Bhikkhu, one of the founders of New Earth Records, recently had an amazing ‘near-death’ experience, which occurred in an ambulance as his heart stopped beating due to a massive heart attack.
He said later that he had found himself floating over a beautiful meadow, feeling full of peace. There was no sense of identity, no sense of ‘I’, no sense of time, just an utterly contented feeling. There was no-one else there, no ‘God,’ just a big white light at the end of the meadow, and he had the feeling that he would be happy to stay there forever. Suddenly in a flash of energy he saw a blue door and the realization came that he still had some things to do with Waduda, his partner and co-founder of New Earth Records. So he went through the door, and the rest is medical history. Luckily for us!
His beautiful experience reminded me of an article I wrote a year ago about scientific research that is being done in this area. So I reproduce it below…
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As science develops more and more sophisticated ways to study the brain, in particular how and why we respond the way we do, it has opened the way for a whole new science – neuroscience. The current ‘hot’ topic of neuroscience, and indeed of philosophy, is to discover the code of consciousness – how does the material brain produce our immaterial sense of awareness.
The new “discoveries” being made are giving a scientific basis to what Osho and other mystics have been saying down the centuries, from their own experiences arising out of meditation – that we are not just our bodies and our minds, we are much much more.. we are in fact an energetic phenomenon that is sometimes described as a vast witnessing awareness or consciousness.
It may hasten their work if the scientists and the philosophers actually experiment with techniques of meditation, to make such an experience for themselves. At the least meditation will give them a far better possibility to access and experience the conscious mind, than poking around in someone else’s head.
As Osho says, ‘All that can be experienced is not necessarily explainable, and all that can be explained is not necessarily experienceable. Mathematics can be explained easily, but there is no corresponding experience. Science can be explained easily, but even the greatest scientist is not transformed by his knowledge.’
Anyway, scientists in the US have started a huge 3-year project to explore the biology behind “out-of-body” experiences. They want to find out exactly what happens in the brain and the consciousness after the body dies a so-called ‘clinical death’. The Human Consciousness Project will examine around 1,500 people all over the world who survived after their hearts stopped functioning.
When the heart stops beating no blood gets to your brain, and after about 10 seconds brain activity ceases. That is normally the official death point. Yet around 10% or 20% of people who are brought back to life from that point, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, report having consciousness. They all report being able to see what is happening after that point, as if they were floating on the ceiling. The scientists want to confirm whether these are real experiences or hallucinations, by cross-checking what the patients’ report that they saw happening from above, with the doctors and nurses who were present. So far, hundreds of cases have been confirmed as accurate, to the amazement of the medical staff.
If the rest of the study continues in the same direction, it will confirm that consciousness continues even when the brain is not functioning. In other words, consciousness is something separate from the physical brain and body.
Dr Sam Parnia, a fellow at New York City’s Weill Cornell Medical Center and one of the world’s leading experts on the scientific study of death, says, “We’re pushing through the boundaries of science here, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that when you die, you die; that’s it. Death is a moment – you know you’re either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they’re social perceptions.
“If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels – beyond the level of the atoms – Newton’s laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy – even Einstein himself didn’t believe in it.”
“Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can’t separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics.”
Osho’s own experience
“My own experience in childhood was in the flooded river of my town. Nobody used to swim across it when it was flooded. Ordinarily, it was a small river, but in rainy times it was at least one mile wide. The current of the water was tremendous; you could not stand in it. And the water was deep, so you couldn’t stand anyway.
“I loved it. I waited for the rainy season and swam the river. There would come a moment when I would feel that I was dying, because I was tired and I could not see the other shore, and the waves were high and the current was strong, and there was no way to go back because the other shore was as far away. I would feel so completely tired and the water would take me down with such a force that there would come a time when I would see, “Now there is no possibility of living any more.” And that was the moment when I would suddenly see myself above the water and my body in the water. When it happened the first time, it was a very frightening experience. I thought I must have died. I had heard that when you die the soul goes out of the body, so I thought I had gone out of the body and I had died. But I could see the body was still trying to reach the other shore, so I followed the body.
“That was the first time I became aware of a connection between your essential being and the body. It is connected just below the navel – two inches below the navel – by something like a silver cord, a silver rope. It is not material, but it shines like silver. Each time I reached the other shore, the moment I reached the other shore my being would enter into the body. The first time it was frightening; then it became a great entertainment. I enjoyed it so much… the freedom, no force of gravitation, and seeing my own body completely away.
“Then I moved to the university and there it happened once. Just behind the university campus there was a hillock with three trees. I used to love those trees because it was impossible to sit silently in the hostel. So I used to go and climb a tree. The middle tree was very comfortable to sit in – the way its branches were – and I would sit there for hours in silence.
“One day – I don’t know what happened – when I opened my eyes I saw my body lying down on the ground. It was the same experience that had happened in the river many times, so there was no fear.
“But in the river, it used to happen automatically that when the body reached the shore my being would enter the body. I had no idea how to enter the body; it had always happened of its own accord. So I was stuck. I had no idea. I could see the cord joining me to the body, but how to enter the body, from where to enter? I had never learned any technique from anybody. I simply waited. There was nothing to do.
“A woman who used to sell milk to the hostel students came by, and she saw my body lying down. She was puzzled. She just touched my head to see whether I was alive or dead, and the moment she touched my head I entered into my body with such a quick force that I still cannot get the idea of how it happens.
“But one thing became certain: if a man’s being is out, a woman’s touch to the body will help him to come into the body. And vice versa: if a woman’s body is away from her being, then a man’s touch – and particularly on the forehead where the third eye is. It was just by accident that she touched me on my head to see whether I was alive or dead. She had no idea that I was sitting in the tree seeing everything she was doing. When I opened my eyes she was shocked.”
An Osho explanation
“The sense of distance with our own body can happen both ways: either by becoming aware, alert, or by falling deep in unconsciousness. While you are unconscious the distance will not be recognized, but when you are becoming conscious, for a slight moment you will be able to see the distance — that you are one thing and the body is something else. In alertness it is more clear, but the phenomenon is the same.
“There are many memoirs about out-of-body experiences, and it is becoming more and more a fact that man can move out of the body. It is dangerous, but if it happens in awareness, on its own, it is harmless; in fact it is infinitely fulfilling, a tremendous release from a prison. The feeling that you are beyond the body will help you in disease, in sickness, in death. Nothing will cause misery to you.
“But sometimes it can happen to a few people waking up in the morning; it all depends on the speed of waking up. A few people wake up very slowly — they take time between the sleeping and the waking state — so they will never feel this. Their pace is such that they will wake very slowly, so by the time they are waking up the sleep is almost gone. But a few people wake up abruptly. Nothing is wrong in it, but then you will feel a sudden change because of the two different states. In sleep you are in one state, in wakefulness you are in a different state.
“Abrupt awakening will give you the sense for a moment that the body is separate and you are entering into it. If it happens, enjoy that moment, prolong that moment, enjoy it in every detail. Watch everything that is happening, and that will become a kind of meditation. It will help if you are also trying to witness when you go to sleep. It will be easier to witness.
“If you just try silent awareness while going to sleep, the same experience will be felt again. But most probably sleep comes slowly, so you don’t have the time to see the distance. But the distance is a reality whether you see it or not.
“So first you can make the distance from the body a very solid reality. Then you can make the distance from the mind… which is possible only through meditation. In the first experience you are not feeling separate from the mind, the distance is only from the body. It is a good beginning; one third of the process is achieved. Then in the same way look at the mind as separate, and finally look at your feelings and heart as separate.
“Ultimately we have to find one point in ourselves from which we cannot in any way feel separate because we are it. There are layers just like an onion; you peel one layer and there is another layer. You peel that layer and there is another. Go on peeling the onion. In Zen they have a saying: ‘Go on peeling the onion till only nothingness is left in your hands.’ And that nothingness is you.”
thank you