I'm in the desert, scantily clad and a beautiful piece of cloth wrapped around me, adorned in jewels and bindis. Now, mind you, this isn't my usual attire. You'd usually find me in a business suit, walking into offices of CEOs as a management consultant, giving them advice on what to do. But this isn't any desert. It's Burning Man. And it's the first night of my first burn, and I've lost my friends. And I'm in this world of strangers and lights who are practicing these rules of radical self-expressionism and radical acceptance.
And in that place, I'm just lost with how at home I feel. And I feel this urge, both a physical urge and an emotional urge, to push the edge. You see, I had to pee, but I don't wanna go and find a bathroom and leave this behind. I'm almost wondering if this is a place for radical self-acceptance. "I should just pee right here." And I begin to think, What if someone points at me or tackles me, or the cops come out, or a helicopter comes out with a spotlight on me. And I begin to think, I wanna know how much me can I be here, and still be accepted. So I pull over a little piece of this loin cloth that I'm wearing, raise my hands up to the air, yell out a loud scream and just begin to pee right there in the middle of the playa.
And courage was born inside me again. You see, I lost my courage very early in life. You can say it was yelled and beaten out of me by my parents. You can say it was strangled out of me by cultural expectations, religion, and society. You can say it was washed from me slowly from eighteen years of school. And I found myself as an adult without much courage, living a very mediocre life. Of course, it didn't look that way to others. I had a beautiful high-paying six-figure job and a condo in downtown that was part of the Parade of Homes and my dream car. And everyone said, "You're doing it," but I knew it was mediocre. I had also succumbed so much to being the good boy, to doing all of the things that lacked courage, that I had actually taken a vow of celibacy blocking out those things which today I use so much—love, connection, pleasure, bliss—all so I could be the perfect virgin husband for my perfect virgin wife that my family would arrange a perfect marriage for me to be in.
But it didn't turn out that way. I'm in bed in a room in the dark with a naked man beside me. And in this moment, I'm feeling more free than I've ever felt before. And I feel so much energy moving through me, through the room, through us, and something comes over me. You see, I met Corey in Cleveland, Ohio. He's a twenty-two-year-old white boy from Texas that I met on a night out with my coworkers at work who wanted to go out to the gay bars. And I said, "Sure, let's do it." And at first, I didn't think much of him, but as the night went on, something happened that I felt this deep desire to take care of this man. Maybe be taken care of by him as well, but to love him and to just be there for him.
And inextricably, not knowing what was pulling me, I found myself knocking on his door to borrow a drill just so I can hang out with him. And over time, our connection got deeper and deeper. We began spending so much of our time together. We even began traveling together, and it was in Peru where everything came to a head, and he said to me, "Jaymin, I want you to be my boyfriend."I could just feel the looming dooming feeling of judgment and finger-pointing and all of this. I don't know. Ugh. It's too much to think about. But another part of me felt really brave, and some courage lit up, and I felt more alive in me than ever before. And without worrying about what this meant about me and who I was or what all this is, I just said yes to him. And so we're here in bed in the dark, laying together. And before I can even think fully, some of the most truest words I've ever said just fall outta my mouth into this dark void. And I say to him, "I love you, man." And in this timelessness, I heard a voice come back from the other side of the universe, and from within me, and from his mouth all simultaneously saying, "I love you too, dude."
And I felt more free and alive in that moment. You could feel the courage break apart all the walls around my heart that held me back to all the things I wanted most. And in this brave moment, I let it all in, and it changed my life. I've had many choice points throughout my beautiful life that I'm so grateful for, which have asked me to be courageous. I left my corporate job and started to become an entrepreneur that led me to incredible success beyond anything that I could imagine for myself. I had the courage to marry the woman of my dreams, even though it meant my mom not talking to me for five years and never meeting her grandchildren. It gave me the courage to show up when my second son was being born in an emergency situation where no one could get to us, and we couldn't get to anyone. And I had to look at my wife and just say, "Baby, push," and catch this baby as it came into this world. It gave me the courage to leave behind everything that was keeping me in mediocre shackles and come here to Bali, halfway around the world, where I live with my wife and my kids and our dog. And we live courageously every day.
I can't imagine a life without courage because of these moments that have cultivated the courage inside me even though it was my normal for so long. I can't imagine a life that I'm living that other people think is great, but I know is mediocre. After cultivating this courage inside and committing to living it every day, I can only live a life that is fully lived. A life where I allow miracles to happen every day, and I have the courage and the audacity to believe that everything is possible.
Thank you.
It was the mid-1980s, somewhere in the middle of Canada—you know, the tall part of America!
Now there was actually a very, very fatal illness sweeping the nation, and little children were getting very sick. If they were cheated, they had disabilities. It was called spinal meningitis. It's orally contracted. And what happens is it goes into the spinal column, and it affects the nervous system. And, in effect, actually, the fever affects the brain so much that it can shut a small child down.
Now the 1980s. Tape decks, VCRs, station wagons, come on. Great decade! Budweiser was king, and Donald Trump was just a mere mortal wearing boxy suits and buying real estate. But I really wanna tell you about a little girl's journey, her brush with death, her glimpse at the other side. And that little girl is me.
I was sitting eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the stairs. I loved to sit there because I could watch all the foot traffic move around the house, but I was really hot, like really hot. And Oh, I love this sandwich. I'm not hungry anymore. What's happening to me? Oh, I'm gonna go to the kitchen and talk to the adults cos they always know what to do.
So I go to the kitchen, and I pull on Auntie Gina's shirt, and I'm like, "Auntie Gina, can you feel my forehead?" And she leans down, and she puts her hand on my forehead, and she says, "Oh dear, this child is really hot. I'm really concerned about her." Well, I scurry away because I'm like, Oh no, I've done something wrong now. Oh no, why am I so hot? And I put my little head through the banisters on the stairs, and I look out, and I listen to the adults as they make a commotion and talk about the hospital. Oh no, not the hospital. I really, really don't wanna go the hospital. That's where people go when they get really sick. Sure enough, they're throwing things into a bag. They're acting a little funny, and it's just a circus, and we're running out the door.
And the hospital—clean, clinical, bright white lights, beeping sounds—doctors, nurses being called to all different floors. Surely a doctor comes and stands right in front of me, and he assesses me immediately. And he says, "This child is very sick. We think she has spinal meningitis. If we test her, we might lose her. Let's get her immediately to intensive care." I'm isolated in a room. I'm dressed in white. I'm sitting straight up in my bed. I now have intravenous being put into my arms—medicine running through my body. I don't know what's happening.
My mother comes and sits on the corner of my bed, and she says to me, "Sweetheart, do you know what you have?" "No, I don't." "It's spinal meningitis, sweetheart." "Spider man ingitis? Oh, that sounds really scary." "Yes. We're very concerned for you. You see, we need you to make it through the night." "Okay." And with that, she got up, and she exited the room and went into the hall. It had grown quiet now, and night was falling. I sat in my bed, medicine running through my body. Exhausted. And I fell asleep.
Sure enough, I woke up to something coming down next to me. A spider. Oh, okay. I'm gonna close my eyes. I'm gonna get myself really nice and tight like a board. And hopefully, this will go away. I open my eyes. I turn to the right. What-what is going on over here? Three unidentifiable shadowy men standing next to my bed. So I now have a spider and three men over here. Oh boy. This is what she was telling me about. If I close my eyes really tight, I think, Yeah, this is gonna go away, right? Yeah. And it does.
That was a close one. Okay. But now what's going on now? Oh my God. I'm in a hospital, and I can hear dogs barking. There are three, four, five dogs in the room with me. They're barking so loud. They're snarling. They are drooling, and they are attacking my bed. They know I'm vulnerable, and they're coming for me. They're gonna take me down to Hades and present me to Persephone. What is going on? They oh, they can't get in. Oh, thank goodness. They can't get in. They keep attacking it, but they can't get in. There's a bubble around my bed that's protecting me—some kind of a force field.
Thank goodness. Okay. I'm just gonna wait this out. This is just gonna go away. Yeah. Daylight is breaking. I can see it now. And like a good vampire movie, I know those dogs are going away, and they just get off of me, and they slither away through the cracks of the room. And the room is bathed in this warm white light. And I'm like, Oh, thank goodness. I've made it through the night.
But now what's happening? I thought this was all over. No, it's not. It's not over. Oh my gosh. I'm getting up outta my body. I think they call this astral traveling, and I am looking back at myself. Phenomenal! Wow. And I can feel something beautiful and warm coming from behind me. Oh my goodness, what is that? Wow, that feels so good. And I can hear string instruments. Oh, it's beautiful.
"Beloved. You are at a checkpoint." "Oh, a-a checkpoint?" "Yes, beloved. You see, you are now at a place where you can make a choice. How do you want to choose? Do you want to go back into that life, or do you want to come back behind the veil? We must warn you that if you come back here, you will have to work two times as hard. You see, beloved, the life that you have chosen, the contract that you have chosen is for your soul's evolutionary process. And the souls that you come into contact with will also evolve. It's a very multi-layered process, you see, my beloved?" "Yeah. I-I understand. Okay. Uh, so if I go there, how long will it take exactly?"
"You see, beloved, for us it's a very quick timeline. Blink of an eye, really. But for you, once you will be embodied, time will move quite slow." "Oh, okay. I-I, okay. And what's . . . what's gonna happen? Can you tell me a little bit about that?" "Well, beloved, you see, there will be great global catastrophes. You will witness genocide. You will see abuse of human life and source life on the planet. There will be technological wars, famine, and you will feel it all." "Oh, okay. Sad." "Yes, beloved. And you will have a heart—an empathetic heart.
And you see, there will be hardship, heartache, and your heart will break." "I understand. What else?" "Well, beloved, there will be beauty beyond belief. There will be human connection, joy—pure joy—humor, surprise, and elements that you can only experience if you choose to contract this life as a human." "I see. Well, I-I suppose I accept that, and I understand. Yes, I agree. I agree to this."
And with that, I felt my body, my spirit slip back into my body, and I was looking back at my family, connected again. I could feel their collective hearts beat, their prayers answered. Their little girl had made it through the night. She wouldn't be taken from them too soon in this life. I felt cells regenerating and blood pulsing through my body. I was going to heal. I was going to make it.
You see, there's actually many of us that have an experience like this. In fact, one in ten people that's admitted to the hospital has what is called a near-death experience, but because of fear or shame, embarrassment, we conceal this immaculate experience. We don't share it. And yet it's so beautiful to know that there's something beyond this. To know that it's pain-free. To know that we have to live without regrets here. That this is our training ground. That this is our playground. Our learning, our schoolhouse.
I hope this message is something you can take with you tonight. Death is really very simple, you see. It's just a transformational doorway. A transformational doorway for the mystical energy that is spirit and spirit never ends. Thank you so much. Thank you so so much for being my audience for that story—that's the first time. Thank you so much.
