Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (8 page)

In the distance I saw a light that I had never seen on earth. So pure, so intense, so perfect. I knew it was a being I had to go to. I don’t know how this happened. I didn’t have to think, I knew everything. I had no mobility problems anymore. I had no body anymore. This dead weight had gone…. I passed through everything. At once I realized: there’s no time or space here. We’re always in the present here. This gave me a great sense of peace. I felt it as I experienced the Light. It’s the pinnacle of everything there is. Of energy, of love especially, of warmth, of beauty.

I was immersed in a feeling of total love. It was crystal clear to me why I’d had cancer. Why I had come into this world in the first place. What role each of my family members played in my life, where we all were within the grand scheme of things, and in general what life is all about. The clarity and insight I had in that state are simply indescribable. Words seem to diminish the experience—I was in a place where I understood that there’s so much more than we can fathom in our three-dimensional world. I realized that this was a great gift and that I was always surrounded by loving spiritual beings of light.

That very same moment, in a split second, I gained access to a wealth of knowledge, a complete knowing and understanding. All knowledge. Universal knowledge. I understood the origins of the cosmos, how the universe works, and why people do what they do. Their positive actions, but also why they hurt one another, deliberately or not. Wars and natural disasters, everything has a purpose, a reason. It all makes sense. I understood the past, the present, and the future. I saw evolution. Everything and everyone evolves and develops together. I saw and understood—without any judgment—the connection, the coherence, the logical and sometimes major consequences of every single act. I mean at every level and down to the smallest detail…. The way all kinds of mechanical, electrical, and electronic equipment, gadgets, and engines work. Everything. I knew and understood all about mathematics, electronics, physics, DNA, atoms, quantum mechanics, and quantum physics…. I also saw where evolution is headed, what its ultimate goal is. I realized that this grand scheme not only includes me, but everything and everybody, every human being, every soul, every animal, every cell, the earth and every other planet, the universe, the cosmos, the Light. Everything is connected and everything is one. “I see!” I thought happily. “I get it. It’s all so simple. So obvious. It all makes sense….” No, I wasn’t allowed to bring back the knowledge itself. Why, I don’t know…. Perhaps we’re not supposed to have such universal knowledge in the here and now, in our physical form? Perhaps we’re here to learn? Perhaps there’s another reason?

My whole life so far appeared to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic, three-dimensional review, and each event seemed to be accompanied by an awareness of good and evil or by an insight into its cause and effect. Throughout, I not only saw everything from my own point of view, but I also knew the thoughts of everybody who’d been involved in these events, as if their thoughts were lodged inside me. It meant that I saw not only what I had done or thought but even how this had affected others, as if I was seeing with all-knowing eyes. And so even your thoughts are apparently not wiped out. And throughout, the review stressed the importance of love. I can’t say how long this life review and insight into life lasted; it may have been quite long because it covered every single subject, but at the same time it felt like a split second because I saw everything at once. It seemed as if time and distance didn’t exist. I was everywhere at once, and sometimes my attention was focused on something and then I was there too.

To start with, I was shown images of my two previous lives. The first time I died was during a campaign in England during the Roman era. I was the chief of a cohort escorting a number of female prisoners to the coast, and along the way we were attacked by the natives of those parts. I also experienced my death in World War I. I was in a fighter plane in what must have been 1917 and became caught up in a battle with a German aircraft. I was shot down and crashed between the lines. I say 1917 because with the help of pictures taken that year I managed to identify the type of aircraft used by the English air force at the time. Why I also saw excerpts from these two lives, I don’t know. And I have no way of verifying any of this. What I remember much more vividly are images from my latest or, if you like, current life. First I witnessed my own birth. I was brought into this world by our family doctor, unlike my brothers and sisters, who were delivered by the midwife. The doctor held me in his arms and said the following memorable words to my mother: “This is a special child. He will either be a great genius or a great scoundrel.” I turned out to be neither of the two. I saw my first few steps. I saw how my unreasonable behavior hurt my mother. I saw myself playing with the neighbors’ dog, Bello. It was a watchdog and watched over the farm. It was huge and obeyed only its masters. Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared of this dog at all, and it put up with everything I did. Every now and then I even crawled into its kennel for a nap. I wouldn’t even let Farmer Mast, its owner, anywhere near to try and get me out. I was on equally good terms with Bles, the big horse. When she was in the field and I slipped under the barbed-wire fence, she would come galloping and rear up right in front of me. Then she’d often drop to the ground, and I’d crawl between her legs and onto her belly. The spectacle used to terrify bystanders. I also saw my school years pass before my eyes, and the teachers I used to torment. The war years were quite prominent. I saw some people I’d known in the camp and whom I had, on occasion, robbed of the little food they had in a bid to survive. But some of my good deeds also flashed past. I saw the Indonesian girl whom I’d lived with for four years. I relived the intense love, but also that one time when I hurt her badly and I thought that she hadn’t realized. Looking back, I saw a lot of situations in which, as a serviceman, I’d been rather ruthless. But my NDE also brought back some memories of incidents in which, in defiance of orders, I’d let mercy take precedence over law. Among them were quite a few incidents I had long since erased from my memory. For instance, there were things in my life that I’d come to accept as bad but that were now suddenly deemed good. The same applied to things that I’d always considered to be good and that were now branded wrong. The next episode that I subjected to a thorough examination was the period of September 1944, the Battle of Arnhem. What struck me was that, despite the short time span, so many people passed before my mind’s eye. I saw many whom I had taken to the hospital or who died in my arms. Many of them assured me that they’d welcome me as soon as I arrived on the “other” side. To my surprise, I only saw a single German. It was a German soldier who had fought an English soldier, and the two had wounded each other so badly that they both died, one after the other. He gave me his iron cross, which, astonishingly, I’ve managed to hold on to my entire life. He gave it to me because I let him have some drags on his English adversary’s last cigarette. They both died within a short time of each other. The fact that I gave him a smoke was labeled a good deed, which I don’t understand because I did it on the orders, or at the request, of the Englishman. I would have preferred to see the German stew in his own blood. What I mean to say by this is that up there they judge by different standards than down here.

And in a flash I saw the rest of my life. I could see a large part of my future life: taking care of my children; my wife’s illness; everything that would happen to me, both in and out of the workplace. I could see it all. I foresaw my wife’s death and my mother’s passing. One day I wrote down all the things I saw back then; over the years I’ve been able to tick them all off. For instance, I saw my wife on her deathbed, wrapped in a white shawl, just like the one she was given by a friend of hers shortly before she died….

Then I reached a border. Even at the age of ten I needed no further explanation. I simply understood that I’d never be able to return if I crossed this border. But some of my ancestors were on the other side, and they caught my attention because they were communicating through a kind of telepathy. I was born profoundly deaf. All my relatives can hear, and they always communicate with me through sign language. Now I had direct communication with about twenty ancestors via some kind of telepathy. An overwhelming experience….

He showed me a gate behind which I saw the same landscape. But now, with this gate in front, it suddenly looked extremely familiar. I came to the startling conclusion: I’ve been here before. It felt like a homecoming after an arduous journey. A state that led to complete peace of mind, a peace of mind I hadn’t known for a long time. For me this was the highlight of the experience. Without a word the figure encouraged me to decide whether I wanted to remain in this state or whether I wanted to return to earthly life. I could either enter the gate or return to the lifeless body, which I immediately sensed below me. I had the impression that entry through this gate meant definitive physical death. Aware that this was my chance to go back knowing that this state of being is a reality that feels more real than what we call reality and thinking of my young wife and our three small children, I opted to return….

When I came to in my body it was dreadful, so dreadful…. The experience had been so beautiful that I didn’t want to come back. I had wanted to stay there…and yet I came back. From that moment it was a real struggle to live my life inside my body, with all the limitations I experienced at the time…. But later I realized that this experience was in fact a blessing, for now I know that the mind and body are separate and that there’s life after death.

Before I get a chance to turn around and dive into that heavenly light, I notice a slender hand on my back, from my right shoulder down to my waist. This large hand pushes me very firmly yet lovingly back into my body. For a moment I feel like I’m doing a couple of somersaults in the air. Then I realize that I’ve landed back in my body. Back to the pain and to the doctor’s deafening screams and slaps. I’m furious, incredibly furious! I don’t know if I actually uttered all the insults that came to mind…. I think I did, because I felt a sense of relief afterward. I’ve never felt a fury like this rage….