NDE: FIVE LESSONS FOR LIVING

NDE: FIVE LESSONS FOR LIVING

by | Jan 13, 2022 | Consciousness Studies, Karma Wheel, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge, Spiritual Evolution

The Near Death Experience (NDE) is not a new phenomenon or construct of the “New Age”.  Throughout human history people survived brushes with death, reporting entering another dimension of life, having feelings of unfading peace, passing through a tunnel towards a light, and reviewing one’s life events in rich detail.

In the Republic (350 BC), Plato tells the story of Er, a soldier who died in battle but came back to life 10 days later. Er tells of his experience in the afterlife recounting beautiful sights and wondrous feelings he experienced.

In the last thirty years, the field of NDE studies has advanced at a dramatic pace in parallel with technological advances in the field of resuscitation medicine, which have produced a voluminous amount of data tracking the conditions of patients while temporarily dead.

A great deal of information about NDEs has been collected by researchers and published in scientific papers, but the lessons from these experiences have not yet reached the greater masses. Those who undergo near-death experiences often find their worldview, their attitudes, and their beliefs changed. Here are five lessons learned from their encounters with the after-life that may help us navigate life more surely.

Don’t Be Stingy With Your Love

Howard Strom, a professor at Northern Kentucky University who had a riveting NDE, learned how insignificant his intellectual and professional accomplishments were in the eyes of the angels. The highlight of his life was not his degrees or academic achievements but the time he consoled his sister by holding her in his arms after a traumatic episode in her life.

One common thread of the NDErs experience is a new and profound realization of the necessity of love. We crave it because it sustains our emotional life, but more importantly, the NDErs discovered that there is infinite and transcendental joy in the love we offer others, incorporate into our own life, and even the way we regard nature. In the afterlife, they naturally intuited that love is a state of being.

When we are preparing for a long trip abroad, we spend time studying the culture of the place, language, history, how to get to places, and what we can do there. Even TripAdvisor has become indispensable in our day-to-day lives. The NDErs give us all that and more. They tell us that the currency of love is widely accepted, that it opens all doors, and that making friends is easy over there.

Love without measure, starting with your family. Play with your children in the sandbox, take your mother to the opera, have lunch with friends, attend birthday parties, and smile, hug, and kiss a lot. Be generous with your invisible treasure.

When you die, you will be happy with yourself, and will live in the certainty that those same people, and their friends, and their friends’ friends, will welcome you with smiles, hugs, and kisses. It’s that simple.

Trust That Your Life Has a Purpose

Life is a stage, we are actors, and Providence is the playwrighter.  Just as an actor performs the role that has been assigned to him by the author, so every human being performs the role they received from Providence. This is how Plotinus, one of the great Greek philosophers, explain the human journey. This allegory is clear:  Our lives have a purpose. We are not leaves floating in the wind nor we are puppets manipulated by fate.

But what is the purpose of Providence? It’s the growth of the spirit. This is how St. Augustine defined Providence, and remains timeless, even after sixteen centuries.  We are all on a long journey across time to improve ourselves, acquire new talents, form new habits, and refine our character.

Mary Helen Hensley had a clinical death after a tragic car accident. She recounts the marvelous energy that enveloped her journey, the awareness of the light, and the joyful encounter with loved ones, and that, while she observed the events around her, she was overwhelmed by the understanding that she needed to live. She was shown the future that was to unfold and the faces of thousands of people that she would touch.

Of course, our journey is not without storms. Like sailors, we know that storms will pass, waves will calm down, and a sunny morning will raise again. Seafarers never expect to travel straight to a destination. Out on the ocean, weather conditions and currents are always changing. Before we started this life, in spirit, we set an intent and destination for this journey, knowing fully well that course corrections will be a constant, but that we would have the resources to reach the destination. When we veer off course, Providence leads us to the resources to sail again on a new route another day.

Life is Worth Living

Never take life for granted. Remember that, first and foremost, we are spirits temporarily experiencing life on Earth. We are following a lesson plan conceived for us to accomplish goals we thought were important. 

It may be a challenge, but try to see your life from a detached perspective, from the beginning to the present, as if you were having your own NDE. From the millions who shared their NDEs, the majority emerged with a heightened sense of appreciation for their lives and a determination to live to their fullest. Many of them came from tough places or were dealing with tragic situations, but they all believe that their situations could be turned around, and that new dreams would be rewarding.  They came to value the extra time they were granted in the body.

In the Spiritist movement, we often hear concerns about karma and how it explains the difficult events of our lives. Karma, law of cause and effect, does exist, but as Allan Kardec pointed out, it accounts for less than ten percent of the factors that determine the quality of our existence. The remaining 90% of our challenges has to do with our choices, behaviors, and attitudes.  The past had a role in defining who we are today, but only we can decide what we’ll be tomorrow, and in a future life.

If you’re going through a hard time at the moment, trust that time heals, pain subsides, and there will be a new day for you. If you are enjoying love, good health, and positive aspirations, make an effort to remind yourself to be grateful to the people in your life and the universe.

You Are Spirit

NDEs are just another form of confirmation of what we are. This time however, the confirmation has the backing of science, and the careful research support of above-board investigators. Outside of the body, we are self-conscious, our memories are clear and sharper, we are able to think, our ability to feel emotions is not changed, and we reconnect with others who have gone before us.

When we truly accept this fact, our attitude toward every event of life changes completely. If you are a musician, a carpenter, or business person you still push yourself hard to excel at your craft, but you will not allow the fascination with money to dominate your priorities.  You will place greater value on the benefits you provide others, and on what you give back to life.

Your religious commitment become less about the tenets and expectations of a creed and more about spirituality, closeness to God, and openness to meditative practices. Life will not spare you the slings and arrows, the suffering and pain, but you bear them with serenity and courage, for you know who you truly are.

Be Mindful of Your Inner-Life

Many NDErs have reported a heightened perception of life’s brevity and a determination to live every moment intensely. As often happens, we live very busy lives, running from one chore to another, connected with digital friends, and continuously consuming social media stories. We may not notice, but our minds are continuously being shaped by the forces around us, and they in turn are shaping how our spirits connect with the greater life.

We must take control for what happens in our minds if we don’t want to lose sight of our purpose. Control starts with awareness of thoughts and emotions. Mindfulness is the act of being intensely aware of our inner-life, being conscious and alive in the moment, practicing techniques such as yoga, meditation, tai-chi, and Qigong.

In conclusion, technology and science have brought about expanding knowledge and remarkable commonality of stories of the Near-Death Experience.  There has never been a time when more people have access to such knowledge and insights, and the choice to use these lessons to live life with directed purpose, intention, and love.

Life in the flesh, though short, is part of our training for eternity!

Spiritist Philosophy Is Incomplete

Spiritist Philosophy Is Incomplete

by | Aug 20, 2021 | Allan Kardec, Consciousness Studies, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge | 1 comment

The Spiritist philosophy is conspicuously missing a “life-time review” as a common documented element of the death process.  The omission begs the question: Is the Spiritist Philosophy incomplete?

Our previous article noted that none of the works by Allan Kardec (or the vast automatic writing literature by Chico Xavier) described a single case of a life-time review, which is especially alarming in view of the frequency it occurs in a majority of Near-Death experiences that have been reported in the last 40 years.

Curious minds may wonder why this important phenomenon is lacking.  Was it due to the limitations of the mediums, an unconscious cultural constraint, or yet a decision by the mentors to defer it to the future?

 

Of course, many of our readers will be horrified by the idea that the body of ideas that define the Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete.  Others, may not bother about such an anomaly because they are satisfied with what they have learned. A few, however, will hopefully look at this anomaly with a critical mind and be willing to put in action Allan Kardec’s precept ‘the only unshakeable faith is that which can withstand reason, face to face, in every stage of humankind’s development.’

 

Here is an example of a life-time review that speaks so credibly to our beliefs.

“All of a sudden, my entire life flashed before my eyes, complete in every detail. Every event and scenario that had occurred during my life was there for me to examine, and I had the opportunity to scrutinize all or any part of it. It is impossible for me to say how long the life review actually lasted. The entire review appeared to last for only a split-second, because all the events of my entire life were shown to me simultaneously. Yet I was free to examine each and every part of my life, piece by piece, to the finest detail. Time was subjective and distance was non-existent, because I was in every place at the same time. When my attention was drawn to a particular situation or set of circumstances, there I was already experiencing the moment. In other words, I literally saw every last detail of my entire life, compressed into a split second.”

“Not only did I review my life from my own personal viewpoint, but also from the perspective of others with whom I had connected at various times and places. Now I knew precisely what people were thinking and feeling about me. Every time I hurt someone’s feelings, I felt their pain. Now I felt the results of all my hurtful words and deeds; I could literally sense their every thought and feeling in response to me, which felt downright awful. On the other side of the fence, every time I was kind, or whenever I had helped people or brought them happiness, I felt their joy and appreciation.

“But there was no injustice whatsoever in my life review, for I could see that I was the architect of all my actions and the master of all my virtues and vices, as we all are.[1]”

 

 

The Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete in the same sense that we refer to Newton, Einstein, and quantum mechanics as examples of the modification of an existing theory. Newton wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t have enough information. His ideas still hold up when we apply them to a falling apple. Likewise, Einstein’s work wasn’t overturned by the discovery of quantum mechanics. Each of these new ideas simply added to what we had already learned. The theories of Newton and Einstein aren’t wrong, but they do not apply to all situations. This is because the scientists didn’t have enough information to expand on the theory at the time it was formed.

The Spiritist Philosophy doesn’t have a centralized structure in the Catholic or Anglican mode that establishes rituals and beliefs. Spiritism has no hierarchy or formal leadership. It evolves with the people, the practitioners’ experiences, and with the culture that surrounds its centers of practice. It accepts evolution as a norm and transformation as part of its natural growth. However, while all these represent aspirations, the Spiritist Philosophy does depend on the initiative and courage of people to openly debate new ideas and with a disposition to rely on objective evidence.

Mediumship has been documented for over 150 years the primary tool for communication between dimensions. While there have been a few very reliable mediums, e.g. Francisco Xavier, Edgar Cayce, Divaldo Franco, the majority of mediums are tools of spiritual comfort rather than providers of unassailable evidences. The goal of the Spiritist Philosophy from its beginning was to provide proof of the continuity of life, and to demonstrate that human beings have a soul that exists, transcending the life of the body.

We are now seeing the development of a new tool to demonstrate the existence of the consciousness (spirit or soul) through the extensive data collected by medical scientists studying Near-Death Experiences (NDE’s). The possibility of bringing back a person, clinically dead for more than thirty minutes, has stretched the boundaries between life and death, and has changed how we approach life on Earth.

When we acknowledge Near-Death Experiences as fact, it follows that Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete.  It is important that we accept this fact and not reject it.

Highly specific and detailed NDE’s and resuscitation medicine provide unquestionable evidence of consciousness survival, and by extension the continuity of life beyond death.

As science and technology evolve, other tools will become available, revealing even more about the death experience, and we must be open to the fact of them all. We cannot keep on relying on classic mediumship alone when other powerful instruments provide more and advancing evidence.

Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete, and that fact aligns perfectly with the design and workings of the Universe.  After all, isn’t this the whole purpose of the spiritual enterprise that has Jesus at the helm, to help us to awaken to our intrinsic reality as souls who happen to be temporarily inhabiting a body of flesh in our eternal journey of evolution toward God?

 

[1] Miller, Malcom, The Impossible Dream: An Extraordinary Brush With Death, IANDS

New Heights For The Human Consciousness

New Heights For The Human Consciousness

by | May 21, 2021 | Allan Kardec, Andre Luiz, Consciousness Studies, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge

Ellen was in awe of the light, the intensity and beauty of the colors, and the lightness of the space where she found herself. Love was all pervading, and she felt that she had become the love that enveloped her. Almost simultaneously she felt a deep awareness that we are all perfect, and that everyone has a purpose for their lives on Earth. She was welcomed in that journey by a being of light, and felt from him the most serene reassurance that all was OK.

As far as clinical death goes, Ellen’s story is not unique. Similar stories have been part of our history, and have been observed in most cultures of the world. What makes it different now is the fact that Ellen’s story is one of many thousands that scientists have documented, and supported with extensive medical data, in the last 40 years.

This story is another example. It was published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, in 1991, as part of a large study conducted in Holland. Having suffered a heart attack, a patient was brought to a hospital in Holland. He was clinically dead. During the resuscitation procedures a nurse removed his dentures and put them away. The resuscitation was successful, and after recovering the patient made an inquiry to the team on duty about his dentures.

Days later, in the hallway, he saw and recognized the nurse who assisted in his resuscitation. The patient told the nurse that he was the staff person who had taken his dentures and described the drawer where they had been placed. The nurse, who had forgotten all about it, went to the room and found the dentures, exactly where he was told by the patient.

In thousands of cases or cardiac resuscitation like this, the medical facts are consistent. The patient was connected to all the machinery of an Emergency Room, and was deemed to be clinically dead for several minutes, without a heartbeat or any indication of brain activity.  Still, many patients are resuscitated and recount similar stories about “what is on the other side”.  Such examples are abundant and comprehensive.

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have been studied for more than 40 years by researchers from a variety of disciplines including neuroscience, psychiatry, medicine, physics, and nursing.

The body of knowledge has become highly respectable and the advancements have the potential to transform how human beings see themselves and their lives on Earth.

This is a new frontier for scientists to explore the duality of body and mind. The scientific community has chosen the word consciousness as an alternative to the words soul or spirit, given their heavy religious connotations. It is important to be aware that words such as psyche, soul, spirit, mind, or consciousness communicate very much the same idea, that is, the non-physical essence of a human being.

Allan Kardec was adamant about the importance of maintaining the evolution of Spiritist thought current with scientific knowledge. It is therefore with this reference that we want to take this space to share some personal observations about the currency of our conceptions on the transitioning of the soul to the spiritual sphere.

If we take a dispassionate stance it’s clear that there are solid parallels between the new findings and the ideas espoused by Allan Kardec in Heaven and Hell, and in the Andre Luiz’s series about the after-life. At the same time, we must evaluate some of the new ideas that expand what we know, or help refocus the discrepant ones. This will be a series of seven blogposts, starting with the feeling of elation reported by most NDE’s experiencers, in our next issue.