posted June 27, 2008 09:32 PM              

In Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, Chopra begins by immersing the reader in the lore of the India of his childhood, explaining how the afterlife can be seen as open-ended and fluid, like life itself. Weaving his narrative around the haunting tale of Savitri, a humble woodcutter's wife in ancient India who came home to find Lord Yama, the god of death, sitting before her house, and her desperate struggle to vanquish him, Chopra entices the reader into a world where heroes battle darkness in order to emerge into the light.

He then takes us far beyond the Christian story of heaven and hell, showing why the only conception of death that makes sense must allow the freedom to experience everything. Life After Death aims to give everyone a chance for freedom, here and in every world to come. "Whatever it is that occurs at death," he writes, "I believe it deserves to be called a miracle. The miracle, ironically, is that we don't die."Fascinatingly, Chopra finds some of his most profound answers by looking to the anomalies physicists are trying to explain, and explores how the rishis, the ancient sages of Vedanta, dealt with the very same dilemmas.

Marrying science and wisdom, Chopra builds his case for an afterlife that merges seamlessly with material life: “The idea that I have a fixed body locked in space and time is a mirage.” Faith takes a back seat to rational proof in the book. In fact, Chopra says, the afterlife is a field where science is quickly advancing over worn-out religious beliefs.

The assumption that no knowledge can be gained about 'the other side' is being disproved on many fronts.

At the University of Virginia an ongoing program has located over 2,500 children who remember past lives, including details about former lifetimes that can be factually verified.
Information theory is having an influence on cutting-edge physics. It theorizes that like matter and energy, information cannot be destroyed. In other words, survival of the soul may be a matter of conserving information.
Also in physics, quantum field theory has led to experiments (at Princeton among other places) where ordinary people can change reality through intention alone--they can make a computer generate numbers, for example, in a certain pattern. This goes a long way to showing that the mind isn't confined to the brain.
Cross-cultural studies are showing that societies as diverse as Tibet and modern America display exactly the same near-death phenomena.
Chopra has waited twenty years to write LIFE AFTER DEATH: The Burden of Proof, the first major book on the afterlife in decades. Inspiring, brilliant, and ultimately encouraging, his insights will change the minds of countless people who have pondered the mystery that lies on 'the other side.' It also contains a great gift: an antidote to our fears, so we can see clearly the full majesty of the infinite arc of birth, death and the life beyond.

posted June 27, 2008 09:35 PM              

In Life After Death, Chopra draws on cutting-edge scientific discoveries and the great wisdom traditions to provide a map of the afterlife. It’s a fascinating journey into many levels of consciousness. But far more important is his urgent message: Who you meet in the afterlife and what you experience there reflect your present beliefs, expectations, and level of awareness. In the here and now you can shape what happens after you die.

posted June 28, 2008 02:29 PM              

quote:

---

For the afterlife to have meaning, it has to be fully as satisfying as this life. Bringing money, power, sex, family, achievement, and physical pleasure to an end is not a trivial thing. Much that we love and depend on will be extinguished when this life comes to an end. And yet we can bring something to that moment. Many years ago when I was an inexperienced medical resident in Boston, an older couple was admitted to the hospital together. The husband was at the end of a long struggle with colon cancer. The wife, although she had a history of cardiac disease, was in much better shape. The two shared a room, and over the few days that I visited them, I could see how attatched they were to each other.

The husband lingered for days, passing in and out of consciousness, in considerable pain. His wife sat beside him holding his hand, hour after hour. Then one morning I came in to find her bed empty --- she had died suddenly of cardiac arrest during the night. The husband was having a lucid period, so I told him the news, reluctantly since I was afraid of the shock it would give. But he seemed very calm.

"I think I'll go now, " he said. "I've been waiting."

"For what?" I asked him.

"A gentleman always allows the lady to go first," he said. He lapsed back into unconsciousness and passed away that afternoon.

He reminds me of what we can choose to bring to dying. Grace, calm, a patient acceptance of what's to come: These are all qualities that can be cultivated, and when they are, death is a test we will not fail. Our fault is not that we fear death but that we don't respect it as a miracle. The most profound subjects -- love, truth, compassion, birth and death -- are equal. They belong to our destiny but also to our present life. Ultimately the goal of this book is to bring death into the present and thereby make it equal to love.

To that end, I will continue with the story of Savitri, a woman who sought to use love to outwit death, as an interlude in our discussion of the afterlife. In the fullness of love there is a secret that she learned and we must relearn. Tagore hints at it quite beautifully in the following poem.

What Will You Give?

What will you give
When death knocks at your door?

The fullness of my life --
The sweet wine of autumn days and summer nights,
My little hoard gleaned through the years,
And hours rich with living.

These will be my gift.
When death knocks at my door.

---

posted March 26, 2019 03:31 PM            

Two weeks ago my overSoul
and Deepak Chopra's
conversed, he wanted to
know some things. ...