The following are the lessons people who have had near death experiences have talked about in greater frequency than any others. Seeing how so many people have come to the same or similar understandings and realizations through NDEs, it’s worth looking at what they have discovered after having such a life-changing experience.
Lesson 1
The entire experience halted. I discovered that I was in control of the experience. My request was honored. I had conversations with the Light. That’s the best way I can describe it. The Light changed into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, archetypal images and signs. I asked in a kind of telepathy, “What is going on here?” The information transmitted was that our beliefs shape the kind of feedback we receive. If you are a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own images. I became aware of a Higher Self matrix, a conduit to the Source. We all have a Higher Self, or an oversoul part of our being, a conduit. All Higher Selves are connected as one being. All humans are connected as one being.
Lesson 2
I believe my actual physical existence resides in the river of life as its natural form when not present in this reality or life. As a drop taken from a cup of water and then returned, so the individual drop exists, yet is part of the whole. I believe there is a retained knowledge of life experience that becomes part of collective knowledge yet remains intact as a unit. There is no body in the sense we know one, no love, hate, or any emotion as we know it. In a perfect existence devoid of need or want, all needs and wants, positive and negative, do not exist. The purpose of our physical existence and life is to provide every possible variation of action so an omniscient knowledge base can exist. There is no heaven and hell, as we perceive it. There is no punishment for wrong behaviors, nor rewards for right behaviors. There is no judgment process. All experience, good, bad, mixed, is part of omniscient knowledge.
Lesson 3
The highest purpose of our earthly connections is love.
Lesson 4
Love is the law of the universe. Hatred is a disease that kills nations.
Lesson 5
Love never hurts. Only the absence of love hurts.
Lesson 6
The absolutely only thing that matters is love. Everything else, our achievements, degrees, the money we made, how many mink coats we had, is totally irrelevant. It will also be understood that what we do is not important. The only thing that matters is how we do what we do. And the only thing that matters is that we do what we do with love.
Lesson 7
I was shown that love is supreme. I saw that truly without love we are nothing.
Lesson 8
Above and beyond anything else, we must first learn to love ourselves non-judgmentally and unconditionally. Then we will actually love all people and all things the same way.
Lesson 9
How are we saved? By unselfish love. If we do only good things we will eventually run out of bad karma and only good things will happen to us, and vice versa. The purpose of karma is to force us to learn life’s lessons whether we want to or not. The only way to bypass karma is to develop so much unselfish love that paying for bad karma will serve no purpose – much like a college student challenging a course he already knows. We evolve faster through unselfish love.
Lesson 10
I saw myself [in a life review] perform an act of kindness, just a simple act of unselfishness, and I saw the ripples go out again. The friend I had been kind to was kind in turn to one of her friends, and the chain repeated itself. I saw love and happiness increase in others’ lives because of that one simple act on my part. I saw their happiness grow and affect their lives in positive ways, some significantly.
Lesson 11
We are all one. I comprehended that our oneness is interconnected by love and is an available, much higher level and means of communication than we normally use but to which we have access. This love is available to anyone who is willing to do the hard spiritual work that will allow us to open our hearts and minds and eyes to Spirit.
Lesson 12
What counts is what comes from the heart, not what one professes to believe. The most difficult thing for a person who has been deeply steeped in a particular religious tradition is to realize that the form alone is not what elevates a person; it is the heart.
Lesson 13
When I asked what a person should do while on Earth to make it better for him when he dies, he answered, “All you can do is to develop along the lines of unselfish love. People don’t come here because of their good deeds, or because they believe in this or that, but because they fit in and belong. Good deeds are the natural result of being good, and bad deeds are the natural result of being bad. Each carries its own reward and punishment. It’s what you are that counts!”
