The following excerpt is taken from the book The Disappearance of the Universe, by Gary R. Renard. It is published by Hay House (November 2004) and available at all bookstores or online at: www.hayhouse.com

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE UNIVERSE
Straight Talk About Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles
of Forgiveness

Chapter 1
Arten and Pursah Appear

Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes

During Christmas week of 1992, I realized that the circumstances of my life and my state of mind had been slowly improving for about a year. At the previous Christmas, things had not been going well at all. Then I had been deeply troubled by the apparent scarcity in my life. Although I had been successful as a professional musician, I had not managed to save much money. I was struggling in my new career as a stock market trader, and I was in the process of suing a friend and former business partner whom I felt had treated me unfairly. Meanwhile, I was still in the process of recovering from a bankruptcy four years earlier — the result of impatience, reckless spending and seemingly good investments gone bad. I didn’t know it, but I was at war with myself and I was losing. I also didn’t know back then that practically all people are at war and losing, even when they may appear to be winning.

Suddenly, something shifted deep within me. For thirteen years I had been on a spiritual search during which I had learned a great deal without really taking the time to apply my lessons, but now a new certainty swept over me. Things have got to change, I thought. There’s got to be a better way than this.

I wrote to the friend I was suing and informed him that I was dropping my legal action in order to start removing conflict from my life. He called and thanked me, and we began to rebuild our friendship. Eventually I would learn that this same kind of scenario, in different forms, had played itself out thousands of times in the previous few decades as some people in conflict had begun a process of laying down their weapons and surrendering to a greater wisdom within themselves.

Then I began trying to activate forgiveness and love, as I understood them at the time, in the situations that confronted me on any given day. I had some good results and some very tough difficulties, especially when someone pushed my buttons in just the right (or wrong) way. But at least I felt like I was beginning to change direction. During this period I began noticing little flashes of light out of the corner of my eye, or occurring around certain objects. These crystal clear light flashes did not take up my entire field of vision, but were concentrated on particular areas. I wouldn’t understand what they meant until it was explained to me later.

Through this year of change I regularly prayed to Jesus, the prophet of wisdom whom
I admired more than anyone else, to help me. I felt a mysterious connection to Jesus, and in my prayers I often told him how I wished that I could go back two thousand
years and be a follower of his, so I could know what it was really like to learn from him
in person.

Then, during that Christmas week of 1992, something most unusual happened while I was meditating in my living room in a rural area of Maine. I was all alone because I worked at home and my wife, Karen, commuted to Lewiston. We had no children and thus I enjoyed a very quiet environment, except for the occasional barking of our dog, Nupey. As my mind drifted back from my meditation, I opened my eyes and was stunned to see that I was not alone. With my mouth open but no sound coming out, I stared across the room at a man and a woman sitting on my couch, looking directly at me with gentle smiles and lucid, penetrating eyes. There was nothing threatening about them; in fact, they looked extraordinarily peaceful, which I found reassuring. Looking back on the event I would wonder why I had not been more fearful, given that these very solid-looking people had apparently materialized out of nowhere. Still, this first appearance by my soon-to-be friends was so surreal that fear somehow didn’t seem appropriate.

The two people looked to be in their thirties and very healthy. Their clothing was stylish and contemporary. They didn’t look anything like I might have imagined that angels, or ascended masters, or any other kind of divine beings might look. There was no illumination or glowing aura around them. One could have spotted them in a restaurant eating dinner and not given them a second thought. But I couldn’t help but notice them sitting there on my couch, and I found myself looking at the attractive woman more than the man. Noticing this, the woman spoke first.

PURSAH: Hello, my dear brother. I can see you are astonished, but not really afraid. I am Pursah and this is our brother, Arten. We are appearing to you as symbols whose words will help facilitate the disappearance of the universe. I say we are symbols because anything that appears to take on a form is symbolic. The only true reality is God or pure spirit, which in Heaven are synonymous, and God and pure spirit have no form. Thus there is no concept of male or female in Heaven. Any form, including your own body, that is experienced in the false universe of perception must, by definition, be symbolic of something else. That is the real meaning of the second commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Most Biblical scholars have always considered that particular commandment to be a mystery. Why would God not want you to make any images of Him? Moses thought the idea was to get rid of pagan idolatry. The real meaning is that you shouldn’t make up any images of God because God has no image. That idea is central to what we’ll be telling you later.

GARY: Do you want to run that by me again?

ARTEN: We’ll be repeating things enough for you to pick them up, Gary, and one of the things you’ll notice is that we’ll speak to you more and more in your own style of language. In fact, we’re going to put things to you very bluntly. We think you’re big enough to handle it, and we didn’t come here to waste time. You asked Jesus for help. He would have been happy to come to you himself, but that’s not what’s called for right now. We’re his representatives. By the way, most of the time we’re just going to refer to Jesus as J. We have permission from him to do that, and we’ll tell you why when the time is right. You wanted to know what it was like to be there with him two thousand years ago. We were there and we’ll be happy to tell you, although you may be surprised to find out there are more advantages to being a student of his today than there were back then. One thing we’re going to do is challenge you the way J repeatedly challenged us, whether in the past or in what you think of as the future. We’re not going to be easy on you or tell you what you want to hear. If you want to be handled with kid gloves then go to a theme park. If you’re ready to be treated like an adult who has a right to know why nothing in your universe can possibly work in the long run, then we’ll get down to business. You will also learn both the cause of this situation and the way out of it. So, what do you say?

GARY: I don’t know what to say.

ARTEN: Excellent. A fine qualification for a student, another one being the desire to learn. I know you have that. I also know you don’t like to talk very much. You’re the kind of guy who could go into a monastery for years and not say a word. You also have an exceptional memory — something that will come in handy for you later. In fact, we know everything about you.

GARY: Everything?

PURSAH: Yes, everything. But we’re not here to judge you so there’s no sense in hiding things or being embarrassed. We’re here simply because it’s helpful for us to appear right now. Take advantage of us while you can. Ask any questions that come into your mind. You were wondering why we look this way. The answer is that we like to fit in wherever we go. Also, we dress in a secular fashion because we don’t represent any particular religion or denomination.

GARY: So you’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses then, ‘cause I already told them I’m not into organized churches.

PURSAH: We are certainly witnesses for God, but Jehovah’s Witnesses subscribe to the old belief that except for a select number who will be with Him, God’s Kingdom will be on earth with them in glorified bodies, and that is not what we teach. We may disagree with the teachings of others, but we don’t judge them and respect the right of all people to believe what they want.

GARY: That’s cool, but I don’t know if I like this idea of no male and female in Heaven.

PURSAH: There are no differences in Heaven and no changes. Everything is constant. That’s the only way it can be completely dependable instead of chaotic.

GARY: Isn’t that kind of boring?

PURSAH: Let me ask you something, Gary. Is sex boring?

GARY: Not in my book.

PURSAH: Well, imagine the very peak of a perfect sexual orgasm, except this orgasm never stops. It keeps going on forever with no decrease in its powerful and flawless intensity.

GARY: You have my attention.

PURSAH: The physical act of sex doesn’t even come close to the incredible bliss of Heaven. It’s just a poor, made-up imitation of union with God. It’s a false idol made to fix your attention on the body and the world with just enough of a payoff to keep you coming back for more. It’s very similar to a narcotic. Heaven, on the other hand, is a perfect, indescribable ecstasy that never ceases.

GARY: That sounds beautiful, but it doesn’t account for all these experiences people have of the other side — out-of-body trips, near-death experiences, communicating with people who have passed on and things of that nature.

ARTEN: What you call this side and the other side are really just two sides of the same illusory coin. It’s all the universe of perception. When your body appears to stop and die your mind keeps right on going. You like to go to the movies, right?

GARY: Everyone should have a hobby.

ARTEN: When you make a transition from one side to the other, whether from this life to the afterlife or back to a body again, it’s like walking out of one movie and into a different one. Except these films are more like the virtual reality movies people will have in the future where everything will seem completely real, right down to the touch.

GARY: That reminds me of this article I read about a machine in a lab at MIT that you can put your finger in and feel things that aren’t there. Is that the kind of technology you’re talking about?

ARTEN: Yes, most inventions mimic some aspect of what the mind does. Getting back to the birth and death cycle, when you are seemingly born once again into a physical body you forget everything, or at least most of it. It’s all a trick of the mind.

GARY: Are you trying to tell me that my life is all in my head?

ARTEN: It’s all in your mind.

GARY: My head is in my mind?

ARTEN: Your head, your brain, your body, your world, your entire universe, any parallel
universes and anything else that can be perceived are projections of the mind. They are all symbolic of just one thought. We will tell you what that thought is later. An even better way of thinking about this is to consider your universe to be a dream.

GARY: It feels pretty solid for a dream.

ARTEN: We’ll tell you later why it feels solid, but you need more background first. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. What Pursah was trying to impress on you is that nobody is asking you to give up a lot in exchange for nothing. It’s really the opposite. You will eventually come to realize that you are giving up nothing in exchange for everything — a state so awesome and joyous that to describe it in words is impossible. To attain this state of Being, however, you must be willing to undergo a difficult process of correction by the Holy Spirit.

GARY: This correction you speak of, does it have anything to do with political correctness?

PURSAH: No. Political correctness, no matter how well intentioned, is still an attack on freedom of speech. You will find we are very free with our speech indeed. The word correction is not used by us in the usual way, because to correct something usually means you fix it up and keep it. When the false universe is finished being corrected by the Holy Spirit, it will no longer appear to exist.

I say it will no longer appear to exist because it does not exist in reality. The true Universe is God’s Universe, or Heaven — and Heaven has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the false universe. However, there is a way of looking at your universe that will help you return to your true home with God.