PROOF OF HEAVEN

Proof of Heaven
A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
by Dr. Eben Alexander

The book, as the subtitle suggests, is about a fascinating mysterious journey of a neurosurgeon when he was in comma for a week at General Hospital in Virginia, USA. His discovery or the experience during the period talks about a world beyond scientific knowledge and explanation. In Tibetan society, we have 'des log, [pronounced as de-log] or shi-log, meaning coming back from death. Dr. Eben Alexander was a neurosurgeon who had conducted many surgeries on people with life-threatening brain damage. He was on faculty of Harvard Medical School for fifteen years. His education and the profession as neurosurgeon have left little room for him for God and spiritualism. He says he was just a step ahead someone who darkens the door of a church at Christmas and Easter.

His professional education has taught him that "When your brain is absent, you are absent, too. This is because the brain is the machine that produces consciousness in the first place. When the machine breaks down, consciousness stops! Modern neuroscience dictates that the brain gives rise to consciousness-to mind, to the soul, to the spirit, to whatever you choose to call that invisible, intangible part of us that truly makes us who we are." He confesses that his decades in the rigorous scientific world of academic neurosurgery had profoundly called him to question the existence of such thing as God. But all this changed when on November 10, 2008, at the age of fifty-four, he was attacked by a rare brain disease and went into comma for seven days.

His wife, children, parents, friends and relatives all stood by his bedside praying and hoping that he would come back.  The disease was diagnosed as E. Coli meningitis that attacks the cortex of the brain, and chances of survival was very less. While the family members and doctors were doing their best to bring him back with dwindling hope, Eben found himself in a new strange world of bliss.

I began to move up. Fast. There was a whooshing sound, and in a flash I went through the opening and found myself in a completely new world. The strangest, most beautiful world I'd ever seen. Brilliant, vibrant, ecstatic, stunning…..

There he was escorted and helped through the Gateway and the Core by a young beautiful adorable girl on the Butterfly Wing. She was a stranger, but she was not. There was a strong affinity and indescribable pure love and sacred understanding. They talked but more through telepathy. She conveyed that he was loved, and that there is nothing to fear. This girl, he later came to know, was one of his biological sisters who he has heard of but never met. He also felt the power of love and prayers in him. An Orb followed him, through this Orb, the God [Om] explained the essence of love and compassion. "How do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self? By manifesting love and compassion! Why? Because love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be. They are real. They are concrete. And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm." The seven days in comma was a great learning experience for Eben.

The book is a revealing testimony of a neurosurgeon that there is a universe beyond this physical world. Modern science has paid good attention to physical and material understanding, but it has ignored or has little to say about the consciousness that lives even after death. Brain death and physical death is not the end of consciousness, the journey continues. As a neurosurgeon, Eben has heard many stories from people who have gone through near-death-experience (NDE). Like many of his colleagues, he has brushed aside these stories as pure hallucination. But this seven-day comma experience made him realize that their experience are indeed true needing due attention from the scientific world. The author says, "The ascendance of the scientific method based solely in the physical realm over the past four hundred years presents a major problem: we have lost touch with the deep mystery at the center of existence-our consciousness."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has on several occasions said that science and religion are not contradictory, they are complimentary. Modern science has made tremendous progress in development of physical world and in understanding the matters; religion has equally played important role in developing and understanding the non-physical - mental and spiritual aspect of our existence. Basic goal of both science and religion is delivering happiness to all through proper understanding of reality. Science sees the brain as physical basis for consciousness, whereas for Buddhist science, consciousness goes beyond brain. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has initiated number of dialogue between science and religion under the platform of "Science and Mind" across the world. This will go a long way in bringing the science and religion together to play beneficial role in building a conscious world based on principle of love and compassion.

The book is also about how family members come together in the hours of crisis. How genuine prayers and faith helps. I thank Dr Eben Alexander for sharing his story openly and espousing scientific attention in these non-physical spiritual experiences. Because in his world of neuroscience, and after the comma experience he has gone under, people may mistranslate the wisdom he has gained. With his book, he has shared the experience of so many people who may not have been taken seriously by other. The book is a living testimony to the existence of greater world of consciousness beyond our earthly existence.

"The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the visible and spiritual part. In my past view, spiritual wasn’t a word that I would have employed during a scientific conversation. Now, I believe it as a word that we cannot afford to leave out."   
  

Note: This is the author's review of what he has read and understood from the book to appreciate Dr. Eben Alexander and his family for sharing the experience. Any misinterpretation or misunderstanding is regretted. Serious readers who want to know more about the subject are advised to read the book.