"Proof of Heaven"

I just finished a neat book by Dr. Eben Alexander called Proof of Heaven.  The doctor, who was previously a self-proclaimed agnostic, was in a deep coma for six days.  During that time, his soul was allowed to journey beyond the veil.  I found his descriptions of the "after-life" compelling and comforting.  Interestingly, his observations correspond with my Latter-day Saint Christian teachings, but are described in the book with different terminology and from a different viewpoint.  It struck me as profoundly reassuring that someone with a completely different worldview and faith than mine would make this spiritual journey and come away with the same notions that I have come to believe through my relationship with God and through the filter of my particular religion.

Here are a few excerpts from the book:

Regarding Earth, as seen from "the other side" during the coma:   "I saw the earth as a pale blue dot in the immense blackness of physical space.  I could see where earth was a place where good and evil mixed, and that this constituted one of its unique features.  Even on earth, there is much more good than evil, but earth is a place where evil is allowed to gain influence in a way that would be entirely impossible at higher levels of existence.  That evil could occasionally have the upper hand was known and allowed by the Creator as a necessary consequence of giving the gift of free will to beings like us."

"Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe is literally awash.  The very fabric of the alternate dimension is love and acceptance, and anything that does not have these qualities appears immediately and obviously out of place there."

In the book, he talks about a true spiritual self that has unlimited access to and is in fact connected to God.  The author says, "This is the true spiritual self that all of us are destined someday to recover.  But until that day comes, I feel, we should do everything in our power to get in touch with this miraculous aspect of ourselves - to cultivate it and bring it to light.  This is the being living within all of us right now that is, in fact, the being that God truly intends us to be.

"How do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self?  By manifesting love and compassion.  Why?  Because love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be.  They are real.  They are concrete.  And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm.  In order to return to that realm, we must once again become like that realm even while we are stuck in, and plodding through, this one.

"One of the biggest mistakes people make when they think about God is to imagine God as impersonal.  Yes, God is behind the numbers, the perfection of the universe that science measures and struggles to understand.  But - again, paradoxically - He is "human" as well - even more human than you and I are.  God understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine because He knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.

Without getting into the minutiae of it all, there is Christianity in broad brushstrokes.  And, I daresay, the message of love and acceptance resonates throughout other religions, too.  Interestingly, it is the same message I took from another book, written from an LDS perspective, called Visions of Glory.

I think it is hard to keep in mind that the reason we are striving to draw closer to God in this life is that we want to ultimately be in His presence.  I don't want to be or feel "out of place" in His presence.  It is astounding to remember that there is literally nothing we can do to make God love us any less.  If His love for us were conditioned on our behavior, He would cease to be God.

That said, our focus should be on our desire for God in our lives, not based on guilt for not "doing" enough to please God.  A wise Primary president once counseled her teachers to avoid "speaking for God" to the children.  She cautioned us against saying things like, "God will be disappointed in you if you do this."  She said it was dangerous to speak for Heavenly Father and admonished us to instead focus on how much each child is loved.  At first, I didn't understand this, but I came to feel that it was true.  One of my favorite children's songs says, "Would I be the kind of person that I know I'D like to be, if I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me?"  It is such a tender message of love, and focuses on the children's inherent desire to be good, without leading them to feel that God could stop loving them. I think it is an inspired song.

One of my most powerful spiritual experiences was when I was praying one day, repenting for something I felt was wrong.  In my prayer, I said to Heavenly Father, "Do you love me anyway?"  I was immediately completely immersed in a feeling that I can only describe as a warm, viscous, spiritual amniotic fluid, but made of love.  And the warmth gently thundered, "Of course!"

The desire to have that connection to God and that feeling of warmth all the time is what keeps me seeking to become more like our Father in Heaven.  For me, that conduit is church, because I believe in its principles.  Through religious observance, I feel that I draw closer to Heavenly Father, but also through personal prayer and my interactions with others.

If I were to leave my testimony for my children, I would want them to know that I know Heavenly Father loves them perfectly, no matter what.  And I would want them to know that drawing closer to God will bring them happiness, now and forever.  And I would caution them to always bear in mind that Heavenly Father loves ALL of us perfectly, no matter what.  Therefore, it is imperative to treat others accordingly, with care, understanding, forgiveness, charity and compassion.  That is to become, in small increments, more like our Father in Heaven.  The other thing I know for sure is that there are spirits on the other side with a vested interest in our progress and our happiness here, and that we can access their help and protection through prayer to our Father in Heaven.  We are loved, watched over, and cared for, but in the perfect order of the universe, we have to ask to receive.