I couldn't help it - after several weighty books, I had to go to my favorite genre - autobiographical accounts by people who have nearly died and in the process have gone to heaven. I love them for several reasons: there is usually a redemptive factor involved - that is, the person is changed for the better - often MUCH to the better; the stories are light, easy reading; and, most important, they give one hope, if even only at the "wish fulfillment" level.
That latter part does have a downside, I have learned. There is a Jehovah's Witness who comes to my door regularly (I know, I know; my wife has a true tale of me talking with a Witness for so long that he had to excuse himself from me!) and with whom I have become fiends, although I am not always happy to have my breakfast disturbed on a late Saturday morning. Anyway, he once told me WHY he became a Witness. At about the age of 60 he suffered a massive heart attack and went into a coma for several days. The experience was frightening in that he at no time ever saw the light, went into the tunnel, spoke with his relatives or any of the life -after- death good stuff reported by such writers. Instead, there was nothing - or, worse than nothing, an uneasy and meaningless gray. On the other hand, Jehovah's Witnesses expect heaven to appear here on earth, not in some clouds or another dimension. They expect the real to be made perfect and the dead to be raised - in its proper time. And so his experience was only natural - the end times have simply not come. Otherwise, he felt that there was no hope for the Heaven he had learned of from his youth.
He might want to know that NDE's occur in only about 20 to 30 % of such cases. Why this is so, nobody knows. And, as many have pointed out, even if you are clinically dead, if you come back in the hospital, it is usually not from a miracle, but from the fact that you were not REALLY dead.
In any case, such stories give me - well, hope is not the only word. It is also faith - and a comparison, too. The book I have just finished - it took two nights only - is called "Flight to Heaven" by Dale Black. He is a pilot who at age 60 is looking back on a horrible accident he had in an airplane when he was 19. He was the sole survivor, and this alone was a miracle. Further, he made a full recovery,something the best doctors had thought impossible. This is all fact. But it wasn't until months after his accident that he recalled his time in heaven, which was one of harmony, love, colors and music and so on. I don't mean to demean by the brevity; it is only that the accounts are almost always the same. Anyway, and this is the faith part - it is in his struggle that he comes to grips with his god (Christian) and learns to "hear" His will - and be humble enough to accept it. This cuts to the heart of my own problem - how to hear the will of heaven, for it seems so undercut by my own desires that I cannot ferret it out. When I read such accounts, I see how it is done - and understand it is mostly by faith. That these people are successful gives me hope in faith.
The other part is comparative; for at odd moments and in meditation, this sense of perfection - of heaven - has often hit me, although not as dramatically as those with ND experiences. In this book - good overall, although some might be put off by the author's extremely forthright Christianity - he describes heaven in an excellent way, for it is not only sound and colors and loving feeling, but a permutation of perfection and perfect love, of a timelessness in time. When I read the description, and others like it, it always hits me: yes, I've been there. I cannot often pinpoint when, but I know it, and I can know by the description if they have it right (in my humble opinion). This book, as I have said, does; and so have the last two I have read, by both doctors with no need for additional glory or income - as is the case with this man, a successful pilot and business man.
In the other two, however, neither of the doctors were particularly religious, one being a self-professed agnostic, too busy to decide if there was a god or not. That lends additional credulity to the accounts. Still, the story of the pilot rings true. A great feel-good book that will help strengthen faith of any sort, I would think - and documented to be true.
Beyond the book, who wouldn't want to know if they are on the right path? This is not only a Christian or People of the Book notion - it runs throughout cultures both complex and primitive. Are you conducting your life by the will of heaven - or, if you prefer, by your true Being? It always comes back to faith and a certain surrender - a surrender that takes far more bravery than its refusal. The shaman plunges down or up to the realm of the spirits, the Christian to Christ and heaven, but all only on faith and the courage that they require. But, as these books tell us emphatically, it is worth it. It is, this surrender, in fact the only way to truly live a life. FK
That latter part does have a downside, I have learned. There is a Jehovah's Witness who comes to my door regularly (I know, I know; my wife has a true tale of me talking with a Witness for so long that he had to excuse himself from me!) and with whom I have become fiends, although I am not always happy to have my breakfast disturbed on a late Saturday morning. Anyway, he once told me WHY he became a Witness. At about the age of 60 he suffered a massive heart attack and went into a coma for several days. The experience was frightening in that he at no time ever saw the light, went into the tunnel, spoke with his relatives or any of the life -after- death good stuff reported by such writers. Instead, there was nothing - or, worse than nothing, an uneasy and meaningless gray. On the other hand, Jehovah's Witnesses expect heaven to appear here on earth, not in some clouds or another dimension. They expect the real to be made perfect and the dead to be raised - in its proper time. And so his experience was only natural - the end times have simply not come. Otherwise, he felt that there was no hope for the Heaven he had learned of from his youth.
He might want to know that NDE's occur in only about 20 to 30 % of such cases. Why this is so, nobody knows. And, as many have pointed out, even if you are clinically dead, if you come back in the hospital, it is usually not from a miracle, but from the fact that you were not REALLY dead.
In any case, such stories give me - well, hope is not the only word. It is also faith - and a comparison, too. The book I have just finished - it took two nights only - is called "Flight to Heaven" by Dale Black. He is a pilot who at age 60 is looking back on a horrible accident he had in an airplane when he was 19. He was the sole survivor, and this alone was a miracle. Further, he made a full recovery,something the best doctors had thought impossible. This is all fact. But it wasn't until months after his accident that he recalled his time in heaven, which was one of harmony, love, colors and music and so on. I don't mean to demean by the brevity; it is only that the accounts are almost always the same. Anyway, and this is the faith part - it is in his struggle that he comes to grips with his god (Christian) and learns to "hear" His will - and be humble enough to accept it. This cuts to the heart of my own problem - how to hear the will of heaven, for it seems so undercut by my own desires that I cannot ferret it out. When I read such accounts, I see how it is done - and understand it is mostly by faith. That these people are successful gives me hope in faith.
The other part is comparative; for at odd moments and in meditation, this sense of perfection - of heaven - has often hit me, although not as dramatically as those with ND experiences. In this book - good overall, although some might be put off by the author's extremely forthright Christianity - he describes heaven in an excellent way, for it is not only sound and colors and loving feeling, but a permutation of perfection and perfect love, of a timelessness in time. When I read the description, and others like it, it always hits me: yes, I've been there. I cannot often pinpoint when, but I know it, and I can know by the description if they have it right (in my humble opinion). This book, as I have said, does; and so have the last two I have read, by both doctors with no need for additional glory or income - as is the case with this man, a successful pilot and business man.
In the other two, however, neither of the doctors were particularly religious, one being a self-professed agnostic, too busy to decide if there was a god or not. That lends additional credulity to the accounts. Still, the story of the pilot rings true. A great feel-good book that will help strengthen faith of any sort, I would think - and documented to be true.
Beyond the book, who wouldn't want to know if they are on the right path? This is not only a Christian or People of the Book notion - it runs throughout cultures both complex and primitive. Are you conducting your life by the will of heaven - or, if you prefer, by your true Being? It always comes back to faith and a certain surrender - a surrender that takes far more bravery than its refusal. The shaman plunges down or up to the realm of the spirits, the Christian to Christ and heaven, but all only on faith and the courage that they require. But, as these books tell us emphatically, it is worth it. It is, this surrender, in fact the only way to truly live a life. FK
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