Something Infinite and Altogether Fantastic
Excerpted from pages 71–173 of Dying to BE Me, My Journey from Cancer to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani (2012, first edition)
Here I try to share my near-death experience. I found a pretty good metaphor to convey my experience.
If you will, imagine a huge dark warehouse. You live in this completely dark warehouse. All you have to see by is an ordinary small flashlight Everything you know about what’s contained inside this enormous space is only what you have seen in the beam, of your own flashlight.
Whenever you want to look for something, you may or might not find it. Yet, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in the warehouse It’s there, you simply haven’t shone your light upon it yet.
With your little flashlight, even when you do find what you’re looking for, the object you see may be difficult to make out. You may only get a partially clear idea of its shape, form and quality. Often, you’re left wondering. You can only see what what your small light revealed. Moreover, you can only identity things which you have already seen before and know.
This is what physical life in a physical-material body is like. We can only be aware of what e focus our senses on at any given time. We can also only understand what is already familiar to us.
Next, imagine one day, someone flicks on the light switch for this large dark warehouse. There for the first time, in a sudden burst of brilliance and sound and color. Now you can see the entire warehouse. It’s nothing like anything you’ve ever imagined. … You see colors you don’t recognize, ones you’ve never seen before. Music floods the room with … surround-sound melodies you’ve never heard before.
… The vastness, complexity, depth and breadth of everything going on around you is almost overwhelming. You can’t see all the way to the end of the space. You know there is more to it than what you can take in from this torrent tantalizing your senses and emotions. You do get a strong feeling you’re actually part of something alive, infinite and altogether fantastic You are part of a large and unfolding tapestry which goes beyond only sight and sound.
You understand what you used to think was your reality was, in fact, hardly a speck within the vast wonder surrounding you. You can see how all the various parts are interrelated, how they all play off each other, how everything fits..
You notice just how many different things exist in the warehouse you’ve never seen, never even dreamed of. … And here they are along with everything you already knew. Even the objects you were aware of have an entirely new context so they too seem completely new and strangely surreal.
Even when the light-switch goes off again, nothing can take away your understanding and clarity, the wonder and beauty, or the fabulous aliveness of the experience … You’re now far more aware of what’s in the warehouse than you ever were using only your little flashlight
[When I came back from my near-death experience] you’re left with a sense of awe over everything you experienced in those blindingly lucid moments. Life has taken on a different meaning. Your next experiences moving forward are created from this awareness.
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