swollen on roof of mouth behind front teeth

swollen on roof of mouth behind front teeth

it is now about 100 years that the theory of relativity and the quantum physics, quantum mechanics, brought a real earthquake into the class... Februari 01, 2017

it is now about 100 years that the theory of relativity and the quantum physics, quantum mechanics, brought a real earthquake into the classic ways of science - especially the physics, but the topic of near-death experiences it can bring even a bigger earthquake - and not only to the neuroscience, it can change our understanding of our life because it can open a very big picture

above our existence. in a way it may perhaps become even a challenge for the modern time humanity to integrate the implication of this phenomena. tibetan master kalu rinpoche you see? so, the near-death experiences are not real in the way they appear to the dying people. similarly like this world around us

is not real in the way we are perceiving it. and it is not only the buddhist wisdom and buddhist insight which is telling that. it is even our science which knows that as well. giving example: the light and the colors they don't exist. these are just electromagnetic waves of a very particular wave-length

and electromagnetic waves are colorless, or even lightless - it is the interpretation of our eye and especially the brain which gives the appearance of light and colors and shapes and all that. but the buddhist teachings are also very unequivocal about the other side of this truth: that in the different frequencies of existence

- or if you like, in the different frequencies of appearances - the experience of happiness and sorrow is what it is. you know, your tooth ache: it's good to know it is just appearance does it help you? i think i don't need to explain what is meant by near-death experiences because this topic is now discussed everywhere. you can find it even in the mainstream medias,

you will find it in professional literature, in the magazines, even in daily newspapers... usually there is an attempt to explain it away in some way, but also, to be honest, there is also increasing number of articles popping up representing rather the other side of the discussion. so, in this talk i would explore the phenomenon of near-death experiences

as objectively as i can, assuming a position from where i can cover, or even explain all the confronting or conflicting argumentation of the different sides of the discussion - and let's be clear that these involved sides of discussion have sometimes substantial argumentation for their position. - sometimes it is even enhanced by emotions. you know, because it is such a sensitive topic.

the mainstream science, for example, will try to explain the whole near-death experience purely materialistically as a result of the brain chemistry: all these neurotransmitters, endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, all that - and certainly they have quite a heavy weighting argumentation. for example, that you don't need to be dying to have this kind of experiences similar to near-death experiences,

and it's true, another situations may lead to similar experiences. but, actually, in the science the predominant explanation is in this "dying brain surge" kind of a last goodbye of the dying brain, you know, putting out this final spectacular firework of brain chemistry. so, that would be the position of mainstream science. but then we have another angle of argumentation and this comes

from the side of psychology, coming with the hypothesis that the near-death experience can be actually kind of recalling, or reliving of the trauma of birth - you know, this tunnel and the white light and the spiritual unconditioned love so many times reported in the near-death experiences, comparing it with the birth channel, the baby coming out

to the dayligt, being covered by the unconditioned love from the parents - hmmm so, that would be the argumentation from the psychology side. and then we have, of course, the religious community seeing in it rather the confirmation of the oldest religious idea actually that there is a continuation

of existence after the body dies this kind of afterlife, that only the soul is leaving the dying body and goes its way to the different destiny. actually, buddhism is not really working with the concept of soul, of eternal soul, but it has the idea of eternal rebirth: coming from lifetime to the other one and again in different spheres of existence -

that is the buddhist point of view. it is clear that in my explanations i will use predominantly the wisdom an insight coming from the buddhist teachings because it opens the biggest picture above all these phenomena of near-death experiences of afterlife, even of this contemporary existence here and now, explaining so many things. so, in this talk wanting to take this superposition

trying to incorporate all these kinds of argumentation into one clear explanation. it is little bit like the three facets or three sides of this strange object. so the circle would represent let's say, the psychology view, the square would represent the scientific way of explanation, and the cross would be the religious way of understanding. you know, like three facets of one object

and our task would be rather to see the whole object in one glance. not that one of these is correct at the other false, that is not very helpful. the truth is mainly contained in this kind of an explanation which covers all the existing ones. - actually, i've done it already, if you have seen the video "ufo and buddhism" in the second half, beside many other things,

i was also explaining this juxtaposition of darwinism and creationism with this superposition, finding a kind of position from where these two are fully integrated - not that one is right and the other is completely false, it doesn't work so. the truth is more contained in this kind of embracing all what we know. it is something like searching for a common denominator.

you may know it from mathematic. if you have let’s say, number 2, 3, 4: it is not 4 because the 3 is not properly contained in that, it is not the 6, 9, no, 12! you have to go up to 12 because all the three are properly contained in that. so, for task of this magnitude i will start with explanation, with a fundamental explanation

of the relationship between brain and mind because this is the foundation, we have to start with that. so, i will explain it with the help of a computer but i ask you, please, be attentive to it even if it may appear to you somehow primitive, or boring, or whatever. stay attentive through this little exercise

because i ‘will refer to it many times even later in this talk. so, get it properly, here it is: so, as you can see, i have attached many of the peripheral devices to make the analogy to a living human being as complete as possible. the camera is really connected and that's the symbol of a human seeing and it works,

microphone is the hearing, symbol for the hearing ability. speaker is clear, that is the speaking, and the modem connected to internet is the symbol for our social contacts, socializing. keyboard and the mouse is the symbol for our active, for the active part of our life, when we are doing things, executing things. the mouse: symbol for decisions,

deciding every day many things. the little light in the back is the symbol for conceptual thinking - sometimes on, sometimes off, and the hard disc, the external hard drive, in this case worldly data, the worldly information stored in the memory. and now we have the mind - the notebook is the symbol, symbolizing the human mind,

and the screen = the consciousness. the experience of our life is happening actually, on the screen of consciousness, and we see already now, experience is running. so, i think that the representation of a living human being is as complete as possible, but now we have here two different switches: one button has the label "obe" which means "out-of-body experience"

and the other one, the red one, has the label "death of the body". so first, let us see what will happen when i press the obe-button let's do it - okay: the notebook is now undocked from the docking station so the first think you can see that the experience continues.

if we look in detail to the docking station left behind this is the representation of the human body with the sensory organs and the brain and now you see that the mind actually is working even when it is undocked. very important message from that! now we can see that the notebook has its own camera, has its own microphones, and the speaker,

and the keyboard, and the touchpad, and the hard disk with its own memory and only it is now wireless: it has also antenna so still connections with other beings is possible buy the communication now is more-or-less telepathic, it doesn't use normally the slow human language the contacts with other beings are now much

more direct mind-to-mind. now, this is the analogy for out-of-body experiences some people are reporting but what i mean, out-of-body experiences really verified when the mind of the people really is witnessing something which can be later verified and really bringing testimony about things happening in another places, so that's a classic out-of-body experience. now if we look back

in detail on the docking station symbolizing the human body with the sensory organs and the brain - all the material components of our body - it is still alive, some lights little are on, but it is in a vegetative state, it is like vegetable - the mind and consciousness has gone, only the basic functions of the body, of the living body, are still directed directly by brain:

the heartbeat, the breathing .. now, for the purpose of this demonstration i dared even to open the docking station to see inside so that what i'm doing now is like neuro-surgeon opening the skull in the case of human body and, you see, here is the brain. this is the symbol for human brain and you can see, there is quite lots of electronics actually involved, these interfaces for the individual peripheral devices,

there is also the important outlet from the docking station which connects actually the notebook directly to the motherboard. when the notebook is docked, the connection with the processor is very direct: all these peripheral devices are actually giving input and data to do bus of the motherboard which is quite direct to the processor itself. what i am actually showing with this analogy is this very close relationship between brain

and mind. when it is docked, so it is very intimately connected with the processor, with the experience, but when it is undocked, it has its own life and goes its own way. now, the important message to the neurologist, neuroscientists, when they are using eeg (electroencephalograph) or mri (magnetic resonance imaging)

or cat scan (computed tomography) they are not measuring the activities of the mind, they are measuring the activities of the docking station = of the brain only! i think this is very important message to the neurology and neuroscience. so, let's put all back and now let us see what will happen when i press the red button. it's a little joke, but as the first thing

i was trying to turn the camera of the notebook towards the docking station to symbolize that what many near-death experiences or dying experiences actually are reporting as the first thing: that they are hovering over their body, witnessing frantic activity of the doctors over the dead body - usually the near-death experience starts like that but then the mind (the notebook) - the mind goes its own way

usually still having some kind of etheric body, or fine-material body which gradually dissolves anyway. usually later on, it's just a mind and consciousness witnessing some quite dynamic-dramatic events - positive or negative - and if we now look at the docking station, it's completely black, the docking station the periphery = the brain is now dead and experience on the

screen of consciousness continues. so, this is the message i wanted to show the relationship between brain and mind: when it is docked, very, very intimate, very direct, but it can undock and it can go its own way. and here is the summary in a graphic form. if you look to the left side: when the notebook is not connected so the docking station is good for absolutely nothing, even if the periphery

is switched on, everything in perfect condition you cannot do anything with that. so similarly, the human body and the brain: even when sensory organs are intact and in perfect condition the body is alive, but the consciousness and the mind is not connected it's absolutely good for nothing, it's like vegetable in the garden. very different with the notebook. when the notebook is connected in the docking station, when it is docked,

so it is receiving the data from the peripheral devices but when it is disconnected, when it is undocked, it is still functioning very well, it has its own battery and hard drive antenna, display, but it is working in a different mode, so similarly the mind, the consciousness and the mind: when it is docked or connected with the brain, with the body, so it is receiving the data,

the information, from the sensory organs and the brain, but when it is disconnected from the body from the brain it is still functioning very well, still very alive, but functioning in somehow different mode - we would say it is functioning in different frequency of reality, in the spiritual reality. you see? simple as that. docking-undocking: as long you have it fresh in your mind,

i wanted also to include here at least one authentic near-death experience report. in this particular case i think it is actually dying experience because doctor anthony cicoria was hit by a lightning and he died there. fortunately, he was resuscitated quite quickly. i borrowed this video from spiritual masters web -

- supreme masters web lots of information there, i can recommend, but it was too long. so i cut it together taking just the relevant parts, putting it together, enjoy it! i was standing at the phone, the building got hit by lightning and i remember hearing this loud crack and i saw big flash of light come out of the phone and it hit me right in the face, and

i remember seeing every bit of that and when it hit me in the face, it just sent me flying backwards like a rag doll and suddenly as i was going backwards suddenly something changed and i was moving forwards and i remember standing there thinking: this is really strange. i know that i got hit i know that something bad happened, that i went flying backwards, but now i'm not going backwards anymore i'm just standing here and i remember looking down at my feet and

and i look at the wall, on the phone, is dangling and i still am mystified as to what had happened but yet i had complete recall of every millisecond of that time and right about that that moment, my mother-in-law who is at the top of the stairs starts screaming and she starts running right at me and i felt like a deer in the headlights. i am looking at her: what's going on

and she ran right by me and i turned to see where she was and i looked over on the ground and i'm on the ground and i thought, well i mean this is exactly what i thought i'm dead! and as i'm standing near i'm watching what's happening and there was somebody waiting to use the phone and it turns out it was a nurse - in the middle of nowhere

waiting to use the phone - and so she drops down to the ground to start doing cpr, and my mother-in-law was standing near and all the other people were there by then and i'm still standing here and i'm looking at them i hear everything they're saying, but they can't hear me and they can't see me, because i'm calling out to them and at that point it was interesting, because the first realization that i made was "gee" there's not been a break

in conscious thought at all, so whoever i am, is not in the body, it's whatever form i'm in, spiritual form, is who i am because the consciousness is with me all my thoughts are with me, all my memories are with me and i thought well, i guess there's no point in hanging around here. the second thing that was very interesting to me, was that it was

very dispassionate, there was no emotion associated with the fact that i was dead, it was very matter-of-fact oh well, i am, and so i i thought there's no point staying here, so i turned and i started to walk up the stairs and i don't know where i was going but that just seemed to be what i was going to do as i'm looking down at my legs, i see my legs dissolved

and so suddenly i'm not in solid form anymore, i can see that i'm becoming a floating energy ball of some sort. i go up, i float up the stairs, i passed through the wall into the room where all the family is and i saw my kids and the rest of my family and my wife and they were all having fun painting faces and i thought they'll be fine and

there was no emotion associated with the fact that i wasn't going to see them again, it was just very matter-of-fact: they'll be fine and i'm going some place else and i floated out the building and when i get out of the building, when things really started to happen. as i get out of the building, all of a sudden i was wrapped in this bluish white light. at first i was like: okay, what is this

and i'm analyzing it as it's happening and if you can imagine: absolute pure love and peace. that's what it felt like being in this light and that's what this was like, but this was absolute love and peace and it was like falling into a river of pure positive energy. i knew that where i was going felt pretty good because i could sense that i was being taken some place and

i saw the really high points and low points of my life just kind quickly go by, you know, with my kids and, you know, i did this and i did that but i was really happy about it, and then right about the time that i was so happy that i was going, all of the sudden "bang" - i was back in my body i was angry, i, you know, i remember it hurt, i mean it, you know, i went from absolute bliss

to feeling, you know, like somebody's got punched in the mouth, and i had a burn on my face and burn on my foot and there's this poor woman who's doing cpr, and i just want to tell her to stop but i'm still unconscious i'm in the, you know, i'm stuck back in this body it is unconscious but, you know, my consciousness is still very aware of what's going on then it seem like several minutes after after that, that she stopped

and i managed to be able to open my eyes and everything was very fuzzy and i i sat up and i just wanted to say that i was okay and i wanted to thank her. yes, then what is me? i think me is spirit and the spirit lives on and that we have a memory of all the times we've come into this earth plane and

we come, we cycle through in, and we keep going through this process until we learned a good enough grade that we don't have to keep coming here wonderful story, wonderful report and so many things contained in the report of doctor cicoria, and you also you can see so clearly this ability of the mind to dock and to undock from the brain, from the body but let's be clear that in the real life there are also many stages

in between that some of the centers of the brain are connected with the mind directly but other centers may be shut down or disconnected, or even undocked. you know, so there are many, many stages in between. one example of this partial disconnection between brain and the mind are the dreams in the night – usually starting with a review of the of the events of the day, sometimes even older material is presenting itself for

kind of a review, material from the brain storage already mentioned, symbolized in our analogy by the external hard drive these are the memories, and memories of events and experiences from this lifetime all the conceptual thoughts and thinking and kind of reflections and even feelings in the basic form. when the brain gets damaged so this kind of memory may not be easily accessible anymore, let's say by

injury or alzheimer. so this would be the first storage, brain storage, but then usually the sleep and the dream deepens, some of the rational controlling functions of the brain may be reduced or even suspended completely so that the material, unresolved material from the second storage may get free access into the mind - in buddhist teachings this is called karma

karmic potentialities, unresolved material getting into the perception. perception is the story maker, so the perception will make the kind of stories out of these potentialities presenting it to the consciousness - and we get nice dreams, bad dreams, confused dreams even nightmares. it may be helpful at this point to explain how karma is understood in buddhism. the original meaning of the word karma

is 'action' or 'deed', but karma has in buddhism much, much larger meaning: it is the central part of the teaching of conditionality - causality, it has central position in the teachings of ethics, it is a decisive factor in the process of rebirth - but for the purpose of this presentation i prefer to present karma in almost scientific way. the easiest way to understand it imagine it as a kind of debt. when we act against the nature of things, we create particular potential of

imbalance or disturbance. karma is the thirsty line, the thirsty track remaining behind our imperfect living, the unfinished business, kind of positive or negative disbalance, disturbance of equilibrium. this "debt" goes with us in a latent form waiting for the opportunity to return, or discharge its potential back into life to reinstall the equilibrium. we can understand karma and its result to be a kind of basic law of nature

comparable little bit to the second law of thermodynamics when imbalances seek equilibrium. you can understand it even clearer when you look into the life of fully realized, fully enlightened beings. they live in harmony with the life, in harmony with their personality and their nature, and even if they do big things, there isn't this kind of thirsty karma remaining behind their lives, always being even with

everything on the spot. they live with wisdom and compassion, they just respond to the events coming to them from outside or inside. but we? we react! - that's the difference, driven by forces of imperfection we react with emotions, with liking and disliking, with desire, resistance or delusion - and that's karma, that creates karma! one of the chief producers of karma

is the attachment to the idea of "self", this ego-obsession, "me" and "mine", ego-centeredness, egoistic attitudes. when the particular karma finds the opportunity to discharge it's potential back into life that's called "vipaka" - it is the time when karma ripens and brings it's result, and so we distinguish good karma and bad karma, or better, wholesome karma

or unwholesome karma - both is a kind of debt, both is a kind of disturbance of equilibrium. when karma of wholesome things ripens we are in happiness, when unwholesome karma brings its result, we are in suffering. actions are not good or bad because of some divine definition. actions - but also thoughts, speech, also mental attitudes motivations, all that -

we distinguish wholesome or unwholesome actions because of the result they bring about. is everything in our life result of karma? - very often comes this question - certainly not! karmic forces are only dispositions. many things can happen to us in our life but only that, which will somehow resonate with elements from our karmic pool will really touch us - positively or negatively.

karma also steers the rebirth of beings - you know, this is buddhism - and then we are born with unfinished karma from previous existences. we consume karma during our lives but by reacting and acting selfishly we create new karmic forces - good or bad. buddhism teaches to create good karma, but in the ultimate goal it aims at ending karma altogether. so even the dreams

are kind of karma work, when some karmic stored stuff presents itself to the mind for integration, for healing. but further. in our computer analogy we have even a third gateway of entry in our experience symbolized on the picture by the wi-fi-antenna. it is a symbol for input coming to the mind from transcendental or spirituals zones, from

all kinds of different frequencies of reality. now, on the example of dreams we have seen that the brain is not the producer of experience, neither it is a receiver of experience or consciousness, in a wakeful state - meaning when the mind is docked in the brain or to the brain - in that case the brain is something like a pre-processor, or deliverer, or supplier of worldly sensory impingements, feelings

and conceptual thoughts to the mind – or more precisely, to the perception of the mind. the brain in this case floods the perception with worldly data and the perception makes of it our life story you know, the perception = the story maker, but by functioning in this way, the brain actually protects from, or shields the mind of any transcendental or spiritual input and access - and let's be clear

that this kind of "protection" for ninety-five percent of people is a blessing! it is really important because more than half of the spiritual content and influence is highly undesirable, even dangerous. so many people damaged the natural protection by drugs and ended in mental hospitals. therefore advanced spiritual practices should be done only after clear and solid preparation

and appropriate purification - else they may lead to unwanted or even very unwanted results. you see, i've put this on the paper because it would be too difficult to formulate it correctly in a concise way - and so here is the summary: we should understand the brain to be rather a shield or a defender, or actually a blocker of any spiritual other-worldly

input. everything which goes through the brain into the mind is worldly and mundane by definition and under normal circumstances the worldly stuff has priority, so that the other influences are blocked or strongly reduced. but when the brain is partially or fully disconnected, the experience of the mind is increasingly shaped by the forces of karma (that would be the second hard drive) which

under normal circumstances... of course the karma has influence even into our everyday life that what we are perceiving, or better, how we are perceiving this multitude of events happening to us, what we are choosing, what we are focusing on and how we experience it, that is quite strongly influenced by the past karma. so karma has

its influence even in our everyday life but when the rational functions of the brain are somehow reduced or partially disconnected, even blocked then these things have free access into the perception, into the mind. for highly spiritual people this is the blessing, this is the wanted opening, for unprepared, unpurified people this is curse, because they

then will be hunted by demons and all that stuff of the low spiritual areas. so, when the brain is partially or fully disconnected the experience of the mind is increasingly shaped by the forces of karma and impulses from the spiritual world - and of course, when the body dies, that exactly is: the rational filter has gone, all these rational limitations or steering have gone and now the mind is fully open

for the active karma and for the influences from the spiritually realities, different zones. with this knowledge you will also better understand the function of different spiritual practices. some of them use the brain but majority of the practices are actually designed to attenuate, or turn off the conceptual functions of the brain

(= conceptual rational functions of the brain) for example the work with koan in zen-buddhism that's one example, saturating, or even over-saturating the brain with an apparent nonsense until it gives up and opens the mind towards freedom. you know, this is a classic spiritual path which is pretty sure that it will open up to the wholesome or wanted

areas of spiritual realities. or the classical concentration meditation using one single, non-conceptual meditation object to fill the brain with it completely and so to stop its coarse conceptual activities enabling the mind to tune to refine subtle levels of consciousness. under meditation the majority of people understands this, but of course there are many different kinds of meditations and especially in buddhism - this is just a secondary training

focusing and deepening the concentration, but the core of the buddhist teaching is insight, wisdom, which is not attained by pure concentration of the mind – another time i will speak about it more. now, some explanations: the mainstream science heaviest argument for the "brain creates mind" theory (which is actually

an assumption, brain creates consciousness, brain creates mind), is the evident fact and truth that with the help of chemical substances it is possible to influence, even change the experience of the mind. psychoactive drugs used in the therapy and psychiatry can change the quality of life, psychedelic chemical substances quite evidently can trigger enormous dramatic and even spiritual experiences:

isn't it a rock-solid proof that the experience, even transcendental experience is created by material brain? (you know, rhetoric question. now comes the rhetoric answer:) it is not! we can compare the function of psychoactive drugs with influencing the electronics of the docking station. if we go back to our computer analogy, in the docking station if we influence the electronic in any subtle way, or in any targeted way,

influencing this, it will influence the stream of data coming to the notebook, certainly yes, and of course, it is a very specific way we want to increase the colors, or make it a little bit more quick, or whatever, so similarly this psychoactive drugs are influencing the work of neurotransmitters and endorphins and dopamine and all that so that actually the brain works somehow more smoothly, or as we want to work, so in that case, of course,

these drugs work, and can influence the quality of life, but in no way they are proof that the brain is producer of consciousness or the producer of the mind - that's the message here. so the psychoactive chemical or biochemical drugs are not influencing the mind directly but they are influencing the workings of the material brain only. now, there are some scientific

experiments, when electromagnetic impulses were sent to the temporal lobe of a volunteer using the spiritual helmet or they call it the "god helmet". these people were then reporting almost spiritual experiences of oneness or even kind of a weak mystical experiences. the mainstream science took this as a proof and evidence that all spiritual experiences are created by brain and that they are the product of the brain.

the truth is actually exactly the opposite: sending electric or electromagnetic waves to some brain centers will certainly disturb, jam, or hamper the normal brain very subtle neuronal functions, it will set certain brain areas out of work, so that some of the transcendental contents can address the mind - this is my explanation to these very notable and interesting

experiments i was tracing already quite some time ago thinking about how this would be possible.. another example: doctors gave a dose of psilocybin to a volunteer (psilocybin is the mushroom substance, very strong hallucinogenic drug) and they then put that person into mri-scan expecting spectacular firework

in the brain neuronal activity, but actually the opposite was the result: some brain centers were rather static or inactive. this is a story i only heard it, i have no confirmation for that story but it would go exactly in the same line that the drugs actually, especially the psychedelic drugs, are rather blocking or disturbing or switching off some of the normal regular functions of the brain, this protective function of the brain, so that the transcendental contents may

resonate, come in into the mind and make its presentation so to say. actually, there is a confirmation for this experiment: it was done by professor david nutt and his group and what he said about this experiment in a video clip: "... and what we found was completely surprising and exactly the opposite of what we predicted, because we found that psilocybin turned off blood flow in the key parts of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex

the posterior cortex and the thalamus. when you look at those parts of the brain you realize that they are actually the parts of the brain which control and integrate the way in which the brain processes information. they are the kind of gatekeeper regions the nodes which regulate what you do and what you feel and by switching those off, we can kind of liberate the rest of the brain so that it can do other things and that's why you get the expansion of consciousness." the mind is not created by brain and these are all

indications for that, but what i would consider as a real proof is one case from the collection of ian stevenson. it was not collected by him, it happened in bangalore, in india, and it was collected by doctor satwan pasricha, associated clinical professor of national institute of mental health in may 1985. again, to make this story short: sumitra was a bare-foot married village woman and she died of a seizure

they declared her dead, but after some time she woke up as a completely different woman, as shiva a daughter of a schoolmaster, of a schoolteacher from another village, which died violently some years before. now, suddenly she did not recognize anybody from her previous family, she found very strange to meet her husband so-to-say, she started to address him in a very special way, now she was a quite an intelligent woman, with a completely different

personality. she could read and write. when the schoolmaster from the other village heard about it, he came to see her - she immediately recognized him, she could actually recognize even the mother - they made a kind of test visiting the family of this schoolteacher there were quite a number of women all over and they hid the mother into her special room and sumitra-shiva was immediately

clear that mother is not here, she would go to the room of the mother, she knew where it was. she could remember 16 accounts of shiva's life not mentioned in any press reports, she identified 22 relatives of shiva from photograph, some of them naming directly by name. so, for me this is a very strong case showing that the mind is not created by brain.

so, this was the first part of the talk and i have to admit that actually the main purpose was to shake up the mainstream neuro-scientists and their convictions that the mind and the consciousness are created by material brain. wishing really, inviting them to open up to a bigger perspective on the complexity of the human mentality and human consciousness. it is not that simple as they

think and there are so many things coming from different sides knocking at their doors, you know, to explain all these "anomalies" all these anomalies like out-of-body experiences, like telepathy, near-death experiences, how it would be possible that with sending loving kindness you can influence other people and it is true, it is even statistically proven. now, on the other side

i want also to acknowledge the huge development in neuro-science especially in the 5 last years, such a big step forward in the research, in the results of the research. probably also due to new generations of the scanners. tomography means the slicing of the body with the scanner. computed tomography is still using actually radiation, x-ray, so

there is little concern about irradiation of these organs you are scanning. the mri - magnetic resonance is not using x-ray, it is using very, very strong magnets – sometimes the contrast still needs to be increased so there is sometimes intravenous contrast medium injected. even more so with the positron emission tomography pet pet-scan is also using

intravenous medium, so that the blood-saturated centers in the body can be detected very clearly, but the resolution of the pet-scan is not very good so what is the new method: combining, because each of these scanning methods (including also the electro-encephalograph eeg), each of these methods is good just for something and not so good for other things so actually the new generations are now combining

usually two different methods together in one machine so that the new project, the "human connectome project" has been started. and the ambitious aim is to map the neuronal connections in the brain. before it was the human genome project mapping of the dna, which is more-or-less concluded - of course, the research continues, but the genome has been decoded so to say, so now comes the brain - and we are getting these very impressive beautiful pictures

even visually it is quite interesting, but i think that these new beginning results in this research are bringing more questions than answers. the idea was in neuro-science that all these information that is a kind of convergence of the information in the brain so there would be a kind of a center, where the consciousness is created and the mind is created

now look at these pictures: the neuronal connections are rather running apart instead of coming together. so i think there are quite some new wrinkles on the forehead of the materialistic neuro-scientists and new challenge actually appears because if we look in the old abhidhamma, more than two thousand years old

in buddhism, actually, there are not five senses, there are six senses: the five senses we know plus mind, and each of the senses has its base. so the seeing has the eye, the hearing has the ear or the drum, the nose, the tongue, the body for touching, for the tactile qualities it is the whole surface of the body and

the organ for the mind is defined as heart. in asia you have, you get it even today when "i think..." you know, pointing to the head but the asian people "i think..." pointing to their hearts. so the influence of these ancient ideas is still among the people there - may be correct, it may be wrong the knowledge of anatomy two thousand years ago

was certainly very basic but these sages were actually approaching the mind and body from completely different perspective to understand it - so they may be correct, there may be wrong - don't believe just things too quickly even in the spirituality what i say: that a healthy faith and the healthy skepticism belongs to the healthy life and belongs to the healthy spirituality as well,

but the fanatical faith and obsessive skepticism this is the way down, this is the way to blindness and to be limited. so this is my recommendation also for the neuro-science to have its sceptics but to also have open windows for completely new way of understanding, especially if it promises to explain so many new things. so this

can be said about the human connectome project - but actually more to this: the brain plasticity, very well-known, that if some center is damaged that the brain can very nicely compensate after a while it will create new connections in the neuronal ways and functions. so, i think even that each person

is wired somehow differently. i suspect there is big difference between the asian brain and the western brain, that there is a different cultural background it's clear i suspect that even the brain is wired differently. i spent five years in burma, i know what i am talking about and, moreover, there are people walking among us almost without a brain.

it is called "hydrocephalus" it is this article i came across: on the right side this is the brain of a normal average person on the left side this is the hydrocephalus when there is a huge cavity filled with cerebrospinal fluid and little bit of the brain tissue at the edges of the skull and this is a person who has a job as a civil servant, father of two children

actually they found it by chance that he has this huge cavity in the head, and his iq is under the average, that's true, 75 that's not very good, the average would be 100 or 105 110 and he has 75 but in a certain framework he can lead a normal life you know, and how to explain these things. for me it is just another

indication that the mind with its enormous complexity is not created by brain. look what the famous professor michio kaku has to say to this new discoveries. he is the cofounder of the string theory so theoretical physicist of a great caliber i would say of course, in this particular clip he is talking to university students so also he was tuning his language to the level of the audience enjoy it. first of all: is the brain a digital computer?

for fifty years we thought yes, and the answer is really no. the brain has no operating system, the brain has no programming, there's no cpu there are no subroutines, nothing. so what is the brain? the brain is learning machine it is a neural network of sort, which rewires itself after learning every task. therefore it does use some digital some analog in a combination, but as you correctly pointed out reading, reading what these neurons do

is beyond our capability. so what we do in the laboratories we cheat we simply see a configuration of neurons corresponding to moving your arm like this then we create a dictionary - very clumsy but that’s what we do in the laboratory. you see! so, considering the complexity of the mind as well, i came across another article, which was actually exploring the complexity of the body,

of the human body - i could not believe it. so i started to calculate it myself and in fact, i came to the double of that incredible message. so, this article was describing the human body consisting of 37 trillions of cells. the number, the assessment is now higher, i remember some twenty years ago it was something like ten trillions now it is more, it is 37 trillions

of cells. each cell has a nucleus with chromosomes. human cell has 23 chromosomes or chromosome double, or chromosome pairs; and the chromosome actually it's a dna molecule coiled very tightly together. the 23 chromosomes are not the same, they are different in size but the average size of dna, if you straighten up the molecule, so the average size is

5 centimeters. if you would straighten the dna of one human cell and connect it together: 230 centimeters, over two meters - which is a lot because it is just a molecule, this double helix. dna is a molecule 3 nanometers thin which means 20,000 times

thinner than the human hair. this article was just playing with the idea that we would take dna of one human body straighten it up and connect: how long will be this fiber? from london to paris? what do you think? from london to new york - or twenty times around the earth? what do you think? all wrong,

all wrong! terribly wrong: million times around the earth - one human body. actually according to my calculation almost two million times around the equator. this enormous complexity of the human body! and we are sometimes so stupid referring to it

"my body". what is mine in that? the digestion? or the blood circulation, or the immune system? the neuronal network? what is mine in the body. now imagine if the mind would be more complex than the body - possible, i don't know. so neuroscience is doing big step forwards? in my understanding it is big ant step forwards on a journey many miles long.

i think with this preparation we are now ready to proceed to the next chapter in this exploration talk not yet near-death experiences but out-of-body experiences. let's look at that phenomenon little bit more precisely because that's kind of a between link and we can understand the near-death experiences better when we understand out-of-body experiences. there are two kinds of them, but to start with that

i will take a kind of a reference base, so that we have something solid we can rely on, and i will take the very detailed description of out-of-body experience of psychologist doctor susan blackmore. when she was young in cambridge she was exploring different area of paranormal phenomena generally, but as a psychologist keeping quite a sober view and mind over that, critical mind actually,

perhaps even too critical, materialistically colored, they had some meeting and then they went to their private rooms and she described that they were using cannabis - you know, this is the academic cover-name for marihuana - they were stoned on marihuana and in that state she got extremely strong out-of-body experience, starting with

disassociating from the body seeing her from above, then continuing through the ceiling and above the cambridge building, then she would travel towards the mediterranean then back over italy, switzerland, then to new york and south america then she would expand to the size of the universe then again getting so small she could not fit back into her body

she was travelling inside her body could not wake up in her body, fortunately there have been friends around to help her finally she got kind of back to have normal senses. now, in her report two things are extremely valuable for our exploration of near-death experiences. when she was above the

cambridge building she moved a little bit, because you know, in this out-of-body condition you can move to certain limits by your will, by your wanting, so she moved to the gutter of the building (gutter is the rain-water channel on the roof) looking at it in detail and she could see that there are old metallic gutters there

and then she continued the astral travelling towards mediterranean. the next day she went out wanting to see if her vision from the out-of-body experience really is matching the human world reality and looking at the gutters there were new plastic ones! you see,

the out-of-body experience completely mind made. so, that's the first very important message from that report. the second one: for her it felt so extremely real - getting the second message from this side: even if the things feel so extremely real, substantial like this world around me, doesn't mean that it is real

and i take it as a very valuable information because it is coming from a professional, and if you reflect deeply, you start to doubt even our world around us because it appears so extremely real to us - but perhaps i will come to it a little bit later there is a difference. so, i said there are two different kinds of out-of-body experiences:

these, which are purely kind of hallucinations of the mind but there is the other one, the other kind of out-of-body experiences which can be corroborated, veridical, they are called veridical when you can verify that this out-of-body mind was witnessing something which was really taking place in another location and we have the report

of doctor cicoria, the first part of it. he was evidently out of his body you know, seeing this phone dangling, looking at his feet, still there but when he turned, he could see his body people running to it he could hear what they were saying, but they could not hear him and he was seeing something which was taking place in

the earthly reality. - so, if you want to become invisible, that would be the recipe. of course this is just the beginning of the out-of-body experience in the near-death experiences, later on, if we go with the report of doctor cicoria he was floating over the stairs, his feet, his legs were dissolving, went through the wall into the room where

the children were painting faces. we do not have any confirmation if this was the earthly reality or this was already a part of out-of-body experience which is a pure projection. i don't have the information, could be both: it could be that the children, his family, really was there and the children were painting some faces, but it can be also that he was already detaching from the

human world frequency, going into the spiritual one. the collection of verified out-of-body experiences is actually quite large and still growing, but it's true that these things are happening mostly among the close family members or relatives so that the veridical weight of these testimonies is not very high therefore very special position

are receiving those cases which are happening in the hospitals because the testimony is coming from professional personnel. to name at least the most famous ones: i would say pam reynolds. in 1991 she developed a dangerous aneurism very deep down in the brain almost sitting on the brainstem, extremely difficult to get to it. aneurism is the ballooning of the blood vessel. if that bursts

that is fatal, the patient would die. so actually, pam was in a critical condition and everybody giving up because to get to that aneurism without damaging the brain was very, very difficult task. finally doctor robert spetzler took the case in phoenix, in arizona but he choose a very special condition for this very special case. it this called the "deep hypothermic

cardiac arrest" which means that for the main part of the surgery pam was put into death. this kind of operation is called or nicknamed "standstill operation". the procedure took 7 hours, starting with general anesthesia, the body was pumped with phenobarbital, a medicament to slowdown the brain metabolism

to get rid of the brain waves, then started the external cooling of the body to have more time for the main surgery. also the eyes were closed and taped shut to avoid drying out of the eyes, special beeping modules were inserted into the ears of the body to have the possibility to monitor the response of the brain and the brain stem -

it was completely flat. in this condition the body of pam was wheeled into the operation theatre. now the second round of the preparations started doctor spetzler started to unpack the bone saw to open the skull and the cardiologists, the female cardiologists started to connected the heart-lung machine to cool the blood, to cool the body even internally - and

at this time pam's mind came out of the body, undocked from the brain and typically observing these happenings in the operation theatre from above, seeing her body. actually her face was also covered with a drape only the crown of the head was exposed for the surgery - and this is the condition from which her out-of-body experience comes: instrumented completely, all the vital functions of the body was

monitored, closely observed, and she is bringing testimony how the bone saw looks like, that what doctor spetzler was holding in his hand, this very unexpected tool bone saw - we would imagine something like that - not at all, it's a kind of the pneumatic drill actually, with interchangeable blades and pam is comparing the instrument to the handle of her electric toothbrush.

she is correctly describing also the case in which the interchangeable blades are disposed, she is even correctly remembering the conversation going on between doctor spetzler and the cardiologist because there is a problem, blood vessels in the groin are too small to connect the heart-lung machine so doctor is instructing to try the other side. the out-of-body experience of pam is happening in this very closely observed

circumstances of the hospital of the operation theatre. later on the operation continues, the body temperature is brought down to 15 degrees centigrade, of course the heart stops by itself the blood is drained from the brain so that doctor spetzler can use his surgical microscope to perform the operation and at this time pam goes seamlessly into her very elaborate near-death experience

and coming back after worming of the body, coming back to tell us the story. there was a very good bbc documentary about this case, it is still available somewhere in the internet and in that documentary pam is giving her commentary: "i was looking down at the body i knew it was my body, but i didn't care. my vantage point was sort of sitting on doctor shoulder. i remembered the instrument in his hand

it looked like a handle of my electric toothbrush..." and doctor spetzler later in the interview, he was reflecting the case "i don't have an explanation for it i don't know how it's possible for it to happen considering the physiological state she's in at the same time i have seen so many things that i can't explain that i don't want to be so arrogant as to be able to say that there is no way can happen."

this is a wonderful comment of a high-level specialist to express this kind of humbleness towards the mystery of life, very beautiful. so, that was the pam reynolds case. the other case is also very special vicky umipeg noratuk woman born blind. she got married but was involved in a very bad car crash. in that

dying condition brought to the emergency unit of a hospital - and classically hovering above the table, seeing the body on the table. the special feature of this particular case is that first time in her life she could see - when she was dead! observing this frantic activities of the doctors trying to

do the resuscitation. first she did not know it is her body but as you can move in this condition according to your will to some extent, she moved to the hand hanging from the table she recognized her wedding ring. therefore she understood it must be her body on the table. but again, she did not stay very long and continued into very spiritual kind of the heavenly near-death experience which

she in this bbc video commented like this: "it is still very emotional thing when i talk about this because there was a point in which i could bring forth any knowledge i wanted to have and it was like this place where all the knowledge was and then i was send back and then i went back into my body and it was excruciatingly painful and very heavy and i remember feeling very sick." just few words from vicki

and we can feel the genuineness, the authenticity of her deep spiritual experience. this is the reason why sometimes i put the near-death experience of such an intensity parallel or in juxtaposition with and real enlightenment (of considerable intensity) they are different, it is not possible to compare it but the effect on the life is similar, the life is changed. but now coming to the final chapter

of this long explorative talk: near-death experiences - what it is really? and i would say, i would like to stay sober throughout this exploration, not jumping too quickly on any bias or any spiritual believe, rather at first to collect all the information available and all the facts and trying to put it together so that hopefully at the end it starts to make

a clear picture. to start with: everybody is complaining about the fussiness of the term itself "near-death experiences". i would recommend three different distinct categories dying experience, near-death experience similar to near-death experience and dying experience really reserving it only for the cases when there was an evident cardiac arrest,

there was no heartbeat, there was no blood circulation and the report veridically, verifiably comes from the time, when there was clinical death. so, that would be the dying experience. real near-death experiences are extremely intensive, clear experiences. they are not happening in the dying brain, they even cannot happen in brain without fresh blood. they are happening in the undocked mind. one example for that

i would take the case of stefan jankovic, stefan v. jankovic in switzerland 1964 long time ago a horrible car crash in high-speed he flew through the windshield with his head. everything broken, blood everywhere. when the doctor finally arrived the heart already stopped beating so the doctor was trying resuscitation

put some injection into his arm - not helping, so when he wanted to make the heart massage he found out that the ribcage is broken so he couldn't do that he declared him dead. but also at that time arrived second doctor perhaps he was living in the vicinity perhaps he was one of the passengers - there was a row of cars already and bystanders everywhere so he came rushing and

talking shortly with the first doctor he checked stefan - declared also clinically dead. so they were standing there discussing a little bit the case and then the second doctor came to the idea that he has adrenaline injection in his emergency case so why not to try. so he administered an injection of adrenalin directly into the heart of the body and the wonder happened after a while

the heart started to function, making pressure so rapid transportation to the intensive unit of the first hospital. now, probably this story is not quite unusual what is unusual on this particular story that stefan was witnessing all that hovering three meters over the scene in this kind of out-of-body condition - sometimes it is called the 5th dimension.

sometimes people reporting seeing everything from all sides at the same time but actually what stefan was reporting, that he could actually sense or feel the thoughts of two bystanders as well, not only what was spoken there that he was hearing that but even the thinking process of the bystanders and he noticed one religious lady

was praying actually: 'may all the sins of this dying person be forgiven, may he come to heaven'- and stefan was impressed by the wonderful act of compassion and also he noticed the mental attitude of another guy that he was rather critical and angry sending negative thoughts towards that what he was witnessing. so, that's the special case that two doctors declared

clinical death and the report actually of stefan comes from that time - it is not only veridical out-of-body experience it's a dying experience. some days later the 2nd doctor came to visit stefan in the hospital. stefan greeted him with a frown 'what have you done to me to call me back into this soring body' - and actually stefan wrote in his book that the dying was the best experience of his life.

so, very specific case, very special. pam reynolds? no, i would not call her into this first category, into the second one = near-death experiences. the characteristic of the second category i would define as: the life integrity is seriously endangered and there is a story coming from that condition but the heart is possibly working, the breath can be added by ventilator, certainly a critical

condition, but there is the circulation of blood. this is the significant difference between the first category and the second one. so, pam reynolds because remembering that there was a discussion what she actually reported between the doctor spetzler and the assisting doctor to connect probably the heart-lung machine to pump the blood out of the system to cool the blood, - possibly that

at that stage the heart was still working. so out of cautiousness second category. but her out-of body experience is 100% veridical. she witnessed something when the eyes were clearly taped the auditory pathways were monitored by electroencephalograph on the brainstem - flat - so clear case. also the

doctor cicoria, second category. he was electrocuted but who knows? perhaps his heart was still beating i don't know. so, out of cautiousness second category. but a classical representation of second category would be doctor alexander, eben alexander. the special case or the special feature of that case that he is

neuro-surgeon and he was with serious meningitis - encephalitis i don't know exactly the difference, swelling of the brain, deadly, critical, so, actually fully complying with the second category but i think his heart was beating, he was in deep coma seven days, big near-death experience, quite popular in books. to the second category

certainly belongs also coming out of anesthesia (narcosis) after operation, after the surgery the life integrity can be quite seriously in question. so people sometimes reporting near-death experience. into the second category i would take also people falling from cliff, the life integrity is seriously endangered, i guess,

it fulfils the second category, but what they are reporting is rather the life review, the events of the life rapidly flashing in front of their mental eye. it's just one element of a classical near-death experience, but why i am mentioning that because the term "near-death experiences" was coined to this kind of experience in the end of nineteenth-century

so it's really very old and needs revision, i guess. but all the other cases i would put it into the third category because this basically has nothing to do with a real near-death experience, keeping it nicely way apart. seizures it can be deadly, but usually not. another case of the third category: extreme stress, you know, life integrity not in danger.

or extreme meditation - well, perhaps the ego is dying, but life integrity no, no, no. all the drug reports: ketamine mmm very special drug, actually used in medicine sometimes because it has an anesthetic effect there is a kind of a detachment even from the feeling of self - so today it is usually taken as a party drug. sometimes like floating,

kind of an out-of-body, but forget it: this has nothing to do with the real near-death experience. the atmosphere is completely different, and the effect. the same with the pilots, fighter pilots: sometimes they are making sharp turns when they are on mission. so, in the training they are prepared in a big centrifuge to be exposed to the surge of gravity and they are actually going to 9 "g" = nine times the gravitational pull what we are experiencing on the surface of the earth

so they go nine times over. so everything extremely heavy - of course, even the blood. so the heart cannot pump it up to the brain. so, pilots coming out of the centrifuge on the verge of fainting, reporting strange things but again, i was reading some of these, far away from the atmosphere of near-death experience. you know, if this would be near-death experience, so i would qualify in that case as well. what happened to me?

in a long retreat in the mountains there was a period of very well going, very easily going practice. sitting for a very long time, three-four hours, feeling absolutely refreshed. so from one of these sittings i stood up abruptly: instantly fainting! i collapsed. the same effect: the pressure of the heart was adjusted for the sitting position. when i stood up

so rapidly, so suddenly, of course, the heart cannot change the pressure so quickly. i went down, i was unconscious for a while - which i don't remember. i remember coming back when the mind started to "re-dock", docking again with the brain, with the psyche, with the neurotic patterns of the mind this heaviness, the limitations from this

free flowing of the free mind. yes, the mind can dock and undock. perhaps the fighter pilots can qualify as a partial undocking, that's okay, but don't put it into the category of near-death experiences. and all the drug experiences: actually, doctor rick strassman made lots of experiments with dmt - dimethiltryptamine, extremely strong and powerful psychedelic

hallucinogenic drug - onset within seconds! and because it was for a scientific research he took only professional volunteers with lots of experience with drugs to have really valuable reports from them - and perhaps two of them, of many, have reported vaguely similar to near-death experience, but the majority was

rather reporting encounters with completely different life forms that was the majority of these special trips, completely different life entities, interacting with them - that was the routine experience. i even thought that perhaps rick strassman two of them has overdosed - no,no,no, just thinking, just joking. similarly with the co2 - all this kind of cheap-shots from the sceptics, from the mainstream science materialists.

drowning will hold even on the halm of straw! you know, muddying the water so that it is not clear. co2 that it causes near-death experience, co2 in a bloodstream! people in serious condition, life condition - probably the breathing is not working well so there is too much co2 in the bloodstream you know, mixing the cause with the result.

so that too much carbon dioxide in the bloodstream would be rather the result of the critical condition so enough with all this. now getting into the serious reflections about near-death experiences – and again: i would like to take a kind of a solid foundation what we can rely on, or take quite some reference from that and this time i would take the "tibetan book of death and dying"

"bardo thodol", many things coming from that. it's an old literature, i read it some thirty-five years ago, but i think the major points i will remember correctly. first of all "bardo" means transition, the state of transition. so when the body dies, there is some time of a transition. theravada buddhism would like to put last conscious moment "cuti" followed by the "patisandhi" which is the rebirth consciousness

of the next life - like an instant following. but i think more suitable to speak about this transition state in between which the "bardo thodol" is describing in such colorful images. so, "bardo" meaning transition, and the book is speaking about three stages within that. bardo of dying, bardo of dharmata and bardo of rebirth,

indicating that there is a kind of development in that quite long between-state. so that would be the next message, and if you read if you remember the bardo thodol, actually from the beautiful white light of death, which the near-death experiencers are describing with indescribable beauty and nobility and sublimity, wisdom, unconditional love -

all the superlatives, but then the bardo thodol actually describes this stages it goes down. in the dharmata the first encounter is with the beautiful deities, but then the wrathful, the fearful deities and only then comes the bardo of rebirth. the buddhist teachings are quite clear that the rebirth in the same level like again as a human, is extremely rare. it's true that bardo thodol

declares that there is a possibility to exit into next rebirth in any of these stages and i think from the white light even to exit to the nirvana, or some tibetan teachings even take the white light to be nirvana or rigpa - not really in theravada, nirvana is not light, certainly not. but certainly very high spiritual state, clearly.

so, there is a development going down, you know, message to all those near-death experiencers who wants to die as soon as possible again to experience this beauty - be careful because the near-death experience is just the beginning of the between state and who knows how it goes after. you know, take the case of howard storm with

his stomach rupture, and he was dying of pain actually late night in the hospital no surgeon, so getting out of his body he was taken by beings into the long corridor getting dark, getting darker and hell, really, experienced hell. so you know... next message from bardo thodol appearing repeatedly in the text: it is just projection,

it is just projection of your karma, so, don't take it lightly because it's serious, evidently, but it is just projection. very important message because that's also my understanding that near-death experiences are projection of karma. perhaps the last thing which i would take from the tibetans, explaining that after the body dies there is a kind of unconscious break they say average is 2-3 days

when the mind wakes up into this new condition in the bardo-state and everything is enhanced: the bliss is much stronger than anything on the earth, the horror is stronger than anything on the earth, the colors the feelings, everything's more direct. so, there is a gap and this would explain why majority of people even with the cardiac arrest doesn't remember anything, because

they were still in the gap, they came back before the mind would wake up into the in-between state. it's true that occasionally we are having also report of an almost seamless exit from the body, real undocking into the out-of-body experience. doctor cicoria is one case. mickey robinson - another case.

he was actually involved in plane crash, dosed with kerosene, burning. in the hospital dying of pain actually of the burns and he said: 'like if you take a glove off the hand' he was in the spiritual world. actually i would turn it that the glove remained in the bed and the hand would go into the spiritual world. so, occasionally there is

almost no break, but i think, majority there is a break. so, these are the things from the tibetan book of death. it's an old literature, 14 century, it seems that even in this area there is a kind of a development. the old religions usually speak about a kind of judgment and even some of the asian or

arabic near-death experiences really have this kind of an atmosphere like to be sentenced by a tribunal or at least being handled quite bureaucratically. the indian traditions speak often about god yama, god of death - yama, weighting the deeds: black stone for bad deeds, white stone for good deeds on the scales

which will be more heavy that will be the destiny, but if you take the western near-death experiences, the majority you know, this extremely beautiful kind of peace - at least the beginning of this afterlife, between state. so, perhaps there is even some development in that. actually, what is this judgment, these people would report as an life review - again it is a kind of a review

of the events of the life, very quickly, even doctor cicoria was reporting some, stefan was reporting much more, about 2,000 his assessment 2000 rapidly flashing pictures of the life situations. i would understand it in the help of my analogy with the computer: this is the time when the docking station with the periphery is dying the body with all the sensory organs and brain is dying.

so all that what was stored in the brain (in the analogy that was the external hard disk) all unresolved stuff is a karmic potential. the potential cannot just disappear tracelessly. that's against the physics. so it is the essence of the life, unresolved life situations and deeds that it is transferred as a kind of essence into the storage of the notebook which survives. now it is a pure karmic potential

from the past life, kind of a summary of the karma of the ending life. speaking about the understanding of death and rebirth in buddhism, buddhism has actually the idea of an endless rebirth in different spheres of existence - so what is actually giving the direction of the next rebirth? - karma.

karma activated in the time of dying. so, it is not necessarily the whole karmic package which can be quite.. containing probably everything, you know, through all this life, the previous lives, all that, unresolved karma, a lot of that - no, it is just the karma activated in the time of dying and there are four cases: "garuka karma" means very strong karmic force. so, if you killed your parents

or killed a saint, that's the garuka karma which will influence the quality of your life already on earth but even more after. but garuka karma can be also positive. so, if you got enlightenment, significant intensity of enlightenment it will certainly influence the quality of your life already on the earth but even more after. but this is not always the case so, then there are two others:

death proximate karma or habitual karma and the order is not really given because rather what is stronger. death proximate the mental state, the memory which came during dying can very well influence the direction of the whole afterlife, of the rebirth. or habitual karma that what was done repeatedly during the life, accumulated strength so it can very well influence the rebirth,

the direction of the rebirth. but then comes the fourth one and that's the problem: any karma, any unresolved karma can get activated and that's the scary part of the whole thing and that's what brought me to buddhism. the simile for that is given with the cows, when the country man comes in the morning open the fence: which cow will get first. so if there is a strong

bull - that’s the garuka karma. but probably there isn't any so then it is these two: either the cow which is the nearest to the gate or the cow which habitually goes first. but if this is not exactly the case, then any of the cows - you know, here we are! so this is the explanation in buddhism. now talking about the different spheres of existence or as i call it

the different frequencies of appearances i have this diagram, using that very often, i think at least once i should give credit to the authors of that: designed by sunanda lim compiled by venerable achara suvanno mahathera. so it's a typical list of worlds

the planes of existence, meaning that all these frequencies of existence are inhabited by beings. these are worlds actually, of beings. we are here, we are quite low, still there are four levels under the human ones, which is understood as the spheres of misery or great misery and

all that actually, above the human, levels of devas or angels this is the sphere of fine-materiality the gods, the brahmas and the high devas, and the immaterial spheres, the arupa loka. and so this is the understanding in buddhism this all are spheres of rebirth the rebirth can go actually, to any of these spheres

whatever, according to the activated karma and here in this diagram the spheres are actually painted one over the other. in my understanding i would put quite some space in-between - for a quite good reason. i would compare these spheres of existence to the radio stations, you know, they are stations which you can tune in and quite a lot of space in between

what is the characteristic of the radio station? all those who are tuned to the same frequency are actually receiving the same kind of broadcasting, the same like all humans are interpreting the world in a similar way: this is the table, this is the tree, everybody agrees this is the house, this is a lake and is this sky, you know, this is red, this is brown -

more-or-less everybody agrees with that. so, that's because all are tuned to the same frequency. so these would be like the radio station shared by many but there is evidently also in between state which is the bardo. actually, all these spheres except this are spheres of nama-rupa. nama is mentality, rupa is materiality.

so in buddhism we have two different types of phenomena. all phenomena are empty - probably today it would be rather defined as "virtual realities", you know, spheres of virtual realities. but still, two types: mental and 'material' phenomena. so buddhism would teach that all these spheres of beings,

all these worlds are just empty phenomena rolling. but the phenomena the existence and happening of these phenomena is real. buddha would never deny that. the beings in this lower field are actually experiencing their worlds exactly as we do with this solid objects all around them kind of a heavy solid materiality all around them. in the blue

fine-material spheres the materiality is much more subtle only shapes and the immaterial spheres. now, why i would put some space in between: the state of bardo has not "solid" materiality i would call it a "mental materiality": it is a pure projection, there is not this kind of solid materiality which would obey to the law of physics,

mathematic, chemistry, electricity, gravity, all that. that's the difference that the beings of the particular sphere are sharing material phenomena which makes the whole sphere somehow more static. when it is only materiality made by mind, so it is much more fluent, changeable. here on earth when you wake up in the morning you wake up to the same room you went

to sleep the day before. in this bardo between stage everything is changing from minute to minute. so that would explain why the people in the near-death experiences everybody is actually reporting something quite different because the experience is completely individual certainly there may be some influence from beings from the other side so to say which are

tuned to the same between-frequency, possible but generally that's an area of individual projection. this is again quite a substantial central message from this talk - better i'll take it from the paper. when you examined the authentic near-death experiences in internet beside many heavenly, exalted, luminous ones you will find also deeply horrifying hell experiences. they are not so many, perhaps

in the relation 1 to 10 or 2 to 10, but my suspicion is that the hell experiences are under-reported. quite understandably, because of the stigma these people may get from there environment. even if people don't believe in the religion, there is still this background idea that only bad people experience hell which is evidently not true! examining these hell accounts carefully

beside a real disgust for the whole existence and rebirth in samsara, on top of that i got for a while creepy feeling of apparent cosmic injustice. in buddhism, if you know the law of karma correctly, you'll get a clearer understanding or even assertion that there is a basic universal justice but this justice or perhaps we should say rather cosmic equilibrium - it works only when we consider extremely long periods of time.

in a given cases -like within one lifetime- irregularities are quite possible. buddhism is teaching conditionality: cause and effect, like for example karma-vipaka relationship, meaning things do not happen in our life just by chance or coincidence. there are many references in the scriptures supporting this kind of fundamental universal justice.

even for the direction of rebirth the buddha gave clear general metaphor: if stones mixed with liquid butter are thrown into water by nature the stones will go down and the butter will go up. that was his simile illustrating the basic function of karma during rebirth. but on other occasions buddha also clearly declared occasional irregularities. the samsara

and karma are not a mechanical clockwork not at all! if you study the different kinds of near-death experiences quite possibly the difficult hellish reports may reveal the nature of near-death experiences more clearly then the exalted ones. it will become clear that the form, the form (!) of the near-death experiences is a mental fabrication, or better, mental karma fabrication similar to our dreams. you can feel

in these stories the typical dream language, this sudden changes of the place and scene without any logic, the emotional charge in these stories, or, another element of the dream language, substituting one thing by other thing, etc. bryan melvin near-death experience is one of the most intensive horrifying one. after such a shock no wonder that after being "saved" by jesus in the end of his near-death experience

he became dedicated christian evangelist. the same mickey robinson or howard storm. the hell near-death experience of howard storm brought even the thought to me, that the experienced horror may be linked in some way to the extreme pain of his physical body. when the mind undocks bodily pain instantly disappear, logically, but if later the mind comes closer to the ailing body and connects just a little bit, the intensive pain

may give rise to the hell imaginary in the mind. but probably this explanation is not correct because it doesn't fit to all of the hell stories. you know, howard storm, actually his stomach ruptured and he suffered extreme pain, he was dying of pain actually they could not find a surgeon, so he got a very extended near-death experience - the horror one, and again, in the end he was as if saved by divine beings.

saartje's near-death experience became hellish ominous - but even more so when the police and the medic came, or even broke into her room and she, in a state of a serious bodily distress, woke up from her near-death experience into her body. again a kind of dream language interpretation of the heavy situation. police came in and she was actually getting this very ominous

end of her near-death experience. but her experience was not that intensive as the other ones. i have great respect and i am sending great gratitude to all these people who came forward and shared their difficult stories but also i fully understand all those, who did not come forward. these highly colorful reports convincted me that the form of near-death experiences stories

is a creation of the undocked mind but on the other side that the near-death experience phenomenon itself is a highly important, often coded encounter with deeper layers of one's own being in other spiritual systems often referred to as "higher self" or "high self" or even as an encounter with god or jesus.

but if we consider that the higher echelons of consciousness are actually interconnected in direction of oneness, everything becoming one, so even such an interpretation as encounter with god or jesus cannot be actually considered as quite wrong. we should understand that a being, a person, has many psychological, but even spiritual layers, in buddhist language we can say many karma layers. i had somehow comparable encounter with

deeper layer of myself, of my being, at the beginning of my meditation practice. therefore i can give my personal thoughts to that. this very noble, very high "instance" felt extremely superior to the everyday little ego, it was not really any "self" at all but it was something like very advanced "instance" in the very middle of my own being

or better: me "beingness", extremely powerful, in an advanced way extremely fatherly, concerned fully with spiritual progress of the much lower ego. it was not more "me", it was above that limitation, it was also clear that this "instance" is able to arrange anything in order to advance spiritual progress

of the given individual, far, far beyond ego's typical concerns, worries fears, pain and happiness. sometimes even little bit like when you want to bring your ailing dog to the veterinarian... but here we are coming to the central paradox of the near-death experience phenomena: from the worldly perspective near-death experience belong to the category of dreams or mental projections, but as to their content,

intensity and significance they can be the most important, decisive and pivotal event in the existence of an individual. perhaps, when all this will become more clear, then psychology will start to develop kind of a "scientific religion" to prevent people to have hell experience when the body dies. about the middle of our own being: that was my first

image of rebirth and it is still the best i have actually. in death beings are released from their bodies, leaving all behind, and they are coming to the center of their beingness which they experience as the great white light of the death and dying, but because there is still unresolved karma the karma will bring them down into some next existence. this was actually my image that in dying the

stream of consciousness, the stream of mind is coming into its own center interpreted as the white light of the death, this enormous beauty and knowledge and loving kindness - all these superlatives but because there is still unresolved karma the mind will fall down into next existence, into next individual mind and body, having another lifetime leaving that again, dying again,

coming to the white light of the death again, but missing it again falling into next rebirth, and again another lifetime, sometimes missing the white light by far, falling into next existence and again until we learn and we don't need to come anymore. one of the most simple and most beautiful images of the aim of all great spiritual systems is the picture of the path towards

the center. the spiritual paths are connecting us and bringing us to the center of our own being. some buddhist systems call it emptiness, you can call it fullness it's the same: coming home. we live in the outskirts in the periphery of our true beingness, in a kind of exile and separation for very long time. on the spiritual way we are putting aside our attachments and merging in the vortex of presence.

the opening can happen in a click but usually it is a long way because we love our prison. so, i think with that i have actually explained majority of the near-death experiences disagreeing partially with everybody. certainly i disagree with the materialistic understanding not-understanding of reality,

the psychological kind of approach has much more to say as i started, you know, this similarity of the birth channel with the birth of the baby to compare it with the tunnel and coming to the white light no,no,no this is just a coincidental kind of similarity. meeting the departed ones - there is absolutely no meaning in that no, but the psychological explanation

has at least this phenomenon of projection, psychology works a lot with projection we are projecting our own material around us that's very well-known and in a near-death experience really this is something going on a lot. so, certainly, psychology has little bit more to say but i have little bit disagreement even with the spiritual community which takes quite often the life just

as a kind of dream, hallucination a thought - actually there was a movie "jonathan livingston seagull" some 35 years ago has quite touched me somewhere, and if you have seen it the novel was written by richard bach neil diamond made the music, and the departed jonathan gets the teaching

from chang, i think, was then wise seagull teaching him and the conversation goes like this, chang is explaining to him: "your whole body from wing tip to wing tip is nothing more than your thought itself in a form you can see. break the chains of your thought and you break the chains of your body too" - i don't agree with that. the thoughts are not made of cells

molecules and atoms. spiritual community jumping on that kind of explanation 'everything is just a thought-form' - not really, not everything. there are material phenomena as well, abhidhamma is very clear about it "nama-rupa" nama is everything conscious the consciousness and the mental factors, but there are also rupa phenomena which are not conscious and these are

the earth, water, fire, air – in abhidhamma understood as nothing material, please be careful, these are only characteristics out of which the mind creates the appearance on this material world around us, not that there would be anything substantial, hard, heavy out there - that's our illusion that's the world of appearances. according to this highest kind of insight, highest kind of

truth or reality, these are only qualities. it is like things are painted with different colors in our mind. i would compare it - what we know quite, what is familiar to us, we know that all the colors of the world are just combination of three primary colors, we know that. if you look on a television with a magnifying glass you will see just 3 primary colors

and everything what appears on a television is the admixture of three primary colors so similarly our mind works with these four elementary qualities painting appearance of the material world around us. that's abhidhamma. do you think that in this the buddhism and abhidhamma went too far, too far-fetched, too fantastic to be true? not at all, science knows these things long time ago, i told you already

in the beginning. listen what said one of the greatest physicists of modern time, the central figure of quantum mechanics niels bohr almost a century ago: "the common sense view of the world in terms of objects that really exist out there, independently of our observation totally collapses in the face of the quantum factor", quantum mechanic. and niels bohr again:

"if quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you you haven't understood it yet." and i would say if buddhism hasn't profoundly shocked you you haven't understood it yet! einstein was never happy with quantum theory though he agreed that all its conclusion and axioms were scientifically perfectly correct but still, this is his kind of defiance quote: "i like to think the moon

is there even if i am not looking at it." according to abhidhamma the moon is not there when you don't watch it, but the moon is not there even if you and many others are watching. according to abhidhamma there are only rupas - empty phenomena happening that's all, that's the ultimate reality of the moon. but on the other side einstein agreed and admitted: "reality is merely an illusion

although, very persistent one!" good to know: he is here referring to our everyday sense of reality. but more important than einstein’s thoughts is he the quote from eugene wigner, the nobel prize scientist of the 20th century: "...the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of consciousness is the ultimate universal reality."

content of consciousness is the ultimate universal reality – and that science! it sounds like a handshake between science and buddhism indeed. do you remember the quote in the beginning? kalu rinpoche? "you live in illusion and the appearance of things. there is reality, you are that reality (your consciousness is the reality) but you don't know it (you project it). when you understand this

you will see that you are nothing (there is not a real you), and being nothing you are everything (everything you can conceive is just the content of your consciousness, you are everything), and that's all." - actually it this not all, because there is one more step to accomplish: to free oneself from all this appearances, illusions and hallucinations. and now we are coming to the end

of this long, long talk. do the pieces of the puzzle come together? are they starting to give a clearer picture now? can we perhaps even answer this strange, creepy question: is the heaven and hell real? - well what we can say with full certainty, considering this great number of near-death experiencers authentic reports,

what we can say with absolute certainty that heaven and hell happens. - - to whom? to everybody? for how long? how real? how intensive? - i leave it open. i'll leave it to you to connect the dots according to your sources of information your own reflections, your beliefs. actually the buddhism was never so much

concerned about the degree of reality of - all of these planes of existence. it was always somewhere around the teaching but it was never really the central point. the real point of the teaching of buddha's concern was always: the connected feelings of happiness and sorrow, of bliss

and horror, that these feelings and emotions are what they are. at this point usually bringing an example of the bad ones: when we have a nightmare in the night really horror, horror dream, waking up still full of fear uuuff, it was only a dream, you know, trying to shake it off. only a dream? really? so why is your pajamas sweat through? if it was only a dream! you know, this is the scary part of it, that during dreaming

this was your reality. so even if all this, all this spheres actually are just pure hallucinations, pure projections, pure appearances, spheres of dreams and appearances, the happiness and sorrow is what it is. certainly, even according to buddhist teachings to be reborn in some of these high divine places is a really very beautiful, noble

and blissful state of existence but the real aim of buddha's teaching is nowhere here because buddha was actually directing the people who follow to full awakening from all kinds of appearances and dreams and delusions and illusions, to mature the existence to the level of nibbanic peace. nirvana - the blissful, very, very sublime state of peace and freedom,

the liberation - so that we don't need to come again. i like this picture. it is little bit like a symbolic portrait of samsara - the ever turning self-sustaining perpetuum mobile of all living and dying beings in the whole omniverse. is it beautiful? is it horrifying? unfortunately, it is both.