I've been thinking about the topic of NDEs (near death experiences) for the last few days and in general how subjective and abstract most spiritual experiences are and I've been throwing around some ideas about these things. I am curious if we don't hear more about NDEs because people are afraid to talk about them or if they are actually very uncommon. I've come to the conclusion that I often come to that it really doesn't matter why and that those of us that do talk about these things ultimately do it as much for ourselves as we do it for others. Regardless, today I want to discuss what I actually think an NDE is and why they can be so life changing.
I believe that part of the natural human experience is accepting the finality of it all. Surrendering to the fact that we cannot control every aspect of our lives and that we really don't control when we die, just like we don't control when we're born. Many philosophers get hung up on the idea of suicide and in my opinion it's probably one of the greatest "chicken or the egg" metaphors of existence. If we have the ability to exist, do we have the ability to not exist? I really don't want to derail my own topic here jumping into another wormhole, so I'll keep it moving.
Perhaps all an NDE actually amounts to is coming so close to death that we can see the other side. Opinions on this will vary greatly, as there is no way to measure a subjective experience, but the idea of being dead and then coming back to life is strange in it's own right. If we can be born and then die and the universe can decide that it's not our time yet and send us back, then did we get born again or did we just not die? I'm not sure if that really matters either because the net impact is the same, there is a point of time where we couldn't be considered alive. Perhaps an NDE is our consciousness facing that void and the ability see past our own existence gives us greater perspective on things we weren't aware of in life.
I guess the real question then becomes, why are NDEs so life changing for those of us that remember them? Personally, I think that when I realized that I had regrets and things I wish I had done differently, my consciousness perhaps just reset itself to a point where I could still see things turn out differently. Maybe they don't turn out the way I wanted or thought they should have, and really the greatest mystery of life in my opinion is, "what do we want?" Perhaps we don't ever really know what we want or what the purpose of all of this was until it's over.
One thing I feel that I am certain of after my last NDE is that life implies death and death implies life. There can be no endings without beginnings and no beginnings without endings. Perhaps the reason NDEs are so life changing is that it breaks the illusion that so many trivial things that control our lives are really anything but irrelevant excuses we make and do little more than inhibit our freedom. I know that if nothing else came from my last NDE, it made me face the things about myself that I was scared of before and it made me stop caring about presenting anything but my authentic self. Maybe it's just the realization that death is not the end, but I can't even imagine living like I used to beforehand. Namaste.
