Of Death, Dying and the Possibility of a Hereafter
Death is the greatest of our fears. Most of us believe it to be
a cruel, catastrophic finality-the end of all we know, of all we
are. Yet, Albert Einstein said, "When gazing into the profoundly
moving beauty of the eternal, life and death flow into one
another. There is neither evolution nor eternity, only Being."
Many years ago, one of my patients offered me a glimpse into the
unknowable. By entering a realm between life and death, he
discovered that the point of passing can be a moment of
transcendence. His story has allowed me to see that death may
not be the end, but could perhaps be a path to other realities.
Through him, I came to know life and death as mysteries beyond
human understanding. Through him, I was given a glimmer of
insight into the beyond to perceive the miracle of existence as
an exquisite mosaic about which we can only wonder. I have
written his story in my recent book, Courageous Confrontations.
My patient was an overbearing Catholic priest, who after a
lifetime of invoking the wrath of the Almighty upon his
parishioners, had a massive heart attack and a cardiac arrest.
Despite being on a heart-assist device, his heart slowly began
to fail.
Father More's heart attack left him in despair. He had spent a
lifetime begging God for salvation from the inner demons caused
by his childhood role in the death of a sadistic father. Despite
a lifetime of devotion, his prayers had been in vain. But as he
began to intermittently lose consciousness in the Coronary Care
Unit, the pain that had oppressed him throughout his life began
to fall away. Father More had begun an astonishing series of
healing experiences that led to his religious and spiritual
awakening.
Father More was simultaneously dying, and moving into another
realm, an inner journey that opened him to a oneness with the
divine, and an absolute peace he had never before imagined. His
prayers had been answered. At the moment of his passing, Father
More's last words were, "I'm coming home to God."
Father More's confrontation with death opened me to
possibilities that were nonexistent in the scientific and
intellectual traditions in which I had been raised. Over time, I
began to explore realities that transcend those we know through
science and technology. As the physicist Werner Heisenberg
wrote, "Scientific concepts cover only a very limited part of
reality, and the part that has not yet been understood is
infinite."
Medical science teaches that we are biological beings,
functioning according to physiological principles that are
governed by genetic codes and their biochemical elaborations.
Father More showed me that such reductionist notions are
simplistic, and don't begin to recognize or value the vast
complexity of human beings. William James said, "Rational
consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of
consciousness, whilst all around it, parted from it by the
filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness
entirely different...No account of the universe in its totality
can be final which leaves these disregarded...They cannot
furnish formulas. They open a region, though they fail to give a
map."
All of us have experienced moments when we are lost in a sunset,
the rapture of love, or a religious experience. At such times,
the ordinary sense of our separateness evaporates, and we often
feel at one with the universe. Perhaps in those moments, we have
briefly entered another reality not dissimilar to what Father
More described during his out-of-body experiences.
Were Father More's experiences hallucinations--abnormalities of
brain chemistry and nerve function caused by oxygen deprivation?
Or were they visions--vivid, life-altering occurrences during
which something appears within one's consciousness that
profoundly effects the heart and soul, perhaps even under the
influence of a divine or spiritual dimension?
What I do know is that Father More's experiences altered my
consciousness. When I sat holding his hand as he died, I sensed
an unmistakable presence. Normally, watching one of my patients
die devastates me. But at the moment of Father More's death, I
was filled with wonder. I too felt released from ordinary
reality, and was witness to a profoundly spiritual process.
Losing a patient for whom I cared deeply no longer tormented me.
Everything about Father More's passing seemed right, even holy.
In that moment, my own state was so blissful that it frightened
me. The foundation of my everyday being had fallen away, and I
too was perfectly at peace. As inexplicable as it was, nothing
has ever seemed more real.
Father More's teaching about death allowed me to see that it may
not be an end, but a possible path to other realities. Human
consciousness has been called spirit or soul--the part of us
that religions throughout history have referred to as eternal.
The animating energy that is consciousness--something medical
science cannot locate in the anatomy of our physical
bodies--might at the moment of death, simply change to another
form within the miracle of existence.
Einstein wrote: "I feel myself so much a part of all life that I
am not in the least concerned with the beginning or the end of
the concrete existence of any particular person in this unending
stream." I have continued to employ the technology of modern
medicine in the treatment of my patients, but there has been a
change. Before my experience with Father More, I regarded the
death of a patient as a defeat. I no longer believe that.
Instead, I have come to put more trust in the ultimate outcome.
I fight for
Paradoxically, accepting death with more equanimity has enriched
my reverence for life. Both are mysteries beyond human reason. I
have been with many patients at the moment of their death.
Father More graced my life by allowing me to glimpse beyond, and
to appreciate the miracle of existence as an exquisite mosaic
about which we can only wonder. A realm we can only
name--perhaps, like Father More, by calling it God.