The story was written by a neurosurgeon who had the misfortune (or fortune rather) of contracting an extremely rare form of bacterial meningitis and subsequently went into deep coma for a week. His chances of survival were low and the general agreement of his doctors was that even if he had came back to life, he was likely to remain in a vegetative state for the rest of his life (doctors are grim like that). Just when Eben's doctor was communicating to his wife on the seventh day that they should consider pulling the plug, Eben returned to life to everyone's disbelief.
And thus the tale of where he had wandered to during that week of coma began. Eben first ended up at an assumingly hell, which he termed as the "realm of the earthworm's eye view" and subsequently ascended to paradise, accompanied by a girl with butterfly wings. He had no recollection of who he was nor did he remember anything from the past. He saw faces that he thought familiar but could not recognize.
During his wandering, he was able to feel the prayers of others and also a sense of warmth/ deep love.
I think all that he said is steeped in the Christian faith. We know that God is love and it was only natural that he felt the love of God while in heaven. What puzzled me a little was that he never claimed to have met God during his stay in heaven. Maybe the idea of God as a being is man's way of making God easier to understand and more palatable. But really perhaps God could be just a presence, an energy, or just this warmth/comfort/ love, etc.
Eben went on to say that the consciousness is more real than the physical/ material world, including our body. He also said that we are one with the universe, that all of us are linked to one another. Maybe we really are. I don't know. I think in some theories of quantum physics, the same kind of argument has been made, that when we are all broken down into the tiniest particle/ atom, we realize that we are all interconnected.
Anyway this experience changed him completely and he wanted his readers to be moved enough to recognize the fact that we are all eternal and deeply loved by our Creator.
I know all these theoretically but find myself struggling to believe. I believe in God, I believe He is love, yet the concept of eternity is so foreign and at times, frightening to me. I know how the entire Christian faith is founded on one fundamental truth- love and yet, I find myself doubting and asking why I can't seem to feel God's love.
I want very much to believe in heaven, in God's unconditional love, but sometimes I just feel I have not found the key yet.
Anyhow Eben was bent on sharing his stories in the hope that he could help others who are facing impending death with fear. Most of his colleagues/ scientists who heard his story tried to explain that his experience could be due to the brain's creation (much like dreams) but the argument he made was that the meningitis had rendered his neocortex and limbic system useless. Hence it was impossible that his brain could create such intricate and vivid "dreams". As he continued to share his story and met with skepticism, he himself was also starting to lose faith that all he experienced was real. It was then he received a photo from his biological family (Eben was adopted and never knew his biological family till a few years before his coma). The photo was that of his biological sister who had died and one whom he had never met before. He recognized his sister as the girl with the butterfly wings. It was then that he was finally convinced that all he had been through was real. I liked the analogy he made that he felt like the boy in a fairytale who had travelled to other worlds and returned to earth disappointed to find that it had all been a dream. However, upon reaching into his pocket, he found a handful of sand from the other world and realized it had all been real.
Completed: 30 June 11:58pm
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