Eben Alexander Quotes

Laughter and irony are at heart reminders that we are not prisoners in this world, but voyagers through it.

Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal-and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.

A story-a true story-can heal as much as medicine can.

Our eternal spiritual self is more real than anything we perceive in this physical realm, and has a divine connection to the infinite love of the Creator.

My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the Universe itself and all the beings withing it are ultimately goind.

Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows-the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

My journey deep into coma, outside this lowly physical realm and into the loftiest dwelling place of the almighty Creator, revealed the indescribably immense chasm between our human knowledge and the awe-inspiring realm of God.

Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth—no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger picture love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be triumphant.

You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong. If I had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way: You are loved. And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would (of course) be, simply: Love.

there are really no “objects” in the world at all, only vibrations of energy, and relationships.

Physical life is characterized by defensiveness, whereas spiritual life is just the opposite.

Your family is who you are.

The brain itself does not produce consciousness. That it is, instead, a kind of reducing valve or filter, shifting the larger, nonphysical consciousness that we possess in the non physical worlds down into a more limited capacity for the duration of our mortal lives.

We—each of us—are intricately, irremovably connected to the larger universe. It is our true home, and thinking that this physical world is all that matters is like shutting oneself up in a small closet and imagining that there is nothing else out beyond it.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

The (false) suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it—which I received partially within the Gateway and completely within the Core—was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.

Science—the science to which I’ve devoted so much of my life—doesn’t contradict what I learned up there. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist.

The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part.

None of us are ever unloved. Each and every one of us is deeply known and cared for by a Creator who cherishes us beyond any ability we have to comprehend.

I didn’t just believe in God; I knew God.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.” “You have nothing to fear.” “There is nothing you can do wrong.

We can only see what our brain’s filter allows through.

observation comes first, then interpretation.

Those implications are tremendous beyond description. My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going.

For all the successes of Western civilization, the world paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence - the human spirit. The shadow side of high technology - modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources - is bad enough. Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity.

The part of my brain that was responsible for creating the world I lived and moved in and for taking the raw data that came in through my senses and fashioning it into a meaningful universe: that part of my brain was down, and out. And yet despite all of this, I had been alive, and aware, truly aware, in a universe characterized above all by love, consciousness, and reality. There was, for me, simply no arguing this fact. I knew it so completely that I ached.

Hallucinogens affect the neocortex, and my neocortex wasn’t available to be affected.

Omniscient, omnipotent, personal—and loving us without conditions.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. —ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879–1955)

There is, some say, in God a deep but dazzling darkness . . .” That was it, exactly: an inky darkness that was also full to brimming with light.

Humans are built to adapt.

There were children, too, laughing and playing. The people sang and danced around in circles, and sometimes I’d see a dog, running and jumping among them, as full of joy as the people were.

When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through heaven’s gates I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne, He said, “This is eternity, And all I’ve promised you. Today your life on earth is past But here it starts anew. I promise no tomorrow, But today will always last, And since each day’s the same way, There’s no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Though there were times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do. But you have been forgiven And now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand And share my life with me?” So when tomorrow starts without me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart.

On the subatomic level, however, this universe of separate objects turns out to be a complete illusion. In the realm of the super-super-small, every object in the physical universe is intimately connected with every other object.

So I was communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way, it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn't feel that way. Instead, I felt like I was doing what every soul is able to do when they leave their bodies, and what we can all do right now through various methods of prayer or deep meditation. Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal--and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.

Everything—the uncanny clarity of my vision, the clearness of my thoughts as pure conceptual flow—suggested higher, not lower, brain functioning.

I have learned that contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of what you already have,

The word human itself comes from the same root as humus, earth.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —SØREN KIERKEGAARD (1813–1855)

most skeptics aren’t really skeptics at all. To be truly skeptical, one must actually examine something, and take it seriously.

You are loved and cherished, you have nothing to fear, there is nothing you can do wrong.

If each of us takes personal responsibility for managing our heart’s energy (not someone else’s), imagine how the world might change.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

To say that there is still a chasm between our current scientific understanding of the universe and the truth as I saw it is a considerable understatement. I still love physics and cosmology, still love studying our vast and wonderful universe. Only I now have a greatly enlarged conception of what “vast” and “wonderful” really mean. The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part. In my past view, spiritual wasn’t a word that I would have employed during a scientific conversation. Now I believe it is a word that we cannot afford to leave out.

Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was as a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe was literally awash. The very fabric of the alternate dimension is love and acceptance, and anything that does not have these qualities appears immediately and obviously out of place there.

There was, quite simply, no way that my experiences, with their intensely sophisticated visual and aural levels, and their high degree of perceived meaning, were the product of the reptilian portion of my brain.

regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

How did I gain from not remembering my earthly self? It allowed me to go deep into realms beyond the worldly without having to worry about what I was leaving behind. Throughout my entire time in those worlds, I was a soul with nothing to lose. No places to miss, no people to mourn. I had come from nowhere and had no history, so I fully accepted my circumstances—even the initial murk and mess of the Realm of the Earthworm’s-Eye View—with equanimity.

Angels? These words registered when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher.

To experience thinking outside the brain is to enter a world of instantaneous connections that make ordinary thinking (i.e those aspects limited by the physical brain and the speed of light_ seem like some hopelessly sleepy and plodding event. Our truest, deepest self is completely free. It is not crippled or compromised by past actions or concerned with identity or status. It comprehends that it has no need to fear the earthly world, and therefore, it has no need to build itself up through fame or wealth or conquest.

It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power. We are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible and which are not. —CARL SAGAN (1934–1996)

and struggles to understand. But—again, paradoxically—Om is “human” as well—even more human than you and I are. Om understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.

To become more aware of your observer, practice being in a completely neutral state, with no attachment to specific outcomes, and offer a wide-open acceptance to whatever shows up. If thoughts arise, simply note them in your mind with no judgment, and no analysis. Watching your thoughts like this on a regular basis brings you more in touch with the inner observer.

Among other things, HeartMath research tests theories about the electromagnetic field of the human heart using machines that measure faint magnetic fields, such as those that are often used in MRIs and cardiologic tests. Remarkably, the heart’s toroidally shaped electrical field is sixty times greater than that of the brain, and its magnetic field is 5,000 times greater than that of the brain. The heart generates the strongest electromagnetic field in the body, and its pumping action transmits powerful rhythmic information patterns containing neurological, hormonal, and electromagnetic data to the brain and throughout the rest of the body. The heart actually sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. In other words, the heart has a mind of its own. Studies reveal this electromagnetic field seems to pick up information in the surrounding environment and also broadcasts one’s emotional state out from the body. Their measurements reveal that the field is large enough to extend several feet (or more) outside our bodies. Positive moods such as gratitude, joy, and happiness correlate to a larger, more expanded heart field, while emotions such as greed, anger, or sadness correlate to a constricted heart field.

This earthly realm is, I believe, where we are meant to learn the lessons of unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance. Our knowing of our eternal spiritual nature is not meant to be as clear to us as the moon rising in the sky at night. Our ability to fully learn the most important lessons of life depends on our being partially veiled from that more complete (yet finite) knowing that our higher souls possess between lives. How

Cuando mañana comience sin mí Y no esté ahí para ver, Si el sol fuera a salir y encontrara tus ojos Llenos de lágrimas por mí; Deseo tanto que no llores De la manera que lo hiciste hoy, Mientras pensabas en las muchas cosas, Que no llegamos a decir. Sé lo mucho que me amas, Tanto como te amo a ti, Y cada vez que pienses en mí, Sé que también me extrañarás; Pero cuando mañana comience sin mí, Por favor trata de comprender, Que un ángel vino y dijo mi nombre, Y me tomó de la mano, Y me dijo que mi lugar estaba listo, En el cielo allá arriba Y que tendría que dejar atrás A todos los que tanto amaba. Pero mientras daba la vuelta para marcharme, Derramé una lágrima Porque toda la vida, siempre creí, Que no quería morir. Tenía tanto por lo que vivir, Tanto aún por hacer, Parecía casi imposible, Que te estuviera dejando a ti. Pensé en todos los ayeres, Los buenos y los malos, El pensamiento de todo el amor que compartimos, Y todo lo que nos divertimos. Si pudiera revivir el ayer Aunque fuera por un rato, Te diría adiós y te besaría Y quizá te vería sonreír. Pero entonces comprendí en su totalidad Que esto nunca podría ser, Porque el vacío y los recuerdos, Tomarían mi lugar. Y cuando pensé en cosas terrenales Que mañana podría extrañar, Pensé en ti, y cuando lo hice Mi corazón se llenó de pena. Pero al cruzar las puertas del cielo Me sentí tan en casa Cuando Dios me miró y me sonrió, Desde Su gran trono dorado, Dijo: “Esta es la eternidad

Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows—the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist, and no remotely accurate

Fascinating research results point to the realization that our hearts interconnect and exchange information with others. In studies, subjects are trained to enact specific heart coherence techniques such as focusing awareness in the area surrounding the heart and generating a feeling of appreciation. Coherence reflects a higher state of balance and synchronization in the body’s cognitive, emotional, and physiological processes, leading to lowering of stress reactions and more efficient function. Positive emotions are correlated with higher degrees of coherence, thus generating appreciation in the heart alone can beneficially affect the person’s physiological functions, including the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

One of my favorite books, and one that changed how I think about software and the evolution of ideas, was A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander (Oxford University Press).

Receive the prayers. You have healed others. Now is your turn to be healed. You are loved by many. Your body knows what to do. It is not your time to die.

Human beings have been around in our modern form for about one hundred thousand years. For most of this time, three questions have been intensely important to us: Who are we?

Where did we come from? Where are we going?

In a very real sense, we seem to experience a greater sense of consciousness the less certain parts of our brain are actively functioning.

believe human beings will be able to access in ever larger numbers in the future. But conveying that knowledge now is rather like being a chimpanzee, becoming a human for a single day to experience all of the wonders of human knowledge, and then returning to one’s chimp friends and trying to tell them what it was like knowing several different Romance languages, the calculus, and the immense scale of the universe.

Hearing my story seemed to give him a license he had been longing for someone to give him: the license to believe what he had seen with his own eyes--to KNOW that deep and comforting truth: that our eternal spiritual self is more real than anything we perceive in this physical realm, and has a divine connection to the infinite love of the Creator.

Diese Treffen mit meiner leiblichen Familie gaben mir seltsamerweise zum ersten Mal in meinem Leben das Gefühl, dass tatsächlich irgendwie alles in Ordnung war. Familie ist wichtig, und ich hatte meine zurück […] Zu wissen, woher ich kam, meinen biologischen Ursprung zu kennen, erlaubte mir, auf überraschende Weise Dinge an mir selbst zu sehen und zu akzeptieren.

Our choice is not whether or not to be interested in philosophical questions, but whether or not to become conscious of the fact that, as human beings, we can’t help but be. To

Death: It is the greatest adventure. It is stunning that in western civilization we deny it to the degree that we do. Perhaps that goes a long way toward explaining our societal dysfunction. The

Dogmatic religion is not open to people having direct access to those higher realms.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. —ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879–1955) I

times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do.

There is a considerable difference between believing something, and knowing it. It is crucial not to simply believe what others say and then adopt those beliefs, including everything stated in this book. It is most beneficial to learn firsthand, to cultivate and trust personal experience in order to develop an inner capacity of knowing. Each of us will proceed on a slightly different path, according to unique motivations and goals. Letting go of ingrained beliefs can be extremely valuable

whatever our struggles and sufferings in the present world are, they can’t truly touch the larger, eternal beings we in truth are. Laughter and irony are at heart reminders that we are not prisoners in this world, but voyagers through it.

Meditation comes in many different forms. The most useful for me since my coma has been that developed by Robert A. Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia. Their freedom from any dogmatic philosophy offers a distinct advantage. The only dogma associated with Monroe’s system of meditative exercises is: I am more than my physical body. This simple acknowledgment has profound implications.

found some correlation between elements that I identified from the music of my NDE and similar music she has identified among other NDE-ers in her “Dead Symphony” project.I

neuroscience has come to believe that all of our human qualities of language, reason, thought, auditory and visual perceptions, emotional forces, etc.—essentially all of the qualities of mental experience that become part of our human awareness—are directly derived from the most powerful calculator in the human brain: the neocortex. Although

The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. —J. B. S. HALDANE (1892–1964),

« Il n’y a que deux façons de vivre sa vie. L’une en faisant comme si rien n’était un miracle, l’autre en faisant comme si tout était un miracle. » — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

For most of this time, three questions have been intensely important to us: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. —MAX PLANCK (1858–1947), QUANTUM PHYSICIST

My whole life has been a search for belonging.

later, Phyllis said that the one thing she remembered above all else about that week was the rain. A cold, driving rain from low-hanging clouds that never let up and never let the sun peek through. But then, that Sunday morning as she pulled her car into the hospital

faces bubbled out of the muck, groaned or screeched, and then were gone again. I heard an occasional dull roar. Sometimes these roars changed to dim, rhythmic chants, chants that were both terrifying and weirdly familiar—as if at some point I’d known and uttered them all myself. As I had no memory of

That was it, exactly: an inky darkness that was also full to brimming with light. The

maneuvers toward you). It was exciting for the two junior members, but also for those of us who were more seasoned, because we were building the team, adding to the experience of jumpers who’d later be capable of joining us for even bigger formations. I was to be the

function of the physical brain by globally synchronizing my neocortical electrical activity, just as my meningitis might have done, to liberate my out-of-body consciousness. I believe Hemi-Sync has enabled me to return to a realm similar to that which I visited deep in coma, but without having to be deathly ill. But just as in my dreams of flying

palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but that doesn’t get you wet. Seeing and hearing were not separate in this place where I now was. I could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of those scintillating beings above, and I could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they

When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile.

became aware of a smell: a little like feces, a little like blood, and a little like vomit. A biological smell, in other words,

The universe has no beginning or end, and

Meanwhile, I was in a place of clouds.

puffy, pink-white ones that showed up sharply against the deep blue-black sky.

not separate in this place where I now was. I could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of those scintillating beings above, and I could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they sang.

his chair, just beneath his drawing of the battle between the white blood cell soldiers and the invading E. coli troops. “He doesn’t

By now it had been raining for five days straight, ever since the afternoon

How do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self? By manifesting love and compassion. Why? Because love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be. They are real. They are concrete. And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm. In order to return to that realm, we must once again become like that realm, even while we are stuck in, and plodding through, this one.

This earthly realm is, I believe, where we are meant to learn the lessons of unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance.

through, like the kind that spring up on the most perfect summer days, tossing the leaves of the trees and flowing past like heavenly water. A divine breeze. It changed everything, shifting the world around me into an even higher octave, a higher vibration. Although I still had little language