Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

John:
I was an agnostic and just thought, well, there’s just no evidence for any of it. I’m a very analytical person. I worked in engineering, so that’s the way my mind works. It’s like, well, prove it. Gimme some evidence. They have no heartbeat, no brainwaves, and yet they’re saying they were more alive than they’ve ever felt before in a place, more real than this has ever felt. I ended up over the last 40 years studying or interviewing about 1,500. People who have had near death experiences. Life is not about material possessions. It’s not about proving you’re worthy of love or how great you are proving anything to anybody, because then you don’t have to live to prove you’re worthy of love. You can just love.

Guy:
Hey guy here. Welcome to my podcast. My epic guest today is John Burke, and it was a phenomenal podcast. Uh, I’m actually recording this intro. We’ve literally just finished our Mastering the Animistic retreat over the five days and unless the octagon behind us, so I’m feeling a bit wary, but I realized I hadn’t recorded the intro for John. Uh, so if none of this makes sense, it’s ’cause um, yeah, I’ve just left it all out in the table the last five days. But I love John. What a, what a great guy. And this, this topic, uh, this conversation goes deep and, you know, he’s an ex pastor and, uh, he’s studied near death experiences and over 1500 cases I believe.

So it’s a phenomenal podcast and really interesting perspectives about life. Certainly come out of this and yeah, I hope you enjoy it. I hope you get a lot out of it. Uh, if you are watching this on YouTube, be sure to, um, let us know where you are in the world. It’s always appreciated when we connect as well. And what I just witnessed, these last five days, there were, uh, 40 of us coming together from all over Australia and New Zealand. To really go beyond the mind and come to the heart and, uh, delve into the spiritual work that we teach and hold space for. And one thing I just wanna leave you with, no matter where you are in the world, and no matter what you’re facing or where you’re at, um, what, what we witness and the, the power of the heart and human potential is, is absolutely incredible.

And every time I walk away from one of these, uh, it always gives me a lot of hope of what we’re capable of as humans. So anyway, I just wanted to say that and hopefully I get to meet you somewhere in person one day around the world at some stage. Um, yeah, enjoy the podcast and uh, it was great to meet a few of you podcast listeners here too. Anyway, much love from me and uh, yeah, I’m tired. Hopefully we’ll see you somewhere. Maybe even Bali will be there in July. Much love to everyone. See you soon. Enjoy.

Guy:
And John, welcome to the podcast and I’ll, I’ll jump in. Please share the story. ’cause we were talking about surfing off air and I thought it might be a nice place to start.

John:
Oh gosh. Okay. Well, yeah, so I’m a surfer, uh, but average to, to less than average. But I’ve been to Australia and, uh, you know, great waves, great surfing. Um, and I’m an expert in near-death experiences, so I’ve studied, you know, 1500 or so interviewed people from all over the world. So I was just saying that the, just a funny recent story with an Aussie, um. Is the guy who developed, uh, surf Lakes, which is really, it’s, it’s the best wave in the world. Um, and, and surf parks, uh, is coming to Austin, my city, to make the first commercial available surf park. And the funny story is that a, a friend of mine came up to me and said, Hey, you’ve gotta meet this guy.

Because he was telling me about his spiritual journey and he had a near-death experience when he was just a, you know, crazy wild surfer up, up on the Gold Coast. And, uh, he was working as an engineer up on the Gold Coast, um, of Australia. And he dies in his sleep and he’s dropping, he was having a hellish, near death experience. Yeah. Um, and he cries out to Jesus. Is rescued. That sets him on this whole journey. But he ends up saying that, um, that he got this vision not long after that for this plunge wave that would go 360 degrees out and he starts developing it. Well, so he comes and now it’s the first, he’s start making the first commercial surf park in Austin.

But he’s telling my friend. Yeah, I had this near death experience and if you’re not familiar with it, I read this book called Imagine Heaven, and my friend starts laughing ’cause he is like, you know, the guy John Burke, who wrote that is here in Austin. And so we just, we just met for breakfast, uh, me and this guy who are doing the, the, the surf park,

Guy:
incredible.

John:
the first commercial one here in Austin. So I was like, what a small world. What a coincidence, you know?

Guy:
Yeah. They’re always meant to be. Yeah.

John:
Well, not only that, but I was actually writing another book, um, at the time and he’s we’re meeting for breakfast and he is telling me his story and I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s like perfect for the book I’m writing right now. So I wrote him into this new book.

Guy:
I’m guessing the, that that was recent and the wave park’s not open yet in Austin. Yeah.

John:
not open yet. I surf another, I surf regularly at another wave park, uh, in, in Waco of all places, and I have surfed with Aussies and Hawaiians and Californians. Not that many Texans, believe it or not.

Guy:
It’s a ma it’s a magical hobby. I need to, since I’ve had the children, I, I don’t get out nowhere near as, as much as I should, but, um,

John:
Oh, I know there’s something about the energy, you know, just the, the energy through the water and just the

Guy:
All your

John:
Yeah.

Guy:
Yeah, all your

John:
Keeps you on the edge.

Guy:
There’s not a care in the world. It brings out the little, the the little

John:
Yeah,

Guy:
you know, some of the smiles I have on that. Nothing can replicate it in any shape or form. Yeah. Well, look,

John:
Yeah.

Guy:
to the podcast, John. It is been fabulous already. Yeah.

John:
Thanks for having me on.

Guy:
and let’s, let’s rewind a little bit. You know, if you were a intimate dinner table and you sat next to a stranger and they asked you what you did for a living, how would you reply these days?

John:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I’ve got a, a weird winding journey. Um, but I’m currently an author, uh, and I have a podcast, uh, imagine having podcast with John Burke. Um. Yeah, I mean, how I got here goes all the way back. It’s been about a, it’s been an over a 40 year journey, so, um, uh. My, I, I spiritually, I had kind of like, decided there was nothing. Um, I, I was an agnostic and just kind of thought, well, there’s just no evidence for any of it. You know, I’d heard, uh, Jesus is the son of God. I was like, yeah, well, how do you know that? He’s probably a good man turned into a legend that’s pro, you know, and God, there’s just no evidence. I mean, who knows?

Maybe, maybe not. And that’s where I was when, um. When my dad was dying of cancer and, um, he, I see a book on his bedside table and it was, it was called Life After Life. It was the very first research that coined the term near death experience. And I picked it up and I just start like, what is this? You know, he was, he was on hospice, and so I’m curious, so I, I read the book in one night, and here are these people talking about they’re clinically dead. They have no heartbeat, no brainwaves, and yet they’re saying they were more alive than they’ve ever felt before in a place, more real than this has ever felt. And, and many of them encounter this God of light who is love and they never wanna leave his presence. All this stuff. And I’m just like, I don’t believe any of it, you know?

Uh, and I, I’m a very analytical person. I studied engineering. I was an engineer. I worked in engineering. So that’s the way my mind works. It’s like, well prove it, you know, gimme some evidence. But I did say that night. Wow. Maybe this is the evidence I’ve been looking for or at, at least the beginning of it. And so that set me on a, a spiritual exploration and journey. And, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, since I’ve, I’ve read and studied the Bible intensely. I’ve read, uh, the Vedas and the Tibetan Book of the Dead and, um, the Koran, I mean, a lot of, uh, study the, the world’s religions. I, I ended up, uh. Over the last 40 years, uh, studying or interviewing about 1,500 people who have had near death experiences.

So I was just ridiculously curious. I mean, now I look back, so I would say now I look back and I go, okay. This is all part of my purpose. This is why I’m here, because God has given me this crazy insatiable curiosity to figure out how do things fit,

Guy:
Yeah.

John:
you know?

Guy:
the question that’s coming to me is like, what truly drove that passion? ’cause this, it is all well and good to be curious, or if we have a near death experience and then go, holy moly, is there anyone else but to, to come from a, from that perspective and really do the research you have, what do you think was, was behind all of that?

John:
God, I have no other answer. I mean, I think I, I was, I, yeah, I am this way and I think that’s part of, you know, what I have to offer is, uh, I, I. I have this insatiable curiosity. I wanna try to understand how to, how does it all fit together? Of course, you, you never get to the end where you go, oh, I’ve got all the answers. I figured it all out. I, I’m not claiming that by any means. Um. But you know, for people who were like me, very skeptical, cynical, uh, you know, there’s, there’s no evidence. Well, that’s not true. There’s a ton of evidence that this life is not all there, is that life goes on. Um, and I think that, that, that God is, um, better than anybody’s ever imagined, and we just don’t, we don’t understand,

Guy:
gonna ask you

John:
um.

Guy:
that ’cause that word God can be so, can drop up so many different images, so many different beliefs. It can be triggering for many people. Like with your research and your own perspectives, what does God mean to you? Like how would, if it can be defined at all.

John:
Well, yeah. Um, plunging into the deep end right away. Yeah. Well, I, so, so I think it’s the central question that’s the most important question. You know, not, not which religion’s the right religion. That’s not the right question. The right question is, is there a God? And if so, who is God? Because I mean, we live in a finite world of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. We’re very limited. Right? And, um, you know, if you’ve done enough research, you realize, well, there’s more, there’s more to reality than just what we initially experience in our three dimensions of space and time. But not everybody’s convinced of that. You know, I mean, there are a lot of materialists in the world still, um, which I was, but.

I think, um, when you ask a question, you know, is there a God? You have to realize that we can’t go find God if, if you define God as the source of all of our, of us and all that’s created, that means that God, whoever, or whatever God is, is outside of our three dimensions of space in one dimension of time. We can’t go find God. So the question then becomes, has God revealed himself into our dimensional understanding? And, um, and I, and, and that was a so near-death experiences for me, was the beginning of an aha. Because here you have people. And now since then, I mean, I wrote a whole book called. Imagine the God of heaven.

So imagine Heaven was my first book, uh, and I was showing, you know, the 40 commonalities of these experiences and what people experience. And there are about 40 things that they consistently say they experience in this journey to the other side. Um, I wrote a second book called Imagine the God of Heaven because I have interviewed, uh, people on every continent from every religious background. It’s unbelievable. They are experiencing the same, being the same God, the same characteristics, even if that wasn’t what they, um, had in their cultural or religious understanding or expectations, you know? And so that’s fascinating. So to answer your question, I think first God, uh, is undefinable in our terms, in the sense that God is.

Everywhere. Always like the very sustainer, the very life force of everything going on. And, and this is important transcendent beyond everything that’s been created. So I don’t think God is just some total of everything that’s been created that would make God finite. And, and so I think, I think beyond that at the same time. You know, what was, what was really, uh, eyeopening to me was when I started looking, uh, historically at whether, you know, because I, I started with these near-death experiences, but my question was then, okay, but if this, God that showing up. I interview Bibe in Tehran and she’s experiencing this God of light and love and, and swik in Rwanda and chin in, in, uh, in China, and I mean like all over the world, but has this God just shown up in our age of medical resuscitation.

Guy:
Of course.

John:
And, and the answer’s no. And so it took me down a whole road of, of historical, um, plowing in and really looking at, um, is there evidence that God has actually intersected human history? And, um, for, for some very, uh, I mean for me as an engineer, it was like, why hadn’t anybody ever told me this? And, and what I, what I discovered is that, um, and I know, I know a lot of people, you know, immediately because of, because of Christian baggage and all that, they push it away. But I think, I think you gotta stay open-minded. And that’s what I had, I had to stay open-minded enough to see, you know, like Jesus actually was foretold in history. At like that he would come into history where, when, why, what he would do, it was all foretold. And we have, we have proof that it was written down before he ever came.

And so that was eye-opening to me when I saw that, um, that this prophet Isaiah writing in 7 80, 780 years before Jesus. Foretold that this Messiah would come for all the nations and that, and this is the key, is this is not, this is not Christianity in the like, Hey, you know us four no more. No, no. This is, this is God. Who is the God of all nations and all people who in intended every single person to be his child like. Loves Ev and that’s the thing that near-death experiences have have shown me so much. And what I was trying to show people in imagine the God of heaven is that if you’re, if you find yourself pushing God away, you just don’t know.

You just don’t know how crazy God is about you. Like how there’s no one else who understands you better, who knows every flaw, every. Wrong. Every good, every bad, and nothing could make ’em not love you. So, so, uh, yeah. I mean, you know, you’re, you’re, you dove right into the depth of what I’ve spent 40 years thinking about and researching and writing on, so it’s hard to sum up quickly.

Guy:
And I just, it just came, came to me like while you were speaking. But you, you, the thing is like, listening to you speak and listening openly, openly with an open heart and, and hearing what you see, to me it, it, it all makes complete sense what you’re saying. Now, the, the old Welshman from the Valleys me, you know, would’ve just rejected that instantly through cultural upbringing and belief systems and, you know, I, I wasn’t. I still to this day, not really, um, avoided religion. I, I still don’t have religious practices per se, but once I started having my own awakening experiences, then all of a sudden you realize it dis quickly dissolves those belief systems. It quickly dissolves things that actually shape in the lens in which we look upon life.

And once we start removing those and actually just being open. To all information and all and all things. You start to see the thread through it all it becomes a very different, uh. Perspective and it can really support one’s life moving forward. It’s

John:
Yeah, absolutely.

Guy:
all your, so let’s go into the near death experiences in a minute. Like, if you had to, um, point out what were the standout common denominators? you mentioned there were over 40, but like, what would be the big chapter pieces from them that help support one, once they’ve had a near death experience that they came back and gone. Okay. So these are the common things, and this is how it’s now improving my life.

John:
Yeah. Well, so I’ll say this, that there are common overlapping consistencies, but each one is unique at the same time, which is very fascinating. Which, which by the way, you know when, when I was still a skeptical engineer, my first thoughts were like, well, maybe this is hallucination. Or maybe it’s brain-based, maybe it’s, you know, neurochemicals, flooding the brain as you’re dying. It just kind of eases your passing. Of course, that’s what a lot of skeptics still say. Um, and. In, in Imagine the God of Heaven. I put the 10 points of evidence that make no sense of a brain-based explanation. And one of them is these common elements. They have a high overlap, and this is all over the world, right?

So we’re talking about millions of people all over the world who have had a near-death experience. 2019, uh, European Academy of Neurology study done across 35 countries. Found, they reported that one outta 10 people have had a near death experience. Personally, I think it’s more like one out of five. I mean, um, yeah, uh, no, not one out of five. Like more like 5%, um, than 10%. Uh, and that, and that correlates with a Gallup poll done in the United States as well. Um, and, and the ones I really pay attention to, Mo mainly are those where they are clinically dead. And so they have no heartbeat, no brainwaves. So with no EEG, there are no electrical signals in your brain.

Where are these new memories being stored? Right? And yet they say it’s not like a hallucination. It’s more vivid and more real than anything they’ve ever experienced in this life. So that’s one of the arguments that helped me start to realize maybe there’s something to this. For instance, in a near death experience, 32% have a life review. Um, 57% see deceased family members, 48% experience the same God of light, who is love, um, and is personal and intimate and all that. So if this is just a brain-based thing, then it’s just a human brain thing. Why wouldn’t we all have the same experience? And why would you have, like for instance, um, see only deceased family members.

Why not living family members? But they don’t, they’re they’re deceased family members. Why wouldn’t the god of your culture, like when I, when I interview, uh, Santosh or, um, um, Dr. Rajiv Parti, you know, they knew all the Hindu gods, but that’s not the god that. Appeared to them and they were very confused. Why? So that doesn’t make any sense of being brain-based. Right? And then the second thing that really convinced me is verifiable observation. So when someone clinically dies, they say and has a near death experience, they leave their body. But they still have a body. They have a spiritual body and not just with five senses.

They say more like 50 senses. It’s like you’re super alive and you’re super yourself. You’re you. You’ve never understood who you are more than when you step out of this world. That’s what they say. And um, so they have. New powers of of sight they can see and it’s like they can see thousands of miles zoomed up close and sometimes like more of a peripheral 3, 360 degree kind of vision. Um. All the senses are, are heightened. Uh, communication is, some of them call it telepathy, but it’s more than telepathy. It’s, it’s not just thoughts, it’s also thoughts and feelings and every associated understanding. So they say, they say consistently you cannot misunderstand, and wouldn’t that be nice? That would solve a lot of earth’s problems, wouldn’t it?

Guy:
what do you, what do you think would happen to a planet if we all had that, had this experience?

John:
Well, you know, I’m, that’s part of what I’m writing about is, is that, um, we can understand how to be more loving, kind and patient with each other when we understand the limitations that we’re now living in. But that’s not how it will ultimately be. Right. You know, so, so just take communication, um, you know, right now. I’m trying to get all my thoughts through this microphone and the airwaves into your brain, and you might be thinking about something totally different, and I can only speak at 125 words a minute, but you can think at 400 words a minute. So you’re adding four times to what I’m actually saying. In your interpretation of what I’m actually saying.

You see what I’m saying? And, and you know, so I think this is why the, the Bible in its wisdoms says, uh, be slow to be, be quick to listen and slow to speak.

Guy:
Isn’t

John:
Right.

Guy:
truth?

John:
You know? And, but we don’t, we don’t do that. And so, yeah. So there’s so many things about these near-death experiences that I think are very practical. To help us understand even the struggle we have, you know, in, in life and, and really what, what life’s about, but to keep going. So when people are out of their bodies, they’re usually still in the room of the resuscitation. So they, they have a, a, a, a spirit body or a soul, but they can perceive everything. Um, another, another, a third thing that really convinced me as a skeptical engineer is even people blind from birth when they have a near death experience, they can see and they report all the same commonalities as sighted people who have near-death experiences. So how do you explain that? Being brain-based.

It can’t be. And, and, you know, so, um, like Vicki, uh, and Brad were two people that I, that I write about and interviewed, um, who were blind from birth, yet they leave their body and Vicki’s watching the operation of going on on the table. And she’s confused at first, like, what is this new perception that she’s ge getting information, but how does she, you know, and she sees and realizes. I must be dead because she sees the, the, or the, she had a wedding ring that had an orange blossom on it and she had really long hair and she said, I think that’s me. And um, so one of the things that’s been very important is that when people come back to their body, okay, they can report these verifiable observations that can then be checked out.

And so, uh, so for instance, I report on a woman in London who, uh, dies giving childbirth. She leaves her body, she travels through this tunnel into this place of light and God’s presence. God tells him, tells her, your son Michael is gonna live. You need to go back. He’s gonna need you. And she comes back. As she’s coming back, she comes through the ceiling. Notices a red sticker on the top side of a ceiling fan, and then she’s resuscitated and she’s trying to tell the doctors and nurses about this incredible experience she had with God and heaven and beauty. And they’re all like, yeah, let’s, you know it’s psychosis. And then she gets one nurse and she tells the nurse, this is what you did.

This is what you said. The nurse realized she had no heartbeat, so there were no, you know, within four or five seconds, there’s no blood to the brain, so your brain’s not functioning. And she’s like, okay, something, something weird’s going on. And um, and, and, and she said, go get a ladder. Look up on the top. Of, of the ceiling fan and there’s gonna be a red sticker, and this is what it says. And she got an orderly to help her. She goes up, look, sure enough, there’s the ceiling fan sticker. Now that’s not just, uh, wild internet, you know, tails that get passed. There have been scientific studies done, so Dr. Jan Holden.

Actually took a, about a hundred cardiac arrest. Patients who had had near death experiences, each of them may have made, you know, five or 10 observations that could then be checked out, and what she found is 92% of their observations were completely accurate. 92%. Um, a cardiologist, uh, that I interviewed Dr. Michael Saban, didn’t believe near-death experiences were real until he starts interviewing his patients. And he told me, he said, you know, Pete, this, uh, patient of his, described the way I did resuscitation in such a way he could not have known, I could have used the recording to teach other physicians how to do resuscitation.

He said there’s no way he, he could have known that. And, and so, you know, you’re talking about something that is grounded in our reality. Right? Uh, an analogy I like to give is, imagine if we’re living this three dimensional experience on a flat, black and white. Painting in your, in your room. And so we only have up and down and side to side. We don’t even have a third dimension of in or out. So we can’t even conceive of where out is from that painting. Death means separation. So I think what death is is your soul, your consciousness peels off. So in a two dimensional world, peels off that two dimensional. Uh, frame and comes out into this three dimensional reality that was always all around you, but you were limited by those two dimensions, so you couldn’t even conceive of it.

But now you can look back into your two dimensional world and watch what’s going on and make observations. So then imagine you have this three dimensional experience of color, and then you get resuscitated, you get pressed back into your two dimensional flat world, and now you’re trying to explain three dimensions of color and experience of three dimensions of color, but in two dimensional black and white terms. And I think that’s why near death experiences struggle. They, they, you know, the thing that’s been fascinating is that I’ve interviewed so many, they’ll struggle for words, but I’ve got, I’ve got a lot to piece together. Um, and that’s what I was trying to do in my writing and show this incredible journey into the world to come, you know, as you start to picture it from all these different people’s perspectives, um, you know, and how it’s not new.

Guy:
Yeah. No, it’s, it is incredible, isn’t it? And, and I think if, like for me, what, like it. Not that I’ve had a near death experience, but I’ve had certain experiences that kind of lean into that. Hence why I’m so passionate about doing these podcasts and getting this word out. But, but once you start to have a a different vantage point, you, you can only bring that vantage point back. It makes you way you interact with people, how you treat people, and start to. beyond the, the, the mask that we tend to put on just to get through our everyday life and really get to the core of what’s going on. And to me, I think that’s what the world is crying out for at the moment. what we, we needed more. Another,

John:
Yeah.

Guy:
to just really come back to what it means to be human and be kind, compassionate, loving, caring, cooperative, and, and.

John:
Yeah, and I, and I, you know, I mean, so in my journey, that’s what really. Um, it reoriented what life was about for me. You know, it was no longer just about conquering the world, starting my own company and making millions of dollars and all that. You know, it’s like, well, wait a second. That’s not actually the core of what life’s about.

Guy:
you were, um, if, if I’m not mistaken, you were a pastor for 26 years. Is that, is that correct?

John:
Mm-hmm.

Guy:
teach you about

John:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Guy:
going on a side note, I would the.

John:
Ah, I am amazed at how God loves us all because we’re all difficult. Well, you know, I’ll say, I’ll say this. What it, what it’s taught me about people, uh, are two things that that may be a intention. People are incredible. You know, and, and God loves us all because we were created with this ability to love and to create and to, um, do so many amazing good things, right? But the, the problem of that is that love requires free will. You know, like I can’t make someone love me. I, I. I could buy ’em a lot of nice things, but maybe they like the nice things, but not me. Maybe they’re just sticking around with me ’cause it’s, I buy ’em nice things. That’s not love. So you can’t buy love.

You can’t force love. You know, I can’t hold a gun to someone’s head and say Love me. I mean, they could out of fear, act like they love me, but that’s not love either. We all know that. So the interesting thing I’ve realized about this life is that. God and near death experiences confirm this. What Jesus came and taught and did confirms this, that life is about love. God is love, and God created us out of love and and for love. But love requires free will. So we have to have the ability to reject. God and God’s love. We also have to have the ability to say, my will be done. And you know, on earth as I want it in heaven, I want it all. And that’s what’s wrong with humanity is that we are a war, we are a world of wills at war and it makes it really tough.

And so I think, you know, some, I think something I, I heard maybe you said, um. You know, just about, there’s a, there’s a need in any true spiritual growth to come to the end of yourself, right? The 12 steps teach it. You know, the first, the first step of recovery is you have to come to the end of yourself. And, you know, believe that there is a power higher than me. I’m not, God, I’m not the ruler of the world. And then surrender, you know, let, let go. Not just try to, you know, control the universe to go my way. And, and so, um, you know, in the, in Chris in Christianity, it’s dying to yourself. You know, it’s, it’s.

It’s letting go of me needing to play God and letting God be God and, and, um, and realizing that, okay, then I can love God and I can let God help me better love others even though they don’t always do what I want or like. So I guess what I’ve, what I’ve learned over the years is that we’ve all been wounded, hurt people, hurt people. Um, and, and so it makes it really difficult. Um, and yet at the same time there’s something so beautiful about, um, when people are learning to surrender. To, you know, letting, letting God love them, seeing how loved they already are, and then loving others in that way, and then that that changes everything. And it’s amazing. It’s beautiful, but there’s always a struggle,

Guy:
struggle.

John:
but.

Guy:
do you think we will ever get it as a, as a, a race, as a humanity? Do you think we are moving in the right direction? I.

John:
Oh, well, I’ll tell you Guy, I think we’re learning, and I think the lessons we’re learning are for the age to

Guy:
Hmm.

John:
come. And I actually, I actually have this whole wild theory that the reason we are going through all this suffering, um, is that as, as a whole of humanity, we’re learning why trusting in God’s love is better than. Demanding my way be done and my will be done. And all of the pain and the suffering that it causes when we, we each wanna play God and that we’re actually teaching the innocent Angels the same thing, like they are actually watching on and learning from. And I, and I think by the way, near-death experiences give us this very interesting.

Insight into it because there are these incredibly heavenly, uh, experiences, you know, and I, and we just, we just touched on the leaving this realm, but people go on, they move usually through a, a tunnel or a portal. Sometimes it’s like through the, through space, you know, and they come to a place of exquisite beauty, not unlike Earth very much like earth, like grass and trees and mountains and flowers and fields, but. Vibrant. Like you’ve never seen colors beyond our color spectrum. A light that is love and life that infuses everything and makes everything right. And, and, and I’ll tell you guy, that was another one that just blew me away is when you have blind people. So Brad, this 8-year-old blind kids describing the light of heaven to me.

And he said it was like the grass. He’s walking up this, this mountain hillside up to a, to a wall of a city, and he says the, the, the palm trees and the grass and uh, everything had this light. And it was like it was soaking in this light, but the light wasn’t like, it felt like on earth. The light felt like love. Now you have a blind kid saying that. Vicki said the same thing. The the 22-year-old blind person who says she’s in this garden of, of, of beauty and this light that is love is coming out of the birds and outta the flowers, outta the trees, and out of this group of people coming toward her, which is another commonality, is that near-death experiences say we have this welcoming committee of people are are deceased.

Friends and relatives, you know, who come to greet us and welcome us in, which interestingly, and you know, this is, this is what I write about in my books is how, um, a lot, almost all of this is talked about in scripture. So Jesus said, use your worldly wealth to make friends in this life so that when it’s gone, they will welcome you into an eternal home. And that’s exactly what near-death experiencers are, are saying happens. Um, and, and, and so, you know, and then there’s this, there’s all, I mean, it’s, it’s life and they don’t ever wanna leave. You know, they, they don’t ever wanna leave that place. But they’re also hellish

Guy:
I was,

John:
experiences. So.

Guy:
you mentioned that at the start and I thought, oh, that’s interesting.

John:
I’ve interviewed a lot of people, a lot of people who have had hellish near-death experiences

Guy:
I.

John:
and, um, and interestingly how many of them, even though they don’t believe in Jesus, have heard and cry out to Jesus and he rescues them. I mean, I’m talking about two Buddhists I know. Um, uh, an amo uh, a mom in Rwanda, a Muslim of mom in Rwanda. Um, I mean, and, and I, you know, their, their stories. I write their stories in my books. You can see ’em on my podcast, so I’ve got, you can hear it from them, from all over the world. And, and so, um, and, and, and I think Guy, that’s the, I think that’s the, so what of it all is that. Um, there, you know, God is so kind and compassionate and loving that he has done everything to remove every barrier between us and him, except our own pride.

Like what he claims is that he did what he did through Jesus Dine on the cross to pay for God’s sense of justice to be able to say, I can forgive anyone who wants it. We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to prove it. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. There’s nothing you can do that God won’t forgive and doesn’t and and wants you to just be his child. That’s it.

Guy:
why do you think there’s hellish experiences of NDEs as well? ’cause even when we look at the world, it, it’s such a of polarity, isn’t it? You know, from, you know, love, peace, joy. To, you know, look at the other end. Horrible

John:
Horrible. Okay, so, so that was a big, long winding, almost got lost, but you brought me back to why I started down this road is that I think this. Life is a time capsule. In other words, what near-death Experiencers say is that the life to come? In, in, you know, in this beautiful paradise that’s to come. And, and these are people of all different religious backgrounds who describe this santosh. One of the most interesting ones is a Hindu manufacturing engineer. Grew up in India, knew the, the Hindu scriptures. And yet in his near death experience, this God of light takes him and he is looking out over the city that he knew was the holy city of God, the kingdom of God. And he describes exactly what John.

Wrote in Revelation 21. He’d never read the Bible before. And, and he said it’s the, it’s the longing of every human heart is to, to live in this place because it is, it’s life made right now. My point was, what Near-Death Experiencers say is the life to come is a hundred XA thousand x better than anything we’ve experienced here. But what people who have had hellish experiences say is it’s also a hundred x worse than anything you’ve ever experienced here. Like, so the the hell. So what I, I think that we are experiencing a very, um, muted taste of heaven and a merciful taste of hell. In this life. Why? Because God doesn’t want us to live eternally separated in something worse than the worst evils on earth.

And so we get a taste because unfortunately most of us, me included, don’t turn to God unless we hit rock bottom, unless it gets painful. You know? I mean, that was my, that was my story. You know, that’s a story of so many addicts I’ve worked with. As well that there is a, you know, there’s a coming to the end of yourself and, and then you look up and then you f you start to find a new freedom and, and something better. Yeah.

Guy:
I’m listening to what you say. ’cause what, what came to me was like looking, just referring to my own journey. I went through a lot of pain in my earlier years and then came out. At the other side, where at the moment I feel very, very blessed with the life I’m I’m living. But I know for a

John:
Yeah.

Guy:
if I hadn’t gone through that, I don’t think I would be where I am. And also I don’t think I’d appreciate what I have as much. no

John:
Right.

Guy:
like I, I really value the moments and I try and squeeze every drop out of them with my children, my wife, my family, the, the moments when I, you know, I’m more consciously aware of that now. Do you think

John:
Oh yeah.

Guy:
in those NDEs then there’s almost like this is an experience, so then we actually appreciate the other side more, or is it,

John:
The hellish ones you mean? Well, yeah, they do come back. I mean, ’cause I’ve interviewed a lot of ’em and they do come back and they come, well, they come back seeking God. They do almost all of ’em. Um. The ones that don’t, and there’ve been a few, they, they, uh, they have post traumatic stress disorder. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s real and it’s horrible. Um, I think what people misunderstand is that that’s not something God does to people. That is God giving people what they demand, when what they demand is, I got this, stay away. God. I don’t want you.

Guy:
Free will.

John:
And, and, and that is the, that’s the troubling part of love. The troubling part of love is that love must respect the free will of the other, even if you’re God. Right. I mean like, you know, you go like, well, why couldn’t God just make it so that they love him and are in heaven? Well, that’s not love. You can’t force love. So what do you do? Do you take a Hitler and you bring him into heaven and you say, but, but you can’t do the things that you think you ought to do. ’cause that’s not loving, but that’s not what he wants. Well, what do you do then? Imprison him in heaven. Tie ’em up, bind them, you know, then well, that would be hell.

Guy:
Yeah, do.

John:
You see what I’m saying?

Guy:
isn’t it? It’s just, it’s,

John:
Well, it gets very, you know, heady and all that. But I think at the end of the day, the most important thing is, and, and what has, what does make the most sense to me is that the point of life is love.

Guy:
yeah.

John:
It is love. And let me tell you, so one of the commonalities is this life review, right? So, so even Vicki, this blind girl in her, in her life review, so she sees Jesus, he’s brighter than the sun. But she sees him as Jesus. She runs to him and he hugs her and she said there was light coming out of his beard, but she can feel his beard and she can see it, even though she’s blind when she comes back. And, uh, bizarrely she described him kind of like we would think, but she said, um, he said to her, you’re gonna love it here.

Everything fits. Then he asked her if she wanted a life review and she said yes. Now, the interesting thing about this life review, and this is consistent all around the globe, is time on the other side doesn’t work the same. Um, it’s not one dimensional linear time. So interestingly, um, one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter says, in two Peter three, eight to the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.

I’ve had near death Experiencers almost say the same thing to me, like doctors who’ve had near death experiences, they say, I don’t know if it was a minute or hours or days, said time didn’t work the same way. So as a result, they can re-experience their whole life, even though their clinical death might’ve been five minutes or 30 minutes, and yet they re-experienced their whole life. Because time’s not working the same way. And they re-experience it many times as a, and each life review is kind of unique, but it’s also often a three-dimensional panoramic. They’re watching the scenes of their lives as they’re there with God and they consistently say, he was just loving me, but I was judging myself.

Like they knew and, and they said the emphasis almost always is on relationship. So the emphasis isn’t on. In fact, this one, um, this one atheist college professor, um, Howard Storm, who, uh, had his lower, um, intestines rupture while he was in France and he couldn’t get surgery after eight hours and he thought, you die, you just unplug the computer. But he said suddenly he finds himself going from the worst pain ever to standing by the bed. And feeling wonderful. And, um, anyway, he ends up having this welcoming committee of nice people that are saying, we’re here for you, we’re gonna help you. But, but that’s not, so they deceived him and they lead him into this blacker than black darkness and he tries to get away and they turn on and they begin to just maul him.

So he’s one of the ones that in that is hearing inside. He’s hearing inside, pray to God. And yet even in this hellish experience, he’s saying, I don’t believe in God. And he hears it again. Pray to God. And he’s like, what would I pray? I don’t even know how to pray. What do you mean pray? So he’s fighting his own pride, even in this hellish outer darkness where these creatures are mauling him. Turns out they were people he said. He said they were my kindred spirits. They were people who on earth had just lived for self. And that’s what he had done. I mean, he had, he had had numerous affairs on his wife. He, he had neglected his kids. It was all about becoming the greatest professor and all that.

So anyway, he finally remembers this song. Jesus Loves Me and in desperation he’s, you know, he’s arguing with himself like, I don’t even believe in Jesus. And finally he just says, Jesus saved me. That’s all he said. And he said, into this darkness comes a pinpoint of light, brighter and brighter until it gets brighter than the sun. Arms reach out, pick him up and hold him. And he said he just started sobbing like a baby. And the thing you gotta understand is these aren’t, these aren’t hallucination kind of experiences. They’re more real than this. Like Howard’s one of the ones who’s told me he still has. Had PTSD from what they did to him.

He said it was like the worst prison scene and then some, but Jesus is holding him and he starts sobbing like a baby and he just starts rubbing his back like, like a mom or a dad, kind of like, it’s okay, I’m here. And he said, I, I knew and I didn’t, I don’t know how I knew, but I knew he loved me just the way I was. And he said later in the presence of these angels that had been recording my life, I got a life review. And he showed me the things he did not like about what I had done with my life, but he had always loved me. And so Howard, and, and in this life review, that’s kind of what happens. Like, so Jesus shows him a time, you know, in the Life Review when his sister was crying because she had lost a pet, A pet had died.

It’s the middle of the night. Howard hears her crying and he gets up and he goes in and he just holds her. And he said, Jesus was so overfilled with joy that, that I would be willing to just comfort her and, and interestingly guy in these life reviews, it’s not the big things. It’s not like, oh, you were a pastor of a big church. He didn’t really care about that. It’s these little acts of kindness. It’s the little ways we show love to one another. Those are the things that that matter most in these life reviews. And, um, and it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s really exactly what Jesus said. Uh. When the Pharisees, you know, the religious of his day, which he, by the way, you know, when people don’t like religion.

I was like, well, ne, neither did Jesus really, actually. So you would like him because he clashed. It was the religious leaders of his day who were really into power and politics, who crucified him, right? It was a, you know, they, they were threatened by that. But what he said was, you know, the greatest commandment is to love God with all you’ve got. The second is like it. You can’t separate it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And that’s what Howard told me, he realized is that that’s God’s plan to change the world is that first I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta love God and understand how much God loves me so I can love myself, because if I don’t love myself, I’m not gonna love you.

I’m gonna treat you like I treat myself. Then to love one another and it’s uncanny guy how these life reviews. So consistently people come back and that life review is the most life changing thing and they consistently say, I mean, exactly what you came to is like. Life is not about material possessions. It’s not about proving you’re worthy of love or how great you are proving anything to anybody. It’s just realizing how loved you are already by God because he created you, and then it’s loving and caring for the people that he puts in your path, starting with your own family.

Guy:
that’s powerful. That’s powerful. It just even goes to show the power of belief, doesn’t it? Like that guy literally had to go to hell to, to get to that pain point of where he would open up to something greater than himself.

John:
Well, and he, and he said that to me. He said I had to hit rock bottom, but my rock, rock bottom is a lot deeper than others. Well, and you know, here’s, so here’s what’s fascinating guy as well is, you know, he, so he is a tenured college professor. Here here. I don’t know if it’s the same in, um, I don’t think it’s the same in Australia. Uh, I’ve interviewed, I’ve interviewed a professor in, in Australia who had a near death experience. Um, call Dr. Colin Perry. His is a fascinating one, but he, but, um, he was a tenured college professor, meaning you cannot lose your job no matter what you do. You’re gonna get paid for life.

Guy:
wow.

John:
And yet he comes back from this near-death experience and two years later he leaves his college professorship to become a Christian pastor to go to seminary and he becomes a Christian pastor. And, uh, his wife even divorced him because she was still an atheist and he had changed so much.

Guy:
Fascinating.

John:
That’s how real it was, you know? And, and I mean, that’s true of yin Mickelson, who, who was a Buddhist who committed suicide and yet cries out to Jesus and he saves her. And, and she’s a pastor now as well. I mean, uh, Swik. Oh, he’s a fascinating story. So he’s in Rwanda. You can see all these people on my podcast, like you can hear it from them themselves, but he’s a, uh, he was in Rwanda, um, a Muslim, a mom, and uh, he dies of blood cancer. Uh. He’s in a hellish place. He called it, it was like a, he said it was like a slaughterhouse. And these four creatures come in that they look human but deformed and they’ve got like an ax and a sth and a bucket and something else, and they’re attacking him and into the room steps. A man of light. He said the beard and a white robe and holds out his arms like this, and Swee can see holes in the wrists that light is coming out of.

And he said, then I knew because I, I had accidentally seen the passion of the Christ when it came to Kigali, the, the capital of, of Rwanda, where he lived. And so he knew who this was and he said to him. I died for mankind. You are among those I died for. Never deny it and tell it to everyone. And Swik today is an Anglican pastor who has had seven attempts on his life. Because you can’t go from being a Muslim, a mom to being an Anglican pastor. You get killed, but he, he won’t shut up about Jesus because it was so real. To him. Right. And so I, you know, that, and, and that’s what I was saying is like, all these together just show, I think the evidence that, um, you know, a lot of the stereotypes we have of, of God are, they’re lies.

They’re not truth. The the truth is if you don’t think about God as your best friend. The person who has been with you through every high and every low, knows it all, knows you better than you know yourself, and yet is crazier about you than your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, lover, spouse, doesn’t matter, loves you more than any of them. Then you don’t know who God is. And when we do start to imagine God, that’s why I wrote the book. Imagine, imagine God is when we do start to imagine God correctly, um, it changes how we live. Because then you don’t have to live to prove you’re worthy of love. You can just love, you don’t have to use your gifts to make a name for yourself.

You can use your gifts to serve humanity and make a difference. It just the, the suffering of life which we all go through. It gains new purpose. ’cause you realize it’s not forever. It’s temporary and there is a purpose to it in what it’s doing in me, but it’s not going to be forever. And it will be, there will be a day. Those are some of the favorite ones of Near-death Experiencers who have suffered horribly. They say in that near-death experience. It’s like they always wanted to ask God why they had all these why questions. And in his presence they said, I didn’t ask because it all made sense. Now that’s mind boggling, right? But it’s also think about how hopeful it is too, because you can hang on. ’cause sometimes it’s really hard.

Guy:
oh

John:
It’s really hard.

Guy:
No, John, I feel like I could listen to you all day, mate. Like truly you.

John:
Well, be careful because Sean Ryan interviewed me for six hours, so you don’t want that.

Guy:
A whole day of interviewing. No. Look, I, mate, I appreciate you coming on the show. I appreciate you sharing your passions and your knowledge. It’s been fascinating. I feel like I only scratched the surface today, but hopefully we’ve given plenty of our listeners to, um, to chew on, um, this, this topic where, where, so could you just repeat your podcast one more time and best website to sell, send people as well please.

John:
Yeah, the Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke and um, and then imagine heaven.net. Is, uh, is our website.

Guy:
final words before we wrap up? Anything you wanna add?

John:
Uh, I think I’ve said enough, probably I, you know, I guess, I guess I would say this one, one more thing, um, which, which really has to do with what I’ve been spending time writing on, is that you’re here for a purpose. You are unique. There is no one else like you. Only God knows who you really are and why you’re really here. But even if you think, you know, comparing to others, no you’re not. You’re, that’s not true. It is true. And one day you’ll see that. And, um, we aren’t meant to compare our journeys to one another. We’re meant to live faithfully the journey that God’s given each one of us.

Guy:
And I reckon, um, I, I do plan on getting to Austin, Texas one day. I dunno when it will be, but I reckon that surf machine is gonna be up and running by then. So I’ll hit you.

John:
We will go surfing.

Guy:
if, uh, if it happens. For sure.

John:
Sounds awesome.

Guy:
Thank you. Okay.