End of Life Experiences. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2023
- Terminal lucidity is the phenomenon of individuals who are dying receiving a surge of life, perhaps to say goodbye, as their death approaches. So what is the nature and meaning of such well-attested experiences?
In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon use Rupert's recent paper examining terminal lucidity in animals, to open up a discussion of phenomena from post-mortem contacts to the resurrection of Jesus.
Rupert's paper can be found here - www.sheldrake.org/files/pdfs/...
For Lesley Kean's book Surviving Death see - www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
For Dale Allison's discussion the resurrection see - www.bloomsbury.com/uk/resurre... - บันเทิง
This happened to our cat Corabell. She was dying and we had been giving her fluids ,pain meds and round the clock care. She had not been able to jump on the bed for years. We had a spot for her in our bedroom . It was really early in the morning. And we were sleeping. I felt her hop up on the bed. We were stunned! She died shortly after that. She had such a surge of energy and her eyes were clear right before she passed. She had a peaceful death . We still miss her❤
Thank you for this conversation. My mom died on January 1 of this year. She had been living in the memory care unit of an assisted living facility. She had had dementia for a decade or so. My family visited her a few days after Christmas. She seemed very frail and weak, perhaps quite medicated and laying in a fetal position on her bed. It took a bit of effort to get her upright, so we could celebrate Christmas with her. She seemed to generally know who we were. I sometimes say my mom came to know we were friend and not foe. There was a wheelchair parked in her room which led us to believe she could no longer walk about on her own. It was very sad to experience, as I knew my mom for most of my life as someone quite active and social. A few days later she died. The nurse who called my sister to relay the news told her that when she went into my mom's room to check on her that morning, my mom was quite alert, asked the nurse to help her get dressed and said "I want to go to breakfast" in the common room for residents. The nurse also said my mom walked to breakfast mostly on her own. She died while sitting at breakfast in the midst of other people. It was as if she walked towards a death more appropriate to her personality. I mentioned this to the funeral director in charge of her funeral and he said, "Oh yes. I hear stories like this all the time."
How remarkable. Thanks for posting.
Please accept my condolences. My own mother died last year.
death:
the end of a lifetime. Chapter 09 of this “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity” summarizes what happens to the body at this time.
The ONLY important fact that one needs to understand about death is that it is an event that need not be contemplated at any time by a human being. The ONLY thing that we ought to do is live each and every moment of our lives striving to adhere to dharma and, if we are able, promote genuine dharma in all facets of our lives. This constitutes a perfect life. See the glossary entry, “dharma”.
Obviously, the vast majority of humans, at least within the past thirty-to-fifty thousand years of our species, have generated and advanced a whole host of beliefs regarding the destiny of the human soul/spirit upon death. If one has any interest in these theories, there is no shortage of dogmatic religious literature available for one to study. This book has no interest in such nonsensical, unscientific, unverifiable and/or unfalsifiable beliefs, save to note that there SEEMS to be some evidence for the persistence of a deceased entity, including ghosts, visions, parapsychic phenomena, locutions, and psychic mediation. The vast majority of such phenomena, I would posit, are experienced purely within the discrete mind of individuals (see Chapters 06 and 07), and those that are experienced by more than a single person cannot convince an enlightened sage of the fact of an enduring soul. Cf. “spirit/Spirit”.
A VERY common misunderstanding regarding death in relation to a self-realized or enlightened human being is that many believe such a person either welcomes death or has absolutely no fear of death whatever. In my own case, I can attest that I am not eagerly awaiting death for two reasons: firstly, assuming that I die of old age, I am definitely not looking forward to the various medical complications that inevitably arise towards the end of life, and secondly, now that I have found true peace/happiness, I would like to continue living in such a state of being for many decades or even centuries to come (and of course, spread religion and dharma to as many other humans as possible). Regarding the alternative (that is, my demise via a sudden death scenario), that would be a far more unfortunate state of affairs, because at the time of writing, my teachings (encapsulated mainly in this Holy Scripture) have yet to make a significant impact on humanity and I require many years in order to do so. I have yet to even launch my own website!
Regarding the fear of death, I would be not be completely truthful if I claimed that I have no fear at all of dying, partly for the above reasons and partly due to the fact that I am a natural animal, and like most animals, I have the innate desire to stay alive. If not, I would stop consuming food and water, and eat only if and when a fellow human happened to insert a piece of food into my mouth!
Thank you this was an excellent discussion, I particularly liked what you were both saying about the resurrection. Treating the resurrection as such a miraculous one off event actually makes it seem less real and distances us from it. There are plenty of after death experiences, people think of ghosts as transparent and nebulous and many encounters may be quite nebulous, but there are also many when they don't actually realise the person is dead, when the may see and touch them. Yogananda talks about Sri Yukteswar returning after his death and Swami Hariharananda witnessed him after death as well. Looking at this way helps us to see that our life in this world is fundamentally spiritual and maybe the kingdom of God is always close at hand.
Excellent, fascinating discussion. Thank you both.
Mark's comment regarding consolation as directed toward not only assuaging emotional pain but more so about opening up a wider sense of life is powerful.
How interesting. I recently had a past-life regression, and the hypnotist asked me to see the death experience, and this is what I saw. Looking down on the scene, and seeing/ knowing what was going on, after a period of years ( in the envisioned life) of being almost blind and not comprehending.
Very often the weak mind will give itself small problems so it doesn’t have to address bigger problems. Examining past lives is a great way to disabuse yourself of adulting in the current one. New Age nut jobs should move out to Boulder Colorado before the meteor showers- your hivemind is beating a drum and doing a dance for ewe out here.
Material reality is half the story, thank you!
fascinating conversation as always. Thank you!
Fantastic as ever, many thanks
As theologian Keith Ward likes to remind us, Paul of the New Testament says we will receive a "spiritual body, not a "body of flesh".
Yes, Paul is very clear about that. David Bentley Hart stresses it too.
Yes- but did Paul say pneuma or New Ma, or New MA. Pneuma is spirit and wind and breath - New Ma is a new mom - as in born again- and a New MA as in New Massachusetts - a New New England - a reunited king dome out of Set Mass Achu. God bless you deaf fool who still can’t read the Bible. DBH is a pompous MoSays wannabe. Moses Loses. Mo Mo Mo!
The pneuma through the new Ma is a joke. There’s no F in Queen but where’s one in queef. You shall be made farts, gentleman. You’re exiting the bowels. Welcome to God Body aka Sheol aka paradise- the walled enclosure. There will come a dia…
Interesting conversation. I hope you do revisit this subject together sometime.
I’m curious about your impressions of Kenneth Ring’s book ‘Lessons from the Light’. I loved this book. For me, I find I shy away from the paranormal unless the message is anchored in love, and conveys a message of life’s deeper meaning and purpose, bringing in some aspect of service. Education and growth.
I don't know that book. Thanks
I’ve been quite obsessed with NDEs for many years. The best book I’ve found seems to be the lesser know The Unanswered question by Kurt Leland. Highly recommended.
@@pedrom8831 thank you. I will search for this book.
Lucidity improvement makes perfect sense the soul is leaving the damaged puppet that the soul has had to put up with as some kind of lesson or experience, This
to me there is 2 dimension reality with your soul and body. The physical is a human body, the soul is a separate dimension never really being connected to the body,
Just sensing or feeling by telepathy pain or emotion but not being damaged.in any way.
“Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?”
-OMAR KHAYYÁM
Interesting stuff. I think there’s a problem with what Rupert is suggesting in the case of the resurrection of Jesus, in that this was, if I’m not mistaken, an appearance of Jesus to several living people simultaneously. After death ‘contact’ was only mentioned otherwise in the conversation with reference to the experience of an individual, presumably whilst alone. The validity of a contact would be much supported if, for example, two people independently reported a smell or feeling of presence corresponding to the deceased person. Has this ever been recorded?
But dogs can't even communicate their lost owners whereabouts, never mind their near death experiences!
A few months ago there was a huge missing persons story.
A woman vanishes without a trace. She was sat on a bench, with her dog, both next to a river and mysteriously vanishes. It was all over the news.
No trace, she is gone but her pet dog was found next to the river. The dog is the only witness to what happened to the mother of 3.
The question the police and media asked is was she kidnapped or did she fall into the river?
Such a simple question and there is a witness right there, the pet dog.
I know we see those Disney films with the dog barking the directions like in the old movies, Lassie. And we imagine our own pet dogs having syntactical structures and indeed they do communicate, right?
But the case (I wont mention the woman's name out of respect) of the missing woman shattered the intelligent pet idea!
Even a toddler who was at the scene could point what happened. You ask, "where did mummy go" and the toddler will point.
But a dog, right there at the scene, and the police couldn't get a peep of information out of the conscious animal.
Better yet, she was kidnapped by the river.
Hey Mark, what do you think about this idea that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet?
Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die, compiled and edited by Sushila Blackman - death stories of Hindu, Tibetan, Buddhist, and Zen masters, more interesting subjects