Pathway Program of Shared Crossing Project

Eben Alexander and Karen Newall write: "Hospice volunteer, William Peters in Santa Barbara, in 2010 created protocols via the Shared Crossing Project’s Pathway program, designed to assist others in accepting death as a natural process and specific exercises in how to establish ‘links’ between the dying and their loved ones.

"One such introductory exercise to facilitate this bond goes like this: 'Take a moment to deepen into a relaxed and contemplative state and focus on one particular close relationship. Reflect on a specific event or memory that evokes feelings of gratitude for this loved one. Perhaps this occurred at a time of great joy in your life, or when you most needed comfort. Allow these feelings of appreciation to form a bond across time and space, between you and this special loved one. Allow yourself to sense and feel the presence of this being, with you, now.'

"When practiced with some frequency over time, this visualization creates a link that stretches between this life and what lies ahead. Through a series of increasingly elaborate exercises, participants learn the landscape that leads from this human life into afterlife and choreograph their transitions with loved ones. Participants who followed such protocols have attained a more meaningful relationship with death and numerous long-term benefits. These include increased appreciation for life, decreased fear of death, more manageable grief, and a deeper understanding of their own purpose in life.

"Research reveals that these practices enable a variety of profound and healing end-of-life phenomena that Peters has identified and documented as ‘shared crossings.’ These refer to a kind of communication across the veil that yields a transformative gift, including predeath dreams/visions (where the dying express that they have been visited by a deceased loved one who provides them guidance and comfort); the shared death experience (where loved ones report that they went into the initial stages of the afterlife with the dying individual and experienced phenomena such as a shared out-of-body event, witnessing benevolent beings of light, encountering heavenly realms, and ultimately realizing that their departing loved one is safe, well-cared-for, and happy); postdeath coincidences (where an individual experiences a profound energetic event in which they know that a loved one has died, yet are alive and well); and many more.

"We are spiritual beings living in a spiritual universe. Fundamentally, this spirituality means we are all interconnected through the Collective Mind, and that the emotional power behind our hopes and dreams has a basis in reality that guides the unfolding of events in our lives. The very fuel of that spirituality is love, and the more we can express unconditional love for self and others, the more healing or ‘becoming whole’ we will be. The best way to discover this is through cultivating a means of going within, often described as a practice of meditation or prayer. Any physical, mental, or emotional health must be firmly rooted in spiritual health, and prayer is a most natural means of invoking such overall wellness. As hundreds have shared with us, that sense of eternal connection is truly a life changer. We just need to be open to the possibility."

Eben Alexander and Karen Newall, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Heart of Consciousness (Rodale, 2017).

Slave song: "I'm Going Home"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Slave Songs of the United States” by Charles Pickard Ware, Lucy McKim Garrison, and William Francis Allen, 1867.

Quantum energy and love binds the universe

A natural result of feeling the infinite love of the universe is to recognize that conscious awareness is the very same force at the core of all existence. Such oneness and dissolution of the sense of self, and complete identity with all of life and the source of all that is, is the pathway toward truth. Indeed, the deepest lesson of my journey was realizing that unconditional love was the very fabric of the spiritual realm from which the totality of reality emerges.

The binding force of love reported by the vast majority of spiritual journeyers over millennia brings to mind the concept of ‘the ether,’ a substance that scientists in the late 19th century postulated might possibly serve as the medium pervading the entire universe through which light waves travel. Light fundamentally connects our entire universe with itself, pervading every bit of the physical universe throughout time.

In 1887, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley performed an experiment to investigate the ether, and they proved that the ether as it was postulated (as a classical medium, like air and water) did not exist. Yet in an amazing turn of events, the most recent work in physics demonstrates that the ether is now the way most modern physicists would describe the vacuum energy, the amazingly powerful source of energy that quantum physics has revealed to exist in the very fabric of spacetime itself. Vacuum energy is a potentially endless source of energy that could revolutionize our society, if we could just determine a way to harness it for our use here on earth. Ether has not resurged as an idea in physics, but it is a relativistic ether that is fully compatible with the ideas of relativity. But the concept of ether, which many would identify as the substance that acts as the binding force of our universe, is almost identical to the infinite binding force of love.

Our concepts of a loving, merciful, and compassionate force operating in the universe (whether from the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam or from other traditions, such as Zoroastrianism, Shintoism, Hinduism, or Buddhism) have originated from human encounters in the spiritual realm. Most of those traditions emerged from individuals who had witnessed extraordinary features of the invisible realm that revealed a much deeper connection with the universe. In essence, this is the most basic definition of spirituality, that we have a connection with the universe that enables us to sense vital aspects of it and to have some influence in achieving our goals and desires.

Eben Alexander and Karen Newall, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Heart of Consciousness, 2017.

Alexander and Newall: we are cocreators with God

Experimental results in quantum physics serve as the smoking gun to indicate that consciousness is fundamental in creating the universe: All of the observable universe (and all of the rest of the cosmos that exist anywhere or anytime) appears to emerge from consciousness itself.

The mathematical precision of our world and the fine-tuning of physical parameters involved in its structure provide compelling evidence of a highly ordered consciousness underlying all of existence. I believe that this ordering intelligence, which many might see as a creative God, is actually the very source of our conscious awareness as sentient beings. There is no separation between this ultimate creative force and our conscious awareness of existing in this universe. The observer, the self-awareness of the universe for itself, is us at the deepest level.

The great psychologist William James (1842-1910) offered up what he called ‘the More,’ His concept was simply that one could not fully explain the events of human lives through interactions defined in the physical realm alone. I view ‘the More’ as a top-down organizational principle that sets the stage for true evolution on a grand scale—that is, evolution of information and understanding of the universe, aligned with a structure suggestive of meaning and purpose in human existence. In many ways, this grander evolution of consciousness is the reason the entire universe exists.

By consciousness, I mean that self-awareness, that knowing in this moment that you exist, that you are a human being alive in the here and now—the observer part of awareness—the knower of knowledge. We are all participants and cocreators in this grand evolution of consciousness itself.

Eben Alexander and Karen Newall, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Heart of Consciousness

 

Eben Alexander on praying for the dying

"Those familiar with my coma ordeal often write to me to ask what they can do for someone close to them who is presently in coma due to accident, illness, or other reasons. They are distraught at the thought of losing their loved one and wish to prevent it at all costs. Often they ask if prayers will make a difference. They are usually inspired by my inexplicable recovery and desperately wish to know if prayer will help their loved one survive and recover. The key thing to remember is that our existence does not end with the death of the physical body. Prayer can have tremendous power—remember that your prayers will get through to your loved one’s soul on this journey, providing him or her with comfort and love. Whether or not the physical body recovers is not the end goal. If such recovery allows for growth in understanding our relationship with the universe in pursuit of our intended life’s lessons, then it becomes possible.

"No matter how deep in coma a loved one might be, assume that the loving energy of your prayers will help you connect with their soul. Use the energy of that loving connection to manifest the highest and best good for all involved. This does entail detaching from the outcome, and asking that ‘thy will be done.’

"It is crucial to realize that death is not the end of our soul connections with loved ones. Prayer often opens the door to show us that connection, as we sense that the soul of our departing loved one is not actually departed at all, even after they have left their physical body once and for all.

"Recall that healing is to hallow or to make holy, essentially to ‘make whole.’ The reuniting with the infinitely loving creative force at the death of the body is a most beautiful lesson of the true oneness underlying our existence, the eternity of spirit and interconnectedness of all souls.

"Our job, as caregivers and as loved ones of the dying person, is to share gifts—of recognition, of acceptance, and of forgiveness (of the departing soul, of siblings, and other family, but most especially of ourselves) to comfort and console the dying. Dying is a natural aspect of the cycle of life. Telling a dying person that it is okay, that you are also at one with it, offers powerful healing to all parties. Interpret what you witness with your heart, not your head. Stay alert throughout the dying process."

Eben Alexander and Karen Newall, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Heart of Consciousness, 2017.

 

Clark was rejected when she shared her NDE

As I wrote yesterday, cytologist Nancy Clark died in a hospital, her body was moved into the morgue, but then she returned to her body. Twenty years later she had a similar extraordinary experience that wasn't life-threatening, but was equally transformative.

Larry Dossey writes in One Mind: "Although inspired to convey her experience to others, Nancy Clark encountered great obstacles. She lost all her friends because they thought she was crazy. Her own family did not believe her. She was mocked when she related what had happened. 'To be honest,' she says, 'I don’t think I would have believed someone who told this story, either.' But she was undeterred by critics. 'The skeptics and naysayers will one day enter that transcendent realm' she says, 'and they will find out for themselves what I tried to tell them was true after all.'

"As Clark lectured and wrote about what she’d experienced, she collected 102 reports from people who had undergone experiences similar to her podium event. These individuals were healthy and nowhere near death when they had their transformative experience. They were aged 22 to 93. Some were religious, some were spiritual but not religious, and some were agnostic or atheist. Their experiences erupted spontaneously and without warning. Among the situations that preceded them were being at rest, at work, or play; praying or meditating; driving a car; having a dream; watching television; flying in an airplane; and talking on the phone. Like Clark, they emerged from these experiences with renewed purpose and meaning in life, and with a sense of connection and unconditional love for everyone. They typically described this experience as the most important event of their life."

"Clark merits our attention," Dossey asserts. "Her experiences have spanned five decades. She underwent clinical death and a classic NDE long before the term was introduced, which rules out the possibility that suggestion and expectation colored her experience. Two decades later she had an identical experience as a well person while speaking at a memorial service. She has seen Western cultures transition from denial of these events to the recognition that millions of Americans have experienced some kind of NDE.”

Dr. Larry Dossey, One Mind How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters, 98-99.

Nancy Clark's NDE and her transformation

“Nancy Clark graduated from Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania as a cytologist (cytology is the study of cells), and she taught cytology and did cancer research at a major university before retiring to devote her life to writing and lecturing about near-death experiences.

“In the early 1960s, long before Raymond Moody alerted Western culture to the near-death experience in Life After Life, Clark was believed to have died while giving birth to her son. The problem was eclampsia of pregnancy, characterized by severe high blood pressure, edema, and convulsions. She lost consciousness yet remained aware of what was going on. She saw her physical body below; saw a light source streaming toward her; and felt bliss, peace, and love saturating her entire being. All the while she saw the delivery nurse pounding on her chest saying, ‘Come back, Nancy, come back!’ The nurse soon added, ‘You have a son.’ Clark decided to return to her physical body.

“But it was too late. She regained consciousness in the morgue, lying on a cold metal surface with a sheet over her face. She pulled the sheet away and saw another body on a gurney beside her, also covered with a sheet. Then she lost consciousness again. The next time she awoke she was in a hospital room.

Her physician advised her to forget about what she remembered, and she did until, “at age 38, while perfectly healthy and teaching and doing cancer research, she had an almost identical experience. She was standing at a podium delivering a eulogy for a friend who had died, when the light appeared again. Although her physical body continued to perform normally and the eulogy went off without a hitch, at the same time she had the sensation of leaving her physical body into another dimension she calls ‘the Light of God.’ She experienced great beauty, ecstasy, and bliss. Unconditional love poured in, the likes of which she had never felt. She experienced a review of her life.

“Clark ‘felt the illusion of my separate self simply melt away. I loved everyone and everything with an immense transforming consciousness.’ She ‘merged into Oneness with the Light of God, [and] communication took place telepathically.’ She saw her deceased friend, for whom she was delivering the eulogy, standing beside her, holding her hand, letting her know that he was all right and very happy, and that there was no reason to grieve. She had no desire to go back into the body of Nancy at the podium. She did so, however, because she knew she had been given a mission to convey to others what she had experienced. She felt equipped to do so because she sensed she’d been given access to ‘ultimate knowledge. As she put it, ‘I knew everything there was to know, past, present, and future. Every word and every thought that was or ever will be spoke or written down was made known to me.’ She later understood, however, that she was not permitted to remember all of that knowledge, only parts of it. ‘This is what all near-death experiencers report as well,” she wrote. “This is one of the classic, across-the-board similarities in over thirty years of scientific research, revealing this common thread among researchers.’

“After 15 minutes in this ecstatic, idyllic state, Clark returned to her physical body, which was still delivering the eulogy. When the memorial service was over, several people told her that while she was speaking, they witnessed a white glow all over the outline of her body.”

Dr. Larry Dossey, One Mind How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters, 95-97.