In today’s world of electronic interconnectedness, it’s amazing how some ideas seem to go ‘Viral’ and others don’t.
I received word of this book via a group email from a friend Tricia Aude who was a friend of Helen Schucman and William Thetford, scribe and co-scribe respectively of A Course in Miracles and currently transcribes the messages of Jesus aka Rajpur
( Hindi for 'place of the
prince') as He delivers them through Paul Tuttle.
Or was it a message I received from another dear friend who mentioned they have just purchased and read it via Kindle or a second friend who shared they had just finished it.
The Universe was saying, pay close attention, just as it did years ago when I kept hearing ‘A Course in Miracles’ mentioned over and over or recently when I learned of Anita Moorjani’s NDE experience. It appears that this is another one of those ‘wake up calls’ from [y/our] BEING.
And so it is!
The most significant facets of this Near Death Experience [NDE] are:
The person who experienced it was a skeptical neurosurgeon scientist.
The CORTEX of his brain was not functioning yet he experienced crystal clear clarity.
He had a complete and total recovery from E. coli meningitis, which is a medical miracle.
We may have seen television shows regarding NDE’s which often begin with phenomenal claims of other worldly experiences and end with a scientific de-bunking using medical science of the brain to prove it was ‘all in their head.’ The evidence the scientists present is offered in an effort to show that there IS no ‘scientific proof’ that these experiences were anywhere but in the physical brain. This is exactly how Eben [Dr. Alexander] thought until his own first-hand experience of an NDE.
“The more I read of the “scientific” explanations of what NDE’s are, the more I was shocked by their transparent flimsiness. And yet I also knew with chagrin that they were exactly the ones that the old “me” would have pointed to vaguely if someone had asked me to “explain” what an NDE is.”
As I began reading this book and began reading some of the doctor’s experiences during his seven day coma I noticed a skepticism that was creeping in. I was asking myself: “Does this feel true or is this just another ploy to sell books and ride on the wave of NDE curiosity?”
Although I am very open minded, I always employ my own internal 'TRUTH METER’. I ask, “Does this resonate with the Truth I know within as the Christ?” This experience Eben was relaying was very different from the NDE’s I am used to reading and hearing about and that caused my comfort zone to be stretched. His NDE in the beginning wasn’t all warm and fuzzy and I wondered if it were truly REAL.
As A Course in Miracles tells us, “Nothing REAL can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.”
When Dr. Alexander began to speak about the REALITY of his experience, that’s when my METER registered GREEN! I was getting a sense that the reality of the Interconnectedness and immensity of Spirit that Eben experienced could never be threatened.
“The word real expresses something abstract, and it’s frustratingly ineffective at conveying what I’m trying to describe. Imagine being a kid and going to a movie on a summer day. Maybe the movie was good, and you were entertained as you sat through it. But then the show ended, and you filed out of the theater and back into the deep, vibrant, welcoming warmth of the summer afternoon. And as the air and the sunlight hit you, you wondered why on earth you’d wasted this gorgeous day sitting in a dark theater.
Multiply that feeling a thousand times, and you still won’t be anywhere close to what it felt like where I was.” P.39
Dr. Eben Alexander, husband, father, neurosurgeon contracted the extremely rare condition of E. coli meningitis completely out of the blue. Only 1 in 10 Million people will do the same. He made a full recovery one month after lying in a coma, near death, for seven days. This book is his best attempt at trying to share an experience which was truly beyond words.
As the book progresses, his story becomes an exquisite tapestry. The experiences of his family and friends and doctors in the hospital, dealing with this grave E coli infection, are interwoven with a recounting of Eden's experience as a consciousness, with no connection to the past, in a 'place' where words could never do it justice.
Even though it kept the attention of the reader by the vacillating between the solid world that we know and the ephemeral albeit Real world that Eben was experiencing, it wasn’t until toward the end of the book that I found myself grabbing for the tissues.
Just as we have all experienced wanting to tell everyone we know about a great book we just read or a great movie we just saw, Eben wanted to share this discovery with his friends and family and most of all with his colleagues. And that’s when he came up against ‘himself’. He saw in their eyes his own disbelief; the disbelief he had once embraced.
"I was wildly --and naively--eager to share these experiences, especially with my fellow doctors. After all, what I'd undergone altered my long-held beliefs of what the brain is, what consciousness is, even what life itself means--and doesn't mean. Who wouldn't be anxious to hear of my discoveries?"
"Quite a few people, as it turned out. Most especially, people with medical degrees."
But more than just wanting his colleagues to look beyond the solid physical aspects of their experience, he also extended his Vision to our united situation on this planet. When he expressed these thoughts my heart opened with recognition and empathy:
“For all of the successes of Western civilization, the world has paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence-our human spirit.”
“The shadow side of high technology—modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources—is bad enough.”
“Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity.” P.152
“Without recovering that memory of our larger connectedness, and of the unconditional love of our Creator, we will always feel lost here on earth.” P.171
We are all so ensconced in the 3D that it seems we can't see the forest for the trees. I began to see Eben, much as he sees himself, as another facet of our infinitude who knows now that he is "Here to Heal". Eben recovered the memory of our larger connectedness.
“So I was communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way, it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn’t feel that way. Instead, I felt like I was doing what we can all do right now through various methods of prayer and deep meditation. Communicating with God is the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times.”
“Omniscient, omnipotent, personal—and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.” P.161
There is a part of Eben's life that I have not mentioned and it has everything to do with the message he received and more importantly the Being who brought the message to him. Now I leave that mystery of WHO that was for you to discover, dear reader, although the message itself is for all to know and to remember.
“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”
“You have nothing to fear.”
“There is nothing you can do wrong.”
~*~
The following link is to a 30 minute PRESENTATION by Dr. Eben Alexander
http://bitly.com/ProofofHeaven-Alexander
Excerpts:
"The brain is NOT the cause of consciousness."
"At the deepest level there is ONE Consciousness."
"The Body and the physical reality is not all there is to the world."
Morgan Freeman's "THROUGH THE WORMHOLE" 43 minutes
http://bitly.com/Wormhole-LifeAfterDeath
Course In Miracles Society
7602 Pacific Street, Suite 200
Omaha, NE 68114
800-771-5056
