Consciousness and Near Death Experience

Near Death Experience

Some people have been in extreme circumstances with zero chances of survival as per the science community but they still survived and came back to life miraculously. So what are these miracles? After coming back to life, some of these people describe their experiences while they were gone. These are called near-death experiences. NDEs are usually remembered more vividly than real events happening at the same time. These are reliable and consistent memories.

These can be positive or negative. The majority of people report a positive experience. Some report negative experiences that can be frightening, marked by intense terror, anguish, loneliness, and despair.

Usually, people describe a near-death experience as going through a tunnel at a very fast speed. For some tunnel is narrow, for some it is wide, for some it is multicolor and beautiful, and for some it is musical. Some see others in the tunnel, some see people coming from another side also, and some see guards.
Many people believe that they were floating in the area of their death. They see their dead body.
Some describe going to a very colorful, peaceful, happy, musical place with a lot of flowers or calm waters.
They describe that they were greeted by their relatives and loved ones very lovingly and after a short time they were told to go back to earth as it was not their time. They become sad but come back to their body.
There is this sequence of the darkness, the cessation of pain, then emerging into the light, and then a feeling of peacefulness.

  • Shared-death stories -- not just the people at the edge of death get a glimpse of the afterlife but those near them, either physically or emotionally, also experience the sensations of dying.
  • Veridical NDE-- experiencers acquire verifiable information that they could not have obtained by any normal means
  • Void NDE-An NDE of the “void” is an ontological encounter with a perceived vast emptiness, often a devastating scenario of aloneness, isolation, sometimes annihilation.
  • Hellish NDE--Overtly hellish experiences may be the least common type of distressing NDE
  • Distressing NDE

It is not true that good, spiritual people get pleasant NDEs and bad people or atheists have distressing NDEs. Religious people may experience negative NDE and criminals may get positive NDE.

I had an NDE 20 yrs back. I did not discuss it with anyone. However, I still remember this more vividly than other major events of my life like getting married, having children, getting a very bad leg injury that left a big scar on my leg, falling from a tree, etc. During my surgery, I saw myself on a transport bed. It was going through a blackish tunnel at a super-fast speed. I saw some figures (human-like but not exactly humans. Shorter than humans and completely black like the tunnel color) on my way. And then I woke up on a transport bed. Later on, I was told that I had a delayed awakening after anesthesia and the anesthesiologist slapped me in the face multiple times to wake me up and keep me breathing.

After-effects of near-death experience

  • Greater appreciation for life
  • Higher self-esteem
  • Greater compassion for others
  • Less concern for acquiring material wealth
  • Sense of purpose and self-understanding
  • Less suicidal intent
  • There may be depersonalization
  • Dissociation
  • PTSD.

A near-birth experience (also known as a pre-birth experience or pre-mortal experience) is an alleged recollected event that occurred before or during one's birth, or during the pregnancy, an alleged remembering of one's pre-existence, or an alleged encounter with the unborn child (usually via a dream) experienced by relatives or close family friends. Seen in C section babies also.

Lazarus syndrome, (the Lazarus' heart) also known as autoresuscitation after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is the spontaneous return of a normal cardiac rhythm after failed attempts at resuscitation

Deism ( Latin "Deus" meaning "god") is the philosophical position that rejects revelation as a source of religious knowledge and asserts that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to establish the existence of a Supreme Being or creator of the universe

Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channeling, including seánce tables, trance, and ouija. Mental, trans and physical mediumship, direct voices, and channeling.
There are spirit guides, spirit operators, and demonstrators of mediumship.

Scientific Explanations of Near-Death Experience:

  • Effect of drugs. However, some studies found that people taking drugs have less incidence of near-death experience than people not taking any drugs.
  • Low oxygen levels. Some argue that decreasing levels of oxygen give a feeling of distress, restlessness, anxiety, etc. People feel terrified in low oxygen environments. However, people who experienced near-death describe the feeling as calm, happy, soothing, etc. In hypoxia, there is no experience of mystical events and no transformational after effects.
  • Hallucinations-- Are usually unpleasant and induce anxiety, panic, and emptiness. In NDE usually, there is peace and calmness the person knows who he is i.e. he is aware of his identity.
  • Lie. If it is a lie then how do some people give an accurate description of what was happening when they were scientifically almost dead. Some experiencers report seeing a recently deceased person whose death they did not know. *Expectations- peoples accounts often differed from their own religious and personal expectations regarding death which contradicts the hypothesis they may have imagined a scenario based on their cultural and personal background. NDEs are no more likely to occur in believers than in atheists.
  • Hypercarbia- NDE occurs in hyper, hypo, and normocarbia
  • Alteration of neurotransmitters, changes in brain structures

Why the mind should experience the struggle to sustain its operations in the face of a loss of blood flow and oxygen as positive and blissful rather than as panic-inducing remains a mystery.

Some questions:

  • If someone comes back from heaven as it was not his time, does it mean that God made a mistake to give him an entry and then realized and deported him or there are loopholes in God's system to gain entry into heaven?
  • Can someone take a trip or vacation to heaven and come back on earth?
  • Are entry doors to heaven not secure or guarded?
  • If there are lights, colors, music, loved ones, relatives in heaven then what is the difference from earth? The same things are here also.
  • Why people always see their loved ones and relatives? Does it mean that our relations continue after death, even in heaven?
  • Is there telepathy between living and dead person?
  • Why spirits come to earth? Do they still like material things and the same earthly people? If yes, then why people want to go to heaven?
  • Mediums can call spirits at any time and any place. So are spirits their slaves and can they appear at instant notice? Do spirits do anything else? If yes, do they leave all of their actions and come when called by mediums?
  • If a person is communicating to a spirit via a medium and at the same time one of their common relatives is having a near-death experience, how is this spirit going to greet that relative? Can spirit be at two places at the same time i.e. with medium and in heaven?
  • Why very few people go to hell in the near-death experience? Are most people good or there is underreporting of negative NDEs?
  • Are people immune to grief and loss after a near-death experience as now they know that their loved ones are eternally happy in heaven?
  • Do they become jealous of dead people?
  • Do people lose interest in life and work and are not fearful of death after a near-death experience as they have no anxiety about the new place they will go to after death? They have already visited that place and know that it is better than earth.
  • Is a Near-death experience a trip to a place of residence before finally moving there, to know that everything is perfect?
  • Are spirits bodyguards of their family members as they are around them?
  • If people see spirits here on this earth then who is in heaven?
  • If spirits can show a material thing to their loved ones, can they do their material works also? Do they still like to work on earth? What is the point of dying if you are still here in the form of spirit?
  • Has anyone given up his wealth after a near-death experience as they now know that they are going to go to heaven and they do not need wealth there.
  • Did anyone do lie detector tests on the experiencers?
  • Does soul has a weight?
  • Can we go to the afterlife using remote viewing? Yoga/ meditation? Intentional strategies of experiencing the other world without dying.

As per Hinduism, there is one consciousness. That consciousness became manifest as everything and this everything will become unmanifest again and this cycle continues. So if all manifested things came from one consciousness then what the stage or point where evil and good became two different things?. If the original consciousness is one then why everyone's consciousness works differently? Why some people are good and some are evil? Why evil people are expected to convert to good? Are not they also part of the same consciousness?
Answer--Some believe that there are different levels of consciousness. Physical things, animals, birds, insects, etc. have different levels of consciousness. There is human consciousness, sleep/wakeful/dream consciousness, transcendental consciousness, cosmic consciousness, and unity consciousness. Even an electron has a very limited level of consciousness, that is how it senses elctromagnetic fields.
Bit of consciousness or minimal consciousness can grow into more complex consciousness.
If everything has to finally go back to the same original consciousness then why are we even trying to do good things? People who do not do good things will also go to the same original consciousness. Or do they have some other option?

If atma can choose which body type it wants then why it chooses a weak or diseased body? Why will it choose to be born in a poor family or filthy conditions? Why will it not choose to be born in an environment where there is an opportunity to pray peacefully and in very favorable circumstances?

If atma can leave at its will then, why does not it leave a crippled, diseased body? Why is it still inside the body when the body itself is attached to a machine and can not function without it? Why does it see the suffering of the body in which it is residing?

Can some human being force the atma to leave a particular body e.g. by murder or suicide?

Consciousness queries If everything is conscious, this whole brahmand is conscious, then how does consciousness leave the body after death? The remaining physical body is conscious also. If it leaves, why will it stay, for thirteen days, near the body? Atma is knowledgeable, self-knowing, peaceful, content, happy, not under the influence of mind, buddhi, emotions, etc. Then why will it be attached to the dead body, look at it, stay near it, and try to reenter the dead body or someone else's body?
Why does consciousness leave the body at all? Why does consciousness leave a fit body(in cases of sudden death in the young)? Even if the body becomes weak and damaged, with its innate powers, consciousness should be able to bring it to its maximum efficiency and keep it there.
How can consciousness meet the Parmatma if they are the same? Poornamada poornamidam poornat poorn mudkshyate, poornasya poornmaday poornmeva vashisyate.


Bharti Raizada

https://nderf.org/?fbclid=IwAR0Nys3ds40td2HTkh7LzXG3woO70UZODbcc0VN7Xia403sbhDDwfnedVYs

Consciousness: the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself/ the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world
Sentient: finely sensitive in perception or feeling/ able to perceive or feel things
Conscience: the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good
Sapient: wise, or attempting to appear wise/ possessing or expressing great sagacity (sagacious is of keen and farsighted penetration and judgment)

States of Consciousness
Consciousness is not just awareness either in its passive form or as a feeling of freedom that comes with intentionality, it has a body that may be inferred from its many different projections. But it is a shadowy body whose outline appears to pulsate and transform in strange ways. It gets small sometimes, shrinking and turning inwards; on other occasions it is expansive, seeming to go beyond the physical self; sometimes it is clouded, and other times it is bright and full of light. Its changes with mood and attention (¯alocana) are somewhat like a shower in cold or warm water. In cold water, we adjust by becoming more aware of our sensations, drawing inwards to minimize the effect of the water spray; in warm water, we let go, and our physical being appears to have a larger presence. Our consciousness in interactions with other people responds to the adjustment of our social boundaries.
These different states may be taken to be modifications caused to the individual self. The idea of a correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm emerges as soon as one accepts that there is a unity behind all conscious experience. It is like the relationship between the water drop representing the individual self and the lake which stands for all the different selves, the examination of a single drop revealing the properties of the entire mass of water. There are many senses in which the individual sees itself. Of these, the sense of the physical self comes from “proprioception” – a sixth sense beyond seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, and touching – that tells us that our bodies belong to us. If proprioception is lost, the body appears disembodied. There are other states where one has difficulty seeing the outer properly, and others where one has difficulty to know things about oneself. These different states may be taken to be modifications caused by the individual self. The several states of consciousness: wakefulness, sleep, dream-sleep, coma, hunger and thirst, love and anger, interest and boredom, have distinct neurochemical signatures. But in our subjective experience, we see a common thread running through these diverse states. For those who do not accept the reality of this individual self, the common thread is an artifact of the persistent electrical activity of the brain. In our view, the common thread is a fundamental property of reality.
The individual behind conscious states has the capacity to meditate on itself. The self’s activity is directed to obtaining an experience where the senses come together to bring the person into harmony with processes going on within the body and outside it. The person’s sense of equilibrium with the universe fills him with a feeling of mastery. Creative writers and artists speak of their strivings for this peak experience, bemoaning the fact that they achieve it on just a few occasions in their life.
Athletes speak of how they cannot do anything wrong when they are in the “zone”.
In the Vedic view, the different states of consciousness are the result of the interplay of the three gun. as of sattva (light), rajas (activity), and tamas (inertia).
The combination of these in the subtle self (li ˙nga) of the individual comprising of manas (mind), buddhi (intelligence), aham. k¯ara (I-ness), together with their interaction with the processes within the body and outside, defines the individual’s state of consciousness. The rhythms of the universe are projected into the three ordinary states of awareness: waking, dream sleep, and dreamless sleep. Beyond these lies the fourth state (tur¯ıya), where a perfect union of the subject with Brahman takes place. The mind constructs its reality, even in the waking state. The Upanishads say that the self going between waking and dreaming is “untouched by whatever he sees in that state, for this Infinite Being is unattached”. In the dreaming state, he “takes a little of this allembracing world (waking state), himself puts the body aside, and creates (a dream body in its place), revealing his own lustre by his own light and creating dreams. In this state the man himself becomes the light. There are no chariots, no animals to be yoked to them, no roads there, but he creates the chariots, animals, and roads. There are no pleasures, joys, or delights there, but he creates the pleasures, joys, and delights. There are no pools, tanks, or rivers there, but he creates the pools, tanks, and rivers; for he is the creater”. In the dreamless, deep sleep, the ¯atman is united with the consciousness that is Brahman. “In this state a father is no father, a mother no mother, the worlds are no worlds, the Vedas no Vedas. In this state a thief is no thief, the killer of a noble Brahmin is no killer... He is untouched by good works and untouched by evil works; for he is beyond the woes of his heart”. Consciousness states have an ebb and flow, a movement, which is often beyond the control of the self. In part, these states reflect the rhythms of the physical world which are related to astronomical cycles. These cycles embody the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. -Subhash Kak
The_Gods_Within_The_Vedic_Tradition_and.pdf

The_Vedic_Tradition_Cosmos_Connections_a.pdf