NDEs, Intuition & Trusting Life – Purnima Sinha – Transcript

Purnima Sinha interview

Summary

• Purnima Sinha is a spiritual director, meditation teacher, and holistic health coach with 50+ years of meditation practice, trained in ultra-transcendental meditation and Surat Shabd Yoga
• She describes two near-death experiences, the first in 2000 triggered by intense emotional pain during meditation, in which she received prophetic “downloads” that played out over the following 25 years
• After years of hospital work as a wellness facilitator, she developed a practice around after-death communication and shared death experiences with patients
• She left a 15-year graphic design career after receiving persistent inner guidance to work directly with people in healing contexts
• The conversation covers manifestation, forgiveness, ancestral healing, distinguishing genuine intuition from ego-driven impulses, and practical tools for emotional processing

Key Takeaways

• Divine guidance is emotionless and neutral — it arrives as a quiet, fleeting signal with no ego charge behind it, distinct from the mind’s self-serving chatter
• Asking for help is the essential act — Purnima returns repeatedly to the idea that sincere prayer or intention always receives a response, even when the form of that response isn’t immediately clear
• Purpose reveals itself incrementally — her NDE downloads only made sense in retrospect, suggesting that life unfolds according to an intelligence larger than personal planning
• Forgiveness is internal work, not a gift to the other person — releasing resentment shifts your own energetic frequency and opens the door to what can come in
• Manifestation works when intention is clean — outcomes aligned with service and genuine connection tend to materialize; ego-driven wanting tends to stall

Full transcript, edited for readability:

Purnima: To realize how big the soul is. I think that’s why I said, you know, that this reality, that every one of us is connected, every one of us. So if you think you are alone, you are not alone. So whatever gives you comfort, either your parents stuff, something you want to hold physically, Bible, Bhagavad Gita, whatever is sacred thing with you, hold on to that and ask. That’s the key word, ask for help. And whenever we ask for help, we always get help.

So if you think you are alone, you are not alone. So whatever gives you comfort, either your parents stuff, something you want to hold physically, Bible, Bhagavad Gita, whatever is sacred thing with you, hold on to that and ask.

Rick:  Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. We’re doing this since 2009 and have interviewed nearly 750 people. So if this is new to you and you’d like to check out the previous ones, or some of the previous ones, since it would take you quite a while to watch all of them, just go to batgap.com and look under the interviews menu where you’ll see them categorized in various ways. You can also explore them on YouTube, but we have categorization on the website that you can’t really do on YouTube. This whole thing is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the website and a page with alternatives to PayPal. My guest today is Purnima Sinha. We had a conversation beforehand in India, everybody says Púrnima, but in the US people were pronouncing it Purníma, so she’s kind of using that pronunciation. She’s a spiritual director and coach with extensive experience in meditation and holistic health and for nearly two decades she has served as a spiritual counselor, meditation, yoga facilitator and balance and strength coach through various wellness and health care initiatives. The relevance to BatGap is that she’s had some profound near-death experiences and has spoken many times at the International Association for Near-Death Studies or IANDS, including participation on the After Death Communication Panel. She’s been practicing meditation for over 50 years, having received training in something called ultra-transcendental meditation. I’ve just only been doing regular transcendental meditation for 58 years, but she’s been doing the ultra variety, and Surat Shabd Yoga in India. She holds certificates in lifestyle medicine and meditation and psychotherapy from the Harvard Medical School in Boston or Cambridge. So welcome Purnima.

Purnima: Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The First Near-Death Experience

Rick: You’re welcome. So what I would like to do, I’ve listened to three or four or five of your other interviews and presentations, and I’ve heard you relate some of your experiences several times, and All of those experiences signify some profound underlying principle, such as trusting in life and receiving support from nature’s intelligence and things like that. And then you’ve also had a couple of profound near-death experiences, which I think at least one of them gave you some kind of download of knowledge that has then panned out in your everyday life. So as much as possible, we’re going to discuss these underlying principles and how these spiritual experiences that you and other people have help to elucidate them or even verify them, you might say. So maybe we could start with your near-death experiences. I believe the first one you had was around 2000, if I’m correct. What happened in that one?

Purnima: Thank you so much. Again, without IANDS, which is International Association for Near-Death Studies, I did not know about this thing, even though my mother, who was passed in 2002, August, she told me all this stuff is going on from the IANDS, all the research, like you are doing such a good work for the humanity. She told me when I was probably like in mid-teenagers that this is a big movie theater and everybody’s acting. Yeah, this whole life, this earth is a movie theater. So she always told us what to do, how to serve, we are here always to serve. So long story short, I had it in our background in the, how we raised trust life. And we, my parents are very spiritual, both side grandparents were very spiritual, but what happened year 2000, as we know life is, my father used to tell my mother that don’t teach them anything because life will teach them. And that is literally true. So that’s why in the year 2000, some incident happened which cracked my ego, literally cracked my ego. Like if somebody put a sledgehammer and just cracked open, because I think it was life was giving me a hint to have self-love, have to stand up for yourself. And I was not listening. I didn’t have this vocabulary then. So something major happened which hurt my emotion.

Rick: Something you don’t care to describe, but just something that happened?

Purnima: Yes, something very personal. Something very personal happened. So when people are close to you, that’s how you feel more hurt. If a stranger hurts you, it does not matter. So the universe has given you an example in that way. So actually everything is internalized through each person. So I’m not here to blame anybody that because of that person this happened. Whatever happened that time, it did shake me about my faith. It did shake me about my self-love and self-worth. So when that happened, I was so emotional over that. And that time I was raising kids. I didn’t have time, luxury to just sit and do nothing. So particularly that day, this thing happened, which again I did not know that time near-death experience at all. It was the pain was very emotional. It was all emotional pain, not nothing physical. So at my work, you know, I was getting tired because I was dealing with this pain. So I came home that day and that day was my son’s graduation, one of the programs, which was the award ceremony. So I came home and I was in pain, a lot of pain. Emotional pain. Very much emotional pain, very much emotional pain. And I knew this is such an important day for him. So I came home early that that day nobody was home and I am literally crying, weeping, asking for help to get through the day and remembering my dad also that and he was they were alive that time. So but some of this stuff you cannot talk to your parents again it’s all about ego. It’s nothing else only for ego. So I was crying, praying at the same time. I don’t know what happened. I think it was in a trance state I was and I was actually praying I just wanted to disappear because I said I cannot take it anymore and I was there I think the IANDS used one picture of a tunnel it has some angels in between but that’s the only picture I see few months ago which I can relate to I saw me and it’s all all, nothing was physical, but I can see myself in that tunnel and it’s all guidance and divine help.

When people are close to you, that’s how you feel more hurt. If a stranger hurts you, it does not matter.

Rick: So hang on, so did you kind of pass out or something and next thing you know you were going into a tunnel?

Purnima: I did not pass out.

Rick: So you were in the waking state, you could have been washing the dishes or something, but you saw the tunnel.

Purnima: No, I was doing meditation that time.

Inside the Tunnel:  What Was Revealed

Rick: Oh, you’re meditating, okay, good.

Purnima: Yeah, I was crying, but I was doing meditation because in the meditation prayer, I was, I asking for help. I see. I was asking for help that please let me go through this day because it’s very painful. And because of the pain, I just I was praying that just make me disappear. I didn’t want to deal with this thing. And at that time, I don’t know how much time, probably half an hour, one hour, not exact. But I was somewhere. I know I was somewhere and I knew it was showing to me, it was a tunnel which I closely related to the picture IANDS share a few months ago.

Rick: Right. Which many NDE people experience. They go through some tunnel of light.

Purnima: Right. But I had no idea about tunnel that time. I had never heard about NDE. I never have heard about IANDS or anything. So I’m there and I can see big, it’s like a tunnel and I can see myself there, not physically, but intuitively that I’m there. And it’s shown to me that if I cross certain threshold, I will not able to come back. So I’m getting goosebumps talking about it. So when that happened, all of a sudden, you know, I realized I have two small children that time. One was in high school, one was in, I think, middle school or elementary school. I’m not sure. So I knew I cannot bear that burden on them because first of all that day was the award ceremony the whole thing will crumble if something happened to me that day and it was a big thing for him so and lot of downloads happened which I did not knew at that time things were showing to me now I realize after like 25 years later. I started doing this work almost 16, 17 years ago. But this was shown to me, number 25 was shown to me a couple of times very forcefully, something will happen. I didn’t know what that mean at that time.

I had no idea about tunnel that time. I had never heard about NDE. I never have heard about IANDS or anything.

Rick: Meaning in 2025?

Purnima: No, no, no. It’s just the number 25.

Rick: A number, just a number.

Purnima: Yeah, but later on, I found out that my son, he became medical doctor, age 25. And that was a big thing for my mom. My mom was alive that time because she wanted one person to be a doctor. She passed away in 2002. And then other big thing happened, 2025, he became a, what do they call it? A division chief. So which is 2025. So another 25 number also, they were like, now I’m putting it together backward. But that time I had no idea. And again, it was showing to me that I will do more for the humanity. Your purpose is not done yet. So many things was shown to me, but again, at that time I did not know anything about it. I was getting help and then I came back, I guess. R;; Yeah, so let’s pause for some principles here. So somebody wrote a book years ago called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” and I never read the book, but what you said reminded me of that. So here you are, a good person, and somebody betrayed you or hurt you in some way, and you might think, “Oh, poor me. Why did this happen to me?” But look what happened. It broke you open and gave you an insight that you probably otherwise wouldn’t have had. And then the second principle is, from what you said, is that you prayed for some kind of escape or solution or guidance or help or something. And there’s so many examples I can think of, and it’s in all the scriptures also, of somebody ardently praying for some kind of help, and their prayer is heard, and some kind of response comes. And a third principle, which is not as significant, but it has happened, is, you know, it’s said that yogis can leave the body at will if they want to, and they’re out of here. I actually know of someone who was just a young woman in her 20s who died during meditation just for no known reason. So it is possible to exit that way, and maybe someone could argue, well, there was just some heart fibrillation or something that made it happen. But it’s a known thing in the Scriptures that if one knows how to do it, one can exit the body at will. But we don’t need to dwell on that one. But the first two, I think, are significant. That life is not random or arbitrary or accidental, or God is not a sadist who just likes to punish people. Things happen for a reason and for our benefit. And the second one was, you know, you have this cracking open and this insight and this download of knowledge and foreseeing the future to some extent. So you want to elaborate on any of those thoughts?

Ancestral Wisdom and Leaving the Body

Purnima: Yes, because you said, you know, people can exit on purpose. My grandfather, my Nana, my mother’s father, which I never seen him, he died before I was born. We found out much later in life that they were meditators. So after he passed many, many years later, in one of the holy books he used to read, he put it in one of the pages, that which day and what time he will pass, and that’s exactly how he passed.

Rick: Wow. He predicted it, or he actually willed it perhaps on that day.

Purnima: Yes, because the people who do meditation, I’ve heard it from my dad, that the soul knows two years prior to when it leaves. And I think it gives you like three chances for the exit. And I don’t know, but that’s what I heard. And my father’s grandfather, he also knew that he will pass that day. So he gathered everybody in the courtyard where their main house was and he told them that I’m going to leave today and you are not going to cry, you’re going to celebrate, you’re not going to mourn. And he told everybody and the night time or in the evening time, he went to that cot in the middle of the courtyard and he did leave his body.

The people who do meditation, I’ve heard it from my dad, that the soul knows two years prior to when it leaves. And I think it gives you like three chances for the exit.

Rick: Yeah, well that’s another interesting point is a premonition about one’s death. I had a friend who was a young woman, she just had her third child, and she had this premonition that she was not going to be here much longer. She made some financial arrangements with a close friend of hers and everything, and sure enough, she was driving over to a college to teach and it was getting snowy and icy and she crossed a bridge and lost control and got hit by a truck and that was it. But she saw that coming.

Purnima: Yeah, I think, you know, I think because of the meditation, I’m not sure, but…

Rick: She was a meditator too.

Purnima: Yeah, what happened, I think in meditation is so much download and it takes years and years to process it. About my NDE, I did not even able to process it for many years. and I could not share with, because this is the first time and first year I think I’m sharing about my near-death experience, because I was not even sure which category it comes, because I was perfectly fine physically. But so many things were shown to me, that made me realize that I had to change my career.

Rick: Tell us what else was shown to you. You mentioned the thing about the 25, which had several different examples of panning out. But what else?

Following Inner Guidance to Healing Work

Purnima: So this one actually, again, is a long story. My mother’s dream was to have one doctor in the family before she passed, because I could not become a doctor. So she was, you know, literally my older son is very smart. So that time he was, he got into the guaranteed medicine program.

Rick: Yeah, I’ll tell you a quick joke before you continue it. This probably applies to Hinduism, but the joke is, “In Judaism, when does a fetus become a human being?” Answer, “When he graduates from medical school.” (Laughter)

Purnima: Probably Indians, I can relate to Indians too. It’s just for my mother, I don’t know. I think now I look back and talking about this podcast interview, I think, you know, this was all pre-planned because I did not talk about this subject for 22 years. Just sat on it. But I think it’s just my mom telling me that you have to share this thing. It’s not for you. So you have to share it. So for her, becoming a doctor was a big thing. So he went, he was in the still college, undergrad, but he was in the guaranteed medicine program. So when she got sick, I went to India and she was losing it actually she would not able to remember me. So I got so sick here, my husband had to take me to India. So when I went there, I told my mom to please hang on because you know, my son he’s going to medical school and she said no, I don’t have, she didn’t say I don’t have time because she was very weak. So he did become a doctor. So what happened, I was working as a a graphic designer at that time. So I worked in graphic design for almost 15-16 years. So when my son went to medical school, some of my money, the paycheck, including my husband, we were supporting him financially. He did not have any loan when he went to medical school. So part of my salary was going for his education. So the day he got the degree from the medical school. I knew one of my job is done. I don’t know how, but I knew that one of the checklist that this is I’m done. So I was telling at my work and all the co-worker, I have some witness probably now, if they remember, I was telling them every day, I don’t want to work here anymore.

Rick: You felt like you were done there.

Purnima: Oh, yes. So I said, my son become a doctor, I don’t want to work here anymore. I want to work in the hospital. And they will look at me, they said, why do you want to work in the hospital? I said, I don’t know. I have to work in the hospital. It’s not that I want to work in the hospital. I have to work in the hospital. So, and again, you know, I’m very intuitive and I always listen. So that’s, I think I got it from my dad. So what happened after a month later, I got laid off. and I was so happy that now I can do whatever I want.

Rick: And you didn’t get laid off because you’re going around saying you shouldn’t work there anymore?

Purnima: No, no, no.

Rick: It just happened.

Purnima: Yeah, because they were cutting down senior people. So my boss was like literally shaking when she hand me laid off paperwork. So when I came home, I told my younger son that I am so happy, now I can do whatever I want. And remember, my family, they are all very intellectual people, my husband, he’s in finance, so it’s all about money, because that’s what he does for 30-40 years. So when I told them that I want to work in the hospital as a volunteer, none of them were happy. They said, “Why do you want to do volunteer? They make millions of dollars, why do you want to give them free time?” I said, “I just want to.” And I said, “I’m not going to listen to either one of of you, my son who was a doctor, he was kind of little reluctant because you can get infection or something when you are visiting patients. So that time I didn’t know that. So my younger son went to the hospital with me to fill the application, volunteer application. And he is a witness. I told him that my dream job is to teach meditation there. And there was no such thing, meditation or prayer at that time. So I started working as a volunteer and I, every time I was cross the chapel, hospital chapel, I get super happy. Like really joy filled me up. And I was, I was just always, I’m a person who likes to feel things. So I was working in the bariatric, um, department.

Rick: Bariatric means elderly people, right?

Purnima: Yeah. Bariatric who get the surgery for their stomach surgery.

Rick: I see. Okay. Yeah.

Purnima: So I was seeing, you know, people and taking them pre-op paperwork and taking the patients to wherever they needed to go. But the voice is keep telling me that you have to see patient. And couple of times.

Rick: And when you say voices, how audible were those voices? Was it just a subtle impulse or was it like a real knock on the shoulder or what?

Purnima: I don’t know how to explain it. I could hear it, but not hear here.

Rick: Right, inner voice.

Purnima: Yeah, inner voice. I can sense it. It’s guiding me. It’s like a guidance. Same thing with my NDE.

Yeah, inner voice. I can sense it. It’s guiding me. It’s like a guidance and it’s not like I’m scared of it.

Rick: That’s another big underlying principle that we’ll talk about more today is guidance. I really feel a lot of it myself, and I think we are being guided. But anyway.

Purnima: Oh, definitely, definitely.

Rick: By whom we can consider, but…

Purnima: Exactly, exactly. I am going there as a patient advocate at 6.30 in the morning, which my husband thought, you’re crazy doing a volunteer work at 6.30 in the morning, half an hour driving. But it keeps telling me that you have to see a patient. And I keep saying, I’m seeing a patient, this bariatric, but it must keep coming. So when it happened a couple of times, some of the hospital staff, they speak the same language what I speak, because you cannot talk this thing to anybody, because they think you are crazy.

Rick: You mean spiritual language or Indian language?

Rick: No, no, no, spiritual. Spiritual language, right.

Rick: I thought you meant Gujarati or something.

Purnima: No, there was no Indian that time there. And they were very high position. Those ladies were like, one was vice president, one has a PhD in nursing, but they were very much into the spiritual stuff. Sure. So somehow the universe bring things together. I truly believe that. I don’t take any credit whatsoever. What I am saying today is all about the universe helping me. So I told them that I said, I’m working in a hospital doing volunteer work, but I keep listening this voice that I have to see a patient. So she said, okay, let’s do one thing. Tomorrow is a volunteer luncheon. So go to that luncheon, attend that lunch. I said, okay. I went to that luncheon is very fancy lunch for the hospital volunteers. So I’m sitting in the table with total stranger, don’t know any single person. And I said, I want to work with patient. Do you know how to do that? And that person next to me said, his name was Don, he passed away, bless him, bless his heart, is an older gentleman. He said, Oh, that means you want to do patient advocate job? I said, I guess, I don’t know. So what they do, they got my information and we have to get the security clearance, kind of security for the, because I’m seeing patient one-to-one, just like I’m seeing, like doctors see, one-to-one patient. So they told us what to do, what not to do. My application got processed in two days and third day I started working as a patient advocate, all three units. They have cancer unit, cardio, pulmonary, internal medicine, all kinds of stuff.

Rick: Nice. And so when you’re meeting these patients one-to-one, what were you… You walk in the room, they don’t know you. How would you break the ice? What would you say?

Purnima: So patient advocate job is to… From the patient side. So my job is when I go to the room, I ask the patient, “How is your treatment? I’m here to help you if you have any question. Do you understand all the doctors explaining it to you? Nurses are explaining it to you? How is the treatment wise? How is the food in the hospital?” So I’m going for the patient side of point of view. And then we have to write a report to the patient advocate supervisor. how was the visit? We call it rounding. How was the rounding today? So we make a note if some patient have complained, we have to go to the charge nurse’s station and tell them that this happened, their medication is messed up or whatever the issue is.

Spiritual Encounters in the Hospital

Rick:  – Yeah. So this somehow evolved into a more spiritual thing where you ended up teaching meditation to people. –

Purnima: Oh, yes. Because I just started doing this work. As soon as I started working the patient advocate job, the voice got quiet. So I knew it, this voice is quiet that I’m in the right place. So what happens slowly, and they told us in the orientation that do not go to the cancer unit. You can go to any rounding to do any patient, but do not go to cancer unit.

Rick: Why would they not want you to go there?

Purnima: Because cancer patient are very sick and very weak.

Rick: They don’t want to be bothered by people.

Purnima: Yeah, exactly. Because they’re getting radiation or chemo. And you don’t ask them, “How are you doing?” So I said, “Okay.” But what happened one day, this whole thing started with divine interventions. So one day by mistake, I went to that unit and we all know, me and you doing this work, there is no accident. So as soon as I went in that unit, one very gracious lady was crying. sobbing.

Rick: Patient?

Purnima: No, not patient, a patient family member. A family member, okay. She was outside the nurse’s station and she was crying. And in the training, they told us not to touch patient, not to touch anybody in the hospital. Like don’t give hug or say hello to them, even though you know them, do not say hello to them unless they say hello to you first for the privacy issue.

Rick: Right.

Purnima: So as soon as I walked in, you know, she was crying. So I stopped and I said to her, “Can I give you a hug?” And she said, “Yes.” And then she hugged me. As soon as she hugged me, she said, “You are here at the perfect time because my husband just died.” So that day I made a promise to myself that I will go to the cancer unit every time I do rounding, which was every Wednesday of the week. So there is two stories behind it, with the divine intervention, how meditation is started because of this divine intervention.

Rick: So did you start teaching meditation to the cancer patients?

Purnima: No, what happened, I love reading. So I love reading books and quotations. So when I was going to the units, people, I will ask them, you know, what do you like to do? They said, can you pray with me? Can you pray for me? So they will ask me questions. They had no idea that it’s about meditation. I was not telling anybody that I like to do meditation, nothing. They have no idea. Not even once.

Rick: Well, you’re an Indian, so you’re kind of a suspect.

Purnima: That is very true. But none of them, none of them, like at the hospital, the staff knew that, you know, they knew I was spiritual because I love sitting in the chapel.

Rick: Yeah.

Purnima: So what happened actually, one day I was visiting one of the patient and a completely dark room. I did not show she had cancer because sometimes in the cancer unit, they have other patient also.

Rick: Right.

Purnima: So we don’t have any access to their, what their sickness is. So I have to fill the rooms. Yes. I went there and I, I peeked, she was sleeping. So I did not want it to bother, but we leave as a patient advocate volunteer, we leave the card in their table that we visited you, we missed you. So they know somebody came to visit, say hello to you. It’s like a hello visit. So when I was about to leave, I guess she heard me coming in the room and she put her both hands on her head like this and she said, “Do you know how to stop the mind?” When I heard that, that’s when my meditation mode started. So I started telling that, you know, only way I know how to stop the mind, not is completely stop, but through meditation. So Then she got curious. So I was telling her about the books from the library. You can watch it on the YouTube. And then she said, “I don’t have TV. We don’t have TV and I don’t have a car. So I’m wondering that this United States, everybody has TV. Why does she not have TV?” So later she told me that she lost her job. So they don’t have, like, they got the, I think the connection.

Rick: They don’t have the cable or the satellite or whatever.

Purnima: Right. So I said, “Okay, don’t worry. I will give you the information from the library. I will print it out and I will bring you one day. So don’t worry. I will give you the information.” So while I’m talking to this person, one person, gentleman, younger man, walked in. And as he walking in the room, again, my voice told me to shake hands with this person. And I don’t know, but I listened to my guidance. That’s all I can say. So I put my one arm out, you know, had shake hands with him. As soon as I shook his hand, the voice said, “You have to help this person.”

Rick: That’s really cool. You get this. Does this happen all the time or these kind of rare occurrences that have happened.

Purnima: This is one time. But even today, I mean, you get, you know, voices. I get all the time, yeah.

Rick: Go this way, go that way, do this.

Purnima: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have many stories. I’m very lazy writing down, but this person just said, “You have to help this person.” So I heard it. So when I came back home, no, not, sorry, so I’m still talking to this lady, And then later on, this gentleman said he lost his job too. So both husband and wife, they don’t have jobs. They don’t have TV. They have only one car. And this person…

Rick: They have kids?

Purnima: No, they never, they didn’t have kids. I think this person was like 15, 16 years younger than from his wife.

Rick: Okay.

Purnima: He looked young and he told me that later on. So she said, you know, that this is the thing we are dealing with and then he told me she is dealing with cancer. So I knew that she has cancer, all the details. So this was Wednesday rounding. So when I came back home, that’s the beauty of it. My husband does not believe in this kind of stuff at all. So when I came home, I told my husband that you have to help this person. I got his phone number and this is his name. and again I don’t know why I’m saying it but because I get the voice that you have to help this person. So my husband said I work for the corporation I don’t own the corporation so don’t ask me to do those things but I said you have to help somehow. So this was it happened on Wednesday evening so Thursday he went to work and then Thursday late he called me and said Remember that guy you were talking about to help? Send him to my office on Friday for the application, to fill the application. I said okay, so I told him go to his office and that is a big corporation, like 8,000 people work for the corporation and any time you get hired it is at least a two-month process. If your application is, your match has been made, you are close to the same match of the application and then the corporation check your background and all those things. So he went to the office on Friday and apply for that job. He was not qualified for that job, but he applied. So my husband came home, he said, “You asked me to do that. I did it, but he’s not qualified. Whatever we are looking for.” I said, “That’s okay. At least least you try. So Monday comes. So Monday, my husband has a meeting with his boss. So he goes to Bethesda. So his boss is asking, did we hire any person for this job? And my husband said, we had one person for the interview on Friday, but he does not match. The qualification is not what you’re looking for. So his boss said, hire him anyway. And my husband saying, hire him anyway. This application has to be processed. It has to go to the human resource. They have to approve it and then we can hire him. He said, no, no, we’ll skip everything. So that happened on Monday. So Monday he came back home and he said, I don’t know what’s happening, but something is happening. So Tuesday, this gentleman went back again to the interview, second time on Tuesday. Wednesday, he got hired. He was hired for the job he was not even matched for. So my husband came home and said, “I don’t know what is happening, but this person got hired.” And I was, you know, thanking whoever put thought in my head to help him, shake hands with him, and find him a job.

Rick: That’s cool. You know, a lot of people, I have skeptical friends who don’t believe in anything, you know, “Woo, Woo” and they would hear a story like this and say, oh, big deal. It doesn’t really mean anything. This is just coincidental. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, this stuff, it happens so much in some people’s lives. And if you are open to the notion that there are sort of higher dimensions, and there are guardian angels, or some kind of intelligence that help to orchestrate the universe and our lives, then this type of stuff is really fascinating. It shows that we are being guided, and especially if we’re open to that guidance, because if you were not so open from the experiences that life has put you through, they wouldn’t have been able to give you this little prompt to do this or that. And there’s this kind of team effort where even the boss, whom you probably have never actually met maybe, he gets a prompt.

Purnima: And that’s exactly what I, you know, when I told the chaplain and Mr. Don who hired me for this job, When I told them this story, they said, “My goodness, this is a divine intervention.” So that’s how, there is two more stories, that’s how the administration find out that this person is going beyond the patient advocate job to helping patients. They asked me, “Would you like to teach meditation?”

Rick: Yeah, there you go. That’s great.

Purnima: There is another story if you want me to share, I can do that.

Rick: I do. Let me just say one more thing here, and maybe you can add this to what you’re about to say, which is that I often think about people who are listening to this show who might be depressed or going through some kind of dark night of the soul or feeling like life is unfair, life is meaningless, or something like that. And I always hope that stories like yours will provide some inspiration to make people feel that we are being loved and cared for, you know, by God, by higher self, by guardian angels, but whatever it may be. But it’s not a dead mechanistic universe. It’s alive, it’s full of love, it’s full of intelligence, and the more we can align ourselves or tune ourselves to that divine frequency, the more blessed our life will be and the more support we’ll get in ways which might seem miraculous, but they actually become kind of ordinary because they begin to happen so often.

Divine Support and the Law of Karma

Purnima: Absolutely, absolutely. What you said is so, so, it’s truth actually. What happened when, whenever any negative happened, you know, I’m talking about from my experience, any time a negative happens, something positive has to come. Yeah. Something positive. It may take a month, it may take a year, it may take a few years. But the universe is so compassionate, has so much compassion. We don’t see it with just five senses.

Rick: Yeah. And some people might think, wait a minute, some really horrible things happen in this world, like the Holocaust or, you know, what the war that’s happening right now. How can you say that something positive? But there have been people who were in those concentration camps who would affirm what you just said. Despite the horror of it, there was some kind of divine orchestration that brought about some better outcome for the world, perhaps. And perhaps even for the individuals who had to go through that horror, because this life is not the only life that we live.

Purnima: Exactly. Yeah. If you, I don’t know any, I cannot preach, but I’m from India, so I know about Bhagavad Gita. Probably a lot of people have heard it. Lord Krishna is explaining it to Arjuna when Arjuna does not want to shoot arrow to his family members because he said you have to kill the people who are doing not justice to the, you know, if you hear, listen to the whole Bhagavad Gita It’s very interesting because we right now whatever happening we don’t see it, we see it from the full point of view of the divine intelligence.

Rick: Yeah, if you could zoom out to a God’s eye view. Right, yeah.

Purnima: Yeah. So that’s why I think you know whoever is dealing with you know sickness or anything, the first thing I suggest people to feel your pain because this is real. this right now feels real and feel the pain and then always ask for help because whenever we ask for help, then we do get help.

Rick: Yeah, good point.

Purnima: But the main thing is to ask for help because they do not want to intervene. You know, the God, that’s why the God or goal of divine, I call it, gave us free will. Unless I ask for help, you don’t get help. Yeah.

The main thing is to ask for help because they do not want to interfere in your life. They wait for you to ask.

Rick: And, There’s an Indian saying, I don’t know the Hindi of it or the Sanskrit, but it’s the means collect around sattva.

Purnima: Yes. You know?

Rick: And sattva means like purity or spiritual merit. So if we can, and there’s also that, what’s it called? I forget, maybe the word will come to me. Spiritual merit, you know, it starts with a P, there’s a word for that, but punya. So the more spiritual merit we can amass, the more the means collect around and things help to support you and you get nature’s support more.

Purnima: Right. That’s what my mom and dad taught us from the beginning. There is a saying that “Neki kar uve me dal.” That means do good deeds for others and forget about it. Don’t do good deeds and then brag about it to everybody.

Rick: Right

Purnima: So the more you do good for the humanity, like, you know, you are doing it for this, you know, with the, through this podcast, because not everybody’s open to this subject. Not even my family, none of them interested in after death communication. I think the word death is scare people.

Rick: Yeah.

After-Death Communication:  A Verified Story

Purnima: So when you say after death communication, it is scared them so much. they said do not talk in front of me. So none of them have seen my podcast.

Rick: That’s interesting. It’s funny that people have that attitude because everybody’s going to die. You might as well get a sense of what’s going to happen.

Purnima: And my mom told me everything. She told me everything what will happen because now with all the research people are thinking near death experience, they are going to that side and coming back, all about the spirit. She told me when I was probably between 15 or 18, literally, and that I experienced during her death. So that’s the one I shared in the after death communication in the conference. Okay, so I have one more story about the patient advocate job. So again, this I did not know, she had cancer. So I will visit her room and because I was going every Wednesday. Sometimes I have seen the same patient for many months and they will remember me because I will go and visit them. So this patient I was talking to them and she loved prayer. She said, “Can you pray for me?” I said, “Sure.” So she will give me the Bible. I will read Bible with her and she’s soft like a flower, literally, like she was 35 year old. So later on she told me that I have cancer and I would love to read whatever you are giving me the information but I don’t have any strength to do that. So I said okay I am going to make a summary chapter of Course of Miracle and Return to Love which is Marian Williamson book. So I was sending her chapter by chapter like summary just like 4 or 5 lines to the email and she will read. So slowly she got close to me, like she will talk to me in details about her life and everything. So one day she invited me at home. Actually she did not have a ride actually, going from the hospital and God put me in front of her seven times, not one time, two times, seven times. And that day I was going in the hospital and she was I think released from the outpatient and she needed a ride. So her mother was coming from Washington DC and it will take her an hour or something. So she asked me that I live very close to hospital, would you mind giving me a ride? And again I’m so scared, I don’t want to give a ride to any stranger and she is a stranger to me. But some reason I did, I gave her a ride, so I knew where she lived. So slowly she will tell me that she has never seen her father since she was born and her mother had an affair with a married man and she got pregnant and she had seen the picture of her father but never met her. So when doctor told her she would not live more than 6 months, she wanted me to find her father. So what happened, he was a known person so she found him on the internet, his phone number and she gave it to me. So she will put his picture on the laptop as a screensaver. So the screensaver on the picture, this gentleman is wearing a light blue shirt and then yellow tie. So she’s looking at this picture all the time whenever she’s in the hospital treatment. So whenever I visit her in the hospital she will show me the picture of her father. So she told me can you call and just leave a message for my father that I just want to see him before I die. I don’t want anything from him, but just leave a message. So I did leave a message one time. Then I left second message. Then I left third message. Never heard from him. So I said, you know, I left three messages. So I’m going to just leave it. I’m not going to call him again anymore. So one day I was talking to her on the phone in the hospital and she said it was like, no, I think I was visiting on that day. It was dark after the visiting hour and then when I came back home and he called me or I called I don’t remember exactly and she said Purnima you will never believe what happened. I said what happened? She said my dad came to visit me after the visiting hour was over. So it was quiet nobody was there and since she was in hospice care they allow you if you tell them want to visit. So she visited her father and guess what he was wearing?

Rick: Same thing as on the screensaver?

Purnima: Yes, a sky blue shirt and yellow tie.

Rick: It’s the only shirt and tie he owns.

Purnima: I was so surprised and again the hospital find out and they gave me an award for that.

Rick: They gave you an award?

Purnima: Because an award in that sense that she went beyond patient advocacy.

Rick: above and beyond the call of duty.

Purnima: Yeah. Right. So her last wish was to meet his father. So her father came to the funeral also. But her mother and daughter was fighting till end of the life. And she told me that, that Purnima, one day you will teach meditation here and you will write a book. But I started teaching meditation, but not about the book. But that’s how the hospital find out the beauty of it, my son who became a doctor, the hospital started a program and they need a grant. Anytime we start a program in the hospital, there’s a lot of things involved, not just me.

Rick: A lot of red tape

Purnima: Right, so you have to give all the articles. So they said, “Purnima, we would like you to teach here but we want a concrete, you know, like journal, medical journal that meditation does help people, even though everybody knows, but they need to have the document.

Rick: Yeah, there’s tons of research.

Purnima: Right, so my son who became a doctor, he provided me, he’s a medical doctor, so he provided me all the medical journals benefiting about the meditation.

Rick: Yeah.

Purnima: See how everything is connected? It all connects. Because he has an MD degree, I don’t, so he provided, he was a big help for starting this program.

Rick: Nice.

Purnima: And I end up teaching there before COVID. After COVID, they stopped this program.

Rick: You know, there’s another nice underlying principle to all these things you’re saying, which is the idea of seva or selfless service, which is considered a major, I mean, in Indian tradition, it’s a very important spiritual practice. And it can be very potent in attenuating the ego and making you more humble and increasing purity and expanding the heart. I’m making it sound like it’s just good for you, but you are actually the prime beneficiary when you’re helping others, even though your intention is not to be the the prime beneficiary, but that’s the way it works.

Purnima: Exactly. Yeah. Because I got so much from doing how volunteer work for 16 years. And because of all the, because I was dealing with patient and hospital, all the hours benefited me starting the program because even though I had a background in ultra transcendental meditation and my parents always, always taught us to do Seva. volunteered is all Seva and don’t expect money or anything, which I still do a lot of volunteer work. And my both children, one is a scientist, one is a doctor, they also do a lot of volunteer work also. So that is ingrained in our, I think, DNA as a, as a, from India.

Rick: Yeah. And of course, other cultures have it too. There’s a lot of Christian groups that do all kinds of great work and things like that. But it’s, it’s very good for the culturing the personality to serve in some way like that. So did you have another thing you wanted to say because I have another question to ask you.

Purnima: This one again is the one of the patient and the person, the story I told about the job, the person who got the job, the lady who passed, actually whenever hospital actually knew that I was doing this kind of work, so the nurses will tell me to go to that room, that person is dying, this person is dying, so I will go and sit in that room. So when these two patients, the one I talk about, the husband found a job, and the other lady who found her father, when they both died, I was there with them. Because the hospital called me and they said they wanted you to be here. So I went there and I witnessed. So that was a very sacred moment for me.

Rick: I interviewed a guy, I think it might be Rob Schwartz, might have been his name, but his specialty was shared death experiences. You know, you’ve heard of near-death experiences where you almost die, but there’s shared death experiences where you’re not dying, but you’re in the room with somebody who is, or maybe you’re connected with them and you’re not even near them, but you somehow partake of what they’re going through.

Purnima: I had that with my father.

Rick: You had that with your father?

Purnima: Yes.

Rick: So what happened there?

Purnima: Oh, that’s another story. With my mother, I don’t know if you want to hear about the after-death communication with my mom.

Rick: We can do that. And there’s one other thing I want you to throw in when you get a chance, which is that apparently you later had another collapse and an NDE-like experience with a sense of three beings and your father present and something was pushing out through your neck. So bring that in at some point too.

Purnima: Yeah, it is. So let me explain that one. The second one, I think it happened 23 or 22.

Rick: So about four years ago?

Purnima: Right. Yeah, almost. My, she’s three and a half. Yeah, almost. I think 22. So this one, actually, I had a warning. It was like a two weeks warning that something is going to happen and I again you know I can only explain what I can feel it I don’t have any proof or anything but it was getting to me that something is going to something is coming it’s not something is happening to me something is coming so that particular day this happened and the other incident which was a prior to is hard to relate with the linear thing so when this happened when I had the experience, I was perfectly fine. And I came down the stairs and we were having breakfast and my husband, I told him, I don’t feel good, but perfectly, I was perfectly fine. But I’m telling him that I don’t feel good. So ask for help. Again, I don’t know why I’m saying it.

Rick: You wanted him to ask for help?

Purnima: Yeah

Rick: What, like call 911 or something?

Purnima: Because he is not good asking for help. He likes to give help, like not asking for help. So that day, I came down the stairs and we were having tea and the breakfast. I have not eaten yet, but I was telling him that I don’t feel good, but I don’t know how to explain, but ask for help if you need to. And he’s standing behind me. And by the time I’m explaining it to him. I was having a breakfast and I literally, my head went down.

Rick:  – Right into the oatmeal or something.

Purnima:  – I was having a banana bread. And I remember moment by moment when I dropped, he, since he was behind me, he told me later on, I didn’t know that time.

Rick:  – He catch your shoulders or something?

Purnima:  – He caught me and he said, “You were so heavy.” He could not able to hold me because I was about to drop on the floor. And thank goodness his phone was in his pocket. So he called the 911, whilr he’s holding with me, holding on me actually.

Rick:  – What was it? What happened to you? Heart attack or?

Purnima:  – Nothing, 911 came and they could not find anything wrong.

Rick:  – Weird. P ; – So what happened, I did not put two and two together at all that day. So I just rested all day that day. But then I remember two weeks prior when I was getting the hint that something is coming, I was doing meditation that time. Sometimes in the daytime I lay down and I’m feeling I’m on my left side, right? I’m on the left side and I’m in the trance state or I don’t know how to call it, maybe lucid dreaming. I know I’m dreaming, but I’m completely awake. But this was this is during my meditation. So I know I’m doing my meditation and a lot of times I get sleep paralysis. My body does not move.

Rick: Right.

Purnima: I’m aware of it.

Rick: Do you meditate lying down as part of the practice? Is that the instruction?

Purnima: Not instruction wise, but I do both.

Rick: OK. You sometimes sit up, sometimes lie down?

Purnima: Most of the time lie down.

Rick: OK. That’s comfortable. So that beats practicing Zen and having to stay in Lotus the whole time

Purnima: Right, actually I found out.

Rick: Having somebody hit you with a stick.

Purnima: Right, my father used to do that I didn’t know that. I think I got it from my dad and he was very intuitive He told us then which day my mother will die and he she died the same day.

Rick: Right I heard you tell us that.

Purnima: So that day on my left side I’m doing meditation because I know I’m doing meditation. I’m doing my chanting. I’m doing my talking when I’m doing my chanting chanting, I’m also talking to the divine, whatever my plan is, then I get, I’m getting the download. And I know that I cannot turn around my head this side on my right side. And I know three being, that’s all I can say. Three being is sitting, giving me all the details, but I don’t remember anything. But I sense my dad’s presence on the kitchen, which was like maybe like five, six feet away from where I was laying down. So that day I realized when I had this experience and I felt that somebody, somebody right here where my neck is and my head is literally pushed me up and the beauty of it. I knew something was happening and I was not attached to anything that something is happening. What will happen to me? What happened to my children? What happened to my life? What, like I was not worrying about anything. I was in complete peace when I had this experience. And they could not find anything wrong. So when I put thing back together two weeks prior, then I realized that this was shown to me, but I think my father was there to support me that this is not her time yet.

Rick:  – Yeah.

Purnima:  – That’s what I got.

Rick:  – Was your father physically alive at this point? Or you feel like it was your father’s soul or spirit or something?

Purnima:  – Right, my father passed away in 2003, March.

Rick:  – I see. – This happened in 2003. – So you felt his presence.

Purnima:  – Oh yes, definitely. I felt his presence very strongly. So then I realized that day, again, not that day, but it again takes me a couple of months or more than a few months to realize that what happened, it was not my time. My father was saying it’s not her time.

Rick:  – Did you get the sense that your father has become some kind of a guardian angel for you or something?

Purnima:  – I have five of those.

Rick:  – Five of them?

Purnima:  – One is my grandmother, my father’s mom. One is my father, my mother, and this is the three, and one is my own divine presence. And I think now my sister, I just, my sister just passed away two weeks ago.

Rick: Oh, my condolences.

Purnima: Yeah. Completely like within a day, nothing was wrong. Little bit like, you know, she was 74, something was like issue with her asthma because she gets asthma sometimes she’s in India. So she got sick, but I think she had a sense of her death or something, a one, one month prior because she talked to me a lot on that day, 21st of January or 22nd of January, and she passed 21st of February. So I know for sure these people are behind me. It’s a whole team.

Rick:  – Yeah. Aside from certain events having come to pass in your life, such as working in the hospital or teaching meditation in the hospital and different things like that, Do you feel that these NDEs have changed you in some fundamental way? Like you’re kind of a different person day to day, moment to moment, than you would have been if you hadn’t had these NDEs?

Purnima: I think so. Especially year 2000 when my ego cracked, literally my head opened. And I needed that, I think, so badly.

Rick: You really, literally felt like it was opening?

Purnima: Kind of because of the ego. Because at that time I was living all about me, me, me. Not about, you know, I was, you know, has the same spiritual practice, but not to that point that self-love. That’s what I teach now. I did not have self-love for me at all.

Rick: So you feel like you shifted from being self-oriented and self-serving to other-oriented and other-serving.

Purnima: Exactly, Yes, definitely. I was doing it still by doing my volunteer work that time, but I was not, I do will not stand up for myself. Like if somebody criticized me or put me down, you know, I will cry. Then I will get headache. Then I get emotional, all kinds of stuff. And then my son who was, who’s a doctor now, he used to tell me that, stand up for yourself, get a backbone. So I think, I think it was very much needed in 2000 and I started to see the changes in me. Uh, I don’t, uh, after that, I don’t like, you know, too many crowd, uh, where the crowd is. I don’t like crowd. I cannot wear perfumes. I don’t like very bright light. So, and my,

Rick: I see it became more sensitive to environmental things.

Purnima: Super sensitive. Yeah.

Rick: Does that seem like a handicap in a way? Cause you can’t go to Walmart or something because of the lights.

Purnima: No, I can go to the Walmart, but I cannot go to the crowd. Like, you know, they’re having a concert.

Rick: Yeah, you don’t like…

Purnima: It’s too much like…

Rick: Chaotic situations.

Purnima: Yeah, I cannot handle crowd anymore.

Rick: Yeah. And I wouldn’t consider that to be a detriment. You know, that happens to many spiritual people. They just lose interest and they don’t need a lot of hyper stimulation. You know, they’d rather have it quiet.

Purnima: Yeah. And I have to have quiet time for me. Yeah. So when I teach, because I’m busy with teaching, but I keep like two days for me, literally doing nothing.

Rick: Nice. Yeah.

Purnima: So I have shared that experience with my dad. He was in India and I was here and I have after death communication with my mom, which again, I did not know about after death communication, Literally after her death, literally.

Rick: Quite soon after her death or to this day?

Purnima: Same day.

Rick: Same day. And was it really specific and unmistakable or was it more like a vague feeling or something?

Purnima: I’m going to back up a little bit because when she was sick, when I called, when I was here and I called and she could not able to recognize me, I literally break down. I was wanting to go to India but emotionally I was very drained. So my husband took me, we both went to India and she was in the hospital. She came back home and I was sobbing so much looking at her because she was never in the hospital. So and she was very weak and she was she could not able to talk. She could hear me but very softly she will say something but I was weeping so hard. My father was next to the same room and my father told one of the family member to remove me from the room said because of Purnima she cannot die. So when I heard that I was literally stunned, I was so shocked that why did he say that because of me she cannot die. And I remember because I had some unfinished emotional business with her. I had some complaint that you never loved me me all kind of again, it’s all the selfishness. So when I heard that I literally stopped crying, like a flipping a switch on and off. And all of a sudden I remember when she told me when I was in late teenage year, that when I’m going home, when I’m dying, do not yell, scream, make a fuss, make a scene. So let me go peacefully because soul wants to go home peacefully. So, and, and literally she told me what to do. So, I started doing my satsang, what we do as a prayer. So, I sat next to her and I said, you know, I am doing prayer and everything. And she was very afraid of dying. That was the biggest thing. She was afraid of dying. That what will happen when I die. So, I’m sitting next to her and I’m telling her that I don’t have any grudge with her. I know you love me and you can go peacefully and I will be fine and you will be fine. So I put my right hand on her chest, left on her head and saying that go peacefully. And my father asked us what day is today. So I told today is Thursday. And he said, Sunday she will be gone. And she did die on Sunday. But what happened prior to that, when I was doing the prayer with her, I said, just show me that you can hear me. And I last when she went to, she was of course on the bed, but I said good night to her and I said, you know, our sacred word Radha Swami to her and she, she was, you know, on the on the facing my father’s side. So in the morning when I went to see my dad, I peeked and my father said she’s gone. So she did die on Sunday. So when doctor came to give her the death certificate, home, I felt something came from her to me. Energetically speaking, again, I had no idea what was that, but I could feel it, I could sense it, that something came. And because I knew prior that she was afraid of death, because she told me, I’m looking at her body and I’m telling her in my mind that you are my mother, so you have to tell me what happened after you are gone. I’m laughing now, but I was in so much pain that time and my father was in so much pain. Literally, she started coming to me right away. I could I could feel her presence. I could feel her touch. I could feel her smell. And then, you know, she guided me literally coming from Ranchi to my home because I was so sick. I was not able to able to travel by myself. I was in very bad situation, emotionally and physically.

Rick: So you probably were aware that she was not afraid of death anymore.

Purnima: She helped me so much. I think once the physical body is gone, because this is a density, when the density is gone, I think the energy is much easier to feel it. And I felt her presence at least three to six months in my home. And she literally brought me home because I was getting panic attack or anxiety or something And doctor was wanting to give me medication in Delhi because my layover in Switzerland was like 10 hours. But whole period of time, I was praying with my mom that I have to reach home. I came here for you. So you have to bring me back home safely. So I felt her presence on my right shoulder all the way from Ranchi to Delhi, from Delhi to USA till I reach home. And even then, I think three to six months, I felt her presence. And it was very calm. I was never afraid. And I will tell my both kids that I feel her presence.

Rick:  – Cool. Now you work in a hospital and you’re working around people who die all the time.

Purnima:  – But I was working hospital 2008. This happened in 2002.

Rick:  – But these days you work in a hospital. And so you’re around people all the time who are going to die. And there’s a lot of verses in the Gita about this. Krishna says things like, you grieve for those for whom there should be no grief, but speak as do the wise. Wise men grieve neither for the dead nor for the living.

Purnima:  – Right.

Rick:  – And he’s not saying be indifferent or insensitive. He’s saying, death is not that big a deal actually, because you don’t die.

Purnima:  – Exactly, yeah.

Rick:  – And so, as a hospital worker who is around death a lot, who is around death a lot, how has your understanding and through the experiences you’ve had enabled you to be more effective in that capacity and perhaps a greater comfort to those who don’t have the understanding you do about death not being the final end of our existence?

Purnima:  – I think a very good question. Again, Divine is helping me and my team, Of course, my mom is helping because she used to tell us that when they are getting old, that nobody come and talk to them. So I made a promise to myself that whenever I have time, I will talk to old people. So old people you can find in the hospital. So when I got laid off, that’s why I wanted to work in the hospital. So after COVID, I’m not doing anything in the hospital because they stopped the program. But I think it was supporting. And my son, who’s a doctor, he was asking me that, “How do you deal with people who’s dying? And you work with people who are dying, and in the hospital, you hear all those sad story, and how come you don’t get depressed?” And literally, I do not get depressed. And the reason I know for sure that this divine intelligence who is working through this body is helping me. So I’m not doing the work, I’m getting the job done through this vehicle.

Rick:  – Right.

Purnima:  – So that’s why I think they got close to me, all the patient got close to me, and they asked me to pray and sit with them. Because a lot of even family member, they are so scared of the death of the family member, they don’t want to go and visit.

Rick:  – Yeah. So do you, well, you say you’re not working in the hospital anymore,

Purnima: because after the COVID they stopped the program.

Rick: Yes, they stopped the program But what sort of things did you do to diminish people’s fear of death, both the people who are about to die and their loved ones who are hanging around? Was it just your presence or did you give them philosophical insights about death and afterlife and NDEs and all that kind of stuff? Or what, what did you do to kind of make it easier transition for everybody.

Purnima: I think I’m here in this, that is my purpose. I think I have interviewed with Peter Williams. I was telling the experience about the shared death experience. I think since I helped my mom for the transition, I am getting help from the divine to help people for the transitioning.

Rick: Yeah, so like right now, for instance, let’s say there are people listening to this who either have a terminal illness and they’re probably going to die or they have loved ones and family members who are going to die. What can you say to them in words here that would make it easier for them?

Purnima: Okay, the only thing I can suggest, you know, for me, prayer works very well. Always ask for help, but at the same time, remember, you are never, ever alone. We are never alone. We have guidance, we have whatever we can name it, does not matter. For me, I feel presence, I feel energy. You don’t have to see it, but you can sense it. So that’s what I was telling my patient that and most of them, when the beauty of humanity is right now, you know, we fight over religion. That’s why I hate using word religion, because when we are dying, whoever is dying, they don’t care for religion. They said, “Can you pray for me?” So I was praying for Jew, I was praying for Christian, I can pray for Muslim, I was praying for Hindu. That time, nobody asked you, “What religion are you? Can you pray for me?” But we went to that low point to realize how big the soul is. I think that’s why I said that this reality, we are every one of us is connected, every one of us. So if you think you are alone, you are not alone. So whatever gives you comfort, either your parents stuff, something you want to hold physically, Bible, Bhagavad Gita, whatever is sacred thing with you, hold on to that and ask. That’s the key word, ask for help. And whenever we ask for help, we always get help.

Rick: Do you feel the people who are dying are more inclined to believe that if they ask for help, someone will hear them? In other words, does approaching death tend to make a person more spiritual, even if they’ve been insensitive to that sort of thing throughout most of their life?

Purnima: I think so. I think so because…

Rick: Yeah, there’s that saying, you know, there’s no atheists in foxholes. Foxholes are what they dig in World War I and everything to avoid getting shot. No atheists in foxholes.

Purnima: Okay. I think so because then we realize that this is not the end. And again, In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells this thing that nobody dies. But until it happens, because I literally look forward when I’m transitioning, because my mother told me that this, then that day you will see this is the biggest movie theater. You will see everybody’s playing a role for us to be awakened. So every one of us is helping each other. That does not mean that you don’t feel pain because I was in pain and grief for seven years losing my mom and dad because my father never got up from the bed when my mom died.

Rick: Right, he just stayed in the same bed for seven months.

Purnima: For seven months and he died and I had a shared experience with him but who right now whose people are dying in the transition period, please remember that however you define God or faith, have faith in the divine intelligence. I really request you to have faith because nobody dies alone. Everybody says, I have family members who witnessed it, they tell that this person is here before they die, they said this person is here in their sleep or they are murmuring. So we know, and my father used to tell me that my mom is coming to get him. And I will tell him, don’t go now because my son was going to the medical school. So I want to bring him there to get his blessing before he goes. So I went again in India to get his blessing. So he went after one month. So I literally held him not to go because I had the same dream. My father had that dream about my grandmother and my mom coming and getting him. So nobody goes alone.

Rick: No. You know, I think it would be good advice for everybody, really, but anybody who is concerned about death, afraid of death, facing death because you’re ill or a loved one is ill or or something like that, I think it would be really good to watch near-death experience videos. There’s plenty of them on my channel and on YouTube. There’s whole channels devoted to NDEs, or read books by people like Betty Eadie or Danny and Brinkley or James Van Praag or all these people who’ve had near-death experiences. And particularly read Michael Newton, who wrote “Journey of Souls,” I believe it was called, where he hypnotized all these people back to the point between lives, rather than even past lives, between lives. And they all said the same thing, basically, charted out a very similar territory. But if you watch enough of these videos or read enough of these books, it sinks in. You know, and you realize, people aren’t all hallucinating this stuff. They’re actually dipping into a realization of the way it works. And you just kind of, it changed. I just feel like if you gain that intuitive and understanding, you live life so differently than if you believe that this is all you are, this physical body, and when this dies, you’re finished. I mean, it’s a whole different orientation to life.

Purnima: Yes, definitely true. Because when we are thinking about just me, what I want to get, I want to gather, this life is so rich when we realize and I really hope many people have ND, not like dying, dying experience, but some kind of, you know, this artificial simulation, this technology is having just for them to have the taste of it. How does it feel? And then you can relate to that because this is not the end. And of course, you know, we miss people, but then you come to the different perspective that we are here to help people, we are here to serve humanity, and we are all here together.

Rick: Yeah, I think both in Buddhism and Hinduism, there’s that phrase “die before you die.”

Purnima: Exactly, yeah. And what that means… That was exactly for me in 2000, year 2000, that experience, die before you die, and 2022.

Rick: But you don’t have to have a near-death experience to do that, which can be risky because you might actually die, you can do it with spiritual practice. Because in a way, if you go deep into samadhi, the individuality dies in a sense. It doesn’t really die, but it dissolves. The drop dissolves into the ocean, at least momentarily. And if you experience that enough times, you become more ocean-like permanently. And there’s just very little sense that you’re only a drop, which can evaporate or disappear.

Purnima: That’s why meditation is so powerful. Meditation in my class, when I teach meditation, many people have experiences during the class because I have testimony, I keep testimony because sometimes other people who are not open to it, they want to read other people’s testimony. Because when you do meditation, when I’m sitting in the stillness, then you can hear the God. When I’m praying, you are talking to God. And God, in my opinion, G-O-D is goal of divine. So when I’m doing meditation, I’m listening. So if I’m quiet, I can listen carefully and then the main thing, ask for help and then follow up. Don’t think that it has to have a logic behind it because the intuition, intelligence has no logic behind it.

Rick: Yeah. Yes. Becoming quiet is a theme. It says in the Bible, “Be still and know that I am God.” and it says in Yoga Sutras, “Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” So there’s always this emphasis on a quietening down or stilling of the mind. If you use the analogy of a lake or a pond, if the water is all choppy and agitated, the sun can’t reflect very well off it. But when the water becomes still, the reflection can be as blinding as the sun itself. So a quiet mind reflects pure awareness or the inner divine much more readily than a noisy mind.

Purnima:  – Yeah, because I literally, you said, I can sit all day in stillness. That much I love stillness, because it’s just, the more you do, I think that anybody who does meditation, you know you cannot live without stillness. Because all the information comes through stillness. It’s all the database. all And the other thing I want to emphasize for the intuition or guidance, that it has no emotion behind it. When I get the information, there is no emotion behind it.

Rick: What do you mean by that?

Purnima: I mean that, like you said, you shake hands with this person. So it’s like a period. It’s no judgment, nothing. If I am quiet enough to listen, it’s a wish. It comes and goes. If I act on it or don’t act on it, it’s my choice. And the same time he said, you know, you have to have this person. So I might, am I taking the action because action is necessary. It’s not like when you do meditation, you are doing anything. Yes, you are not doing anything, but everything getting done through this divine intelligence. So the key is to listen and then act. because without action, nothing going to happen.

Rick:  – Do you ever have trouble distinguishing between this sort of divine guidance or intuition and your own personal whims? For instance, do you ever misread or ignore guidance because you think it’s just a whim or do you ever get a whim to do this or that and you think it’s divine guidance but it doesn’t work out so well?

Purnima:  – Yeah, very good question. And the difference is when the ego is talking, the thing behind is your chattering mind will get boost that, Oh, this is good for my ego that, Oh, the people will say, Oh, she did that work. And so it will boost your ego. But then the divine intelligence come, it has, that’s what I said. There is no emotion behind it. it just give you the information as a whoosh like a nanosecond and then just leave. If I am listening carefully, I will do it. If I don’t listen, it comes back. Like I said, like three times it gave me the, I heard that you have to work with patient. Even though I was working with bariatric patient, but it was keep telling me you have to, you have to see patient. So when I start seeing patient one to one, this voice is stopped. So I’m a very good, obedient person listening to Divine. Because I know when I do not listen to Divine, I get a harder knock on your head. So I’m very good listening since 2000.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a saying from India, I don’t know which part of India or which tradition, but it’s something like, “For the wise, only an indication is necessary.” In other words, a subtle hint. You don’t have to be whapped upside the head in order to get the message.

Purnima: Right, my father used to say that you’re going to, you know, like he used to tell my mom, “Don’t teach them anything because life will teach them.” So he will tell us, “You’re going to do it. Either you like it or not, but you’re going to do it. Either cry and do it or accept it and do it.” And he was very intuitive. So he always told us in the childhood, in our brain, in our head, that whenever guidance comes, trust.

Rick: And I wouldn’t say to parents, “Don’t teach them anything because life will teach them.” Parents are part of life.

Purnima: Oh, I used to, I used to challenge my mom all the time. That’s why he used to tell me.

Rick: I see, because you were so, you were such a hard case.

Purnima: Right, yes. That’s why I think she’s working through me and, and I think I was maybe, I, after the conference, I literally told her that I’m done. Now I share this thing in the next conference, everybody hear it. And then I heard the voice, but my dad, how about me?

Rick: Yeah.

Purnima: And then I said, “Oh my goodness.” So that I had a shared experience with him. So I talked to Monica Williams and Peter Williams about that.

Forgiveness, Self-Love, and Emotional Healing

Rick:  – Well, since you’re mentioning this about your mother, let’s say for somebody watching this who has a deep resentment toward a parent or a partner, what would be a realistic first step toward self-love and forgiveness, both of oneself perhaps, and of the person whom you so resent, rather than just suppressing the hurt? How can you, what’s a good way to work it out?

Purnima:  – It’s a very good question. And one thing I emphasize that unless and until I reach to that forgiveness part, nothing good can come to me. And because when I’m in the fear mode, the frequency is very low. So it’s not easy to forgive, But at the same time, the first thing worked for me, write journal. Write it down without filtering how you feel because feeling your emotion is very, very important. Like a lot of time people say, you know, just move on, shake it off. I don’t think so. It works. So writing down your emotion and then ask for help. And what I mean by that, if you’re, I’m not talking about the abuse case or any like very high scenario, like those kinds of things, but when we have challenged with our parents or whoever, write it down. Because all the origin of the emotion is inside me. Not everything bothers about everybody else. If somebody is triggering me something, then pay attention where you get triggered. either if your throat choke or if your heart gets tight, muscle gets tight or neck, shoulder, your belly, your back because your body gives you sensation right away when I don’t feel good. So that’s the number one point. Feel your emotion. Second, write down your emotion. Writing down it has to come out from my body. So when I write it down on the piece of paper is coming through my body on the pen on the piece of paper and that helps great deal. Third, try doing meditation and when I say try, actually try is not a correct word ,when I say try it sometimes people either do it or not. Make a habit just like we brush every morning, we take shower every morning, we take care of this hygiene every morning, take a moment in the morning and nighttime to have gratitude that I’m grateful for whatever I have at this moment. Because as long as I’m breathing and my body’s functioning, I have no problem. Because if somebody is on the oxygen or cannot walk or something, if you ask them, they will trade their place with you in a moment. So gratitude works huge, huge for us, for the well-being. And forgiveness is not about the other person, because forgiveness is very long. It took me losing my mother to realize how much pain she was in when she had me. So when I truly forgive her, watching Bill Guggenheim’s video “Hello from Heaven” he talks about after that communication when I forgave her literally I felt so light and then one of my article got published in the Eckhart Tolle newsletter because Eckhart Tolle book “A New Earth” literally freed me because if somebody wants to read about the pain body how the pain body works he explained it very well, very easy way to in that book. So if you do those three things, you will see the difference. And that’s what I suggest.

Unless and until I reach to that forgiveness part, nothing good can come to me. And because when I’m in the fear mode, the frequency is very low.

Rick: You know, one thing I find myself doing, my father fought in World War II and he had a very bad case of what they now know to be PTSD. And he was an alcoholic and a chain smoker. And he kept the family awake several nights a week, yelling at my mother, and she ended up trying to commit suicide three times and spending my adolescence in and out of mental hospitals. So it was rough. But I could easily be very resentful of my father. But I find myself spontaneously putting myself in his shoes, imagining myself having had to fight in World War II or for my generation, Vietnam, and seeing his buddies blown up and having to operate a machine gun in the tail of a bomber and all this intense stuff. And then, you know, there but for the grace of God go I. I could have—and then I contemplated his good qualities. He held down a job. He was a talented artist. He grew an organic garden in the backyard in the 1950s when people didn’t grow organic gardens and we had all this fresh vegetables and we gave him a hard time. “Oh, I don’t like zucchini,” you know, things like that. I feel apologetic for that, but I just kind of rehash in my mind’s eye and in my feelings and it naturally conjures up feelings of gratitude and forgiveness, you know, by being able to put myself in his shoes, you know, and, you know, imagine that I very well could have been the same way if I had gone through similar traumas.

Purnima: Exactly, because I think that’s why we have this body, because unless and until I have the experience, I will never learn. So till you have the experience, till I had the experience losing my mom, I felt so much, I felt like orphan. And then I realized, my dad told me when I was born, you know, she was dealing with some issue and then she was not able to take care of me. So my dad and my sister was taking care of me. So I had no childhood memory with her. I knew it. And I, I, that’s, it started to bother me age 35. Before I was fine, but I knew in the childhood, even I was a baby, I could sense everything. So all the patient who got close to me, amazingly, they all had issue with mother. That’s the beauty of it. I’m laughing now, but I do private session also. I work with people and that’s what I literally tell them to, you know, a few things before they start working with me, because you have to have gratitude for everything, because compassion, when I know this person is coming from this painful situation, you know, then you can have compassion for that person instead of hate or madness. So you have to, in order to understand the other person, you have to feel the same pain because we are all together. We all feel the same pain. We are in the pain. We all feel happy. We all feel joy, blissful. We are all connected. So whatever I’m feeling, I’m not feeling that day, ask for guidance. We are always being guided and we are never alone. That I know.

Rick:  – And one nice thought also, and this is in Native American and Hindu and Buddhist and other traditions, is that if you pursue a spiritual path, then you exert an influence on many generations going back and going forward. So I like to think that, you know, what I’ve been doing all these years is lifting my parents up and helping them to resolve the stuff that they had to carry through life. I’m hoping that I’m having an uplifting influence on them.

Purnima: I think they call it ancestral healing, right?

Rick: Yeah, that kind of thing.

Purnima: Because I think everybody, every parent or each person is doing their best for their conscious level, wherever they are. And we are here to evolve. The consciousness is here to evolve because I’m doing, you know, researching on the consciousness for last 25 years. And in India, you know, in Hinduism or in Bhagavad Gita, it’s all Krishna talk about how we are evolved. We need to evolve, like we have to go to first grade, then second grade, then 10th grade, then PhD. You cannot do just do PhD first. We have to go through each level. Why? So each level we have to go through this physical pain, we call it emotional pain, ego, whatever we call it, in order to learn. So even though it’s painful, please pray, because ask for help and tell that thank you for this experience, because you never know why you are having this experience. Three years from now, something will happen and then you realize, “Oh, if this did not happen three years ago, I wouldn’t have come to this journey.” So each step, each experience, no experience ever gets wasted, in my opinion.

Manifestation, Intention, and Pure Purpose

Rick: Yeah, that’s good. There’s a few other points in my notes here that we could talk about a little bit. You spoke of manifestation in some of your talks, and you put it about having a clear intention, Feeling as if it’s already done, which is something Jesus said too. He said, “Whatsoever you wish, imagine or believe that you already have it, and you shall receive it.” Something like that. And then letting go of the intention. In other words, not obsessing about it or hanging on to it, but dropping it. Patanjali talks about that too. In fact, he has a process in the Yoga Sutras called Sanyama, where you take an intention and then you just let it settle back into the into Samadhi. And then if you do it right, then there’s some kind of fulfillment of that intention.

Purnima: Yeah, it’s a perfect example actually. My husband’s older brother, he died with cancer 36, 38 years ago. So we dealt with cancer issue many at that time, very painful experience. And that time also I was also had in mind that I would love to help people who had cancer, but again, I did not know how this will manifest. So what happened when I was working in hospital and these patients who I was telling you a story about, they were having cancer, I was listening to Hay House Radio with Wayne Dyer talk. So one day Dr. Wayne Dyer was talking about Anita Murjani story and when I heard about the Anita Murjani story, I was so impressed and I was so happy to hear that her healing. I was sharing her story in the hospital for many many patients. I was telling them that please watch this YouTube video about Anita Murjani, about the healing. And I think it’s like two or three years later or maybe five years later and I would correspond with her. That time she did not become a famous person through the email. And one day when I was watching this YouTube, Hello from Heaven, and I have, Dr. sorry, Bill Guggenheim wrote about chapter 1 through 12 in that book about after death communication. So when I have watched that one, I had myself chapter 1 through 10 after death communication. So when I told him on the email that I have this experience and he sent me a book by mail and then he called me physically on the phone which I was very shocked that author can call you and he told me that Purnima you don’t I said I never heard that so he said this is for you and Dr. Raymond Moody also video I watched it one time so he said this is just for you so come to the conference. I said, what conference? So he said, IONS (??????) conference. It’s happening in your neighbor. I said, where? He said in Arlington. And I live like 40 minutes away from that. So when I went there, I met Anita Moorjani. I didn’t have to go anywhere. I was sharing her story in the hospital for many years. So I was part of the healing circle that I do every year, part of the healing circle and then not meditation, but some kind of presentation in IA.(??????) So I met Anita Murjani and then the story is Dr. Iban Alexander, he was there also. So he has the book.

Rick: All these people have been on BatGap, by the way.

Purnima: Yeah, Dr. Mary Neal is there. And they’re all doctors. Mary Neal is Dr. Iban Alexander. So I had to buy the ticket, lunch ticket, for Anita Murjani to sit with the table to eat lunch with them. So I said I don’t want to spend more money for Eban Alexander, but I wanted to talk to him. So what see that’s the I’m talking about the manifestation. You mean they charged extra if you got to eat with them? Yeah. So I’m talking about the manifestation. So I had, you know, imagine that I would meet Eben Alexander, I will meet Mary Neal, I will meet all these people, but not attaching to it. Just to imagine how it feels if I meet you in person and so happy to meet you. Right? So I’m just imagining that. So when I went there, I had already bought that, registration is $400. You spend that, then again, you have to buy other luncheon. So I did not want to spend, but I was thinking, I wish I could have lunch with Dr. Eben Alexander because my son is a doctor and I would love to share my stuff with him because he’s a doctor and people are paying attention because he has an MD degree from Harvard. So I was eating breakfast in the lobby hotel, and there is one lady randomly came to me, gave me the ticket for Eben Alexander lunch. She said, I’m going home. You can use my ticket.

Rick: Perfect.

Purnima: That’s what I’m talking about. That’s exactly how I met Oprah. So in the hospital, I met at least 14, 15 people who came on Super Soul Sunday. So that’s what I was telling in the hospital that we can manifest. The main point in manifestation is ask, your intention has to be good. If my intention is for my self-ego.

Rick:  – Yeah, it’s like if I want a Rolls Royce. –

Purnima: The universe will never support you because as soon as I have my intention, the energy is released. So I cannot say that if my intention is to please you but I want to get something from you, the universe will never support you. But if my intention is to just meet you and just sit down and talk to you and how does it feel, the universe will make all the arrangements. That’s what I think. That’s how I met like 14 famous people. I have no degree behind my name, but literally meeting and talking to them. So that’s what I did.

If my intention is to just meet you and just sit down and talk to you and how does it feel, the universe will make all the arrangements.

Rick: So 14 people who were on Super Soul Sunday? Some of them. You met in the hospital? What were they?

Purnima: No, no, no, not in the hospital. I met them in person in the conference or I won the ticket. I went to the UCLA and then I went some other event. But yeah, they are like 5,000 people. Yeah.

Rick: You should start an interview show. So you get to meet all these people that way.

Purnima: No. I met Iyanla Vanzant, I met Caroline Myss. So these are in the Hay House Conference I used to attend. And Hay House Conference is like 5,000 people.

Rick: Yes. It’s big

Purnima: Very rare you can meet one to one. Dr. Brian Weiss, I met him because I love his book. And all these books I read and I was sharing in the hospital for the patient. how I think the whole manifestation came and I met them and talked to them. Marianne Williamson someone talked on the phone. Christian Northup I met on, talked on the phone. So those kind of things like one-to-one. Sure, cool.

Rick: On this manifestation point, have you ever wanted something and then you didn’t get it and then afterwards you realized, well that was a blessing, that I didn’t get that because it wouldn’t have been good if I’d gotten it.

Purnima: Right. I don’t think, So only thing I manifested, I don’t know, should I say it on the here or you can leave it out? Because only person I love as a politician is president Obama.

Rick: Ah, he was great. I met him three times

Purnima: Wow

Rick: Asked him questions shook his hand. I’ll tell you an Obama story I met him on a rope line when he was president and I shook his hand and I said We love you. Don’t let the turkeys get you down and he laughed and he said there’s a lot of them out there They just keep on gobbling.

Purnima: Oh, you are the luckiest person because he’s the only person, you know, and politics, I absolutely love his humanity, you know, his, his whole thing and the beauty of manifestation. I never met him, but one day I was dreaming about him and it was a lucid dreaming. So I knew I was dreaming in my dream and I was getting up and I’m telling myself, don’t get up because I’m meeting President Obama.

Rick: That’s great. What do you see as kind of a next horizon for you? In other words, you’ve had all these experiences, near-death experiences, after-death communications, decades of meditation, years of service. What is it you feel like, “I still don’t know this,” or “I still don’t get this,” and, you know, “This is a mystery to me. I’d really like to resolve this in this lifetime.”

Purnima: I don’t think so. I have that.

Rick: You don’t have that. You feel like everything’s fine.

Purnima: I think I’m in the place of peace and harmony. And every morning I ask the divine, “How can I serve?” Whatever comes, I do.

Rick: And so I guess you would feel that if there’s something that you don’t know that you’re supposed to know, you’ll get to know it. You’ll get to experience it.

Purnima: Exactly. Yeah,

Rick: and maybe there’s a wisdom greater than yourself that knows better than you do what you should know.

Purnima: There is no question in my mind. So that’s why I never, I don’t go for anywhere, like because I know my guidance will take me whatever’s supposed to happen, it will happen. Yeah. And about the shared death experience, and I don’t know what the word is for that, because I have many experience with my patient before they died, they talked to me. I was talking to Mr. Peter William and then he was saying, you are a death duelist. I said, I don’t know about that, but I have many experience about the sheer death experience, which I didn’t know that time. And some of the patient, they will call me FaceTime, the hospital called me FaceTime to see me before they passed. And it happened a couple of times, which was very, I don’t know how to explain it, but it was very peaceful.

Rick:  – Yeah.

Purnima:  – Because they were coming to my class.

Rick:  – Nice, nice. Yeah, I mean, on this point that I was just asking, I thought about it as you were answering, and a lot of times I’ll think, you know, this would be nice if this particular thing would happen, I would like that. But then I think, well, let’s just see what happens. If it’s supposed to happen, it’ll happen, and if it’s not supposed to happen, it won’t. I’ll be fine with that.

Purnima: That’s the one thing I said, you know, you asked me a question. I would love to meet President Obama.

Rick: Oh, I’ll try to work it out for you.

Purnima: Because he came to my court building where I live is like five miles from here.

Rick: Yeah.

Purnima: So I parked the car and I walked three miles. So I watched him from the like 700 feet.

Rick: Yeah.

Purnima: He came for the speech and I was so thrilled. I just wanted to touch his hand because I said he is such a good person.

Rick: I’ll send you a couple photos I took of him when I met him that time. Really bright. But, you know, I live in Iowa and that’s why I met him and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg and a bunch of other ones because they all, at least they used to, because we had the first caucus in the nation, so they would all come to every little town.

Purnima: Oprah talked about it, right?

Rick: Yeah, Oprah’s been to this town.

Purnima: Fairfield, Iowa, she talked about it on her show.

Rick: Yeah, she’s been here. P;The whole town does the meditation, right?

Rick: Not the whole town, but a lot of people.

Purnima: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah

Rick: It’s 10,000 people are in this town and maybe 3,000 meditate. Okay. Yeah

Purnima: That’s the one wish I have. I would love to meet President Obama.

Rick: Okay, well, we’ll see what happens Okay, so if you had just one practical thing that you’d like viewers to try or do or experience in their own life lives as a result of this conversation, what would it be? What would you like to leave people with as a practical step they should take?

Purnima: Okay, very good question.

Rick: Out of all the possibilities.

Purnima: Yes, a very good question. The only thing I can suggest to you, please start your day with gratitude. Do not watch news. Please do not watch news because it will drag you down.

Rick: Uh-oh, I’m in trouble. I turn on NPR in the morning. I listen to this.

Purnima: In the morning, before I start my day, start with gratitude that I’m grateful I’m breathing. I’m grateful my body supporting me and show me and guide me. How can I start? Start these three things in the morning and they same these three things when you go to bed And anytime

Rick: and what are the three things again? I

Purnima: I’m grateful. I’m breathing I’m grateful for this physical body who’s supporting me and guide me and show me How to serve?

Rick: Nice. Okay.

Purnima: Yeah, because when I come from the how do I serve this universe? Universe will bring everything because it’s again is coming what intention I have Intention is everything whatever my intention energy of my intention is it has to come back to me It’s hard law law of Newton every action is a equal and opposite reaction so when I do something back for somebody and knowing consciously that I’m doing this to get even with that person, guess what? The same energy has to come to me either now or later. So a prayer for me is sitting in a silence. Take time to sit in a silence and it’s all about self-love. And self-love, I define that I care this body, this temple head to toe, not to abuse, Because when I’m doing the same story, the chatter mind is doing the same story about blaming somebody or criticizing my own self over and over, this is a self abuse. So get out from that mode, stop the blame game, do meditation, do gratitude prayer, and every day look forward that how can I serve. You don’t have to be big, like open doors for somebody. say hello to somebody, have a smile with somebody, or have cup of tea or coffee with somebody. Nothing has to be big.

Rick:  – Yeah, every little thing. And not showy either. It doesn’t have to be… Jesus said, when you pray, don’t go in a public place and make a big show of it. Hide in the closet or something and do it there.

Purnima:  – Yeah, I have many other very sacred story which I don’t share because of the platform. I have only thing I will say, I have two experience of the reincarnation story in my family happening twice, but I don’t share with that because it’s too sacred.

Rick:  – Okay, no problem. Good. All right, well, thanks. Thank you so much, Purnima. It’s lovely spending time with you. Thank you for all that you do.

Purnima:  – Yeah, thank you so much for allowing me this space. I really, I am grateful to you.

Rick:  – Yeah, and it’s mutual. And thank you to those who’ve been listening or watching. And I have some interesting interviews lined up. Next is gonna be with a guy named Kogan Sarnak who practiced really intense Zen meditation. Unbelievable, and he looks very bright and he’s written a very interesting book. And it’s really deepened my appreciation of the Zen tradition. Although we won’t just talk about Zen because we’re gonna talk about a bunch of stuff that is quite universal. And the one after that is with a fellow named Robert Lawrence Kuhn, who does one of my favorite podcasts. It’s called “Closer to Truth.” And he is very well produced, and he’s a very intelligent man, and he’s written a ton of books. And he recently wrote a large paper outlining 350 different theories of consciousness. There’s all these, it’s really interesting. There’s all these different theories of consciousness. And he says either the truth of what consciousness is is hidden among those 350, or maybe we need 351 to get the true story. But anyway, I think it’s gonna be a really lively conversation. Anyway–

Purnima:  – Very nice talking to you.

Rick:  – Yeah, nice talking to you too. So thanks everybody. Thanks for listening or watching, and we’ll see you for the next one. (upbeat music) Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING]