This is more about Near Death Awareness than a Near Death Experience, so I hope no one minds me posting a thread here as I'm not quite sure which part of the forum it would fit in. These events took place during the final days of my mother’s life and have provide me with further confirmation that there is more to this world than just the physical. I have read about NDE’s and Near Death Awareness for many years but to be with someone who was experiencing Near Death Awareness over a period of nine-days brought these accounts to life.

To set the context, my mother was 79 years old and a practicing Sikh for over 30 years. She also followed a spiritual saint from Northern India called ‘Maharaji Raja Sahib’ who we refer to as ‘Maharaji’ as a sign of respect (he passed away in India in 1939). She had emigrated from India to the United Kingdom in 1960 with my father. My father passed away in 1984 and she was living with my younger brother whilst we lived just five minutes’ drive away.

The events started on Sunday July 23rd 2017 when my mother was rushed into A&E at the local Infirmary due to excruciating pain. It was found that her thoracic aortic aneurysm had grown from 6.5cm from 9.5cm within the space of about four weeks. The A&E consultant said that there was a contained leak within the aneurysm and that the aneurysm could rupture within the coming week or even earlier.

On Tuesday 25th July 2017, she was in severe pain at around 20:00 when I went to visit her. When I spoke to her she said that she had heard her mother calling her earlier and said 'Why is she calling me – has she come to collect me?’ – her mother had died in India in 1955.

We took her up to her bed and from this point to her passing away, she was never to leave her bed again.

On Thursday 27th July 2017 in the afternoon she said to my wife that the 'game is finished on Saturday' and that Maharaji would be back on Saturday to collect her. At around 17:00, she asked to be sat up, asked for her head scarf and said her prayers for thirty minutes and then lay down again. Later in the evening she started saying her goodbyes to everyone.

On Friday 28th July 2017 at around 06:30, she started tugging on her bed sheet and kept asking for a clean white sheet.

On Saturday 29th July 2017 in the afternoon she said ‘that they had come for her.’ One of my aunts who was with her at the time asked her 'why are you in a hurry?'.  My mother then said ‘they're going back now’. She said also she saw my father in the group that had come to collect her. Later in the evening she kept saying that she'd been asking to go since the morning but why was it taking so long?

On Sunday 30th July 2017 in the afternoon she said she was ‘happy everything was done’.

On Monday July 31st 2017 morning at about 07:00 I was talking to her and at one point she looked straight passed my left shoulder and said 'Oh, Maharaji - I didn't see you there'. She then asked them for a suit and raised her hand out as if grabbing something. After this she started saying it was time she went.

After talking to one my aunts who is a retired nurse, we said to my mother that she didn't have to worry about anyone here and that she had finished everything she needed to. At around 9pm my mother started getting quite agitated and asking ‘Why are they taking so long?’ and also kept saying ‘Let’s go, let’s go’.

On Tuesday August 1st 2017 at around 02:00 she asked for the ambulance to be called as she was ready to go in it and asked me where my wife was and said to ‘tell her to come here as she wasn't well and was ready to go in the ambulance’.

At around 04:00 my mother put her hands in the prayer position and looked up towards the ceiling and then around the room as if acknowledging something that neither my sister nor I could see. After this my mother slipped further downwards during the day and started to become less responsive.

On Thursday 3rd August 2017 I was preparing some food at around 15:00 I mentioned to my sister that it felt like my mother was wandering around the house even though she was still in bed upstairs and hardly responding to us or any stimulus.

I had to go out for a couple of hours at 16:30 and came back at 18:30 to a strange and unsettling atmosphere in the house – I can only describe it as ‘heavy’ and ‘claustrophobic’ with an eerie unsettling quietness – as if there was something waiting to happen. It was like the house had become enclosed in a bubble and no sounds from the outside could be heard – no birds, passing cars or dogs barking. The house was usually busy till about 8pm with extended family members visiting but everyone that day had left by the time I got back and there were only a few of us in the house.

My mother took her last breath at 22:30 on that day.

This is the best way I could think of writing the events up, so apologies for them being a set of factual statements rather than prose.

Was this experience difficult to express in words?        Yes

How long did the experience last?      Over a period of nine days.

Was the beginning and end of the experience gradual or more sudden?          Gradual with a sudden ending.

How do you currently view the reality of your experience? Experience was definitely real

           Please explain why you view the reality of your experience as real or not real:     It was experienced by multiple people over this period of time.

Describe in detail your feelings/emotions during the experience: My feelings were mixed - obviously sadness at watching a parent dying and equally confusion around what they were experiencing and seeing that which the rest of us could not.

Was there any emotional healing in any way following the experience?         No

What was the best and worst part of your experience? The worst part was watching someone dying and the best would be the confirmation of what i had read about for years - that there is a form of existence after physical death.

Has your life changed specifically as a result of your experience? Yes                Describe:     It has greatly affected my relationships as I have become less interested in the triviality of life (which I accept is a subjective experience), so so relationships have been left withering. A lot of my day to day life is spent going over the experience and trying to understand the bigger picture behind it.