Very Lucky

Blog Post #92

The following excerpts, describing Dr. Eben Alexander’s near-death experience,

are from his book: Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife.

In 2008, at the age of 54, a rare illness put Dr. Eben Alexander, a neuroscientist, into a deep coma for seven days.

“My case was essentially without precedent. It was quickly moving from desperate to hopeless. The doctors simply didn't have an answer for how I could have contracted my illness, or how I could be brought back from my coma. They were sure of only one thing: they did not know of anyone making a full recovery from bacterial meningitis after being comatose for more than a few days.

"My entire neocortex — the outer surface of the brain, the part that makes us human — shutdown. Inoperative. In essence, absent. When your brain is absent, you are absent too."

What Dr. Alexander once considered "pure fantasy" became his reality.

"I was encountering the reality of a world of consciousness that existed completely free of the limitation of my physical brain. My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of God who loves and cares about each one of us.

"On many accounts I was a very lucky man..."

Concept of God.

"As much as I'd grown up wanting to believe in God and Heaven and an afterlife, my decades in the rigorous scientific world of academic neurosurgery had profoundly called into question how such things could exist. Modern neuroscience dictates that the brain gives rise to consciousness — to the mind, to the soul, to the spirit, to whatever you choose to call that invisible, intangible part of us that truly makes us who we are — and I had very little doubt about it.

"My brain was under heavy attack... that serious and possibly irreversible damage was already underway. But contracting a case of severe E. coli bacterial meningitis out of thin air was not the only strange medical feat I performed that first day in the hospital. After two straight hours of guttural animal wails and groaning, I became quiet. Then out of nowhere I shouted three words. They were crystal clear... God, help me!

"And because I so completely forgot my mortal identity, I was granted full access to the true cosmic being I really am (that we all are).

"I will use Om as the pronoun for God... because Om was the sound I remembered hearing associated with that omniscient, omnipotent, and unconditionally loving God. This Being was warm and — odd as I know this may sound — personal. It knew me deeply and overflowed with qualities that all my life I've always associated with human beings... compassion, warmth, pathos, even irony and humor.

"It was as if Om spoke to me through thoughts that were like wave-walls… showing that there is a deeper fabric of existence — a fabric that all of us are always part of, but which we're generally not conscious of.

"One of the biggest mistakes people make when they think about God is to imagine God as impersonal... Om is 'human'... Om understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine. Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.

“Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experiences imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times: Omniscient, omnipotent, personal — loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine (soul) link with God.

"I understood that I was part of the Divine, and that nothing... could ever take that away. The suspicion that we can somehow be separate from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it... was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever."

To be continue…. Unconditional Love, Blog #93

"Even though I'd forgotten my life down here, I had remembered who I really and truly was... a citizen of a universe staggering in its vastness and complexity and ruled entirely by love.” — Dr. Eben Alexander

Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

Click the link above to discover more about Dr. Alexander and his Near-Death Experience

Peace Affirming Prayer

Peace fills my mind and flows through all my thoughts.

Peace fills my heart and flows through all my love.

Peace fills my soul and goodwill flows to all.

Peace fills my being and permeates all my activities.

Peace within. Peace without. Peace everywhere.

Peace in my mind. Peace in my heart. Peace in my soul.

Peace in me. Peace in my home. Peace in my country. Peace in my world.

Peace everywhere.

Amen.

Ukrainian folklore characterizes pysanky as a symbolic, talismanic writing that invokes a higher Universal Power for help, while believing with faithful certainty that It will. The contemporary version of this characterization is a paper-and-pen journaling practice called prayer writing that develops a personal relationship with God.