Here And There - Part 3 of 3: The Near Death Experience

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Death and the beyond has always been thought of as the greatest of mysteries, because despite all available mainstream literature, no one really knows for sure what awaits people on the other side. Or do they? While there are those who even deny that there is such a thing as an afterlife, as seen in the first two parts of this series death and dying don't seem to be as much of a mystery for those with access to a very specific set of esoteric skills and knowledge.

In Part 1, I briefly discussed the body of knowledge about death and dying that are encoded in the different esoteric sciences. In Part 2, I discussed how mediums serve as go-betweens that allow non-clairvoyant people to communicate with disembodied spirits. However, validating the information gained from these previously mentioned sources has always been a problem, because unless you've been there yourself how can you really say what it's like? To this, there is a special group of people who find themselves in the unique position of having crossed over to the other side and come back to share their experiences. I'm referring to those who have undergone the near death experience (NDE).

You may ask why bother with those who have gone through NDE instead of simply looking at the lives and experiences of the various yogis and saints who have consistently visited the inner realms. The thing is, I also wanted to explore how an ordinary person, who hadn't undergone any training or exposure in an esoteric school, would see the supernal realms if they had a chance to visit them. And this is exactly the case for those who have undergone near death experiences.

For the most part, people who have undergone an NDE have similar experiences and descriptions. Usually they briefly see their physical bodies from the outside, there is a light and they are usually met by another being, either an angel or deceased loved one. Of course, there are also differences. But again, as in the case of people visiting different regions of the same country, differences in experience should probably be expected. There may also be another reason for the differences.

Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, wrote an article about a conversation she and Colonel Olcott (one of the co-founders of Theosphy) had with a great Eastern teacher and another Indian. In summary, it states in the article that whatever conception (or non-conception) that one has about the afterlife will determine what one actually experiences after death. This actually ties in with what T. Lobsang Rampa had to say about the subject.

For example, if one were a Catholic, one would see heaven and angels, as well as hell and devils. If one were an atheist, one would experience a big nullity and blackness. Hindus would experience something in conformity with what their religion taught them. However, all these being the constructs and delusions of the mind, are temporary conditions and eventually the spirit emerges from these mental constructs in order to experience the true inner life.

Therefore, it seems there are two general stages of the afterlife. Most NDEs seem to fall under the category of the first stage, which is why their experiences may be colored by their religious beliefs and may differ from the accounts of the mystics. There are, however, special cases of NDEs who seem to have gone on to the second stage and it is these accounts that resemble most closely what the mystics and esoteric texts say about the inner realms.

I already wrote about the case of Anita Moorjani and if you look at her NDE, her experience does have the markings of the second stage. At this point, I'd like to take a look at another special NDE that has the hallmarks of the second stage of spiritual life, perhaps even more so than Moorjani's experience. I refer to the experiences of Dr. Eben Alexander, M.D. who wrote about his NDE in the book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife.

Dr. Alexander went into a deep coma for one week, and during this period he experienced a reality that, according to him, was more real than the reality we live in right now. What is remarkable about Dr. Alexander's experience, aside from the fact that he was a neurosurgeon, is that he was an atheist before his NDE. Already an indifferent Catholic, Dr. Alexander's daily exposure to the field of medical science as well as some disappointing life experiences increasingly led him to doubt the existence of God.

Medically speaking, Dr. Alexander had a case of bacterial meningitis, apparently a very rare occurence among adults. How he contracted it was a mystery, because he wasn't exposed to any of the risk factors or incidents that could cause such an infection. However, what he went through before he went into coma takes on a very special meaning when seen through the perspective of esoteric science.

For starters, Dr. Alexander suddenly woke up early in the morning with intense pain at the base of his spine. He tried to take a soothing soak in the tub, but instead of helping, the pain started to creep up his spine. Then his head exploded in pain after his son briefly massaged it and that's when he started to slowly slip away. I don't know about you, but from those symptoms they pretty much look like signs of spontaneous kundalini awakening.

Many yogic sources state the importance of awakening the kundalini and bringing it to the crown chakra (at the top of the head) in order to fully experience the supernal realms. In the case of Dr. Alexander, what sets his experience apart from other NDEs is that in the midst of his NDE he wasn't even aware of who he was on this earth. Other people who have NDEs retain a sense of their earthly identity and personality.

Dr. Alexander believes that his forgetting about his earthly identity was probably the reason why he had an even deeper experience compared to other NDEs. This gives a hint of why it is important for those about to pass on to completely let go of material and corporeal matters.

Dr. Alexander also described his experience as more real than his physical life. This statement is probably incomprehensible except to someone else who had undergone a similar mystical experience. He also stated that he did not have a body as such and communicated with his guide there through thought alone. He describes a big core of blackness that was not frightening, yet emitted a sound that he could only describe as OM. And OM is the name he could think of to describe God.

In that realm, Dr. Alexander describes learning and understanding so much, and there was no such feeling of time or space. Even now, he is still slowly processing the things that he learned there, because his brain can hardly keep up with what was "taught" to him. This is strikingly similar to Master Choa Kok Sui's writings about intuition, about how one can learn the equivalent of several books in a few seconds yet take months or years to distill that knowledge into something understandable to most people.

Dr. Alexander also said that what you saw there was also what you felt, and vice versa, and the one constant experience there was that of unconditional love.

I highly encourage you to read Dr. Alexander's book. If you have any esoteric background at all you will immediately recognize Dr. Alexander's experiences. You'd think you were reading about the mystical experiences of a yogi.

In any case, the point of all this is that we need not undergo an NDE ourselves in order to experience the inner realms. There are many esoteric systems out there that teach different meditations and spiritual practices that will help us achieve these altered states of consciousness. Some gifted people are actually born with the ability to astral travel at will.

So there you have it, you now have an idea that there is something more to death and the afterlife, and that there are many ways that others have used to learn more about it. Death is not the end, and you can take comfort in the thought that your departed loved ones are well looked after in their continuing journey.

You may ask where evocation (spirit summoning) fits into all this. I would say it's somewhere in between mediumship and actually experiencing the inner realms. You're not using a go-between in order to speak with a spirit, but you're not actually visiting the spirit realms either. It's a way to get some information about the spirit world, but nothing really beats going there and seeing and experiencing it for yourself.

At the end of it all, what these stories do tell us is that such inner realms do exist, and there are ways and means that allow our consciousness to reach those realms even while physically alive. It's up to us if we want to start exploring them right now or to wait until we've crossed the inevitable line before paying attention to our destination.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3