Knowledge of life and death - evidence
In R. Moody's research, the question of a luminous creature that meets the dead there is extremely fundamental. Here are some testimonials.
“I heard the doctor say that I was dead, and then I felt how I began to fall or, as it were, swim through some blackness, some closed space. Words defy description. Everything was very black, and only in the distance could I see this light. Very, very bright light, but a little at first. It got bigger and bigger as I got closer to it. I tried to get closer to this light, because I felt that it was Christ. I longed to be there. It wasn't scary. It was more or less pleasant. As a Christian, I immediately associated this light with Christ, who said: "I am the light of the world." I said to myself: "If so, if I have to die, I know who is waiting for me at the end, there, in this light."
Second evidence
“I got up and went to another room to pour something to drink, and it was at this time, as I was later told, that I had a perforation of appendicitis, I felt severe weakness and fell. Then everything seemed to float, I began to feel the vibration of my being, tearing out of my body, and I heard wonderful music. I floated in the room and then through the door I was transported to the veranda. And there it seemed that a kind of cloud began to gather around me, rather a pink fog, and then I floated right through the partition, as if it were not there at all, towards the transparent clear light. He was beautiful, so shiny, so radiant, but he didn't blind me at all. It was an unearthly light. I didn't really see anyone in this light, and yet it had a special personality. This is absolutely certain. It was the light of perfect understanding and absolute love. In my mind I heard; "Do you love me?" It was not said in the form of a specific question, but I think that the meaning of what was said can be expressed like this: "If you really love me, come back and finish what you started in your life." And all this time I felt surrounded by overwhelming love and compassion."
Another description of the light creature
Promotional video:
“I knew that I was dying and there was nothing I could do, because no one could hear me. I was out of my body, there was no doubt about it, I could see him here on the operating table. My soul is out! At first it was all very difficult, but after that I saw a very bright light. It seemed like it was a little dim at first, but after that it became a powerful glow. Just a lot of light. And the warmth from him was transferred to me; I felt warmth. The light was bright, yellowish white, and more white. Unusually bright, it covered everything, and yet did not prevent me from seeing everything around: the operating room, doctors and nurses - everything. I could see clearly, and he did not blind. In the beginning, when the light arose, I didn't quite understand what was happening. But then he asked me how he would ask me the question, am I ready to die? It was as if you were talking to someone, but you did not see with whom. The light spoke to me, this voice belonged to him.
Now I think that the voice that spoke to me actually understood that I was not ready to die. You see, for me it was a kind of test, the most wonderful in my entire life. I felt really good - safe and surrounded by love. The love emanating from him is something unimaginable, indescribable. It was so easy with him. And above all, he even had a sense of humor … Definitely it was!"
Many people say that a luminous creature shows a person pictures from his life, as if giving a person an opportunity to critically look at the life he has lived and evaluate it. Based on the analysis of a survey of many survivors of clinical death, R. Moody wrote:
“Some of the patients I spoke with said that although they themselves cannot understand how this could have happened, the review (of life) included everything that was in their life, from the most insignificant details to the most important events. Others claimed to have seen mostly the most remarkable moments of their lives. Some told me that after such a review, they could remember the events of their lives in the smallest detail. Some of the respondents characterize the viewing as an attempt by a luminous creature to teach a lesson. During the viewing, the luminous creature seemed to emphasize that two things are the most important in life: to learn to love other people and to acquire knowledge."
Here is one of the evidences of this kind:
“When the light appeared, the first thing that was said to them was a question that can be formulated something like this:“What can you show me from your life? - or something like that. And suddenly at this moment pictures flashed. "What is it?" - I thought, because everything happened completely unexpectedly. I suddenly found myself in my childhood. Then it went year after year through my whole life from early childhood to the present moment. It was so strange when it started; I was a little girl playing by a brook not far from home, after other scenes from the same time; experiences associated with my sister, our neighbors and familiar places where I have been. Then I went to kindergarten, and I remembered the time when I had the only toy that I really loved, and how I broke it and cried for a very long time. For me it was actually a difficult experience. Pictures changed, passing through my life, and I remembered how I was in a group of girls and went to the camp, and much more about the years I spent at school.
After that I remembered the senior classes, how I had the great honor of being selected to the school scientific society, and I remembered how it was. So I went through all the senior classes, graduation from high school and the first few years at the institute, up until now. The scenes in front of me were in the order of my life, they were so alive! It’s like you pass and look at them from the side, and see in three-dimensional space and color. The pictures were moving. For example, at the moment when my toy broke, I saw all the movement. It was completely different than I could have seen then. As if the little girl I was watching was someone else, like in a movie, some little girl among other children is playing on the playground.
And yet it was me. I saw myself, what I did as a child, I remember that. When I looked at the passing pictures, I practically do not remember the light. He disappeared as soon as he asked what had been done by me, and after that the pictures flashed, and yet I knew that he was here with me all the time, he guided me in this viewing, I felt his presence, he noted some developments. Tried to show me something in each of these scenes. Not that he wanted to see what was in my life - he knew it, but he chose certain scenes and showed them to me so that I would remember them. All the time he stressed the importance of love.
The moments in which this was most pronounced were with my sister. I have always been very close to her, and he showed me several examples in which I was selfish towards my sister, and after several times where I actually showed love for her. He pointed out to me that I should try to help people, strive to be better. Although there was no charge whatsoever, his only desire was for me to learn a lesson.
He also seemed to be interested in matters that involved knowledge. Each time he noted events related to the study, and told me that I must continue to study and that when he comes for me again (by this time he had already told me that I would come back), the desire for knowledge will remain. He said that this is an ongoing process, and I had a feeling that it would continue after death. It seems to me that he tried to teach me when we looked through the scenes of my life.
The whole situation was really strange. I was there, I actually saw the scenes and I really experienced it, but it was so fast. And all this is slow enough for me to perceive everything. I am sure that the period of time was quite short. It seemed that there was a light, then I experienced the events of my life, and the light returned. As if less than five minutes have passed, or maybe a little over thirty seconds, I cannot tell you for sure.
The only time I felt frightened was when I imagined that I could not end my life here. But I felt joy watching the scenes of my life. It was nice. How wonderful it was to go back to my childhood, I kind of relived it. This is the only way to truly go back and see your childhood, which is usually impossible."
Of interest is the out-of-body experience of Dr. S. Müge (America) dealing with the problem of life-death. He wrote about this experience:
“At the end of 1985, something happened to me that sooner or later happens to everyone: my heart stopped beating, and the doctors established the fact of clinical death. For me, this fact is curious not only because I returned to my old life - this happens not so rarely - but because I predicted the year of my death for myself at the age of 15 and was about to travel “to the next world” internally prepared.
I had a good idea beforehand what I should or could feel. In many ways, the expectation was justified: I saw my body from the side and what was happening in places that were out of sight from the side of my body; there was also a feeling that I was flying through a tunnel, ahead of which an approaching spot of light could be seen. However, I was not convinced that an optical illusion could not occur in the "deceased" either: when an ever-increasing spot of light approaches in the general darkness, an illusion of flight in a tube can be created.
As a biologist, I have found many explanations for my resurrection from the dead, but now I am not interested in the physiological issues of the knowledge of life and death, but completely different ones, which I will try to talk about.
After I "flew through the tunnel", a rather strange feeling arose. I simultaneously kept my “I” and at the same time became a particle of something all-encompassing. I felt “all the secrets of being” and at the same time I remembered the information I received during my lifetime. It seemed that it was possible to look not only into the past, but also into the future of any person. And yet I did not bother not only to find out my future, but even that I was destined to return to my former life again. I think this is due to the fact that personal questions somehow receded into the background, and I was struck by how little, and sometimes even the wrong, we imagine the questions of the universe.
And first of all, this refers not to the scientific understanding of the world (science deals more with particular issues, and its mistakes are less significant), but to various religious concepts. All concepts speak of the rationality of the Divine principle, endow God, as it were, with a human mind. This is quite natural - the Deity can appear to a person most often through the prophets in a language understandable to him, to a person, that is, within the framework of human thinking.
After I returned to normal life and my consciousness began to work as usual, there was a feeling that I had learned something intimate, not yet known to anyone, and the first desire was to share it with people. But very soon I felt that nothing would come of it, because I perceived reality not with my senses, but somehow completely differently, and it is simply impossible to convey these sensations in words. But, let's say, with the help of metaphors and comparisons, I would try to present everything that was revealed to me. Then I would have to declare myself a new prophet …
… The soul is eternal or not eternal, I do not presume to judge. But I was convinced from my own experience that some spiritual functions outlive the functions of the body. The state of mind after death depends on the state that the person experienced before death. Apparently, therefore, all religions paid great attention to the last moments of the dying: they asked for forgiveness from them, unleashed them, fulfilled their last will."
It is absolutely clear that life after death issues are very important for any religion. In any religious teaching, they cannot remain unanswered. We consider it important to state here the position of the Orthodox Church on issues related to the appearance of the luminous creature. Does the Orthodox Church believe that such a being could be Jesus Christ himself, as many of those in a state of clinical death believed?
It is very easy for us to state the position of the Orthodox Church on this issue, because it is clearly described in the book "The Soul After Death", published in Russian and written by Hieromonk Seraphim, a highly educated master of arts. He said this about the appearance of a luminous creature:
"… we should be (at least) very careful with light beings" who seem to appear at the moment of death. They are very much like demons who appear to be "angels of light" in order to seduce not only the dying person himself, but also those to whom he will later tell his story if he is brought back to life (the possibility of which, of course, the demons are well aware of).
Ultimately, however, our judgment about this and other "posthumous" phenomena must be based on the teaching that follows from them, whether it is either given by some "spiritual being" seen at the time of death, or is simply implied or inferred from these phenomena ".
Yu Mizun
