In Proof of Heaven, Eben Alexander writes,
"When it came to Near Death Experiences, there are there basic camps. There were the believers; either people who had undergone an NDE themselves or who simply found such experiences easy to accept. Then, of course, there were the staunch unbelievers (like the old me). These people didn't generally classify themselves as unbelievers, however. They simply "knew" that the brain generated consciousness and wouldn't hold still for crazy ideas of the mind beyond the body (unless they were good-naturedly comforting someone, as I had thought I'd been doing with Suzanna that day)."
"The more I learned about my condition, and the more I sought, using scientific literature, to explain what happened, the more I came up spectacularly short. Everything - the uncanny clarity of my vision, the clearness of my thoughts as pure conceptual flow - suggested higher, not lower, brain functioning. But my higher brain had not been around to do that work."
"The more I read of the "scientific" explanations of what NDEs are, the more I was shocked by their transparent flimsiness. And yet I also knew with chagrin that they were exactly the same ones that the old "me" would have pointed to vaguely if someone had asked me to explain what an NDE is."
"But people who weren't doctors couldn't be expected to know this. If what I'd undergone had happened to someone - anyone - else, it would have been remarkable enough. But that it had happened to me...Well, saying that it had happened "for a reason" made me a little uneasy. There was enough of the old doctor in me to know how outlandish - how grandiose, in fact - that sounded. But when I added up the sheer unlikelyhood of all the details - and especially when I considered how precisely perfect a disease E. coli meningitis was for taking my cortex down, and my rapid and complete recovery from almost certain destruction - I simply had to take serious the possibility that it really and truly had happened for a reason."
"That only made me feel a greater sense of responsibility to tell my story right." Eben.
What I love about this book and "My Stroke of Insight" is how a person with the right and perfect background and formal training has an experience, that they intimately understand and do so while remaining conscious, when medically it is impossible or so we thought...and how they are able to write about it.
Eben was shown how consciousness works by experience and it trumped all his prior learning. It opened up a completely new space around his neurosurgeon's beliefs.
What I find so fascinating and so enthralling is how so many old beliefs are getting left standing almost silly looking by the sheer fact that People of Knowledge are experiencing what they thought was impossible. That it is happening to specific people and it does seem to have its purpose. If to do nothing else but to tip down old belief systems.
I have felt, and do feel, a kinship to these folks, but in a much more normal segment of the population. A regular person who was aware of her journey out of dysfunction.
To find consciousness, clarity and choices while fully knowing my brain was washed and cleansed and twisted by the church and abuse...respectively.
It would seem, that a person such as I, would not be able to "know" what to do, what to say and where to go...that the very person I was trained to be, would the very tool against me. And yet, I was able to walk clear.
How?
How was it possible for me to do what others didn't seem able to do? How was I different than them? How am I able to see what others can't? How is it that reality and I are one, while they can't seem to grasp it?
All, I can say is that I too had consciousness on my side. It wasn't my thinking brain that guided me...for it was completely damaged by years of cult like teachings and abuse's definitions...I used a totally different navigational tool...awareness - consciousness...a knowing that I hadn't known before.
Everything that I had known prior was to also be found flimsy and weak, without a string to reality.
The reason I write on this blog is to share my experiences of how abuse looks to an aware mind. How religion's applications of forgiveness of sins is failing in reality. Without awareness or consciousness...you can only see the unquestioned beliefs...without doubts you will stand steadfast in the clutches of your unfounded beliefs.
I know, that I am seen as "the crazy one" the one who is way out there. I get it. And, I agree. I am not the usual victim. I have been able to see my brainwashed mind and the way abuse had it so completely upside down. And, I have been able to re-work those old definitions to put them back correctly.
I believe that this is the new way forward. That the abused mind/brainwashed cult brain can be overcome...by consciousness.
What I don't know is how to get consciousness, for it just was there for me. When my world shattered into a billion pieces all I was left with was that. Which actually was much wider and more spacious than any belief I held dear.
I have lost much, but I have gained even more.
I write, for I believe that it will someday make someone else's journey less weird and feel less crazy.
These books legitimize the unbelievable and make a new belief...while kindly ridding us of the old paradigms.
I have felt the strange aloneness, the echoes of no one before me. To be ahead of the time. To look around and see so many challenging me with this 'weird' way.
It is like there are new experiences coming forth...gaining consciousness.
I wonder what we have called "Near Death Experiences" were actually brushes with consciousness?
For, It changes you forever...knowing there is more beyond the mind.
