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Oprah: “What is the message you received? Tell us that.”
Dr. Alexander: “You are loved, deeply cherished, forever. There is nothing you have to fear. You will always be loved . . .”
Virginia Harris, C.S.B. – What influences you, brain or spiritual consciousness?
Posted: 05 Dec 2012 12:38 PM PST
There is quite a conversation going on – in broadcast and social media, as well as countless one-on-one discussions – about the insights and implications shared in Dr. Eben Alexander’s book, “Proof of Heaven”. For the past 4 weeks the paperback has been #1 on the New York Times paperback non-fiction best-seller list and #3 on the E-book non-fiction best-seller list, having sold 78,000 digital copies in a month. Last Sunday, Oprah interviewed the doctor for her show, Super Soul Sunday.
Dr. Alexander is a practicing neurosurgeon and has quite a lot to say about his astonishing near-death experience and how it has changed his view of living. For those of you wondering what is a neurosurgeon, there is plenty of useful information about this online. Regardless, his experience has also changed his view about modern neuroscience’s teaching that “…the brain is the machine that produces consciousness…” (Proof of Heaven)
In fact, Dr. Alexander now rejects this medically-trained scientific worldview and sees the brain as not only a filter for nonphysical consciousness that limits capacity, it is “…a barrier to our higher knowledge and experience.” His spiritual consciousness became clear, he believes, only because his brain was turned off.
Seems to me it is encouraging for this important conversation to take place in public forums. There are scores of individuals who believe and trust in a spiritual consciousness active and accessible now – untouched, unlimited, and unfiltered by the physical brain.
Dr. Alexander sounds like he agrees: “Our spirit is not dependent on the brain or body,” he said in a recent New York Times article. “It is eternal, and no one has one sentence worth of hard evidence that it isn’t.”
So this leads to what I think is an obvious question: If you are willing to consider that spirit is not dependent on the brain to exist, is the brain or body dependent on individual spirit…or does the brain-body function separately from spirit? In other words, are there two identities of each one of us, a physical and a spiritual, of equal measure and activity? Wouldn’t one ultimately have control over the other?
Over 125 years ago, Mary Baker Eddy conducted her own scientific experiments and came to her own conclusions. She offered evidence of physical healings through spiritual reasoning alone and determined that it is the spiritual life – having its source in the divine Life – that has dominion over the physical. In her seminal work, Science and Health, Eddy asks, “Which institutes Life, – matter or Mind? Does Life begin with Mind or with matter? Is Life sustained by matter or by Spirit?”
Why are these questions so important to consider? Because a higher knowledge relying on an active spiritual power larger than the individual brain opens up the potential for expanded human intelligence, insight, and understanding – and can lead to beneficial results overcoming any physical problems and limitations.
Reason enough, it seems to me, to consider which intelligence is influencing you: matter-brain or spiritual consciousness?
VirginiaHarris, C.S.B. – What influences you, brain or spiritual consciousness?
View the Video: http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Oprah-and-Neurosurgeon-Eben-Alexander-Proof-of-Heaven-Full-Episode
Though Dr. Alexander had built a successful career and had a loving family, he still had questions about his biological parents. Prior to 2008, he tracked down his birth mother… only to learn that she did not want to meet him. After that, says Dr. Alexander, he experienced a deep sadness that threatened to derail everything in his life.
Oprah: You grew up feeling loved and appreciated, but when your biological mother… said she didn’t want to see you, you went into a sinkhole.
Dr. Alexander: It was absolutely devastating, because of the memory of feeling as if I was being thrown away. My adoptive father — a renowned neurosurgeon — would tell me, “You can’t possibly remember anything that happened when you were weeks old.” But he was wrong. Because I later came to realize it was such a deep and powerful memory, it shaped everything about my knowing of this world and how I related to this world.
Oprah: I just got that in a way like never before. And that is why this is a good thing we’re sharing here right now. That is why every mother or father who has to give up a child for adoption should explain to the child why. Even though it’s a baby. So they know the difference between being wanted and not wanted.
Dr. Alexander: Right.