THE LURE OF SACRED LANDSCAPE
The great Jewish, Platonic, philosopher, Philo, lived in Alexandria, Egypt around 20 B.C.E. to 50 C.E. Philo said that the story of Abraham’s journey was an archetypal symbol for the journey of the soul from bondage to liberation, from ignorance to enlightenment, from the old to the new, from the way things are, to the way things ought to be.
Closer to our time, a neurosurgeon has undergone an astounding soul pilgrimage and has written about it in his best-selling book, Proof of Heaven. Dr. Eben Alexander, many years on the Harvard Medical School faculty as a highly specialized neurosurgeon, became deathly ill with Ecoli meningitis in 2008.
The meningitis attacked his brain and anti-biotics seemed powerless to stop the advance of the horrific disease, nearly always fatal. He fell into a deep coma for seven days. But when he unexpectedly awoke, he had amazing stories to tell from his so-called near-death experience.
While in the coma, the neo-cortex of his brain was technically dead. All the tests verified that. But the mind and soul and spirit were vividly and truly alive to experience the deep dimensions of the universe and the ever-present, unconditional love of God. His experiences of mind were, as he says, “brilliant, vibrant, stunning…” and “completely real” even though the neo-cortex of his brain was technically dead, (p. 39) the part of the brain that makes us “human”, so to speak.
As a scientist and highly specialized neurosurgeon who had performed hundreds of surgeries on the brain, Dr. Alexander in the past had an essentially materialistic view of reality. He was a nominal Christian but a practical doubter, believing that the mind, spirit and soul were produced by the brain, by a complex organizing of material particles. Once the brain died, the mind, spirit and soul died, he thought.
However, that was Dr. Alexander B.C. (before coma). The A.C. (after coma) Dr. Alexander had been totally transformed to believe that mind and consciousness underlie all reality. The brain does not create the mind; the mind creates the brain and works through it. Consciousness is not a product of a complex body and brain; body and brain are complex products of consciousness. “True thought is pre-physical”, says Dr. Alexander.
Dr. Alexander goes on to say that “the unconditional love and acceptance that I experienced is the single most important discovery I have ever made…” (p. 73) He continues, “none of us is 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.” (p.96)
Shunning the scientific, materialistic, reductionism of his medical past, Dr. Alexander affirmed that consciousness is the basis of all that exists and is more real than the rest of the physical existence. (p. 154) We are all connected, and without “recovering that memory of our larger connectedness, and the unconditional love of our Creator, we will always feel lost here on earth.”, says Dr. Alexander.
What do you think of Dr. Alexander’s experience? Do you personally know persons who have had a near-death experience? Do the soul, spirit and mind underlie the brain and produce the longing for sacred landscapes?
