Yeah, this is some strange stuff. I mean, really, WTF.
But thinking people want to know: is this just the fireworks of a dying brain, the last desperate fantasies of a sputtering flame? The final longing moves of a pathetic losing game?
Doesn't look that way at all, after 30 years of scientific enquiry. It really doesn't. Something very real and very profound is going on. Now, I'm not going to make this case. If you're interested get any book by Dr. Raymond Moody or Dr. Pim Van Lommell.
All I want to say is this: most of us know that our world is in extreme crisis. In many ways, we are hanging by a thread. Death may be very near. (And it's always on its way anyway) We need some real comfort, soothing, love. Guidance. Faith in something higher, and the courage that comes from this faith- not the faith of fevered hopes and dreamy Utopias, but something tangible, grounded, embodied even in it's dis-embodiment. (NDEs as koan!)
And of course traditional religion is of no use anymore to anyone except maybe my aunt. And even the 'cool' Eastern stuff- talk of non-duality and lofty concepts like emptiness, however profound, are too abstract and heady for most- (What? I don't exist!?)- and they're difficult to practice in such a chaotic environment. This approach can even in the short term can cause bewilderment and be misinterpreted quite easily. Resulting in exististential ennui and big spiritual egos and nihilistic 'nothing but' Absolutism- a bunch of traps litter that venerable roadside....
This Heroic Quest that drives great men and women to live in caves turning green eating nettles or doing without sex (right!) is the transcendent path, the Father wisdom. Get out da bed, wash yo ass make some noise in the kitchen with them pots and pans.....and get on that meditation bench- we got an agenda here. Somewhere to be. Metaphysics to chew on. Things are a mess! With the Masculine side of things, Reality always has a point (get it? actually you can define masculine as anything that has a point) and that point is to make everybody free in one way or the other.......Get 'er Done! (Nothing to do with actual men and women here- we're all bi-gendered)
So much for the necessary, but not sufficient, Masculine side of spirituality. But, when yer freakin' grandma meets you at your death bed- and every one else in the room shares that experience- yeah, that's some visceral shit indeed and a horse of a different color. More real, in the sense of this relative world, as we live it- just as we live them, today, as fucked up and unenlightened as we may be- yet suffused by almost unspeakable love in the N.D.E.
Now we're seeing the Feminine side of divinity- the connections, the relationships, the heart-bonds, the personal and deeply shared- the sometimes terrible beauty but always deepening nature of this world, this life. The journey is the goal- as sacred, intended and loved in all it's chaos as any Perfect Garden in its well worked symmetry, or a mountain yogi's well earned bliss. Of course, the Feminine and Masculine are two sides of the same coin. They not only need each other, they are each other! How are yours getting along?
But I digress. What the N.D.E. tells us about reality is so much more powerful than any kind of concept- which includes any kind of aim or goal, any linear process- however profound. In the N.D.E, Science meets Spirituality and Religion meets Science. Spirituality even might meet Religion! Well how do you do and where the hell have you been? Nice- now they're all communicating. For once! Naturally, organically- not like some awkward blind date. This is the beauty of the N.D.E.
It's technically called a 'crisis apparition' when Granny calls- and as a metaphor, I can think of none better for this world right now. Granny is calling- and we're beginning to listen.
If NDEs point to a Bigger Universe, and I think they do- then what better road to take in understanding that universe than actually listening to what these experiences are telling us?And here's a key point- as N.D.E.s are known all around the world, people around the world now have a common language- we can talk about the Bigger Universe, happily including modern science, and avoiding religion. Because we're talking about people's experiences here, with cold hard science backing up the claims- not a-priori beliefs, or ancient revelations filtered through the generations in pre-modern cultures.
Nothing wrong with them- they work for many- but they won't speak to most.
Ah, yes you say- but what if the NDE experience is itself a product of cultural or religious conditioning, or New Age expectations?
What then?
But here's the cool part- atheists and christians all have the same experience, more or less. Around the world, the basic pattern is the same.
And that's the final beauty of the NDE. It cuts through all the bullshit, falling towers and all- and reveals something so Human, and yet at the same time Divine, that words cannot express what people feel and know through this experience- and even reading the stories can directly transmit some of that connection that we all have, and will all follow. That's my experience anyway.
I tell people N.D.E. stories a lot, just bring it up to strangers anywhere. "oh, I just read this cool story- want to hear it?'
Yes. They always do. And it always stirs something deep and beautiful in each of us. Connects us, because we each feel eternity radiating out of that story, a crack in the door....
And I didn't say one fucking word about religion or even 'spirituality'!
And that's a good thing. Concepts tend to be divisive, as thought is necessarily so. Stories tend to bond, and the Universe is indeed a Story, first and foremost. Quite a tale indeed......
Interested? Go here and read for like a half hour. How do you feel? Let me know!
http://www.nderf.org/Exceptional%20Accounts.htm
Did you ever like the old adage 'we'll all be dead in 50 years'? I always got a helpful little nudge from the phrase, although 50 years is a bit of a stretch at this juncture! 