Last January I had this experience that medically they call a stroke, and it was a death of the mind, you see. Suddenly a terrific force hit me and everything went. I thought I was going to die.. which is very important! I was going to die and I prepared to die. I said the proper prayers, waited.. and nothing happened, so I came back to normal. Then I felt a need to surrender, and it was very interesting. Surrender to ‘the Mother.’ It came very clearly.. surrender to ‘the Mother.’ And when I made this this act of surrender, a kind of wave of love opened up.. it overwhelmed me. I called out, ‘I’ve been overwhelmed with love.. I don’t know whether I can survive it!’ It was a tremendous power that came. I think it was an opening of the unconscious. ‘The feminine’ simply opened up, you see.. and that was a real death of the mind. From that time onwards I’ve never really been in the dualistic mind.. something is always beyond it. What my experience taught me was that when everything else goes you discover this love which is in you all the time. It’s deep down there and you know nothing about it.. but let everything go and it comes! And I got a tremendous insight to Jesus on the cross through this, it was very interesting.. and the words, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ That was the climax for him, and I think at that moment he had lost everything. His disciples had fled, the Jews were all against him, his people rejected him.. and now he had to let go of his God, you see. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’.. and the moment he let go of God and faced death, dying, darkness, nothingness, he was taken into total love. That is the experience of death. Behind all death is the tremendous power of love, and everybody’s got it in them.. if they could only find it! But the mind is controlling all and won’t let it through, you see. But sometimes you need to be hit on the head to awaken you to this. We are no longer afraid of death, or accidents, or illness, or whatever.. they’re all incidents which love can use to reveal itself. And I think, you know, when people die they’re all afraid of so many things. But what you face is unconditional love.. that is the judgment. Unconditional love.. which is very demanding! It doesn’t do what you like, you see. Love demands love.. your called. And some people, perhaps, cannot respond.. it’s possible. But for most people it’s so powerful you just have to give way and surrender.. and that’s what we’re called to do, really.
This text is transcribed from the video recording made by Fr Bede in 1992.