Book Review: Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, by Eben Alexander M.D.

This was a fascinating non-fiction book.  I had heard about it several times and I understand why.  The premise is this: neurologist is well educated and thinks of the world in scientific terms, he gets very sick and goes into a coma, during the coma he has a near death experience and is engulfed in a spiritual reality, he miraculously recovers and now has an understanding that there is more to life than what he originally thought.  This book is the result of his efforts to explain what happened and what he gained from the experience.  

Some of my favorite passages include an explanation of the higher worlds as he describes it, “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.”

And another, “Free will is of central importance for our function in the earthly realm: a function that, we will all one day discover, serves the much higher role of allowing our ascendance in the timeless alternate dimension.  Our life down here may seem insignificant, for it is a minute in relation to the other lives and other worlds that also crowd the invisible and visible universes.  But it is also hugely important, for our role here is to grow toward the Divine, and that growth is closely watched by the beings in the worlds above.”

And one more, “For all of the successes of the Western civilization, the world has paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence – our human spirit. . . our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity.”

The author describes that some may have difficulty believing his story, but he insists that science and belief in the eternal can co-exist.  His insights are, like I said before, fascinating, especially for an individual who only went to church every now and again and didn’t really have any basis for belief.