Tsunami, Dying & the Near-Death Experience

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

 

In light of the many beings dying in the tsunami and earthquake, I

ponder the group near death experience, and also death itself.

 

Dying appears gruesome, but it it is not. Death is the greatest

celebration of life, oddly enough. In the Light of death, of dying,

Love is the all in all.

 

In 1975, I died. There was only Love, only Light of Mind. there was

no fear and no pain and no grief, only the greatest Love and Light

beyond imagination... Ishwara. My Guruudeva, Paramahansa Yoganandaji

was once meditating in the hot fields of india when he was suddenly

on a battlefield in America, dying by a gunshot during the Civil war.

He cried out to God, to Ishwara, and the Light appeared, the Presence

manifested to him as Light. He cried, "Am I alive, sitting here in

India meditating, or am I dying on a battlefield far away?"

 

The "answer" from Ishwara: "You are neither."

 

 

"How can the mind which has itself created

the world accept it as unreal? That is the

significance of the comparison made between

the world of the waking state and the dream

world. Both are creations of the mind and,

so long as the mind is engrossed in either,

it finds itself unable to deny their reality.

It cannot deny the reality of the dream world

while it is dreaming and it cannot deny the

reality of the waking world while it is awake.

If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind

completely from the world and turn it

within and abide there, that is, if you keep

awake always to the Self which is the sub-

stratum of all experiences, you will find the

world of which you are now aware is just as

unreal as the world in which you lived your

dream."

 

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, "Be As You Are"

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Edited by David Godman

 

 

 

http://www.near-death.com/group.html

 

 

"These are rare, but they do occur. With this kind, a whole group of

people simultaneously seems to experience the same or similar

episode. What makes these so spectacular and challenging is that all

or most of the experiencers see each other actually leave their

bodies as it happens, then dialogue with each other and share

messages and observations while still experiencing the near-death

state. Their separate reports afterward either match or nearly so.

Reports like these emerge most often from events of a harrowing

nature that involve a lot of people.

 

Shared and group experiences imply that no matter how sure we are

that near-death states mean this or that, and are the result of

whatever, no single idea, theory, or pat answer can explain them.

Even clues from the powerful patterning that researchers like myself

have identified, fail to explain all aspects of the phenomenon."

 

 

 

"The sage helps the world merely by being

the real Self. The best way for one to

serve the world is to win the egoless state.

If you are anxious to help the world, but

think that you cannot do so by attaining the

egoless state, then surrender to God all the

world's problems, along with your own."

 

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, "Be As You Are"

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Edited by David Godman

 

 

 

Pleasure in letting go

 

"My attendants tried to revive me but in vain and, thinking I was

dead, they began to carry me with great difficulty to my house.

On the way, after having been taken for dead for over two hours, I

began to move and breathe. It seemed to me that life held only from

the tip of my lips and I was closing my eyes to keep life out: I was

taking pleasure in letting myself go. My life was merely a perception

passing fleetingly though my soul, which was as weak as the rest of

me, although the whole experience was not only truly free of pain but

was reminiscent of the gentle sensation felt by those who abandon

themselves to sleep. I believe that this is the same state that

people find themselves in whom we see fainting in death agony, and I

maintain that we pity them without cause."

 

~ From Montaigne's 'Essays', Bk II ch. II, On Training,

translated by Marcelle Papworth.

 

 

 

"To see god is to be God. There is no all

apart from God for him to pervade. He alone is."

 

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, "Be As You Are"

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

edited by David Godman

 

 

 

Albert Heim, writing in 1892, made a special study of NDEs resulting

from falls, and gave as one instance his own such experience:

 

A fall in the mountains

 

"As soon as I began to fall I realized that now I was going to be

hurled from the crag and I anticipated the impact that would come.

With clawing fingers I dug into the snow in an effort to brake

myself. My fingertips were bloody but I felt no pain. I heard clearly

the blows on my head and back as they hit each corner of the crag and

I heard a dull thud as I struck below. But I first felt pain some

hours afterward. The earlier-mentioned flood of thoughts began during

the fall. What I felt in five to ten seconds could not be described

in ten times that length of time. All my thoughts and ideas were

coherent and very clear, and in no way susceptible, as are dreams, to

obliteration. First of all I took in the possibilities of my fate and

said to myself: 'The crag point over which I will soon be thrown

evidently falls off below me as a steep wall since I have not been

able to see the ground at the base of it. It matters a great deal

whether or not snow is still lying at the base of the cliff wall. If

this is the case, the snow will have melted from the wall and formed

a border around the base. If I fall on the border of snow I may come

out of this with my life, but if there is now more snow down there, I

am certain to fall on rubble and at this velocity death will be quite

inevitable. If, when I strike, I am not dead or unconscious I must

instantly seize my small flask of spirits of vinegar and put some

drops from it on my tongue. I do not want to let go of my alpenstock;

perhaps it can still be of use to me.' Hence I kept it tightly in my

hand. I thought of taking off my glasses and throwing them away so

that splinters from them might not injure my eyes, but I was so

thrown and swung about that I could not muster the power to move my

hands for this purpose. A set of thoughts and ideas then ensued

concerning those left behind. I said to myself that upon landing

below I ought, indifferent to whether or not I were seriously

injured, to call immediately to my companions out of affection for

them to say, 'I'm all right!' Then my brother and three friends could

sufficiently recover from their shock so as to accomplish the fairly

difficult descent to me. My next thought was that I would not be able

to give my beginning university lecture that had been announced for

five days later. I considered how the news of my death would arrive

for my loved ones and I consoled them in my thoughts. Then I saw my

whole past life take place in many images, as though on a stage at

some distance from me. I saw myself as the chief character in the

performance. Everything was transfigured as though by a heavenly

light and everything was beautiful without grief, without anxiety and

without pain. The memory of very tragic experiences I had had was

clear but not saddening. I felt no conflict or strife; conflict had

been transmuted into love. Elevated and harmonious thoughts dominated

and united the individual images, and like magnificent music a divine

calm swept through my soul. I became ever more surrounded by a

splendid blue heaven with delicate roseate and violet cloudlets. I

swept into it painlessly and softly and I saw that now I was falling

freely through the air and that under me a snowfield lay waiting.

Objective observations, thoughts, and subjective feelings were

simultaneous. Then I heard a dull thud and my fall was over."

 

~ From an article by Albert Heim in Jahrbuch des Schweitzer Alpenklub

27 (1892):327, quoted in 'The Human Encounter with Death'

by Stanislav Grof and Joan Halifax.

 

http://www.globalideasbank.org/natdeath/ndh3.html

 

 

"All other knowledges are only petty and trivial

knowledges; the experience of silence alone is

the real and perfect knowledge. Know that the

many objective differences are not real but are

mere superimpositions on Self, which is the form

of true knowledge."

 

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, "Be As You Are"

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

edited by David Godman

 

 

May the families and loved ones of the dead be comforted by Love,

lifted in Light, and helped along the way by friends and teachers,

teachers and gurus like these friends here, and like our Beloved

Ramana.

 

 

"This world is the dream of him who sleeps:

the dreamer imagines it is lasting until suddenly

the dawn of Death breaks and he finds himself

free from the darkness of illusion and error.

Then seeing his eternal home, he will laugh

at the sorrows he endured."

 

~ Rumi, Muriel Maufroy

"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"

 

 

 

"We think that there is something hiding our

reality and that it must be destroyed before the

reality is gained. It is ridiculous. A day will dawn

when you will yourself laugh at your past efforts.

That which will be on the day you laugh is also

here and now."

 

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, "Be As You Are"

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

edited by David Godman

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love,

 

Mazie

[Guest guest]

Mazie wrote:

> Dear Friends,

>

> In light of the many beings dying in the tsunami and earthquake,

> I ponder the group near death experience, and also death itself.

>

> Dying appears gruesome, but it is not. Death is the greatest

> celebration of life, oddly enough. In the Light of death, of dying,

> Love is the all in all.

>

> In 1975, I died. There was only Love, only Light of Mind.

> there was no fear and no pain and no grief,

> only the greatest Love and Light

> beyond imagination...

 

Dearest Mazie,

 

Thank you so much for these thoughts, links and quotes in light of the

current natural disaster in Asia and its subsequent ensuing - but

rather human made - disasters caused by inadequate infrastructure able

to deal with disasters and calamities of this kind and magnitude. The

West has so fallen behind in taking brotherly care of our Eastern

fellow human beings' usual life, let alone in providing them with the

same simple technology we have available to protect our own "riches".

 

.... ...

 

As far as the NDE link... so much corroboration for me on the material

you sent...

You know how I experienced a variety of NDEs... over time I have come

away with the following conclusions dealing with what happens to

someone "@death".

(With "@death" I do not refer to what a non-participating onlooker

identifies as "the moment of death" but I point to the episode that

the experiencer of `transit' undergoes.)

 

Maybe, in the following paragraphs, one finds solace and hope for

those who did not and are not making it through disaster, by

understanding the dynamics around the personal experience during one's

personal passing through death. Indeed my death experience(s) as well

as yours Mazie, were not gruesome, but... yes, gruesome is the life of

those left behind, not knowing how to deal with grief and loss and

what we call "acts of God".

 

The following is offered as hope for those preparing for transition

(transit) but is very inadequate for those left behind as it hardly

deals with them. We fall so short in understanding what life

entails... our hearts and prayers are with them who still live - one

would almost say the dying are better off.

 

That last statement may sound quite inappropriate but please read on.

 

I found there are 5 unconditionally free choices for an "individual"

during "death". Death, that episode in 'life eternal' that is usually

seen and described as "death" by the non-participating onlooker but is

not experienced as such by those who undergo such episode themselves.

 

The one who undergoes the transitional episode we call "death" or

"near death" is totally and unconditionally free in making a choice

from five options - benevolent only as there are no punitive options

in divine compassion - the five options that I am describing below.

It is most important to keep in mind is that there cannot be an

inappropriate, bad or even unfair choice for the ones (everyone!!!)

graced by the availability of such choice.

 

Whatever one chooses during a death or near death episode, there is no

element whatsoever of merit or demerit (e.g. punishment or reward)

that predisposes one for having to make one choice or another.

 

The descriptions below may initially show some internal contradictions

but upon further reading the contradictions should fall away.

(Language on this topic is not efficient, but will have to do...

 

So "@death" one has five free choices:

 

(1) "@death" one may select to "pass through" and re-merge with the

divine state of pure non-manifested energy. Apart from memory imprints

in the minds of those left behind, there is no individuality left,

just a universal return into being in the heart or source of dynamic

divine love and energy.

There is no precondition for this choice and even those who we might

consider not to deserve this option - but who did choose it - were

free to do so... and (not only) "God knows" it has been done.

In terms of current theoretical physics, this is a return to a hypo

dimensional state - not even zero point - in which quantum froth arises.

http://universe-review.ca/R01-07-quantumfoam.htm

 

(2) "@death" one may select to pass into and stay - but not

interminably - in a state of 'timeless' non physical abeyance and

positive endurance. A state that used to be called "hell", but with

none of the suffering, retributive, punishing and

"till-the-end-of-times" qualities that have so popularly and

non-compassionately been attributed or assigned to this state.

'Individuality' stays, but one is in a state of being that focuses

fully on internally getting to know

'oneself-and-the-dynamics-of-mutual-and reciprocal-existence' in which

one was before this state of abeyance. The only time element occurs

when in a sudden flash of 'fully-knowing-what-it-is-all-about' one may

elect to go to choice (1), continue through choice (3) or even select

(4) or (5). There is then, in a timeless flash, a deep understanding

of freedom AND its possible adverse side effects - a freedom one may

not have been able to share with one's fellow human beings as the

adverse side effects of freedom were too overwhelming and the

possibility of unconditional freedom was inadvertently taken from

one's hands.

Note: If (4) or even (5) is selected, it does not preclude one from

undergoing restrictive and correctional treatment by society.

(Freedom - its adverse side effects very much included - can only be

fully understood and appreciated when unconditional compassion is

understood as well, there is more to this but I will leave it for now.)

 

(3) "@death" one may select to pass into a state of non physical

abeyance that consists of an extended (but not expanded) experience of

consensus 'space/time continuum' in more than just the four usually

observed dimensions - the physical dimensions only indirectly

available through an added dimension. This kind of subtle,

non-physical relating is usually seen to be soul, ghost, spirit,

spirit guide or even angel like.

(It is a kind of 'Klein Bottleneck' relating. The Klein Bottle is the

four spatial dimensions version of the three spatial dimensions

Moebius Loop.

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~fiedorow/math655/Klein2.html )

This state - it used to be called "purgatory" - has none of the

suffering, retributive, punishing and 'waiting-till-it-is-over'

qualities that have popularly and non-compassionately been attributed

or assigned to this state.

It is a state of individuality in which a benevolent understanding is

reached by means of a passing through a clear and understanding review

of one's past life's activities and dynamics (and for some even more).

This enables one - in due time and by remote relating - to help one's

offspring or charges to be guided through their continuation of life

so that one's past inadvertent influence on their freedom may be

dissolved, or their life (that of the charges left behind) be

stimulated in such a way as to be set right for them to regain access

to their own authentic freedom.

Again, the individual in positive enduring abeyance at some 'timeless

point' either in a flash of recognition or a deep unconditional sense

of contentment, can make a free choice to go to state (1), as well as

(4) or (5).

Individuals in this state of non-physical abeyance can also have

contact with others in that same state and can, when they freely

choose so, provide mutual guidance and help in gaining understanding

of their state and finding ways to help the ones left behind in

physical life.

 

(4) "@death" one may select to pass through a state of individuality

in which a benevolent understanding is reached by means of passing

through a clear and understanding review of one's past life's

activities and dynamics (and for some even more) and one chooses to

return to life but now inspired by a clear understanding of the

dynamics of love and life energy. This life may be inconspicuous or

not as one chooses fit.

 

(5) "@death" one may select to pass through a state of individuality

in which a benevolent understanding is reached by means of passing

through a clear and understanding review of one's past life's

activities and dynamics (and for most often more if selected) after

which one weighs the choice between (1) and (4) a little more

intensively. At one point one decides not to care and it is then

chance only that decides whether one be returned to life, as both

states of being (a) in the source and (b) in manifestation is found

to be equal. This used to be called the state of the Bodhisattva.

(This is not the same as the Bodhisattva vow.) One may then take a

more active but happily disinterested part in the reclamation of

original and innate (but seemingly hidden) freedom of life and love

for others. At some point choice (1) may happen just by chance or free

choice.

 

Note: As the story with the firefighters NDEs indicates or can be

interpreted, http://www.near-death.com/group

even in accidental death the choices listed above are available except

in the case where a body is instantly and terminally maimed and unable

to physically return to life and therefore making choices (4) and (5)

unavailable but the first three of course still freely so. However

upon the possibility of impending instant death, free choices are

available that can prevent accidental death, usually by intervention

or positive interference from those who went through choices (3), (4)

or (5).

http://www.globalideasbank.org/natdeath/ndh3.html

 

Wim