Death, Reincarnation and Near-Death Experiences: Scientific and Mystical Perspectives

what is. Here in this instant the reality of facts becomes evident. Either one has operated an inner transmutation, changing what one is in one's own nature, or everything we have done becomes useless like a dream upon awakening. This awareness was precisely reached as a result of the meditations on death from ancient tradition. What can man initiate in his life? The meditation on death focused on these 3 fundamental points: •transience of earthly splendors: thus all constructions undertaken now are ruins and time destroys everything •decay of the beauty of human form: aging, the ephemeral joys of youth are joys, but ephemeral. •equality of every social condition: the glory conquered, social position passes with time and is forgotten. As a result of these meditations, the mystic had to come to understand that the only thing worth changing, the only work that needed to be undertaken was one's own work of awakening and transmutation. One must find a part of oneself that is immortal and change this part. Having said this, let us see what death is and the process of death. WHAT IS DEATH ACCORDING TO SCIENCE What is the process of death and what is the destiny of life after death? What is death? According to medical science, death is a process of cessation of physiological activities. These activities are cardiac, respiratory, cerebral. In particular, from a legal point of view, an individual is considered dead when there is a permanent absence of electrical activity in the cerebral cortex. This is based on the belief that human consciousness resides in the cerebral cortex and that therefore after a few hours of absence of electrical stimuli in the cerebral cortex we are in the presence of brain death. From this point on, contemporary science does not investigate. Not only does it not investigate but it even considers it impossible to investigate. Indeed, one of the problems that currently hinders the investigation of knowledge of life after death is the cultural dogma that "one cannot know what there is after death." It is important to note that it is not that opportunities would be lacking to deepen the subject even from a scientific point of view. Reincarnation The case of Ian Stevenson, head of the Department of Psychiatry at Virginia, is well known, who in his 40-year career collected more than 3000 extremely well-documented cases of reincarnation testimonies. Stevenson's work is considered well done even by the most skeptical such as Carl Sagan. NDE Equally known are the studies by Pim van Lommel published in Lancet which, after analyzing more than 340 cases in a prospective study, concludes that near-death experiences (NDE) cannot be caused by an anomaly in brain reactivation. Studies on NDEs are very interesting and an extensive collection of these experiences has shown that about 10% of survivors of cardiac arrest have had near-death experiences with some or all of the following characteristic features: • 1 AWARENESS OF BEING DEAD 31 (50%): • 2 POSITIVE EMOTIONS 35 (56%): often incommunicable and cessation of pain. • 3 OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE 15 (24%): they see themselves from the outside and can also describe things or objects they cannot know: The first is an account of an OBE told by a nurse from a coronary unit. The account, taken from one of our articles published in Lancet, was verified by us, and we asked the nurse to write it to us in the most objective way possible. During the night shift, an ambulance crew brings us a 44-year-old man in a coma; the patient is cyanotic (has purple-colored skin). He had been found about an hour earlier in a public garden by some passersby who had started cardiac massage. Admitted to the coronary unit, he is artificially ventilated with a balloon and mask, cardiac massage is continued and the patient is defibrillated. When I prepare to change the ventilation method, that is, when I prepare to intubate the patient, I notice that he has dentures in his mouth. Before intubating him, I remove the upper denture and place it on the emergency cart. Meanwhile, we continue resuscitation maneuvers. After about ninety minutes, the patient again has an adequate heart rhythm and sufficient blood pressure, but is still intubated and ventilated, and remains in a coma. In this state he is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue artificial ventilation. After more than a week of coma, the patient returns to the coronary unit, and I meet him when I pass by for dressings. As soon as he sees me he says: "Oh, yes, but you, you know where my dentures are?" I am speechless. Then he tells me: "Yes, you were there when they brought me to the hospital, you took the dentures out of my mouth and put them on that cart; there were all those bottles on top and there was also a sliding drawer underneath, and you put my dentures there." I was totally shocked, because I remembered that this had happened while the patient was in a deep coma and was being resuscitated. After further questions, I learned that the patient had seen himself lying in bed and had observed from above the nurses and doctors who were resuscitating him. He was also able to give an accurate and detailed description of the small room where he had been resuscitated and the appearance of those who were present. While watching this scene, he was terrified by the fear that we would stop resuscitation and that therefore he would have to die. And it is true that we had been very pessimistic about his prognosis, due to the poor conditions in which he had presented at the time of admission. The patient tells me he had made desperate but futile attempts to let us know that he was still alive and that we should continue resuscitation. He remained deeply impressed by this experience and says he no longer