ATHEIST speaks with BEING during NDE; Blends Science & Spirituality to MANIFEST! | Ray Catania

I didn't feel any pain. And the reason was, is because in that moment, I was not in that body. I was above it, in a corner of the room. The room was a perfect square. And I'm looking down from a neutral corner, looking down at my lifeless body. And I'll submit to you. I believe thoughts are stronger than words. Not to the human, but, but to the universe.

I want to welcome everybody back to another episode of Soul Inspired today. I'm really excited to have Ray Catania on with me today. He is an author, metaphysical teacher, theorist, and a coach. And he's also had a near death experience. We're going to dig into that a little bit. Thank you to the influx of followers that have been joining the Soul Inspired journey here on the podcast. And if you have a comment, please leave it below. If you have any ideas or feelings about what we talk about today, I'd love to hear everybody's feedback. So first of all, thanks, Ray, for being here. I really appreciate taking the time today.

Joe, thank you so much. It's an honor and a privilege to be with you. Thank you.

Yeah, when I got, as I was saying before we started, when I got the information on you, it was really hard for me not to dig in. I tell all my, my guests that I don't do a lot of digging beforehand just so I can kind of get to know you during the, the conversation. It feels more authentic to me. But I did see that you did the things you did. I didn't actually know as much about your nde, even though the, the podcast surrounds near death experiences quite a bit. So I'm really excited to hear about that too. But I wanted to, you know, paint the picture. You've probably been asked this before, but before your first experience, maybe it was the nde, maybe it was another spiritual experience. I wonder if you can paint a picture of what Ray's life was like before that happened.

Yeah, sure. It goes back to childhood, really. And you know, for me, my childhood wasn't a picture perfect one. There's. We had a lot of trauma drama, a lot of anger fighting and that sort of thing going on in my household. And to avoid that as a child, you know, I would kind of like, I guess hide, stay away from it. So I wouldn't be directly involved in what was going on. So I might spend a lot of time by myself either in my room, in a closet, in the basement, in the yard. And you know, back then we didn't have any cell phones or anything to really keep us occupied. So it was really kind of like a form of meditation. And there was nothing but my mind to escape the reality that was around me and. And what I began to do, not realizing that I was doing this. I was kind of meditating multiple hours a day, seven days a week or six days a week, depending on how that week went. And I was beginning to be able to see things that I think we just is there and we all can see, but we kind of take it for granted. And it's like if you stare at a wall long enough, it's not. It doesn't become what color it is or what it's made out of. It starts to become what it really is, which is energy. And you can start to see energy after a long period of time. And I didn't think anything of this. Like, I didn't think this was weird or strange. I just figured everybody could do it. You know, I was just a child that was kind of like, frightened what was going on, and I was trying to escape my reality. So I would use my imagination, I would use my mind to kind of separate. And what I later learned is that when you do experience trauma, the mind has a way of protecting itself, and that is by actually leaving the body, so to speak, and so that you don't experience what you're experiencing firsthand anyway. I mean, obviously it's happening to your body, but if you can extract the mind and separate it, you're kind of not there until it's over and then you return. So I think that there was kind of a quality of that that was going on for many, many years. And it wasn't until I was 20 years old that I actually had my NDE. And I'll. I'll preface this by saying I come from a Catholic Christian home where other beliefs were not accepted. Not that there's anything wrong with any religion, but I rebelled against that one because it was my parents, whatever they were, I would have rebelled against simply because I was unhappy, right? So I chose to go all the way to the other side of the spectrum and chose atheism and had no beliefs in anything. Refused to believe that, you know, there was this loving God that would allow these things to occur. I'm just a child, you know, why. Why am I seeing these things? Why am I hearing these things? So I took on atheism and basically had no beliefs. And when at the age of 20, I was still living at home, my parents. My bedroom was located on the second floor, and on the first floor was the kitchen directly beneath Me. So one night when I was sleeping, the stove, which was run on natural gas, there was a gas leak in the stove that no one really knew about. And the gas was rising all night because it's natural gas, and it's rising and it's going up into my bedroom where I'm sleeping. So I'm breathing this in all night long.

Wow.

And the morning. I guess the morning comes, my mother goes to make breakfast, and there's this big ball of flames. The wall catches on fire, and there's a lot of smoke. But it's not the fire or the smoke that's affecting me. It's the gas I've been inhaling. In fact, the way I understand it, my father put the fire out with a fire extinguisher relatively quickly. But the fire trucks show up, the police show up, and I'm hearing all this commotion downstairs. And I go to get out of bed to see what's going on in my house, and I find that I can't move certain parts of my body. My legs, for example, felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each. And I just couldn't get them to move. They wouldn't cooperate. In my head, I couldn't get it off the pillow. It felt like it just weighed a ton. And I couldn't yell, which was really strange. So what did work were my arms. And I started to pull myself to the edge of the bed because I figured I got to get out of this bed. I know something seriously wrong with me. I just don't know what it is. And I'm trying to pull myself to the edge of the bed to get out of it. And eventually I get to the very edge and I kind of tumble out, and I tumble out face first. So I hit my face first on the ground. And the strange thing about that hit was that although I felt it and I knew I hit the floor, I didn't feel any pain. And the reason was, is because in that moment, I was not in that body. I was above it in the corner of the room. The room was a perfect square. And I'm looking down from a neutral corner, looking down at my lifeless body, like, almost like a boxing ring. And when the guy goes down, they tell you to go into a neutral corner the farthest away. That's where I was. And I'm looking down across the room, and I see my body, and I'm laying there. And, you know, I'm not scared for some reason. Like, it's. It's just not scary to me. And it should Be, but it's not. And it actually feels wonderful. It feels awesome. I mean, I know how crazy that sounds, but it feels really good. And then across from me, directly across in the adjacent corner, is a white light that I'm sure you've heard about before. This light is the most amazing presence. It's so much more than a light. It's an energy. It's a. It's love, it's painlessness, it's euphoric. And I started to go into the light because it makes like a tunnel. And there was a being at the end of the light who said, ray, you can come into the light. It's okay. It's safe. And I don't know if that was a he or a she or. Or what, but some. And it wasn't like I heard it. It was like a transmission of information. So something is saying, it's okay to go into this light. This light feels wonderful. I want to go into it. And so I start to proceed into the light, and I want to get to the other side. But here's what happens. As I'm going more and more into the light, my father bursts into the room, kicks the door in, because I guess he heard the thump. He came running upstairs, and he scoops me up and he's screaming and he's crying for the paramedics. My son. My son. My son. You must help my son. Come up. You know, get up here. And, you know, we didn't really have great. We didn't have a great relationship, he and I. So it was kind of like when I saw that and I saw how he really felt about me, I guess I longed for that. And in that moment, I wanted to go back. I wanted to be in his arms where I kind of don't remember ever being before. So I asked the being at the end of the light if I could go back. And I kind of. I remember I made it like. About him. I can't leave him like that, I said, which is kind of funny. It's like I'm negotiating or something, right? But I did come back, obviously, and I was. I wasn't in that room anymore. When I woke up, I was on the living room floor, face up. And the paramedics were doing. They had all their tools and equipment, and they're working on me and doing their thing, and. And I'm like, guys, guys, get off me. What are you doing? You know, I feel great. I feel fine. I never felt better. And they're like, listen, kid, you are far from fine. The Last thing you are is fine. So just lay there. And I said, but, you know, did you hear the voice? Did you see the light? And now they're looking at each other like this guy's nuts, you know, and now I better shut up because I don't want to wind up in the wrong hospital where I can't get out. So, you know, and when I told people about the energy, I was, I was told I was crazy. Now I see this and I'm crazy. So even after the nde, I go to the hospital and released the next day. And the. I immediately wanted to know what happened, but we didn't have a computer that I could just sit down at and look this up. I had no way of doing it. So, of course the first person I took it to was my mother. And she said, you're crazy. That didn't happen. That can happen. And blah, blah, blah. And, you know, so now I'm crazy again. So I chose that I'm just not going to talk about it. And I couldn't really. I. I'm not a library type guy, so I just didn't, you know, think to go to the library and look it up. So years and years passed and I tried to hold on to my atheism. And here's the way I chalked up the nde. I figured my analytical mind just came into play and says, you fell in front of a window and the sunlight was shining through. You probably thought that was the white light. You inhaled so much gas, you were probably high out of your mind and you hallucinated the voice and everything else was a hallucination. And that's the way I packaged it up and I put it away so I didn't have to deal with it. But it's not too long thereafter that things start to get very strange. And by things, I mean I moved out of that house and I got my first apartment. It was like my first bachelor pad. And I'm really excited. I'm like, it's going to be great. We're going to have chicks and parties and this and that. I'm going to move all my friends over. And it wasn't like that at all because from the second that I moved in, that apartment was filled, if you will. It felt like it was filled with people when there was nobody there and you. I felt the energy, the emotions. I would see lines going, like, shooting across the wall and I would do a double take and. And then I'd see like these swirly type lines that aside of my vision and it just felt all. I don't know how else to explain it. Like, you know how you feel like you're being watched and you turn around and sure enough there is somebody looking at you. Well, it was kind of like that. But I turn around and there's nobody there. So I really start to think I'm, I'm crazy. And you know, here's a kid that can see energy crossed over, come back. I was just like an open portal, I think, you know, looking at it in hindsight. So I had these energy beings that were able to come back and they kind of knew that I knew they were there. But I didn't see a person. I never saw that yet. That didn't happen. I think to myself in this moment, my house is haunted. You know, that's which is something I don't even believe in because I'm an atheist, right? So I'm, I'm arguing with myself now. You know, it's like I'm fighting myself, myself and I'm telling these things. I don't believe in you. You're not real. Go away. But they don't listen. And then of course they can play with electricity. So now they cut off the phones, they change the channel, they turn off the television, the alarm goes on and off all by itself. I'm calling the maintenance guy like every day and finally he's like, kid, listen to me. There's nothing wrong with your electricity, there's nothing wrong with your place. Never call me again. You're crazy. So here it is again. I'm crazy. I'm starting to believe that I'm crazy. But it gets so bad in that apartment that I cannot sleep. And so I start to use copious amount of drugs and alcohol in order to pass out. And this will prove, this will become habitual and a problem for me because I move out of that apartment and move into the next one hoping it's going to be different, but it's not. It's exactly the same. It's not got nothing to do with the apartment, it's me. And wherever I go, they're coming and that's it. The only way I can turn it off that I can see is drugs and alcohol. So I self medicated myself for many, many years. And I also lived a life where I didn't care if I lived or died. Very self destructive behavior coming from, you know, chaos growing up that way if chaos was comfortable for me. So whether I was in a social situation or I was at work, I would choose the types of Work where chaos would ensue. I worked for some shady characters. I would try to up the ante and get closer and closer to death because I didn't fear it. And almost in a strange way, kind of welcomed it because I knew in the back of my mind that there's more to this. Even though I'm professing I'm an atheist, I don't believe in anything, deep down inside I know there's more going on here. So I go to push the envelope, like I said. And there's these occasions that start to arise where I'm in a situation where I could potentially die. In one occasion I was working in bars and nightclubs and there was a shootout in the bar. And I'm hiding under the bar. I'm not involved in this and I don't want to be involved in this. And I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get out of this place. And that same being that was there at the end of the light, I believe it's the same, says side door, side door, side door. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Can't get to that door without being seen. There's no way I can get to that door. Side door, side door, what have I got to lose? I run for the side door, I make it out that side door, but that's not the only door because then I have to make a left, go down this long 40 foot corridor and then I have to make a right and go out the actual side door that leads to the parking lot. Well, I made it. And don't you know that I have never in the entire time I worked in that place ever parked right outside that door? In fact, I usually parked on the other side of the building. And for no reason that I can think of, I chose to put my car right outside that door that day.

Wow.

And I got out of there. And that's not the only time that being saved my life. There's others. There's a lot of examples in the book where, you know, there was even a time when I was a child and I nearly drowned. I was in the ocean. And it was the. What do they call that? The undertow was pushing me back, pushing me back. And there were about 10 kids on this side or 10 people. I don't know if they were all kids. And then I was like kind of isolated all the way on the other side. So the lifeguard was pulling those people out and wasn't really paying attention to me. And I start to Go under. And I start to panic. And of course, the worst thing you can do in that situation is panic. Right? But the adrenaline kicks in. And as it does, I'm waving, I'm trying to do whatever I can do. No one's paying attention to me. I. This is it. I'm done. And I hear or feel or however you want to say, I receive information again that says, calm down. Swim sideways. Take as long as you need. And it just. A feeling of calmness just came over. I'm like 10 years old at this time. I'm very young. I would not know that you're supposed to swim on an angle to get to shore, to get out of an undertow. It's just not something I knew, so. But I swam sideways, like he said. Excuse me. And I eventually got to shore. I was way, way, way, way down from where my parents were on a blanket. And it's always been that same being that has gotten me out of these situations. I have no idea why. I am not special. I am not chosen. I am nothing. I'm just a regular guy who has had some really crazy experiences. So I am grateful and thankful for that being who is still with me to this day. But I. I don't know why. I don't feel like I deserve him or her. But he's always been there.

Wow. Okay. Let me jump in for a second.

Sure.

First of all, thank you for sharing your story. I'm sure you've shared it many times, but that first time I've heard it. So I appreciate you sharing it. And there's probably way more we can dig into, but there's a couple things I wanted to mention just to recap for the audience a little bit. It started off as you being a child, going through some traumas at home with your traumas. You started to do kind of this meditation thing without knowing it was meditation, and started becoming attentive to energy. It sounds like I only bring it up because when I was a kid, I had different things going on, too. I had a very. I had an issue with my own father. I didn't see him. These kind of things, you know? And I remember, and I've said this on. I've only said this once on one of the other episodes, but I can remember staring straight ahead and noticing that I could see the air.

Yeah.

And I mentioned it to a few friends or something. And I remember the reaction was ridiculous. They were like, what are you talking about? I'm like, don't you see the, like, particles? Don't you see, like, everything moving. And they'd be like, no, no, I don't know what you're talking about. I'd be like, oh, okay.

Well, what did you smoke? I want something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Either something's really wrong with me or I'm. But I think because I was so hyper focused on something that I was able to start visually seeing this, you know, the. Whatever it is. Anyway, that stuck out when you said that. Now, I didn't get as far as seeing the things in the walls or the. You know, I'm not sure what you were seeing. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that.

Just, I think it's very similar, you know, whether it's. Whether you see it in the air or you see it in the wall, or it could be a solid, but it could also be a gas. Right. Because everything is particles, and all particles live in the Higgs field, which we recently discovered in 2012. And that is a. We know that due to the Higgs field, it determines the way the particles behave, not the other way around. Because for years, we always thought it was the particle that determines how it behaves, but it's actually the field. So within this quantum field, anything that you can see with your five physical senses, you can, or I should say, you can't see with your five physical senses. You can see with your sixth, and that's consciousness. And you were forced to use it. I was forced to learn how to use it. But we just don't wake up that way and say, I'm going to stare at the air or I'm going to stare at this thing until I see the energy that's in it.

Right, Right. And I bet it's even. I would. I would even think with youth nowadays, it's even more difficult because they're sitting in front of their phones. You know what I mean? But, you know, I can. I didn't have a phone when I was a kid. I would just kind of look up and, you know, my mind, to calm down my mind, I would just kind of stare. And next thing you know, I'm looking into something that doesn't. Apparently doesn't exist. But I thought that was interesting. That was the first thing. The other thing I wanted to ask you. You saw this light. So when you pass, when you had this close death or close encounter with death, there you. You were out of your body and you were going down this tunnel. Now do you recall? And maybe this is in your books. We can talk a little bit about your books and things like that. But do you recall communicating at all with this being at all in the time that you were with them, or was it just a feeling of being with that being?

No, no, there was communication, definitely. Because at first I'm gonna say he, for lack of a better term, because I don't have anything. So he said it was safe to come in. And I was like. And I accepted that as. And I didn't trust anybody, but I did trust him. And then I asked if I could return because when I saw the love that my father actually did have for me that I didn't realize, I asked if I could go back. So those were the two, like, conversations, if you will, if you want to call them that, that I had with that being in that moment.

Wow. Okay. All right. And do you think two quite. Two more questions with it. Do you think that there could have been some other communications that happened that you don't remember to this day?

H. Good question. I. I don't know. Yeah, anything's possible, but I. I don't recall it.

Okay. And the other one. Is this the first time I've ever asked anybody this question, but it's something that I've seen in some of the comments I've had on other videos and things like that, and I'd really want to see your take on it. I don't know why I've chose you to ask this question, but I'm feeling it necessary to ask. So a lot of the people I've spoke with that have had NDEs so far have different experiences. So their experiences are all over the place. One of the reasons I ask about people's, you know, what their life was like before the ND is to see what their history was, to see if their experience reflects what their history was in yours. It wasn't really. I mean, you grew up in a religious family is what you said. Right. But you went the atheist route in your own decision making.

Yeah.

And it was just a being. Whether it wasn't. It wasn't Jesus, it wasn't, you know, Buddha, it wasn't. There was nothing there that resembled a specific religion.

One of the.

I would say comments that I'm seeing a little bit here and there, it's going on in the world right now, and it's from a skeptic side. And I bring these up because I feel like it's necessary just to. Just to talk about it. Doesn't mean we're right or we're wrong, but the skepticism is that, and I don't understand it Entirely, but that the NDE is some kind of evil disguising itself to trick us into feeling good. I, I don't understand this. I've, I've read a few comments. I don't know if you've heard of this, but there's this idea that when we die there's some kind of evil satanistic thing happening that makes us just feel good and it's tricking us to come back and reincarnate. And like there's, it's, it's gotten really out of control, these comments. And I'm like, where's this come from? I don't know if this is a new belief. Have you heard of this before?

I really have not. I have to say, I, I'm not familiar with that. I haven't experienced anything like that. And most of the folks that I've talked to, they, what, what I will say going back to the religion is that some people, like, let's say I was a die hard Christian or Catholic, right? When I have that nde, my interpretation of the being could have been Jesus or could have been God. Because my perception of what reality is is that there is a God or that Jesus is this person or God, you know, whatever you want to say. So when I asked my mentor why some people say they saw Jesus or saw Buddha or saw this or that, his answer was because they believed in that before there. Whereas you went in with no beliefs and you were free to see it for whatever it was without any preconceived notion of what it would look like. And that's why I'm not saying that mine is right. It could have been Jesus, it could have been any of those. It could have been Moses, it could have been anyone, but I don't know. And so having no preconceived notions and not going into the situation with any sort of expectations, I saw it very objectively. And no, I felt nothing evil. And this being has protected me so many times. And like I said, you know, no, no matter, in good times and bad times, he's been there.

That's great. No, I, and that was one thing that stuck out to me right away is that you didn't have any, you know, you again, you were an atheist, so you had nothing, nothing that was really, you know, holding you down. And that's why I wanted to know how you felt in that moment when you were in that light. Because the, this negativity in the metaverse of the ND east, things that I'm seeing right now is that there's this. There's this entity that brings you into the light, and the moment you cross over, they reincarnate you. So you have to go back. And it's almost like a slavery type prisoner mentality of our souls. And it's gotten really dark and. And I've been. I've been watching some of these, and I go, where is this coming from? And so what I'm trying to do now is to talk to the people who've actually experienced this and to tell me, did you feel any negativity or was it all like, was it loving? Like? You said yourself that you really trusted this being and you didn't trust people any.

Right?

So you felt. Is it. Is it safe to say that you felt nothing but love and, and compassion from this?

Absolutely. Pure. Pure love. Pure compassion. I. I think that there's a combination of beliefs, right, that there's a lot of similarities there. I have studied the Buddha and the Buddha. When he passed away, he said it was his seventh life and he would not be returning. And the reason he told his disciples this was because he wanted them to carry on his message further to as many people as possible. But the reason he said he wasn't returning was because he reached enlightenment and he reached it in one life. So there is this thought, and I'm not saying that this is factual, this is just the hypothesis that we do die and we do come back. And the reason that we come back is to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. And when you reach that level, then you pass. You don't come back anymore. So it's almost like a school. Not a slavery, but a school. And that can be turned into a negative way of looking at things for sure. Right? Because, you know, we'd love to just advance and move on like the Buddha did, but we don't get to do that. We must. We have to repeat third grade again until we get it right, you know, and that. So there's a combination of. That there's. There's some legitimacy there. And, and on both side. Sides, really. You know, it just depends on your perception. Do you perceive that as being bad or you do. Do you perceive that as being good?

Right. I look at it as a good thing because we're. We're growing, you know, soulfully.

I mean, we. I.

The first thing that came to me is there's a lot of times when you're a kid, you don't want to go to school. You'd rather skip school and just kind of move on with life. Well, you know, you Got to learn. And so I look at it more like that. And I, I, I kind of do follow that. I also believe from talking to so many people that I think there's many of us that have come back that didn't necessarily have to in a really important time right now. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what, I don't understand that. But I feel like we can reach enlightenment. And I'm not saying I'm enlightened because there's a lot of lessons I'm learning.

Neither am I. Yeah, neither am I. Work in progress, for sure.

And I have no idea what I'm talking about because I, I haven't experienced an nde. I'm just feeling what I'm feeling. So, yeah, disclaimer out there. I have no idea what I'm talking about, but this is just what I feel. But I don't. Does that resonate at all with you?

Yeah. 100. Like, I'm, I'm right there with you. My interpretation of what I saw aligns with what you see. I think that we do come back until we have, until we get it right, you know, so if I look back in my childhood and I was questioning that, why are people mean to people? Why is, why am I in this situation? Why is this, this way? Why is that that way? And, you know, and then there were times that, like I said, I came from chaos, so I, I, I caused chaos. So now I conform to the negative at certain times now. So I'm probably going to come back again because I've got to get it right from the beginning until the end, like the Buddha finally did. And when we do that, that's when I think that we don't have to make the return trip. And again, it's just a thought. It's. I have no proof or anything like that of this. It's just the way I feel about it, the way it resonates with me.

Just on a side note, I thought one of the most beautiful pieces of your story was the fact that you didn't have the greatest relationship with your father. And when you're in that moment, you've seen the love. Even though there was for some reason in this physical form, some kind of blockage or whatnot from a soul level, there was this save my son, right? And I almost got a little bit emotional from that just because I had my own relationship issues with my father growing up when he was alive. And so, like, it's, it's kind of like it. Right away it came to me and went, oh, yeah, you know, no matter.

How many times I tell the story, I get choked up myself when I say the story, because I forgive him now, because I understand that where my parents came from was like a million times worse than the way I had. So understanding where you come from and how much that affects who you are later in life makes you aware of the fact that the people who raised us didn't know any better. So you can't blame ignorance, you can't blame somebody who didn't know better. And both my parents came from very, very, very poor neighborhoods. You know, my mother was one of eight living in a, in a three bedroom house, if I remember correctly. And they had one pair of shoes, and the person who got to wear the shoes was the one who got to go out that day. So I mean, it's just horrendous, you know, where they came from. So getting me and my brother to the level that they got is commendable. And my mother read the book later, even though I asked her not to, and she said, you know, she said, you must hate me. And I said, I don't hate you at all. I said, in fact, I've never felt closer to you because I understand it now. I understand what was going on. And now being a parent myself, I really understand. So, you know, we try to give our kids a better life than we got before, but the basis of that life is what we were given when we were children, unless we decide to make that change and we have to consciously choose to change our subconscious minds. And, you know, that gets into some of the things that I coach. I help people reprogram themselves so that they don't continue that cycle. And you know, I say, I often say chaos was my comfort zone. Well, I didn't want that to be for my kids. So I learned how to change that about myself so that I could give that to them. I didn't want them to be that way.

Right. No, I love that. And you know, it, it goes back to the thing that keeps sticking out with me. What you're saying is forgiveness. Forgiveness in what we, you know, the people that raised us and what they went through, forgiving them because they only knew what they were experiencing, you know, what was their experience. And then also as we get older and we have kids and we do things and life happens. Forgiving yourself because things are going to come up no matter what. And I, I, you, you mentioned, you know, changing those, those same, you don't want to go down the same patterns as, say, your parents or the things you've learned from. But sometimes things still happen no matter what. You can't control certain parts because you know that a decision you make, even though it hurts in the beginning, at one point it could better and teach something to your kids down the road. And they might see it as negative, but it's actually a positive. And then you got to learn how to kind of adjust to that and how to teach it.

So, yeah, yeah.

Forgiving yourself is huge too. Right. Because people have, you know, they come from parents of divorce, and then they end up divorcing. They think they're a failure. But no, maybe that was what needed to happen and in order to teach your kids something better. So it's kind of like forgiving yourself and not being so hard on yourself, because we all are. Right?

Yeah.

1 see that all the time.

One of the. My favorite quotes in the world is, nothing is either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. That's Shakespeare, Hamlet. And think about that. It's so profound. Nothing is good or bad. You decide what's good and bad. So if you were to ask me, what were my greatest days? Well, I would tell you they're my worst days because they were the days when I experienced the traumas, the tragedies, those things. Those were the days that I grew the most as a human. Those were the days that I learned about life and how to handle life, and the days that I was just given things, I didn't learn anything from that. There's no takeaway. That's. Other than, yeah, if I keep my hand out long enough, maybe I'll get something, you know? No, my best days were my worst days. And so I don't. When I look at good and bad, I have a hard time finding bad because there in the bad lies some of the greatest good.

I love that. So there's learning lessons in everything that comes up. Yes. And a lot of it's our reaction. Right. The way that we react to certain circumstances and situations.

Exactly.

I can. I can totally understand that. And this is a little bit of a left turn, but I wanted to know because I see that you're a coach and you do speak with people and in regards to life, success. When I say success, I don't mean just monetary value or money, but it can be part of it. Now that because of your experiences and you know that I don't want to again. I never like to put words in people's mouths, but, like, I would assume you feel there's more to this life than our physical body.

I'm not an atheist anymore. I've abandoned.

So, so in, in, in the knowingness of that, in that feeling, do you, do you believe or buy into the idea of the law of attraction bringing, you know, things to your life? And I wondered if you could touch on that a little bit and if there's anything that you can add as value to people listening as to how to create that happiness and successful life that they're looking for. Yeah.

One of the things, you know, that I did learn throughout my having different mentors, and then I went back to college for metaphysics. I'm actually working towards my PhD in metaphysics. And I also, you know, I have my coaching license. And the reason I studied all these things were I also studied psychology. And, and I, and I kind of started putting pieces together. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but I love physics. Like, my wife would love to go see the next Dave Matthews concert when he comes around. And I can't wait for the next Brian Greene and somebody doubleheader. They're physicists that are famous, and I would rather go to that than I would see a show. So physics and metaphysics, when you put them together, you get what I call scientific spirituality. And there are scientific theories that we can put to the law of Attraction and you can understand exactly how it works. It's not all that spiritual at all. It's actually based on energy, frequency, and vibration, which Tesla told us a hundred years ago, more than 100 years ago, that those were the secrets of the universe. And he's absolutely correct. Every single thing in the universe vibrates. It all vibrates at a different rate, which is called its frequency. What vibrates is energy. So energy is in everything. And some would say energy is everything, even the solids. But, you know, we can debate that as 80% at 20%, or is it 99% energy? You'll get all different numbers. But the bottom line is that energy exists. And the reason that my desk is solid is, is because it vibrates very slowly. And something like the air vibrates very highly. And that's why it's, you know, I can walk through it. So when you understand that everything is based on energy, frequency and vibration, and you want to implement the law of attraction, what you have to understand is when you are attracting something, you must turn it into the vibration or the frequency of the item that it is that you want to attract to you. Because the law of resonance tells us that, like Vibrations attract like magnets, unlike Repel. So if you. If you understand that concept, when you go into your meditative state or you're doing your affirmations and you're trying to acquire something, the way you say it is the most important thing or the way you think it. Thoughts are things, okay? You. It's a signal that you put out into the world. And I'll submit to you, I believe thoughts are stronger than words. Not to the human, but to the universe. So when, because the universe doesn't speak English or French or Spanish or Japanese or anything else, it speaks vibration. So you have to learn to speak vibration. How do you do that? Okay, let's say your goal is to acquire money. I use money as an example because everybody understands it. I do not associate it with success at all. But let's look at it that way for a moment. And you need to get a certain amount of money. Let's say $10,000. So your affirmation may be something like, I need $10,000 and I need it now, or, I will have $10,000 and I will have it now. And you could even say in past tense, thank you for the $10,000 that I will receive, or however you wish to say it. The point is this. The visual of the two things that are in that sentence, you must translate into a vibration. Here's how it works. I need $10,000, and I need it now. I, picture of self. That's the picture. That's the image that you have of I. So you send out that image. You send out I. The other terms are meaningless. The other One is the $10,000. So you convert that into a frequency or a vibration, and you send it out. How do you do that? You have a visual of what 10,000 looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like. And you have to incorporate all your senses, and you have this visualization. We call it a visualization, but it's really all five senses that you're utilizing, and you're sending that out. So I'm sending out I, and I'm sending out 10,000, and that's what goes out. The rest of the words don't mean anything to the universe, only to you, right? So you don't want to say, I don't want to be in debt anymore. Because now what did you send up the visual of I and the visual of debt. And guess what? You're getting debt. You're not getting your $10,000. So you have to think correctly to send out the proper vibration in order to Receive it and you're like a beacon. You're just like this satellite dish and you're sending it out and it's going to find its match. It's no different than you tuning in your radio to receive information from a satellite. Remember the old fashioned radios that had the dials and used to have to get it right on the frequency to hear the music. And if you're a little bit off, you get static. And if you're a lot off, you get nothing. So that's how precise it really has to be. And when people say, well, the law of attraction doesn't work for me, chances are they're doing something incorrectly. And there are several things. One of them is thinking wrong. So you really have to put the vibration out in a positive manner. If you've been sick for a long time, you don't want to say something like I don't want to be sick anymore because now you sent up I and sick. That's it, that's all that went out. I want to be healthy now. I and healthy is what you're putting out. So you have to retrain your brain, I call it, it's really retraining your mind. But that didn't rhyme, so I used brain and I and there's a chapter in a book called retraining your brain. And you do this enough times and it becomes natural, it becomes very natural to say things in the positive instead of saying it in the negative. It's like the old the glass is half full or half, half empty, right? If you say it's half full enough times, you will always say it's half full. You won't go back to it's half empty. So it's the same principle. You have to do it over and over and over and retrain your subconscious mind so that you always say it in that positive tense. Put out what you put out, you're getting back, I guarantee it. So if you're in a now let's look at what can change those frequencies. What can get you off course? One of those things is your emotions, because emotions are tied to frequencies. So you do you affirmat, you do your affirmations. I recommend it's in the morning and in the evening and I even have a whole meditation that I teach that leads you up to getting into that place before you say it. And then you say it. And then you jump out into your car, right? And you drive off to work and a car cuts you off and you get. And you're just like, I can't believe this guy, this yada, yada, yada. And then you get to work and you're like, you're not going to believe this idiot that cut me off and nearly killed me today. And then you have a meeting and you say it again about the idiot driver. And then you get home and you tell your wife, this idiot driver, well, guess what? You just took yourself out of your frequency all day. You manifested nothing because you were out of that frequency. Now, you don't have to be there a hundred percent of the time, but you got to be there about 80% of the time. So you got to let some things bounce off you. If you don't let them bounce off you, you're coming out of that frequency that you need to be in or at least be close to in order to receive the positive. Once somebody. You allow somebody to flip you to the negative, you're giving them too much power and too much control over you. And you're allowing them to take away your $10,000. And they're going to do it if you let them. So you have to blow it off. You have to learn to let it go. Yes, you can experience the anger. Yes, you can even snap back. But then let it go. Don't carry it throughout the course of the day. Don't bring it to work and give it to other people. Now you're taking them out right of where they need to be, right? And then you come home and you tell your wife, and now she's out of where she needs to be. So you have this ripple effect on all these other people that are around you, all because of some guy that nearly hit your car but didn't right Think of that. Huge ripple effect.

Yeah. No, I absolutely love the way you just explained all that. That was very simplified. I've been. I have experienced these things through my career, my music. And I remember one time I was eating breakfast and I heard on the radio there's this big competition for musicians, and you could play in front of 30, 000 people. And it was at this big festival. And I sat there, and for whatever reason at that time, my music was just kind of taken off. I was feeling very confident, and I looked at the radio and I'm eating. I thought, I'm gonna win that. I just. I said it very, very clear, very clear. And I let it go. I said it, felt it felt what it would feel like. I didn't mean to, but I let it go. Two weeks later, I'm walking my dog. My phone rings, pick it up. This is Joe Borowski.

Yes, it is.

We'd like to invite you to the festival. You've been one of three people selected. I thought, are you kidding me? And I was like, how did that happen? I had forgotten that moment. And as that day went on, it makes the hair on my arms stand up. Because as the day went on, because I was not to say, I mean, I do. I. I appreciate my talents and the things, the gifts I've been given, but I wasn't really pushing very hard. I didn't really try very hard. It just happened. And I remember that was a significant moment where I thought I did something there that I hadn't touched on. And I'm sure a lot of the listeners out there, I'm sure a lot of the people out there can think of a moment in their life where that happens.

We.

I think we have these things happen, but we kind of brush it off. Like luck. Like, oh, luck. And I think the people that really grab a hold of success, they might in the beginning do it by mistake, but then realize, oh, there's something to this. And if you can keep that going. And the other thing I really liked you said, this is a big one. I haven't heard this much before in this field is the idea of not letting something flip you off through the day. And then not only that, especially me, I'm someone who wears my heart on my sleeves, taking that energy and coming back and saying, oh, this happened to me. And, you know, this happened, this happened, this happened. Well, now you've given it to everyone else that now believes that happened to you, even if it was, you know, and now you've just created a ripple effect of energy that. I mean, you're done at that point. That is what's happening.

Imagine something terrible happens to you, and you come home and tell someone you love that something terrible or. Or almost that these are not for the things that you really have to talk about. Right. Like, of course, you know, and I don't even want to mention any of them, but we're talking about those things that just kind of piss us off. And we take home and we give it to a loved one, and then they feel bad for us. So now you just killed their vibe. Because they hurt. Because you're hurting. Because they love you, right? And, yeah, you. You can spread that. So imagine every day you wake up and you greet your family with smiles and good mornings, and I love you. And now you're setting the trend for them to go out and have a really good day. It may not, you know, they. They may not have a really great day all the time, but you're setting that tone and you're setting that example, and you know what happens? They can't wait for you to wake up because they want more of that from you. They want what dad is giving them. They want that feeling of love. And I'm gonna have a great day because he told me I'm gonna have a great day. And then they, you know, they believe it. And if you believe it, you can achieve it. You can have it.

Yeah. And I would. And I love that I would also say to people, because I'm just feeling. What I'm feeling is I talked about forgiveness earlier on. Forgive ourselves for learning this type of behavior. This is something that we've learned to do. So it's unlearning behavior that's not really benefiting us in our life. Right.

So.

And I'm still working through that myself, but I know at times I. It jolts up and I hit it and I hit it, and I. I'm seeing that even with the, The. With this podcast, just the feedback I've been getting and, you know, just having that positivity all the time and where. Yeah, it's. It's not because we're.

It takes work.

Yeah, we're fixed on that. That pattern of behavior that we have done for 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 60 years, however many years we've done that. Now you gotta unwind that and think a different.

I'll tell you a quick story. I. When I was very young, I heard my mother say there was a bunch of people over the house, and they were having a conversation, and it was about fears and phobias. So when it got. Got around to my mom, she said, oh, I'm deathly afraid of heights. Right? So I. I heard that now when you're a child, you absorb everything around you. Between the ages of 2 and 7, you're in a. Your. Your brain state is in a what we call a theta state. That's almost like you're in a hypnosis state. So you hear everything, you absorb it. And if you have young children, then they come out with something that you said, like, 10 weeks ago, and you're like, oh, my God, how do you even remember that? You know. You know that that's what happens. So I wasn't even paying attention to the conversation. I was just playing with my little trucks, and I was like, underneath the table, and the adults were above me and they're talking, and my mother Said that statement, right? I'm deathly afraid of heights, okay? So for the rest of my life, when somebody said, what are you afraid of? I said, oh, I'm deathly afraid of heights. I didn't even know what heights were. I'm a little kid, but yet I kept this with me, right? So it's at the age of. I don't. Don't quote me, but I think I was about 50 years old at the time. Maybe 48, 49, late 40s or early 50s. And I had achieved. I received this from one of my mentors who was a shaman. And I had. In order to receive this, I had to go to Peru, and I climb to the top of Machu Picchu, which is 14,000 above sea level, and that's where the ceremony would take place. And the elders of the tribe, the Caro tribe, were going to grant me that, my healing rights. And I was elated with. With this. I was just like, this is the greatest thing. And, you know, I went right up that mountain. And by the way, they drive you most of the way up. You don't hike 14,000. I can't hike 14,000 anything. But, you know, so they drive you a lot of the way up. But it is. It's a treasure, treacherous climb. I mean, you can fall and, you know, you're done. But I didn't even think about that. I just went straight up, got on my knees, the ceremony took place. I received my healing rights. I was thankful, grateful and blessed. And then I went right down the mountain. And when I got down there and I said to my wife, I said, I'm not afraid of heights. That's not my thing. That's my mother. That was never my thing. I adopted her thing. And it prevented me from who knows what, maybe becoming an airline pilot. I don't know, whatever. It prevented me my whole life because I believe that what her thing that she said was implanted in me. And so therefore, if it could hurt her, it could definitely hurt me. And I'm not going to let that happen. So I decided I was going to be deathly afraid of heights. And this is how easy it is to take on someone else's beliefs when they're not yours.

How do you feel that you switched that, though? Was it just due to the fact that you truly were seeking something greater and. Yeah, you had, like, a vision and, like a direction and nothing was stopping you.

I didn't even think about it. I was just like, I'm. I'm getting my. I'm getting My medal.

Right.

Getting my healing rights. And if I got to go up there to get it, I just did it. Like, there wasn't even a pause. I was done. I was past that. I was already well into my training, but I didn't stop and think that. My mom said, I'm deathly afraid of heights. It just never even dawned on me until I got back down the mountain. And I did it. Like, not like it was nothing. I mean, I was, you know, it's a difficult climb, but I wasn't scared. I wasn't too scared to do it. I wasn't even thinking about it. And when I got down, I had this whole realization that that fear was never mine to begin with.

Right, right. Wow. And so it probably goes back to two, you know, following those things that you're passionate about in life and the. The purpose and drive, because that can almost overtake those fears. Right. Because otherwise you are. You could have been if it was something that didn't really matter to you. Let's say you were just on a vacation and they thought, and somebody said.

Let'S calm them out. And I'll be like, no way.

No. That looks crazy.

No, I'm going to dinner. Right. You go climb the mountain.

Right. So that. That's a good piece of advice for people out there if you want to overcome your fears, to, you know, if those fears come up during a time of where you're, you know, going after a purpose or passion, it's probably, if.

You can acknowledge them now, now we can reframe them.

Right.

But I learned, like, a lot of the things that I learned were trial and error and they just happened and life played out in a certain way for me. But now that I've learned that I can help others with their fears and get. Getting over them and especially not spreading them to others like their own. Their own kids watch what you say because they're going to adopt it as fact.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I was looking over when. When you first came on, too. I was looking over. So you have. You have two books, I believe. One's called the Atheist and the Afterlife.

That's the first one. Yeah. Because that takes you from atheism to the fact that I realized after the NDE and the awakening that I have at that point. And it takes you up to when I really start my training. At the end of that book, I'm accepted by my second mentor, and he brings me to a whole new level. So I wrote a second book beginning with that training, going back to getting metaphysical training the physics and everything else that I've learned. And at the end of the second book, while I was writing it, I had a massive spiritual awakening. I mean, huge. And I actually wound up going back and rewriting a lot of the parts of the second book to show how it played out so that others can read it and repeat it. I made it like a way that you could do it, too.

What's the name of the second book?

Oh, I'm sorry. It's. You're still alive. Now act like it.

Okay. Where can people find those books? Are they on it, like, Everywhere?

Anything? Yeah, 52 countries, every bookstore.

So Amazon as well, I'm assuming. Do you have a website, a personal website for your.

Ray Catania.com is my website. And then Limitless Publications is the other for the books. But you can get to either one from either one.

Well, I'll be looking at both of them. I find a lot of it fascinating. Actually.

Somebody told me this morning there was a problem with Ray Catania dot com. So if. If you're watching this right now, go to Limitless Publications until I fix it. Okay.

Probably by the time this comes out, hopefully you're.

I'll have it. Yeah. Hopefully I will. Yeah.

You. Just a few last questions here. I really wanted to ask you because of your experience. It's something that I ask everyone. Well, I shouldn't say everyone. It depends on their experience. But do you now. So you said you're not atheist, but I want this to be kind of part. Two questions in one. And maybe if you can, hopefully I don't confuse you here, but did the experience feel as real as here? And are you afraid of death now? Like, is there a fear at all of death since you've had that experience?

Let me go with the first one. When you say. Tell me the first one again. Sorry.

So real. So you and I are having this communication. Does it. Did it.

Did that feel real when you were.

Out of your body?

Did it.

Did it feel as real? Like we have dream states, people say, you know, it could be hallucinations, things like that. Did that experience feel.

It felt realer. Realer. Everything was heightened. So colors were more vivid, sounds were more. I don't know how to explain it. More detailed. Every sense that you have is amplified. So it was a great state of full acknowledgement of every little thing that was around me. And if I could stay there, I probably would. It would be limitless as to what I could experience. So I would say it's realer. It's the most alive I've ever felt when I was dead.

Right. So. So is it normal? Because I spoke to quite a few people where they say. Some of them say this. They don't all say this, but there's been some that have said that this state almost feels more like the dream. Almost like if we put on a television show. This is the way I kind of interpret it in my own brain. We put on a television show or we put on a video of us when we were kids and we see us moving around and all these things. Well, okay, that's on a screen. So it's a little less real than me grabbing my drink or this is. This feels real. I'm. I'm feeling, but I'm watching it and I'm like, okay, yeah, that was real. But it kind of feels less real than this when you're out of your body. Is that kind of the same way to kind of interpret it? Like this is more of like, kind of like an act or like this is the actual.

This is the show. That's the real thing? Yeah, that's the real thing is all like, nonsense. This is just like, you know, do what we have to do. Be as kind as you can to other people. Pass this forward. Look forward to the. To the afterlife. I. I wrote something called the Principles of Ascension, and the first one is, you're going to die. You have to understand that you're going to die and not look at it as a negative. And I'm not saying to. I don't want to romanticize death either, to like, encourage people to get there any quicker than you would normally. I do not believe that you should do that at all. But I do want to say that when you, when you reframe or change your relationship with death, you change your perception of life. Things are not that big of a deal. They're really not. We worry about these things that are so idiotic in my perception. I'm sorry, but it's just so silly. And when you get to that, a higher place, that higher level, and you become just your energy and not this physical TV show actor thing that I'm in right now. It's just like, this is the fake stuff. That's the real stuff. So, first principle of Ascension, change your relationship with death. Change the way you feel about it. It's not only is it not bad, it's pretty damn cool. And the second part of your question was.

I think you already answered it. Because really, if you have a fear of death, it doesn't sound like you.

Have oh, no, no, no, no, no, no fear, no, no. In fact, you know, when I was doing, there was one point when I really, really thought I was crazy. I mean, it got really bad. And so I wrote a will and I wrote a dnr. Do not resuscitate under any circumstances. I pull the plug and, you know, I gave it to my brother. Like, I am not sticking around any longer than I have to. If, you know, when my time's done, I'm done. Let me go to the light, please.

Yeah, yeah. And the beautiful thing, though, is, too, is. And again, you know, it gets a little bit. The word I would use is morbid at times because I talk to people that have come back and they're like, oh, why did I come back?

Like, they're always like, yeah.

And I'm always like. And I say the same thing. Like, it doesn't mean we want. Anybody should want to go any earlier. And in fact, this is something I'm continuing to work on. I think there's ways of getting in touch with those parts of who we are without. You don't need an nde, right? I mean, right? We need to learn. I need to learn more about meditating. I've had other end ears say to me, though, but Joby, you are a musician. Like, you know, you go there. I'm like, I know I do. And I need to get back to that. Sometimes I take breaks from my music, but when I'm in that state, it's such a good feeling. But I think you can even achieve more than that if you really get deep. If you're really someone seeking that. That love, seeking that feeling, then you got to get real about your relationship with your. With meditation and calming your mind and those types of things.

I would say, absolutely, yes. Yes. The second law of ascension is set yourself free. And that refers to the ego, which tells us what to do. It's that narrator in our head that was programmed by our subconscious, which. Imagine the subconscious is this hard drive, and it's running the same program over and over and over. And it's not until you break free of that program that you'll do things tomorrow, not the way you would have done them yesterday, but you'll do them in a new way because you'll go to your awareness or to your higher self to get that information of what to do next instead of the ego, which all that has is yesterday. So if I would have went with my ego, I wouldn't have climbed the mountain. My ego would have said, you're deathly. Afraid of heights. But I didn't go to my ego. I went to my higher self and went to my awareness. My awareness says, let's get the hell up there now. Let's go. And I just did it, you know? So if you start to reframe those things and retrain the brain, set yourself free of the ego, you will have a completely different life. A completely. And death. But you'll have a completely different life. And the next one, I'll give you the quick. There's only four. Good and bad is a choice. Right. Which we talked about earlier. You decide what's good and what's bad. Don't let somebody else say, oh, that's terrible. Maybe it wasn't terrible. It's terrible to them. Might be fantastic to you, me being hidden out in that closet and doing all that meditation. I would do it again. I would go to Nepal right now and sit in a room for eight hours and meditate. And, you know, and the last one is acknowledging that you're a part of God and God is a part of you. And you don't have to use the term God. You can call it the collective consciousness, or you could call it anything you wish, the universe. But at the end of the day, you're God. You and God are one. You're not separate then. You're not less than. And this is why when I do the law of Attraction, I don't say pretty please and I'm going to, you know, say 10 prayers or anything like that. You're my partner, man, and I need 10,000. Let's go.

Right?

Let's go. You're not less than God. You are God. And that's number four. And when you understand that, you have to go out and live like a God. And what would God do? God would help other people. God would do things that create things. God would create environments that are pleasant for other people. This is who you really are.

Wow. I love all of that. Thank you so much for sharing it. All of that. The last question, it could be two words. It could be two sentences, could be two phrases. But the question I always ask everybody as we finish up the. The conversation is, because life can be beautiful. We've talked a lot about death today. But life can be beautiful. We want it to be. If we really see it that way.

Yeah.

And in saying that, why are we here? What do you feel is our purpose and drive as to why we come here and incarnate be human beings? Why are we here?

There's a couple of different reasons. That. And again, I have to preface this with I don't know factually. Okay. These are my opinions. Right. Okay. Why are we here? I think that if we look at the just the one life that we're here, it is twofold. It is to become this enlightened being. Right. But it is also to help as many others become enlightened as you possibly can along the way. The law of attraction could be good for used for good, but it could also be used for bad. I mean, there's been some really bad people that have lived on this earth or may still be on this earth that use it for bad, but we need to use it for good. We need to reach that enlightened state in one lifetime so that we can move on. And we must take as many people as we can with us. And anything that I've done that has had success, whether it's business or anything else, it's always been about helping the other person achieve their goals, which helps me achieve mine. It's never me first. It's always the other person first. And that is what gives me success. So I look at how can I help you? And that will help me.

Wow. I just had a moment there, because that's beautiful. That is totally exactly what it. It is, though. It's. You're.

You're just.

You're really good at wording things. I just want to say that as we end this, like, you're really good at wording it for whatever reason in a way that I resonate with it. And I get it. Everybody kind of resonates. You know, there's different leaders and different coaches and different things, people around the world. Right. And it's interesting. You always wonder, how does this. How do. Why does this person have all these views and these. You know, I'm. I'm listening. I'm like, I'm not getting any of this. But then you can go and resonate with somebody a little bit different. Just could be just the way that people use their language and speak.

Right.

But helping others achieve things in their life, because in turn, it helps yourself. Like, you're.

It's. It's.

It's like everything's kind of working again. That's why it's really important to keep the right people around you. And. Oh, yeah, those things are really important, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That can bring you up or bring you down pretty quick. So it's really important. I want to thank you for being on here today. I usually turn to the camera and just say, please, like, share and subscribe to the channel if you haven't. These messages are really important for people. This is why we're doing it. It's the whole reason I created Soul Inspired and to get amazing guests like Ray on today. So thanks, Ray, for being on and I encourage everybody to check out his books, check out his information, and it's been a. A really, it's been an awesome talk, so thanks so much.