Best greetings from Poland ❤
I'm so grateful for this interview. Thank you Rick and Jonathan 🙏🏻
I too find it hysterical that anyone would send a letter full of invectives to Jonathan or similar. It's a message of love. What can any one have against that? … Although Jonathan said before his experience, he would have been that kind of person. It's kind of comical that way.
Thanks for the thoughtful interview, both of you
1:33:33 The world awakens when you awaken ❤
In this interview, Jonathan refers to his deceased dog as being ‘gone’. Whereas in the Chene production, he states that all deceased family, friends, and even pets are still around us/with us ?
If earth is a place where not everyone is meant to awaken to their true self which is Love, then what would be the point of reincarnating again with the hopes of helping people to awaken? It seems that it would mean earth is just an endless reoccurring cycle.
Wow! I finally understand the things I’ve been struggling with for so long. Thank you for facilitating this gift of expansion. 💖
It makes me wonder and wonder and wonder…. Let Jonathan develop and share his teachings for a long and successful life. Big hug. We need these teachings… and more