An afterlife or no afterlife? That is the question posed here. If the answer is no, then there is not much to discuss and the conversation will be a very short one. If yes, then there is an endless conversation containing infinite possibilities. What I find the most intersting is the beginning point of this discussion; that is, the transition from this life/realm into the next. Particularly, the ubiquitous reports of those near-death-experiences (NDEs) and tunnel of light stories reported from everywhere around the world. Ironically, the frequency of these reports have  increased in the last 50 years because of the advancement of scientific technology in the form of resuscitation equipment and ER surgical knowledge. Thus, science has actually advanced this conversation down the field (or up the light tunnel–depending on your preferred analogy). The point of these commonality of experiences (that crosses myth, religion, culture) is that dying seems to involve, at the very least, these two events: 1) A separation from your physical body (is this your soul?) and 2) Traveling upward to light and/or through a light tunnel (to where exactly?). Can’t ignore the huge amount of these well documented cases, but what to make of them? Is it just the dying brain shutting down and turning off?

In the image above, we see in the dying man’s eyes a reflection of what he sees. It is the tunnel of light. What do we see when we die? Well, the bulk of the evidences suggests we see a tunnel of light. There is an obscure book that I came across years ago called ” The Last Words of Saints and Sinners.” A simple compilation of hundreds and hundreds of documented quotes of people’s last words, and experiences, as well as some descriptions of what they saw right before they died. Whatever your viewpoint,  it’s a fascinating read. This reminds me of what was described about what Steve Jobs was seeing on his death bed. Before embarking, he looked for a long time at his gathered family, then looked up over their shoulders past them and, right before he died, said these last final words: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

What did he see? OH WOW indeed!

— SM