The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

THE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE: A STAIRCASE TO HEAVEN? 329have nothing to fear, this won't hurt/ it usually did—you couldn'ttrust them.But this was the most beautiful feeling I have ever known, it'sabsolute pure love. Every feeling, every emotion is just perfect. Youfeel warm, but it has nothing to do with temperature. Everythingthere is absolutely vivid and clear. What the light communicates toyou is a feeling of true, pure love. You experience this for the firsttime ever. You can't compare it to the love of your wife, or the loveof your children or sexual love. Even if all those things were combined,you cannot compare it to the feeling you get from this light 12A man who had almost drowned at the age of fourteenrecalled:As I reached the source of the Light, I could see in. I cannot beginto describe in human terms the feelings I had over what I saw. Itwas a giant infinite world of calm, and love, and energy, andbeauty. It was as though human life was unimportant compared tothis. And yet it urged the importance of life at the same time as itsolicited death as a means to a different and better life. It was allbeing, all beauty, all meaning for all existence. It was all theenergy of the universe forever in one place. 13Melvin Morse has written movingly of the near-death experiencesof children, and tells how they describe the light in theirsimple eloquence: "I have a wonderful secret to tell you. I havebeen climbing a staircase to heaven." "I just wanted to get tothat Light. Forget my body, forget everything. I just wanted toget to that Light." "There was a beautiful Light that had everythinggood in it. For about a week, I could see sparks of thatLight in everything." "When I came out of the coma in the hospital,I opened my eyes and saw pieces of the Light everywhere.I could see how everything in the world fits together." 14SIMILARITIES WITH THE BARDO OF BECOMINGIn the near-death experience, the mind is momentarilyreleased from the body, and goes through a number of experiencesakin to those of the mental body in the bardo ofbecoming.1. Out-of-Body ExperienceThe near-death experience very often begins with an outof-bodyexperience: people can see their own body, as well as