NDE-A glimpse of the Afterlife?



I do not remember when I developed the fear of death. The feeling would come only at night, when I am in bed. The very thought of how would I be feeling when I am about to die would freak me out. My heartbeat would start racing and I would feel a kind of dizzy. This very fear made me develop an interest in Near Death Experience (NDE). I started reading articles and searched books on first hand experience on NDE. Majority of the NDEs involved walking through a tunnel towards a bright light, out of body experiences and meeting relatives and friends who are long dead. Many doctors argue that NDE is actually a hallucination and the experience varies from person to person depending on their religious conditioning in life.While they are others who believe in the higher power that NDEs are very much real.

Off late, my fear has subsided substantially as I have almost stopped thinking about it. Then last month I chanced upon a movie called "Heaven Is For Real", based on a book with the same title written by Todd Burpo. It is about the four year old son of the author, Colton, who had a NDE during a ruptured appendicitis surgery. The little boy had an out of body experience and saw his parents in different places in the hospital. He got a visit to the heaven and heard and saw the angels singing to him. He even met Jesus Christ. I loved the movie. And I intend to read the book too for I am sure it will have far more details.

After watching the above mentioned movie, I started surfing the internet on the topic. I found that the NDEs varied with the person's religious beliefs. Christians described seeing angels and Jesus. Hindus mostly said that they were taken away by messengers instead of their namesake and then sent back. Some of the experiences are shared below:

While surfing, I came across Anita Moorjani's book "Dying To Be Me" which is an account of the author's NDE. I immediately purchased the book. The author was suffering from terminal cancer and after her NDE she recovered miraculously and didn't have a trace of cancer in her body. It is a wonderful book.

Then there is Akiane Kramarik, a child prodigy who started to paint at the age of four. She states she has been taken on visits to heaven regularly throughout the years and she paints about them. Her portrait of Jesus Christ has been identified as Jesus as seen by Colton from "Heaven Is For Real" I mentioned above. You can check out her paintings on her online gallery. Hers is also a remarkable story.

I was surprised that there are thousands of NDEs listed on the internet. I checked the website of "Near Death Experience Reseach Foundation (NDREF)" and read several of the entries. They are simply amazing. The foundation is a wonderful forum to learn and share about NDEs.

There are so many books written on NDE. People who had NDE, their family, researchers, doctors; they all have written about it. I feel like getting my hands on all of it.

One thing I am sure after going through their accounts is that death is not a bad thing at all. It's a release towards something which is eternal, ethereal and definitely better than our worldly lives. People who had a NDE have described a feeling of being at peace. Fear and despair was not really a part of their experience. They felt a sense of overwhelming love and calmness. They also spoke of talking and interacting with other beings but without moving lips. Amazing, isn't it. After their return, they say that they were able to understand the workings of the universe better.

The NDEs differ but they are all connected in some way. The more I learn, the more I get mystified.I believe God shows what He wants to show. He reveals what He wants to reveal. He lets us know as much as He intends us to know. He is definitely letting us understand that there is more than this life, more than we can ever know, more than we think is possible. I believe NDEs are just glimpses of the one true realm of which we all will be a part someday. The visions reveal only a part of the universal mystery, which would be unraveled to us only when our physical body dies. I feel that I am spiritually enriched by the NDE stories Also my initial fear of dying is fading away. I am awed and humbled. I believe the more I shall read, the wiser I shall get. The Creator didn't create us for nothing but with a purpose. We all are a part of God's grand plan. We just need to believe and have faith. As Anita Moorjani in her book "Dying To Be Me" says that we all are a thread in the bigger tapestry and we all contribute to that picture. The better we do, the picture would become more beautiful and vice-versa. So come, let's do good.

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