“When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts. Oh may you feel this touch…it is a spiritual idea that lights your path!”

 Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily Bread for today is brought to you  by Embrace – The Chicago LGBTQ Christian Science Group
http://embracechristianscience.com/

Present Heaven

by Virginia Harris C.S.B

“Proof of Heaven,” (click here) the recent Newsweek cover article by a respected neurosurgeon describing his near-death or afterlife experience while in a seven-day coma has given me a lot to ponder….not the least of which is the courage and conviction it must have taken for Dr. Eben Alexander to share his personal story.

Many neurosurgeons have for years explained away any patient’s description of near death visions as effects of the brain reacting to loss of oxygen. So for this doctor to step away from conventional explanations, and offer a radical view of a different reality knowing his reputation is at stake – well, seems to me this courageous stand merits deep consideration.

What occurs to me as the most important point to consider is not the imagery details of Dr. Alexander’s mental journey and disputing are-they-or-aren’t-they true (regardless, they are personally true to him), but the simple point that while the brain was shut down, the doctor was consciously active. In fact, he describes this as his ‘inner self’ that was alive and well and surrounded by a feeling of unconditional love…a heavenly state.

Here is the bigger meaning, it seems to me: Can this conscious, inner-self activity and feeling of higher love only occur near or after death? Why would this ‘inner self’ be dormant when we are physically active and only wake up and ‘come alive’ when we are physically dead? Isn’t it reasonable to consider that this conscious, inner self surrounded by love is always active, in the present physical condition, and continues on regardless of the state of brain and body? In essence, then, it is a heavenly state attainable in the here and now.

Years ago, I experienced a heavenly state of overwhelming love and power that literally impelled me to get up and walk – when I had been unable to for several weeks as the result of a serious car accident. Leading up to this healing experience was hours, days and weeks devoted to prayer focusing on understanding my conscious self – my spiritual self that is sustained by the highest consciousness of the Divine. This spiritual self is, to me, the true self and has dominion, mentally and physically, over what the brain was trying to convey to me and others: that my body had been almost irreparably damaged, and there was nothing to be done physically to change it. (To read the complete healing story, click here.)

Imagine having the present power of your higher, spiritual consciousness to override the human evidence and chatter of the brain to overcome physical limitations. To me, this is the bigger, deeper meaning of Dr. Alexander’s experience. Could this be proof of heaven, for each of us, here and now?