w 50 wWhen people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other,
Long and short define each other,
High and low depend on each other,
Before and after follow each other.Therefore the Master
Acts without doing anything,
And teaches without saying anything.Tao Te Ching, Translated by Stephen Mitchell
(The duality is school; the oneness home.)
w 51 wI get lots of email from students researching the Near Death Experience. I wish their teacher had the experience, because understanding doesn't come from lists of statistics. Knowing how many saw a light or how many talked to a "dead" friend is interesting, but of little value in learning about NDEs.The NDE is about love. It is the unconditional love experiencers feel, that heals their body, and changes their lives forever. When the love is felt, all knowledge of physical life, and the afterlife is within it. Total acceptance, total understanding, total peace. One knows love, unconditional love, is the place to be, it's the Oneness of all things, it's Home. That knowing changes the perspective of all who feel it.
Classes on NDEs should contain material about unconditional love, and the reality of life after death. Otherwise no true understanding of Near Death Experiences will take place.
The best way to learn about Near Death Experiences, is to talk to experiencers, and read their posted experiences. When you hear, and read this kind of material, it is just as the NDEers explained. Free of the interpretation and condensing that often occurs in courses or books.
w 52 wPerspective The nature of man is eternal. Recorded history goes back over 4000 years. That is the approximate age of the "Egyptian Book of the Dead". This writing tells about life after death, and in order to make the journey easier, it was buried in the tomb with the deceased.
Throughout recorded history we find that man believed he would survive death in spiritual form. William James wrote of the "Varieties of Religious Experience." Margaret Mead, anthropologist, wrote of the many cultures and their beliefs in the after life. Wherever you go in the world, and whatever culture you study, you will find belief in life after death. There are as many ways of expressing the spiritual nature of man as there are individuals to express it.
The point is: man has always known of his eternal spiritual nature.
On the other hand, the field of Science, not yet 400 years old, teaches man has no spiritual nature. With less than a tenth the experience of man's known recorded history, science claims that life is an accident, has no greater meaning, and will end in death. What is truth: the wisdom of the ages, or the teaching of unproved scientific theories. The reader will have to ultimately answer that question for themselves.
w 53 wResearch Tools Science used to be called "Physical Science" when in its early stages. It was the study of our physical world and basically still is. The first reseachers were not interested in the spiritual questions and felt those queries outside of the boundries of science. Some still do. Over the years, however, and with the attention Near Death Experiences have been receiving in the media, scientists have turned their focus to spiritual events.
The current scientific theories of creation, the "Big Bang" and "Evolution" do not recognize a spiritual nature. They teach that man evolved from a random incident in space and there is nothing after death because only the "physical" exists. These theories are taught in public schools as if they were truth despite the logical holes, gaps, and missing links they contain. Do you think teaching theory as truth is a correct approach to education?
The research tools of science are physical in nature: microscopes, chem labs and a large array of testing machinery, among other things. These tools are designed to study the physical world, not the spiritual one. So it is understandable spiritual events can not be measured by the research tools of science, and therefor believed to be nonexistent.
The tools of the spiritual are: prayer, meditation, unconditional love, truth, faith, acknowledging higher consciousness, and many forms of focusing awareness inward to the spiritual realms. Feelings play a large part in accessing spiritual knowledge.
Some researchers think spiritual tools unimportant because spiritual events can't be duplicated or measured. They think "feelings" only get in the way of scientific truth, and should be suppressed. However, ignoring feelings is to leave out a very large part of life. So how can knowledge of life be attained by ignoring a principle part of that life. The real truth of life will contain all parts intact. The ultimate truth is found in unconditional love, and the knowledge it holds for us.
w 54 wMetaphysicians Advantage Public schools teach science, so everyone knows a lot about science. But, public schools don't teach metaphysics, so only those who study the field know anything about it. People usually study metaphysics because of spiritual events they, or their friends have had, in order to learn more about the Greater Spiritual Reality.
Scientists who still promote the brain theory of Near Death Experiences are among those who haven't done their homework. The theory that NDEs happen locally within the brain was disproved over ten years ago by every major Near Death researcher. It is the easiest scientific theory to dismiss due to varified physical evidence. The Near Death Experience proves that life continues after death of the body.
Metaphysics is a large and complex field. I suggest scientists study it a minimum of four years before forming any theories about the spiritual nature of man. However, there is a consideration. Serious studies of the spiritual world almost always make a believer out of the student.
w 55 wBrain Thing. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was urged by his family to seek psychiatric evaluation. His insistence the human voice could be sent great distances through a wire caused them concern over his mental health.
If Bell's family had seen a television set in operation they would have really been surprised. This form of transmitting and receiving data without wires was yet to be discovered.
Alexander Graham Bell, and his family would have believed the television set was the source of the pictures it presented. That the images were stored somewhere within the TV and different groups shown when the position of the "channel knob" was adjusted. Bell might even have removed the cover to look for them, trying to discover how the thing worked. But, no matter how hard or long he examined the television he would not have found the images and sounds produced stored within it.
Science has a similar problem with the human brain. The body is only a "tool of communication" for your spiritual consciousness (the real you) to use while exploring the physical realm. No matter how hard or long scientists look in the brain for things like consciousness, memory, mind, personality, dreams, NDEs, OBEs, etc. they will not be found. The brain is not the source of these life's events. There is no proof that the NDE, or any other event for that matter, originates within the brain. Nothing has been found stored there. Stimulating the brain at different points to produce different events doesn't prove any of those events are stored within the brain. Just as adjusting (stimulating) the "channel knob" on a TV doesn't prove the images it produces are stored within the TV.
Albert Einstein was one of the most intelligent and prolific contributors to the field of science in the twentieth-century. His brain was donated to science for studies of how he acquired such great intelligence. But researchers found that Einstein's brain was smaller than normal and contained nothing unusual. It did, however, contain a larger number of synapses, a minute space between a nerve cell and another nerve cell, a muscle cell, etc., through which nerve impulses are transmitted from one to the other. He had more "connections" than the average person, more "channels" for his spiritual energy to use. The more you use your brain, the more synapses you will develop.
Scientists are looking for a biologically-based trigger to explain the NDE and other spiritual events. They often say; "We know it is there, we just haven't found it yet." The truth is, they don't know it's there. Obviously, in order to know it's there, it would need to be found. So, without any biological evidence whatsoever, some scientists continue to publicly declare NDEs biological. This behaviour is unfair to Near Death Experiencers, characterizing them as witless, while passing misinformation about NDEs to the general public.
The search for a biological basis of spiritual events has been going on for more than a hundred years without any results. I wonder how many more years will pass before science realizes the brain is not the source of mankind. The brain did not create humanity.
So, if you've had a Near Death Experience and someone tells you it's just a local brain thing, be sure to ask them for proof. There is no evidence NDEs originate in the brain. Then explain to them there is considerable proof the NDE doesn't originate in the brain. That it happens independent of brain and body during clinical death. An example of this proof is shown in FAQ #05 and continued in FAQ #12. There are more examples of this proof on site; hundreds of examples in the Near Death literature; and thousands of them in the broader field of metaphysics.
However, this site was not created to post arguments on the reality of NDEs. Its purpose is teaching the significance of Love as demonstrated by the Near Death Experience. When one reaches the state of unconditional Love (in the presence of the Light) they achieve their highest point of wisdom and understanding. It is known no organ (brain) of the body creates individual consciousness, any more than a child creates its parents. They know because they're in the presence of the Creator, the Light of Love that permeates all things, called by many names, but best described by the word Love.
NDEs prove there is meaning and purpose to life. That all individuals are responsible for their spiritual growth, and accountable for their thoughts and deeds. Perfect justice is achieved through perfect Love -- what you do to others returns to you. Positive deeds return Love; negative deeds return "challenges" for spiritual growth. "You will reap whatsoever you sow."
In summary: There is no proof that Near Death Experiences, or any other experiences, originate within the brain. While there is proof that NDEs happen independently of the brain and body during clinical death. Therefor scientists, and/or anyone else, have no reason to say Near Death Experiences are biological in nature. NDEs are exactly as the experiencers describe them, real spiritual events.
P.S. It might correctly be asked what proof is there of the "spiritual consciousness (the real you)" talked about in the fourth paragraph above. The answer is: the existence of spiritual consciousness is evidenced by that which remains alive and gathers information during the clinical death of the brain and body. The second part of the argument proves the first. For more information go to FAQ 18. c. 03/00
w 56 wIn the 60's, a president of a leading university would open his speech to the incoming Freshman class with: "Welcome to our great university, over the next four years you will be taught a large amount of information, half of which will be wrong. Our problem is we don't know which half." He was an honest and courageous individual.I read in the newspaper recently that our children are committing suicide at a rate three times greater than twenty years ago. The newsgroups devoted to suicide are among the most active on the web. Some of these children even try to take others with them, as in the school shootings. Everyone is wondering why this is happening.
I don't know for sure, this problem has many facets. But, it might help if we taught the truth about life in school. Scientific theories are taught as if they were truth leaving the children to believe that life is finished at death and has no real purpose or meaning. This is false information, science doesn't really know how life began or how the earth was formed. They have only theories.
Teaching these theories as truth stifles the incentive to learn by implying science already knows how man came into being and how many birds are in the sky, how many fish in the ocean, how many animals walk the earth, etc. It is only in the higher levels of college or post graduate work that one learns how flimsy the foundations of scientific knowledge really are.
Theories should be taught as theory. There are many theories of creation, and more than one should be taught to show the students we are still searching. I believe the "Ancient Astronaut" theory has more to believe about it than the "Big Bang" and "Evolution" theories. But, this issue is not about what to teach. It is about teaching the truth.
Life does have meaning and purpose beyond chasing fame and fortune. There is a reason for our being here, and the Near Death Experience proves it. Life is about learning to Love.
w 57 wDescriptions of the spiritual world vary from author to author. But, it doesn't mean that one is wrong and the other right. There are no words to properly describe the intensity or broadness of spiritual events, and each author must choose those he believes best to explain his experience.The essense (spirit) of each individual is far too large and powerful to fit into a human body. So only a small portion of you is actually inside of, and controlling your corporeal frame. The rest remains in the spirit world surrounding you and is sometimes called the "higher self." You are never out of contact with the Oneness of spirit, even though it may seem like you are at times.
It is not easy for spirit to stay in the lower densities necessary for the physical world. So spirit "blinks" in and out of the physical, with each "blink" being less than a nanosecond in duration. This gives the impression that you are in the physical all the time, but are actually there only half. Also when the body is at rest (sleep, meditation, trance, etc.) spirit leaves the body for longer periods of time. This allows your essence to be refreshed frequently.
If you focus your thoughts intensely into the physical, as many do, you will not be aware of your spiritual nature. Becoming aware of your eternal spiritual nature is the key to enlightenment and wisdom. Learn to focus on the stillness within, and feel the eternal love of your Creator.
w 58 wSupernatural, miraculous, anomalous, etc. are words used to explain events of unknown cause. Everything, however, has a reason for being and a discernable cause. If we don't understand an event, it doesn't mean it is beyond us. In time, all things we marvel at will be revealed.If you want to speed up your knowledge of life, learn to Love. Within the energy of Love is the answer to all things, all knowledge. Love is the answer.
"There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease
that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no
gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not
throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem...Emmet Fox, Sermon on the Mount
w 59 wNDE? A middle-aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital.
While on the operating table she had a Near Death Experience. Seeing God, she asked if this was it. God said, "No, you have another 43 years, 2 months, and 8 days to live."
Upon recovery, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a face lift, liposuction, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, etc. She even had someone come in and change her hair color. Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well make the most of it.
She got out of the hospital after the last operation, and while crossing the street was killed by an ambulance speeding to the hospital.
Arriving in front of God, she demanded, "I thought you said I had another 40 years?"
God replied, "Sorry, I didn't recognize you."
(Just a joke. I got this letter in my email. It is always good to see humor in the serious things of life. Learn to laugh, it is very good medicine.)
