ROW Episode 36

In this episode we take some time to reflect on the insights to be gleaned from the near-death experiences of others as a means of reminding ourselves of what life is really all about and refocusing our energies on what truly matters.

Episode Transcript

Sovaida (00:08):
Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast
dedicated to envisioning abetter world and to infusing
hope that we can make theprincipled choices to build that
world.
In this episode, we take sometime to reflect on the insights
to be gleaned from the neardeath experiences of others as a

(00:31):
means of reminding ourselves ofwhat life is really all about
and refocusing our energies onwhat truly matters.
Here we are in 2023 and theonslaught of cascading crises
that beset our world continuesto be relentless.
We have wars and securitycrises.

(00:51):
We have energy crises.
We have stubborn and rampantinflation.
Food crises.
The climate crisis continues.
The balkanization of the worldhas really taken root into two
opposing camps, with anaccelerating global arms race
and the looming specter of aglobal war that could well

(01:13):
include nuclear weapons.
I don't know about you, but Ibelieve that we deserve a better
world.
And goodness knows, I think mostof us want a better world.
All of us, no matter whetherwe're American, Russian,
Ukrainian, Chinese, LatinAmerican, African, Asian, or
Middle Easterners, we want aworld in which we are free to

(01:35):
develop our potential and enjoythe basic human rights,
including freedom of belief andspeech, freedom to express
ourselves, freedom of education,adequate housing for ourselves
and our families, healthcare,really the basics, access to
clean food and water.
But to have a better world, weneed to make different choices,

(01:59):
because clearly the choices thatwe've made to date have not
served us very well.
But here's the thing aboutchoices.
We often know exactly what weneed to do and yet we don't seem
to be able to muster the will todo it.
We lack the requisitemotivation.
It's like knowing you need tolose weight because the doctors

(02:21):
told you you have high bloodpressure and you know you have
an autoimmune disease that'sdeveloped and obesity is bad for
it but somehow you can't keepaway from those delicious
desserts.
In our collective life, we knowthat war is not only futile, but
profoundly destructive.
All the evidence is that thecurrent war in Ukraine is going

(02:42):
to decimate the global economy,not just in the near term, but
for quite a while to come.
And in fact, lately, some globalleaders have been saying,"Gosh,
you want to solve poverty andclimate change and all these
major problems.
But let's be clear, unless wesolve our security problems,
there's no way that we're goingto be able to solve these other

(03:03):
problems." So it's thecornerstone.
We know that we need it.

And yet, here we are (03:07):
unable to stop this war.
The Ukraine war has actuallybeen a really wonderful lesson,
if we would just learn it, thatit is time to take a different
kind of action.
Yet our leaders have not beenable to muster the will to
collective action, nor have theydiscovered the secret of unity.

(03:33):
Each country, by and large, withthe exception of a few, is
continuing to calculate based ona national self interest that in
today's interconnected worldfrankly doesn't make sense,
because the reality is that wesink or swim together.
I've been reflecting in this newyear, 2023, on what we can do to

(03:54):
motivate ourselves to take thesteps that we know that we need
to take.
For instance, to stop thissenseless and brutal war.
The backdrop against which Iundertook this personal inner
journey of reflection was thetruth that we all die, and when
we do we leave behind all thesethings that we so desperately

(04:19):
fought to acquire, includingtracts of land in other people's
countries over which we shed somuch blood.
My starting point for thisexploration was to ask, what is
this business we call life allabout?
Because I believe the answer tothis question for each of us is

(04:42):
the key to making better choicesfor ourselves.
Depending on what we believe, sowill we live our lives.
The choices we make about ourlives depend to a large part on
these underlying and oftensubconscious beliefs that we
hold about how these choices fitinto what we view the purposes

(05:08):
of our life to be and why we'rehere.
On the other hand, if we'rebeing really honest with
ourselves, many of us areuncomfortable with this
exploration and choose to keepourselves really busy all the
time, flitting from activity toactivity so that we don't have
to really stop and think aboutwhat is my life all about?

(05:30):
If we believe that this life isall that we have, then of course
we're gonna fight tooth and nailto get the best we can for
ourselves, for our families, forour children, even if it's at
enormous cost to others.
And we do the same for ournations.
My nation comes first, at theexpense of others if necessary.

(05:50):
That's nationalism, as opposedto a sane patriotism.
If, on the other hand, webelieve that there's more to
this life, then the questionbecomes more interesting.
What is that more?
What is it for?
And therefore, what is the truepurpose of our lives here?
I think this is a question thatwe all owe it to ourselves to

(06:15):
think about, reflect upon, andgo out and start a quest.
For the purposes of today'ssharing, I want to tell you that
I started my own quest, usingsome of the tools that we've
talked about in this series,Reimagining Our World.
One of the tools you'll rememberwe talked about was the skill of

(06:35):
unfettered and independentinvestigation of reality.
My own private hope was that Iwould find some insights that
would help me, for myself,answer this question.
Obviously, we're sharing here.
I'm not trying to impose anyviews or thoughts on you.
I'm just sharing with you someinsights that I learned,
actually, from other people.
These are not even my owninsights.

(06:57):
So I went looking for insightsin the experience of other human
beings, mere humans like myself,and I was not disappointed.
In fact, what I found was asource of such clarity that I
thought today I would take a fewminutes to share it with you in
the hopes that you too will findit empowering, eye opening,
thought provoking, and maybeeven a catalyst for renewed

(07:21):
optimism, vigor, and most ofall, making a different set of
choices.
What I came across was onewoman's near death experience,
which I found particularlyinspiring and illuminating.
I'd be very curious to know,What do you think?
She was a teenager at the timethis incident happened.

(07:44):
She was involved in some kind ofmotor accident on the side of a
mountain.
And here's some thoughtprovoking and soul stirring
elements of her story.
Obviously, I'm not going torelay everything in full detail,
but I'm going to relay enough soyou get a picture, and then the
lessons or insights that Igleaned from her sharing.
So the first thing is, theaccident happens and an

(08:05):
ambulance comes to get her, andas she waits, lying there for it
to come, she notices that she'sseeing her body lying there.
It's almost like she's becomedisembodied, and she's
fascinated by this wrist thatshe sees, which looks very
familiar to her.
She realizes after a while thatshe's actually spent her entire

(08:28):
life, all, I think it was 16years of it, associating herself
very strongly with this wrist.
And she, as she conveys this,she says she was amazed that
this had been so, because shesaid,"I thought that this wrist
is in no way an essential partof me." The first lesson that I

(08:49):
came away with from this sharingwas the question, are we placing
inordinate emphasis on ourbodies and on the material
aspect of life?
And if we are, that may be amisguided approach.
The next thing that happens isthat her mother hears about the
accident, arrives, and isunderstandably completely

(09:09):
distraught.
Her daughter is trying now, inthis state that she's in, to
communicate with her mother andassure her and say,"Hey,
actually, I'm fine.
You don't need to be so upset."But because of the level of her
mother's emotional distress, shecan't get through communication
wise.
It's like the emotional distressis clogging the channels, the

(09:31):
communication channelsinterfering with the radio
frequency, if you like, and herability to receive information
from her daughter.
The lesson that I took away fromthis was that death may not
spell an end or the kind of endthat we have come to believe it
does.
And that we continue to maintainawareness and connection,

(09:54):
possibly to our loved ones, ifone were to take the story and
really sit with it.
And that beyond that, maybe wecan still communicate with each
other.
Consequently, we don't need toapproach death of ourselves, of
our loved ones, with the dreadof this permanent separation,
which I think is the reason whymany of us fear death so much.

(10:17):
What if we remain connectedradios on the same frequency?
By the way, the reason I wentlooking for this kind of
material was that lately, Idon't know about you, but I've
lost a number of people, not toCOVID, but I've known a number
of people, been close to anumber of people who have passed
on from this earthly plane.

(10:38):
So these questions are everpresent in my own mind, and it
made me think, I'm sure they'revery present for others.
And to the extent that the waywe answer this question
determines the quality of lifethat we choose to live here,
either individually orcollectively.
Okay, now, more fun.

(10:59):
Once she gets to the hospital inthe ambulance, she finds that
she's taken into this room andthere's a doctor who's on call,
the emergency room doctor, andhe's trying desperately to
revive her but at some point hesays,"Ah, she's dead, she's
gone, no point, I'm giving up."she's aware of all of this
activity.
She says, it's like she couldlook down and see it.

(11:19):
And then she said something verydramatic happened.
Her own personal doctor burstthrough the door and says, No.
I'm going to revive her." Shesaid she could see his
motivation.
He was completely committed toreviving her.
He was not about to give up, andhe was annoyed that the other
doctor was going to give up.
So he continues trying to bringher back and at this point she
says she was trying to say tohim look just let me be I'm

(11:41):
happy where I am but no he'strying and meanwhile she's also
able to experience things thatare going on in other rooms in
the hospital that she's notphysically ever entered.
She heard conversations betweennurses which she was able to
relate to them afterwards andthey were shocked and horrified

(12:02):
and surprised that she was awareof all the goings on in
different parts of the hospital,because she had not physically
been in those parts.
So that brings us to a thirdinsight, which is sorry it's
this actually a continuinginsight about the connectedness,
that what if awareness, so notonly the fact that we may be

(12:25):
able to communicate with ourloved ones after they've
departed from this life, butthat they continue to be aware
of everything that's going onwith us and to be cognizant,
aware, and even communicate.
My mother in law passed a numberof months ago, and I remember
having a conversation with hertowards the end, and her sharing

(12:45):
with me that one of the herbiggest dreads was that once she
was gone, what if she wouldnever be aware of what was going
on in her children and hergrandchildren's lives and that
brought her untold sorrow.
As you can see, I had my ownpersonal spurs for wanting to
pursue this topic.

(13:08):
Okay now we move on to the nextpoint, which is another
beautiful point.
This lady starts to realize, ohmy gosh, there's all this havoc
in the hospital.
My mother's distraught.
The doctors are running aroundlike chickens without their
heads.
They're trying to revive.
We have now been clinically deadfor quite a while, and so
they're arguing amongstthemselves.

(13:30):
She realizes that she needs tostart moving away from this
sphere, this planet.
And as she does she finds thatthe earth, so she zooms farther
away, removes herself, she findsthat the whole earth seems to be
singing or producing thisamazing music, a single song.

(13:52):
And that each of us is a note inthis symphony of the earth.
That to me honestly resonated.
Probably more than anythingelse.
The idea that each of us hereconsists of a note, a note that
we get to play in tandem as partof this amazing symphony.

(14:17):
And that really our only job,our main job here, is to play
this note the best possible waywe can.
Play it on pitch, make it clean,make it beautiful, make it
resonant.
If you've ever been to choirpractice or singing symphony or
orchestral practice, you'll knowwhat I'm talking about.

(14:38):
You know the violins trying tomake sure, first of all, that
their instruments are tuned sothat when they're playing on
pitch with others.
Otherwise, the sound isdissonant.
If my E is different fromsomeone else's E and we're
playing at different pitches, itsounds awful.
We want to harmonize ourselves,but it starts by making sure
that each of us is producing andbeing that note.

(15:02):
Now, how amazing and liberatingis this insight?
First of all, we get to let goof this horrible business that
we've all gotten enmeshed in,which is the business of
comparing ourselves with eachother and others.
For instance, through the use ofsocial media.

(15:23):
There is no better or worsenote.
All notes are important in amusical piece, or in a symphony.
What matters is that they'replayed well.
We also are liberated because weno longer have to worry about
fixing everybody else or theworld.
We can start with somethingmanageable, which is just

(15:44):
ourselves.
What sort of person am I?
What quality of character do Ihave?
How do I treat my fellow humanbeings?
Do I work in harmony withothers?
Am I somebody who builds unity?
Or am I somebody who bringsdivision?
We can also let go of a lot ofcompetition, whether it's

(16:05):
individual competition ornationalistic competition.
And, we can also revel in theknowledge that we are at once
unique as individuals and asnotes in this symphony, and yet
interconnected and part of anindivisible whole.
It therefore makes no sense, itis counterproductive, to create

(16:28):
division based on meaninglessprejudices, on the basis of
gender or race or ethnicity ornationality.
It's just all really silly,because we're all part of this
piece of orchestral music.
Now, the next point is this.
As she continues to move awayfrom the earth, she starts to

(16:50):
become aware of all the actionsthat she's taken in the course
of her short life.
She was still a teenager.
Interestingly, the mostimportant thing is this one
incident that she relays, whichagain really struck me.
She said the most importantthing she'd done was that one
summer, in a camp at which she'dbeen a counselor or something

(17:12):
for a camp for disabledchildren, she had seen a little
boy who was thirsty and she hadgone and asked him if she could
offer him some water and hadgone and brought it to him.
That act, that selfless act ofunconditional love not wanting
anything in return, notexpecting anything in return.
There were no deals to be made.

(17:33):
There was no quid pro quo.
That act was the most importantthing this young woman had done
in her life.
Wow.
That really, to me, puts ourlives in perspective.
So it made me start to thinkabout are all these material
accomplishments on which weplace such inordinate emphasis.

(17:55):
Do they actually count for thatmuch?
Not that they're not important,don't get me wrong, but in the
scheme of life, are the gradeswe get in school, and the
degrees we amass, and our desireto go to the right schools, or
the Ivy League schools, the kindof job we have, the status, or
the label that I have, thesalary that I want, the vacation

(18:17):
homes, the cars, the clubmemberships, not to mention our
looks and all the plasticsurgery we do to make ourselves
look perfect and the clothes andjewelry we amass.
Are these really that important?
Sure, we can enjoy them while weare alive.
None of us can live forever.
We will eventually have to leavethem all behind.

(18:41):
And so we need to put them inperspective and accord them
priority.
They're wonderful enablers forus.
They help bring a touch of joy.
They make life easier up to acertain point, but what if the
real work we're here to do is tohone our qualities of being, our

(19:01):
qualities of character, ourvirtues, in order to prepare
ourselves for a continuation ofthe life of a soul, for
instance?
What if we are souls temporarilyhere in a physical body that
continue to live in other worldsthat we're not cognizant of but

(19:23):
that are real nonetheless.
Our lack of knowledge ofsomething doesn't mean it
doesn't exist, right?
So that's a really importantfactor to also take into
consideration.
So what if it is these acts ofselflessness and service and
qualities like honesty andtruthfulness and compassion and

(19:44):
self abnegation?
What if these are the thingsthat will end up on the resume
and that are actually essentialto our growth.
So this is just a question toponder, because depending on the
conclusion we arrive at, thatwill determine the choices that
we make as a society and as anindividual.

(20:04):
The next point was anotherreally fascinating one.
She says she saw all the actsthat she had done in this life
and she noticed that each actwas like throwing a pebble into
a pond.
It had ripple effects with everwidening circles that never end.
And so we think that things wedo, very often we make decisions

(20:25):
and choices in our lives and wethink,"I'm entitled to make this
decision because it's my lifeand I'm not affecting anyone
else and I get to do what I wantto do." Very individualistic,
especially in Western societies.
But the truth is that we areinterconnected, and when we do
things, they do affect otherpeople.
Whether we like it or not, itjust is.

(20:46):
This is acceptance of reality.
And it's good to just know that,and pause, and accept some
responsibility, and maybe injectsome compassion before we make
decisions, into what, how are mydecisions affecting others?
Interestingly, our world hasbeen given a lot of

(21:07):
opportunities in the last two orthree years to learn this
lesson.
We were given the opportunitywith COVID to recognize that
we're only as safe as everybodyelse is, that it's important to
get enough vaccines out there,that it's important to mask, to
protect others, that we need tothink about others who may be
immunocompromised, and for themwhen they get COVID, it may not

(21:29):
just be a cold or a flu; itcould be deadly.
We're still getting to learnthis lesson with climate change.
The opportunity is still verypresent that all of us need to
pull together.
We can't sit this one out,because everybody has to pull.
The Ukraine war has been anotheramazing demonstration.

(21:50):
It's no longer a war in thatpart of the world.
"It's their business.
Let them duke it out." It hasspawned a Global food crisis, a
global energy crisis, abalkanization of the world
unseen since the Second WorldWar into two opposing camps, an
accelerating arms race.
It's the looming specter ofnuclear war.

(22:11):
We need to actually wake up andrealize that we are
interconnected and our actionsdo matter and do affect each
other.
Isn't it better that we cometogether in consultation and
make collective decisions?
All right, in the midst of thischaos, at one point this lady

(22:34):
said that she was shown groupsof people on planet Earth who
were working towards acollective good of the planet,
and were working for thebetterment of the world, and
working for unity, andapparently this was a good
thing.
The lesson here was that in themidst of the chaos, destruction,
and disintegration that you andI and all of us are

(22:56):
experiencing.
There are groups of people whoare working like the imaginal
discs inside the caterpillarthat is metamorphosing into a
butterfly inside the cocoon, asthe caterpillar starts to
disintegrate and all that goopand mess, these imaginal disks

(23:18):
start to multiply.
They are correlated with theparts of the new butterfly, a
new creation that's to emergefrom the welter of all this
chaos and disorganization.
The question for you and me is,do I want to align myself with
the forces of integration inthis world or disintegration?

(23:40):
Do I want to be a unity builder,or do I want to be the person
who sows division?
Do I want to lend my voice toamplifying racism, sexism,
nationalism and, all thesethings that cause division that
are just based on ignorance ofwho we really are as human

(24:03):
beings and what this journey isthat we're on, or do I want to
be somebody who builds unity.
The story ends with this ladybeing told that it was not yet
her time to transition and thatshe needed to come back to
earth.
Even though she really didn'twant to because she really liked
where she was, she came, eventhough it was at a huge cost to

(24:23):
her physically, because she'dbeen clinically dead for so long
there was enough damage in thebrain and various organs in her
body that it took her a numberof years to get well enough to
be able to function and speakand so on.
And yet she said somethingreally interesting.
She said every day she viewedlife as such a gift to be
savored because it is here for apurpose.

(24:47):
We're not just here to whileaway the hours and count down
the days until death comes.
That is such a depressing way tolook at life.
And especially for those whomaybe suffer with mental health
challenges, this might be athread of hope to cling to that
life is an amazing blessing anda gift and that we get to use it

(25:11):
in order to hone these qualitiesthat we have and also to be in
service to others and buildbonds of unconditional love.
The reason I chose to share thisstory of one person's
experiences that I thought forme, it provided me with a lot of
insights which I've shared withyou.
Obviously, you can take them orleave them.

(25:32):
As I said, I'd be curious toknow your thoughts.
The main thing is that we allneed to broaden our perspective
and don a wider lens about thepurpose of our lives.
We tend to get stuck in theweeds.
Another analogy is we lose sightof the forest for the trees.
By adopting a wider lens andthinking of the purpose of our

(25:53):
lives, we actually start to seethat we have a broader range of
choices that we can make, bothas individuals, in what we think
are very limited lives, or associeties, as collective wholes.
And it puts the whole businessof this carnage of war and our
fears about each other inperspective.

(26:14):
My biggest takeaway from whatI've just shared, is that we're
each at once both more uniquethan we ever thought and more
magnificent and powerful, whileat the same time being more
insignificant than we think.
Very interesting duality.
The insignificance teaches us tobe humble and not be so entitled

(26:38):
and arrogant.
Our sense of uniqueness andcapacity enables us to let go of
destructive comparison andendless competition, and to
revel in our uniqueness and tocultivate it in service to
others.
Most of all, I think my biggesttakeaway is that by acting

(26:59):
together, we can make adifference and will overcome any
challenge, no matter how largeand intractable it may seem,
including all the globalchallenges.
There is strength in unity, andthe answer to all our ills today
is collective action based on aunity of vision.
Once we truly grasp this, we'llbe able to come together and

(27:23):
take the steps that arenecessary to ensure that we are
free, finally, from the scourgeof war, once and for all, of
permanent peace.
Okay, I hope you've enjoyedtoday's session.
I really felt it was important.
We focus on How do we build anew world?

(27:43):
How do we create a globalparliament of the legislature
that can legislate on globallaws?
How can we resolve climatechange?
How?
But before any human being hasthe energy or the inclination to
take on the strategies to tacklethe how, they need to have the
motivation, which is the why.

(28:04):
Why would I want to do this?
Why would I want to expendenergy?
And this topic of what is mylife about, what am I here to
do, to me, galvanizes me, givesme the motivation to then do all
the work that has to do with thewhat and the how.

(28:25):
All right, I'm going to take aquick look to see if there are
comments.
Wonderful.
Some of you who are present herehave enjoyed today's
presentation.
I'm very glad.
And please feel free to go andto type in the your comments.
And if you like this program,please go to our YouTube

(28:47):
channel, which is called CPGG,Center for Peace and Global
Governance, and subscribe.
It's free.
That way you'll get notifiedabout the programs as they come
up once a month on differentweekends because of my schedule.
And I'd love to hear from you.
So thank you again so much andtake care.
I'll see you next month.

(29:08):
Bye bye.
That's all for this episode ofReimagining Our World.
I'll see you back here nextmonth.
If you liked this episode,please help us to get the word
out by rating us and subscribingto the program on your favorite
podcast platform.
This series is also available invideo on the YouTube channel of

(29:32):
the Center for Peace and GlobalGovernance, CPGG.