Near death and back for more life

Religions are said to have evolved to help people justify and deal with fears they associate with the unknown. Perhaps one of your dreams is to learn more about your emotions? For the most part, religious views deny death as an end. Many people describe unique spiritual and religious experiences.

Since Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) appear to people as miraculous, NDEs are connected with powerful religious overtones-“Higher Power.” Recent polls published in leading magazines revealed that 69 percent of Americans believe in angels and NDEs. How does this compare to your own belief system? Would this topic be controversial or rational in your mind? 

Mellen-Thomas Benedict is an artist who survived his last NDE in 1982. He was dead for over an hour and a half after dying from cancer. At the time of his death, his spirit floated out of his body and went into the light. Curious about the universe, he was apparently taken far into the remote depths of existence, and even beyond, into worlds beyond what we know. During his experience, he was able to learn a great deal of information concerning reincarnation.

As a result of his NDE, Benedict has contributed to new scientific discoveries. He has been closely involved in the mechanics of cellular communication and research dealing with the relationship of light to life called Quantum Biology. This research is providing new insights on how biological systems work. Benedict found living cells will respond very quickly to light stimulation resulting in, things like rapid healing. As a researcher, inventor and lecturer, he holds six U.S. patents.

Several weeks after Benedict was born, he may have had his first NDE when his bowels were ruptured. His body was tossed to one side as a corpse, yet surprisingly, he later revived. As soon as he learned to grasp crayons, he fed a compulsive urge to create symbolic black/white yin/yang circles from Eastern spiritual thought. He has no clear memory of why he drew those symbols.

Benedict spent early school years in a Catholic boarding school in Vermont, and was baptized in the Salvation Army religion as a youngster. He traveled extensively because of a military stepfather until the family finally settled.

By then, Benedict was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. He had retired from film and began operating a stained-glass studio. As his condition deteriorated, he devoted more time to his art. One morning, he awoke sensing he would die the next day, and he did. As the scenario began, Benedict recognized what was happening as it unfolded. The process was like deja-vu because he had read many books about the NDEs and felt connections from possible past experiences.

Do your dreams unlock secrets?

When you awaken, how often do you remember your dreams? If you remember even part of your dreams, do you think they have any significance? What might you learn from them, if anything?

Some people are convinced that understanding their dreams is the key to gaining insight into themselves, their mistakes, goals, this life, possible past lives and even death.   These people think dreams have the power to unlock secrets within themseves. They write them and learn.

Other people don't recall their dreams and may have no interest in their possible significance. In fact, some of these people even think that trying to interpret dreams is meaningless. They go further to say any interpretation is not only a waste of time, but a true, self-created illusion.  According to them,  Freundian, Jungian or other views of dream interpretation are hogwash.  What do you think?

Did Leonardo da Vinci fool history?

Would Leonardo da Vinci have risked his life to fake the ultimate Christian relic, the Turin Shroud,if he was, as believed, so opposed to Christianity? What if it was discovered some of the artifacts that confirm your own personal beliefs weren't what you thought them to be? Would increasing arguments about fraudulent artifacts or associated stories influence your specific faith?

Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince set out to investigate whether da Vinci had the means, the motive and the opportunity, and whether the verdict on this Shroud would call into question the perceived authenticity of other historical relics.

Consider that da Vinci's work on optics and alchemical pursuits provided him with the means, and he definitely had the opportunity. His unorthodox beliefs for his era gave him the necessary motive. His strength of character and rebellious streak would have enabled the sheer audacity required to produce such a fraud.

Modern scientific techniques suggest the Shroud doesn't reveal an image of Christ as originally believed. At the era of supposed events, risks of creating such a relic and being found out would've resulted in being accused of sorcery and conceivably being burned at the stake.

Back in the 1980s, Lillian Schwartz of Bell Laboratories and Dr. Digby Quested of London's Maudsley Hospital demonstrated the Mona Lisa was a self-portrait of da Vinci. Increasingly, many scholars and other people believe the image on the Shroud is da Vinci's self- portrait. Leonardo worked on optics, lenses and projected images. He also worked on a secret machine of mirrors to concentrate light and heat, and both are required to produce an image such as on the Shroud.

Let's say da Vinci was at the right place at the right time.  If he did fake the Shroud, he may not have accepted a commission. What would be his possible underlying motives? Theories exist that include promoting the world's first known photograph, but we may never know. By using his then innovative photographic technique to create the ultimate Christian relic, he may have given the invention what he thought would be the best chance of surviving through the centuries. If he did refer to a photograph of himself for the self-portrait, this was hundreds of years before the acknowledged birth of photography.

Step back and reflect on your own understandings of controversy in your belief systems. What have you come to accept as truth? What or whom do you believe and why? Consider why so many questions are being raised about the legitimacy and authenticity of varied belief systems. This may cause you to question or doubt yourself. Regardless of your background or belief system, the strength of your faith in yourself determines whether you willingly heed your senses or begin to doubt.

Picking fights or temporary amnesia?

You may get the impression that people you meet desire to pick fights or just make your life difficult. They may seem to aim to prevent you from doing what you wish to do. Perhaps they appear suspicious of your choices or strongly disagree with your ideas. Would they be forgetting you also have opinions? To you, these people may be illogical. They seem irrational or inflexible. Their opinions may seem clouded by closed-mindedness, prejudice, resentment, jealousy, ignorance or a lack of desire to understand you. When you judge other people you forget you also judge yourself.

Consider a cultural centre with an older generation of members who speak native languages and desire to preserve and share their national traditions. At the same time, the younger generation doesn't speak the native languages and feels left out or unwelcome at cultural events they don't understand. Imagine a council with mostly older members as well as a few younger members. Where the president and other older members fervently resist change, yet desire young people to be more active in the cultural centre, this may put you in a quandary about what to do.

If you choose to see life not as an endless battle for those unreachable final results, but as an endless series of experiences to learn, then you may ask yourself why people behave as they do.

If you choose to view contention as a teacher, then the reason for encountering disagreeable people becomes clear. A journey is a process to enable you to identify root causes of feelings.

If you choose to ask why people resist your agenda, and ideas you view as necessary and sensible, then you may grow to sense meaning in both individual and collective agendas, and how either one alone is seen as a threat.

If you choose to imagine yourself in the position of contentious people, raise your awareness to their full experience, then you may realize you may fear losing a concrete sense of who you are.

If you choose to empathize with hidden fears, and re-create or refine your vision, then you're more likely to arrive at an acceptable compromise and result in more people embracing change.

If you choose to recognize that a single agenda of self-definition can be served for all, then distinctly different yet, remarkably connected experiences of each person can be embraced.

If you choose to rise above your own temporary amnesia, not be provoked by rigid disagreement, then you will recognize that each position taken is simply an effort to reinforce who we really are.

If you choose to see a given situation from multiple points of view, and present strategies that would appeal widely, then you're likely to discuss possibilities considered meaningful to everyone.

Are you too hard on yourself?

Do you get frustrated or disappointed with yourself to the point where you reprimand or punish yourself for your own behavior or lack of initiative? You may debate with yourself about positions to take or avoid in your circumstances. Do you feel stuck between 'a rock and a harder place?' Remind yourself that the controversy you create in your own mind is exactly that, an imagined dispute based on differing opinions.  You can't predict exactly what will happen when you speak with people about issues that bother you.  You may create controversy where there will be none.

1) If you stand up to a boss who behaves unethically or immorally, will you lose your job?

2) If you confront your intrusive mother-in-law for showing up at your house and taking over, will this jeopardize your relationship with your family and in-laws?

3) If you express a desire to use birth control, will it alientate your partner, family or community?

4) If you discover evidence and publically chastise hidden drug use among athletes in local high schools, will the backlash affect your children? your family? peers? community?

We all have disagreements with individuals in our lives and we aren't always happy with our own choices. Consider strategies before dealing with issues you feel may cause contention:

•    Analyze your situation : why do you feel the way you do?
•    Consider advantages & disadvantages of positions: who benefits & how?
•    Pinpoint reasons for anxiety: how might others react?
•    Identify your underyling values: what really holds you back?
•    Consult people you trust: what would they do & why?
•    Review your options : what couse of action seems best?