The study of people who have actually been clinically dead and have been on the other side in the near death experience reveals that, as we cannot interpret God is a narrow path, neither can we interpret the experiences of Heaven in any way that is exclusive to a particular person. religion.
This is something that becomes apparent when cross-cultural research on near-death experiences is compared. While most people describe encountering a “being of light” in different cultures when people meet or see different religious figures, these gatherings will be in accordance with their specific religious tradition: some Christians will meet Jesus, while For example, Buddhists will meet Yama, the Lord of Death, or another Buddhist figure.
Research into thousands of near-death experiences also tells us that the stairway to heaven is more non-physical than physical and the entrance to heaven above fits with a religious understanding of returning to source if we see God as the foundation. of being. As this base of being is often referred to as the being of light, we also find in the near-death experience that the sky is more commonly described as “the Light” rather than a physical place.
Generally, the near-death experience seems to lead the experiencer to an understanding of the “God beyond God” that Paul Tillich speaks of as the ground of being, which underlies our concepts and images. So the understanding that we can only get to God or heaven through Jesus or someone else is problematic because the ‘real’ God seems to be beyond this understanding.
This view is supported by Peter Fenwick, who concludes that,
“Although the ‘being of light’ always has a spiritual meaning, it is rare for people to describe seeing a particular religious figure as Christ. Even those whose Christian faith is strong do not always see Christ. Much more often there is a feeling of ‘arriving before the creator himself’: the being feels like ‘God’ in a very broad sense “.
Light is often the predominant feature at the core of the near-death experience. In their research, Fenwick found that 72 percent experienced light, but also found that something was even deeper at the heart of the experience: 88 percent described the experience of the feeling of a state of calm, peace, or joy. This means that the positive feeling state is the most common characteristic of the near-death experience.
So does this evidence tell us what heaven is like? Yes, Fenwick goes to the heart of the heaven experience and explains:
Although many of these visions of Paradise include strong and well-formed visual images, sometimes the images are much less pictorial, sometimes they almost lose their shape entirely. And yet it remains intensely emotional, and still gives this very impression. strong intensifying consciousness. “
This means that behind whatever vision or image is experienced, we still find that expanded consciousness appears to be the essence of the experience of heaven and this is what heaven is like in its essence. It also means that behind whatever religious being or figure we come across, feelings of peace, joy, and love are at the heart of the experience.
A close-to-death story explains this experience and what heaven feels like: “It was like I was going home, it was so familiar to me. As if I was going back to where I had originally come from … Absolute peace, unity, integrity was the most surprising. “
My experience was almost formless, so I was left with the intense feeling state that Fenwick talks about. Therefore, I also intuitively feel that this feeling state is at the center of the experience and that this could be the essence of the very broad understanding of God and heaven.
Michael Grosso goes further by explaining that light is a symbol of consciousness and that encounters with deceased relatives, out-of-body states, and reviews of life are all manifestations of light. These manifestations are “extensions of consciousness” since light is pure and formless, while at the same time having forms within it.
Grosso compares this explanation with Carl Jung’s concept of the self, in the sense that the basic structure of the near-death experience does not appear to be conditioned by the personal, but at the same time there are conditioned variations in the detail of the content. This, he says, is equal to Jung’s distinction between the archetype as a form without content (not perceptible) and the archetype mediated by personal experience (perceptible).
Jung himself told us about the subjective experience that,
“If we approach this task with overly personalistic psychological visions, we do not do justice to the fact that we are dealing with an archetype that is anything but personal … As archetypes, these figures are semi-collective and impersonal quantities, so that when we identify ourselves with them and fondly imagine that we are more truly ourselves, in fact we are further away from ourselves … Personal protagonists in the real game must constantly bear in mind that at the bottom represents the “trans-subjective” union of archetypal figures, and it should never be forgotten that it is a symbolic relationship whose end is complete individuation. “
Dr. Carlos Alvarado of the University of Virginia, who studies out-of-body experiences, has the same opinion. It tells us that people who have out-of-body experiences in which they experience another dimension say that it is a real dimension on a different plane, but at the same time it interacts with the mindset of the individual.
This interaction with our mind becomes the symbolic relationship with the light, which means that we create the content of the experience within the light. Researcher Jeffrey Long calls the experience a “co-created experience” of both personal and impersonal events.
In addition to this, PMH Atwater also claims that the “other worlds” found in the near-death experience do not appear to have their own independent existence. She explains that the light appears to be non-physical; rather than the light originating from other worlds, it seems more as if these other worlds originated from within the light.
Melvin Morse agrees with this perspective, saying that emotional archetypes are incorporated into the experience by the viewer to help make sense of the experience. Furthermore, if reunions or other worlds had their own independent existence, it would seem strange that some studies find that reunions are not only with relatives who have passed away but also with people who are still alive.
Having said this, I wish to emphasize that the near-death experience is a subjective experience that is co-created with each person’s personality. We are all unique individuals. It is not my intention to change anyone’s idea of heaven or take anything away from anyone. We are all entitled to our beliefs and I fully accept people who choose Jesus or someone else as their guide to heaven.
Only when people become so attached to their choice of beliefs that they become fundamentalist do I see a problem. Here I am talking about people who believe and preach that Jesus is the only way by saying that those who die without Christ will go to hell. This is a problem that we see expressed throughout the world through war and conflict. To avoid this, I prefer to see Heaven’s Gate from a more universal perspective. This is also why I choose to align my experience with a more open interpretation that has room for other people’s beliefs.
Fenwick says of the broad understanding of God that, “Perhaps ‘neutrally spiritual’ is the closest thing to the feeling that being evokes.” I did not find a being or a figure, except that light itself could be said to be the nature of being and therefore I also prefer the term neutrally spiritual. For me, this term correctly describes my experience as that the nature of light is a neutral spiritual energy of a God beyond God.
In the same way that the essence of experience is neutrally spiritual, so is the experience of heaven, and therefore we could say that the investigation of near-death experiences gives us an understanding of the essence of heaven. With this insight and a deep understanding of what hell really is, we can be fully prepared for our safe journey to heaven beyond heaven, the heart of heaven, as the essence of what heaven really is.
