It is very difficult to talk about yourself. Besides, I have always been very careful about my private life. I will try, however, to tell you something of my experience in this life, although in many of my books I have introduced personal experiences. I will begin with my birth, which took place, a long time ago, in the city of Buenos Aires, on 28 July 1942.

My parents are, and I say they are because no one ceases to exist just because they have moved from one plane of existence to another, Isabel Odette Bessa, a Brazilian and an official of the Brazilian government in Argentina, with the position of vice-consul. Roberto Eduardo Schulte, Argentinean, banker and my best friend in life.

I have three children: Hernán, Federico and María de las Victorias Ducrey. Federico has been in the spiritual world for many years now but he is still alive as before. Nobody dies, we just transform ourselves like a dragonfly into a butterfly. Hernán and Vicky are my great pillars of life. Two beings of light that dignify and honour life. I have, thank God, four wonderful grandchildren. Maximiliano, Rodrigo, Santiago and Juan Cruz. They are full of life and dreams, they are the ferment of life. They are the ‘chochera’ of this grandmother.

During my younger years I taught English in two very prestigious schools in Buenos Aires: Colegio del Salvador and Colegio Santa Rita. It was a fantastic experience and I don't think I ever lost my ‘plum teacher's soul’, as my children call me. However, there was an event that divided my life in two: before and after the ‘Dolex’. It was in February 1977. It was a Sunday. Suddenly I felt a terrible headache that prevented me from thinking. It never happens to me, I never have a headache. I had nothing at home and I asked my mother, who lived in another flat in the same building, for a painkiller. She gave me a ‘Dolex’. When she held out her hand she offered me two pills. I looked at them and decided to take only one, thank God! After a while I felt like I was spinning all over. I went to the bathroom and, horrified, saw my face in the mirror, a deformed ball.

Obviously, I had had an allergic reaction, for the first time. Intuition never fails. I asked my husband to take me to a doctor, urgently. We arrived and I felt like I was fainting. I was totally hoarse. I pulled the orderly's apron to tell him that I had only taken a ‘Dolex’. I was afraid they would think of something else and start by pumping my stomach. I was relieved when he said he understood me. I immediately shut down. I had a glottis oedema and then a heart attack. The doctors despaired beside me because they felt I was dying, they repeated that I was too young to go off like that, for a simple pill.

That was the experience that marked my life, definitely. First it was unbearable pain. I had a tractor walking and treading on my chest. A destructive steamroller. A heart attack hurts like hell. Then came the best part. I saw myself suspended in the air, I watched my body from the ceiling. So many tears shed and so many smiles given away! I flew over the ward, went out of the window, saw some trees and a garden... I walked around the hospital building.

I was impressed to be able to read the minds of the doctors. There was a young doctor who told me to lift up my legs as this doctor Equis said. Then I could see in her mind the page of the medical booklet with the drawing at the bottom left of the page. Unbelievable. My memories are as clear as they were at that moment - he could read minds! I remember thinking, ‘If this lasted I would be a god!!!’ A unique and unrepeatable sensation.

Suddenly, I was caught up in a maelstrom, a whirlwind and entered a dark road, something like ‘the narrow canyon of the Colorado’, as I remember imagining it. I travelled a lot but I was never there. It was the closest thing to a tunnel. All around me there were many figures that seemed to dance and accompany me on this journey. I didn't recognise anyone. Well at that time I had no ‘dead’ relatives or friends. I felt the greatest peace imaginable. I thought: ‘this is the fullness’. It is unique and unimaginable. I didn't want to get out of there, it was back to the womb, it was total bliss. I have never experienced anything like it again. It is an experience that connects us to some higher plane, no doubt. We entered another altered state of consciousness.

I felt like I was running out of time, my life flashed before my eyes, like a colourful film. I took stock of my life. I was very cruel to myself. Everything had been pretty good except my role as a woman. Good mother I was, good daughter too but... What had I done for my spiritual evolution? What had I achieved as a woman? What dreams had I postponed, what ideals had I truncated? My balance was very bad. We are the cruelest judges of ourselves. There is no final judgement as traditional religions maintain, it is we who judge ourselves and forgive ourselves nothing. We are cruel.

I learned a great lesson: everything we did wrong but with good intentions is forgiven. Why? Because we are still very ignorant beings. If we were more evolved, we would obviously be incarnated on another, higher planet. The only thing we do not forgive ourselves is not having tried to do things. The lack of trying is unforgivable. I never forgot it and I told everyone I could so that they would not make the mistake I made then.

At the end of the tunnel was Professor Bruno Genta, rector of the Santa Rita School, where I was a teacher and whom I admired very much. He had recently been killed by the guerrillas at the time, just outside the church. He held out his hand to me and I walked towards him, feeling very, very happy. Surprisingly, a photo of my three children, who were very young, appeared before my eyes. They were standing on a ladder. It was a slap in the face of reality. I couldn't go away and leave them, they would be too unprotected. It's funny that at that time I was a great amateur photographer but that photo never existed. There were dozens but not that one. A detail. Although they are my most precious treasure, it was hard for me to go back. I felt that it "entered" my body, there on the stretcher, almost violently and, in truth, with no desire to return.

From that experience I made many decisions that marked my life: I got divorced, changed my profession and decided to live life in a different way, more connected to spirituality, obviously, while keeping my feet firmly on the ground. I went to Brasilia and applied for the Itamaraty, Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and entered the Brazilian foreign service. I am Brazilian because my mother is Brazilian. In reality I am binational, Brazilian and Argentinean. Both countries live in me and I love them, but Brazil was the place where I started my spiritual path. I travelled a lot, met many different cultures and learned a lot. The most important thing is that we never stop learning and learning alone is not enough, it is necessary to share what we have learned. When I retired, a few years ago, by the Brazilian government, I went back to live in Argentina because my children and grandchildren are here, although now, unfortunately, many of them will probably leave.

Always, since the Dolex episode, I worked as I could and from wherever I could to share everything I was learning with readers and friends who wanted to be interested in spiritual growth. All paths are valid. As the Dalai Lama says: "the best religion is a good heart". We are spiritual beings having a physical experience. We are simple and ignorant created Spirits and we are moving along the long road of evolution as we can, especially by making use of our will power, study, our love of God and our love of others.

That is why I love to write so much: to share all that I discover and learn.