Greetings Wonderful,

We can change our minds in the afterlife.  But we might get distracted by our first surroundings, so it might take awhile to remember what we want to change.
Maybe sort of like when a tourist first gets to a new place, there's so much to see that they forget to visit some part of it that a friend recommended.
Is there a particular reason that you want to wait until after you're there?

Betson

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Don, this makes no sense.  Ahmed was dying of AIDS, and then a few years later, he was a Christian missionary.

Regarding what deity we may encounter after physical death, I feel compelled to respond to Don's comments.  A study of 500 or 1000 NDEs is certainly impressive, but not by any means definitive.  However, there are examples of NDEs where buddhists see the buddha: one example is posted on the web from Mellen Thomas Benedict in the 1980s (posted on the web).

"A Light shone; I turned toward it, and was aware of its similarity to what others have described in near-death experiences. It was magnificent and tangible, alluring. I wanted to go towards that Light like I might want to go into my ideal mother's or father's arms. As I moved towards the Light, I knew that if I went into the Light, I would be dead. So I said/felt, "Please wait. I would like to talk to you before I go." The entire experience halted. I discovered that I was in control of the entire experience. My request was honoured. I had conversations with the Light. That's the best way I can describe it. The Light changed into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked in a kind of telepathy, "What is going on here?" The information transmitted was that our beliefs shape the kind of feedback we receive: If you are a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own images. I became aware of a Higher Self matrix, a conduit to the Source. We all have a Higher Self, or an oversoul part of our being, a conduit. All Higher Selves are connected as one being, all humans are connected as one being."

Examples of Mohammed's own NDE can be found here, along with a discussion of the Muslim NDE in general; http://www.near-death.com/muslim.html.

There are further examples as well.  However, a key point is that Buddhism is a very different religion.  To be as a Buddha means to release one's connection to individuality.  Thus a Buddhist does not expect to meet friends and relatives on passing; to them that is part of the illusion of separateness.  The Buddha himself is not a figure to meet, but part of an understanding of the universe.  In contrast, Christ said " I  am the light and the way, and there is but one way to the father through me."  Many therefore see JC as their personal saviour - if they are schooled in christian thought there is but one way to heaven.  

Many describe the light as God, but in an impersonal general way.  Many children describe meeting the family dog after a NDE - this is not to disparage any religion, just to note what has been described in the literature.  There are certain commonalities behind all NDEs, however there are very personal attributes as well.


Matthew

I am grateful for your reply, Matthew, and eagerly await your further replies to my questions below:

[Matthew:] "However, there are examples of NDEs where buddhists see the buddha: one example is posted on the web from Mellen Thomas Benedict in the 1980s (posted on the web).

"The Light changed into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked in a kind of telepathy, "What is going on here?" The information transmitted was that our beliefs shape the kind of feedback we receive: If you are a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own images."
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(1) On what basis do you idenitfy Mellen Benedict as a Buddhist?  I have read his NDE story.   The narrative identifies his religious background as Christian.

(2) In any case, he speaks in general of a changing mandala of archtypes.  His use of ther conjectural term "like" suggests that he is merely speculating on the identity of these archetypes.

(3) As you are well aware, not all reported NDEs derive from those whose  hearts have stopped beating.   The line between an NDE and a hallucination will at times be blurred. I've even read some alleged Christian NDEs that seemed more like hallucinations shaped by wishful thinking.   For that reason, it is the overwhelming NDE patterns that are important.  One would expect at least one NDE appearance from Siddartha Gautama (the Buddha) in this Asian NDE experts 3,000 cases.  But I'd like to hear about one alleged case of the Buddha's appearance to a Buddhist   Where have yoiu fuond such a case?

(4) The problem with conjectures as to why the Buddha might not show up is twofold: (a) Like most Christians, most Buddhists are not well immersed or trained in their traditions.  Ordinary Buddhist and Taoist devotees often invorporate occult and magical beliefs into their traditions.  So one might well expect many nominal and superfiicially immersed Buddhists to identify the Being of Light as the Buddha.  As I said, the notion that Christ will appear to the newly dead as a Being of Light who takes them on a past life review is not a standard Christian belief.   In fact, many Christians I know shrink in horror at such an idea.  

(5) Still, I would expect NDE evidence to be more diverse than it actually is.  When God commissions Moses to liberate the Hebrews from slavery, an insecure Moses asks the Presence at the Burning Bush what name He wants to go by.  The answer, "Tell them I will be whatever I will be has sent you (Exodus 3:14)."  To me, this answer implies that God can present Himself under many different symbols and images to peoples with different belief systems.   But I want to know what the actual NDE patterns are and have read several books and NDE websites to discover these patterns.  Also, I would expect the newly deceased to encounter different beings, depending on how loving or hateful they were in this life.

[Matthew:] "Examples of Mohammed's own NDE can be found here, along with a discussion of the Muslim NDE in general; http://www.near-death.com/muslim.html."
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The report of Muhammad's alleged NDE is not in the Koran and is a much later legend.   In any case, that point is irrelevant to my point.   Find me a single  example of Mphammad appearing to a Muslim in an NDE.  I thorougly surveyed the website you cite before I created my post.   Did I miss something?  Where does your source document Muhammad's appearance to a dying Muslim?

Finally, Matthew, I have a suggestion for a new Matthean thread.   The philosophical outlook that informs your monism is perfectly respectable.  But my question is this: how is your perspective even in principle falsifiable?  What positions on what issues would have to be demonstrated to your satisfaction to get you to change your mind?  If your position (or mine) cannot submit itself to such tests even in principle, then surely that position is epstemologically meaningless.   Let me offer two possible definitive issues in the hope that this will stiimulate your own reflection on the decisive issues at play.

(1) Suppose you could be convinced that there really is a non-human demonic realm that wars against godly people and everything God represents.   Would that change your outlook.  If so, why won't you read the case histories in Malachi Martin's book, "Hostage to the Devil."   As I keep saying, I've met no one who has read that book and rejected Martin's demonic inrepretation.  

As you know, the Iranians recently hosted a conference disputing the reality of the Holocaust.  Clearly, these anti-Semitic people refuse to read the definitive testimonials to the opposite viewpoint (b00ks by Elie Wiesel, etc.).  How can we have rational dialogue if the interlocuters refuse to engage tho evidenc for the contray position?  

(2) Astral explorers with widely different belief systems (Bruce Moen, St. Paul. atheist Howard Storm's NDE) claim to have discovered the possibliity of postmortem soul annihilation.  Does annihilationsim contradict your monisstic philosophy?

At the same time, I must confess that my own attempts to explore how my beliefs are in principle falsifiable has at times led to painful rellection and uncertainty.   Any fundamental change in beliefs can be threatening and depressing.  But I am forced to engage this examination precisely because I am asking others to do the same with their own perspectives.  I don't want to be a hypocrite!   In my view, spiritual quests are debased by a refusal to leave one's comfort zone.  A truth quest motivated more by a desire for comfort rather than the real facts seems comparatively ignoble to me.

Don

Betson,

Good question!  Of course, there are various types of curiosity: voyeuristic thrill seeking, the discomfort of nagging doubts, a profound desire to make a loving difference,  etc.   No religious tradition or New Age movement has a corner on the highest type of curiosity.   I would expect the right kind of curiosity to make a dramatic difference in one's NDE; e. g. on how open one is to the true identity of the Being of Light. 

In times of stress and doubt, I often long for comfort and hope.    The danger here is that I treat God as little more than a dispensable working construct that gives my life meaning.  On that view, it is easier to play with new ideas.  But deep down inside, I long for the real God behind all His mystery.   In my many encounters with the terminally ill, the grieving, and others in deep crisis, I realize that the healing power of my own love is very limited unless it is reinforced by a higher presence that comforts the suffering.   It is so easy to get trapped into playing a role based on a working construct like God that no longer seems as real and potent as it once did.   So the purity of one's longing for a real encounter with the divine is vital, regardless of how frustrating it can be when satitisfying answers elude us and we are trapped in the dark night of the soul.  So we must all face an everpresent danger: the temptation to settle for  a shallow sporituality that gives us just enough hope to inoculate us against the real thing: genuine intimacy with the divine with all its love and power.

Don

Don

Hi Don,

You misunderstand me when you imply that I have a fully worked out monistic theology/theosophy all worked out in my mind.  I have as much doubt and vexation as all the other seekers on this board.  I have, however, felt/experienced certain events in my life through meditation and exploration which do seem to validate, at least on an emotional level that there is a unity of all things.  I do think that at the deepest level of understanding, many major religions, including judaism and christianity have tones of monistic thought that override the dualism we find in the physical world. 

I plan to make a more in depth response to your questions later tonight or tomorrow when I have more time.  However, in brief I would say that I do not doubt the existence of various "players" including the demonic in the universe.  I believe that the unity of all things is an understanding and awareness that supercedes the "us vs. them" dualistic thought.  One can acknowledge the existence of the physical world and dualistic thinking at one level while recognizing there is a bigger spiritual picture (monism).

More to follow.

Matthew

Implications for meeting a being of light in near death experiences (NDEs) - a prologue to Don's request for a "Matthean thread" about the unity of all things and falsifiable evidence:

At first blush, Don's implication appears to be that most NDEs support the divinity of Christ above the founding leaders of other religions because of the numerous times people identify JC by name when they are revived.  There is a presupposition that hardly anyone has identified the being of light as Buddha, Moses or Mohammed.  Dave points out that a person's identification of this being as a specific entity may be related to what was in the person's mind.  I believe this to be the case.  In how many NDEs, Don did a person who had truly never heard of JC, come back and say "I was approached by a being of light who identified himself as Jesus or Yeshua, but I never heard of that name"?  This would provide impressive scientific verification.  If, for example a member of an aboriginal tribe came back and identified this figure of light as JC, with no prior knowledge of him (missionaries, books, etc), there would be no other logical explanation for this vision.

Jesus is apparently encountered/recognized in between 31 and 37% of all encounters in NDEs (reference available).  This is impressive, although given that there are literally billions of christians on the planet and many other religions/peoples who greatly respect the teachings of Jesus (In the Islamic faith, Jesus is seen as a true prophet of God, though not divine - and there are an additional 2 billion people of Islamic faith in the world) it is to be expected.  To me, given the gospels and his teachings of universal love, it makes perfect sense for christians, buddhists, muslims and jews to associate this light of love with Christ, based upon the above.  

Don, your challenge to find even one case of Buddha appearing to a buddhist or Mohammed to a Muslim is difficult only because one would have to have access to the interviews of thousands of survivors of NDEs.  I have, however found such evidence:

Dr. P.M.H. Atwater has over 3000 case reports of NDEs in her database; this far exceeds the impressive study Don mentioned of 1000 cases in which he cited a lack of evidence of encounters with Buddha and Mohammed.  

When speaking about the NDEs of children, she says: "Children sometimes describe an animal heaven they must visit before they can go to the heaven where people are. And they tend to be explicit about skin tones when talking about any religious figure who visited them. By that I mean, Jesus is seen as a man with tan skin (adults are the ones who usually see Jesus as white); Buddha's skin is more often seen as somewhat yellowish; Mohammed is described as having brown skin (yes, there are little ones who claim they saw Mohammed). Children seldom deviate in their description of such coloring regardless of their own skin tone or cultural exposure; adults do."  Game, set and match Don.  I am certain that we can pull the specific references where Buddha or Mohammed were seen from Dr. Atwater, however to me the reference is enough (available in two place, the main being http://www.cinemind.com/atwater).

The other evidence of encounters with other famous religious figures can be found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  Paul Badham, a professor from the University of Wales, Lampeter, UK, wrote an enlightening article entitled: "Religious and near death experience in relation to belief in a future life," published in the Journal Mortality, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1997.  In this article, he discusses that the database on NDEs from Kubler-Ross and Becker exceed 25,000 documented cases (this is the largest database I have yet encountered).  Professor Badham states:  
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Concerning the Being of Light which contemporary experiencers see and name in accordance with their own tradition, this also is in accord with the Tibetan Book of the Dead  where we read:  'The Dharmakaya (The Divine Being) of clear light will appear in what ever shape will benefit all beings'>  Commenting on this verse for his English translation, Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup says: "To appeal to a Shaivite devotee, the form of Shiva is assumed; to a Buddisht the form of Buddha Shakya Muni; to a Christian, the form of Jesus; to a Muslim the form of the Prophet; and so for other religious devotees and for all manner and conditions of mankind a form apporpriate to the occasion' (Evans-Wents, 1957, p. 94)

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Don may chide me for not giving the specific case examples from Badham and Atwater by name, but alas, without further purchases of the books and databases, I can not give case by case the reports in detail.  Suffice it to say that the above examples referenced by Atwater, Badham, and Moody - who I did not reference - all support concrete examples where people who experienced NDEs from across the world have seen the Being of Light as Budda or Mohammed - though not as often as Christ.  

Don, when I cited Mellen Benedict, it was not to say that as a Buddist he saw Buddha, but as a documented NDE, he saw what to his interpretation was a Being of Light which at first looked like JC, then the Buddha.  He was informed by his divine source that "The information transmitted was that our beliefs shape the kind of feedback we receive: If you are a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own images."  If you seek documentation, such as his, why would you doubt the personal feedback he relates from this being of Light?

I think then, that my response and the references cited clearly establish then that the Being of Light encountered has been named by people of differing cultures as Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha, (as well as others).  None of this lessens the impact that this encounter has on the individual.  Survivors of NDE as a group generally lose their fear of death, and believe that there is a unifying love in the universe that comes from God.

Matthew