There is life after death. And there are thousands of evidences of this. Until now, fundamental science has dismissed such stories. However, as Natalya Bekhtereva, a famous scientist who has studied the activity of the brain all her life, said, our consciousness is such matter that it seems that the keys to the secret door have already been selected. But behind it there are ten more... What is behind the door of life?
“She sees right through everything...”
Galina Lagoda was returning with her husband in a Zhiguli car from a country trip. Trying to pass an oncoming truck on a narrow highway, the husband sharply pulled to the right... The car was crushed by a tree standing by the road.
Intravision
Galina was brought to the Kaliningrad regional hospital with severe brain damage, ruptured kidneys, lungs, spleen and liver, and many fractures. The heart stopped, the pressure was at zero. “Having flown through black space, I found myself in a shining, light-filled space,” Galina Semyonovna tells me twenty years later. “In front of me stood a huge man in dazzling white clothes. I couldn’t see his face because of the light beam directed at me. “Why did you come here?” - he asked sternly. “I’m very tired, let me rest a little.” - “Rest and come back - you still have a lot to do.” Having regained consciousness after two weeks, during which she balanced between life and death, the patient told the head of the intensive care department, Evgeniy Zatovka, how the operations were carried out, which of the doctors stood where and what they did, what equipment they brought, from which cabinets they took what. After another operation on a shattered arm, Galina, during her morning medical rounds, asked the orthopedic doctor: “How is your stomach?” From amazement, he did not know what to answer - indeed, the doctor was tormented by abdominal pain. Now Galina Semyonovna lives in harmony with herself, believes in God and is not at all afraid of death.
"Flying like a cloud"
Yuri Burkov, a reserve major, does not like to remember the past. His story was told by his wife Lyudmila: - Yura fell from high altitude, broke his spine and received a traumatic brain injury, lost consciousness. After cardiac arrest, he lay in a coma for a long time. I was under terrible stress. During one of my hospital visits I lost my keys. And the husband, having finally regained consciousness, first of all asked: “Did you find the keys?” I shook my head in fear. “They are under the stairs,” he said. Only many years later did he confess to me: while he was in a coma, he saw my every step and heard every word - no matter how far I was from him. He flew in the form of a cloud, including to where his deceased parents and brother live. The mother tried to persuade her son to return, and the brother explained that they were all alive, only they no longer had bodies. Years later, sitting at the bedside of his seriously ill son, he reassured his wife: “Lyudochka, don’t cry, I know for sure that he won’t leave now. He will be with us for another year." And a year later, at the wake of his deceased son, he admonished his wife: “He did not die, but only moved to another world before you and me. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
Savely KASHNITSKY, Kaliningrad - Moscow.
Childbirth under the ceiling
“While the doctors were trying to pump me out, I watched interesting thing: bright white light (there is nothing like this on Earth!) and a long corridor. And so I seem to be waiting to enter this corridor. But then the doctors resuscitated me. During this time I felt that it was very cool THERE. I didn’t even want to leave!” These are the memories of 19-year-old Anna R., who survived clinical death. Such stories can be found in abundance on Internet forums where the topic of “life after death” is discussed.
Light in the tunnel
Light at the end of the tunnel, pictures of life flashing before your eyes, a feeling of love and peace, meetings with deceased relatives and certain glowing creature- patients who returned from the other world talk about this. True, not all, but only 10-15% of them. The rest did not see or remember anything at all. The dying brain does not have enough oxygen, which is why it is “glitchy,” say skeptics. Disagreements among scientists have reached the point that the start of a new experiment was recently announced. During three years American and British doctors will study the testimony of patients whose hearts stopped or their brains turned off. Among other things, the researchers are going to put various pictures on the shelves in the intensive care wards. You can see them only by soaring right up to the ceiling. If patients who have experienced clinical death retell their contents, it means that consciousness is really capable of leaving the body. One of the first who tried to explain the phenomenon of near-death experiences was academician Vladimir Negovsky. He founded the world's first Institute of General Reanimatology. Negovsky believed (and the scientific view has not changed since then) that the “light at the end of the tunnel” was explained by the so-called tube vision. The cortex of the occipital lobes of the brain dies off gradually, the field of vision narrows to a narrow strip, creating the impression of a tunnel. In a similar way, doctors explain the vision of pictures of a past life flashing before the gaze of a dying person. Brain structures fade and then recover unevenly. Therefore, a person manages to remember the most bright events, deposited in memory. And the illusion of leaving the body, according to doctors, is the result of a failure of nerve signals. However, skeptics reach a dead end when it comes to answering more tricky questions. Why do people who are blind from birth, at the moment of clinical death, see and then describe in detail what is happening in the operating room around them? And there is such evidence.
Leaving the body is a defensive reaction
It is curious, but many scientists do not see anything mystical in the fact that consciousness can leave the body. The only question is what conclusion to draw from this. Leading Researcher Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Spivak, member of the International Association studies of near-death experiences, assures that clinical death is only one of the options for an altered state of consciousness. “There are a lot of them: these are dreams, and drug experience, and a stressful situation, and the consequence of illness,” he says. “According to statistics, up to 30% of people at least once in their lives have felt leaving the body and observed themselves from the outside.” Dmitry Spivak himself examined the mental state of women in labor and found that about 9% of women experience “leaving the body” during childbirth! Here is the testimony of 33-year-old S.: “During childbirth, I had a lot of blood loss. Suddenly I began to see myself from under the ceiling. Disappeared painful sensations. And about a minute later she also unexpectedly returned to her place in the room and again began to experience severe pain" It turns out that “leaving the body” is a normal phenomenon during childbirth. Some kind of mechanism embedded in the psyche, a program that works in extreme situations. Undoubtedly, childbirth is an extreme situation. But what could be more extreme than death itself?! It is possible that “flying in a tunnel” is also a protective program that is activated at a fatal moment for a person. But what will happen to his consciousness (soul) next? "One dying woman“I asked: if there really is something THERE, try to give me a sign,” the doctor recalls medical sciences Andrey Gnezdilov, who works at the St. Petersburg hospice. - And on the 40th day after death, I saw her in a dream. The woman said: “This is not death.” Long years work in the hospice convinced me and my colleagues: death is not the end, not the destruction of everything. The soul continues to live." Dmitry PISARENKO
Cup and polka dot dress
This story was told by Andrey Gnezdilov, Doctor of Medical Sciences: “During the operation, the patient’s heart stopped. The doctors were able to start it, and when the woman was transferred to intensive care, I visited her. She complained that she was not operated on by the same surgeon who promised. But she could not see the doctor, being in an unconscious state all the time. The patient said that during the operation some force pushed her out of her body. She calmly looked at the doctors, but then she was overcome by horror: what if I die before I can say goodbye to my mother and daughter? And her consciousness instantly moved home. She saw that the mother was sitting, knitting, and her daughter was playing with a doll. Then a neighbor came in and brought a polka dot dress for her daughter. The girl rushed towards her, but touched the cup - it fell and broke. The neighbor said: “Well, that’s good. Apparently, Yulia will be discharged soon.” And then the patient again found herself at the operating table and heard: “Everything is fine, she is saved.” Consciousness returned to the body. I went to visit this woman’s relatives. And it turned out that during the operation... a neighbor came in with a polka dot dress for a girl and the cup was broken.” It's not the only one mysterious case in the practice of Gnezdilov and other workers of the St. Petersburg hospice. They are not surprised when a doctor dreams of his patient and thanks him for his care and touching attitude. And in the morning, upon arriving at work, the doctor finds out that the patient died during the night...
Church opinion
Priest Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the press service of the Moscow Patriarchate: - Orthodox people believe in afterlife and immortality. IN Holy Scripture There is a lot of confirmation and evidence of this in the Old and New Testaments. We consider the very concept of death only in connection with the coming resurrection, and this mystery ceases to be such if we live with Christ and for Christ’s sake. “Whoever lives and believes in Me will never die,” says the Lord (John 11:26). According to legend, in the first days the soul of the deceased walks through those places in which it worked the truth, and on the third day it ascends to heaven to the throne of God, where until the ninth day it is shown the abodes of saints and the beauty of paradise. On the ninth day, the soul again comes to God, and it is sent to hell, where wicked sinners reside and where the soul undergoes thirty days of ordeal (tests). On the fortieth day, the soul again comes to the Throne of God, where it appears naked before the judgment of its own conscience: has it passed these tests or not? And even in the case when some trials convict the soul of its sins, we hope for the mercy of God, in whom all deeds of sacrificial love and compassion will not go in vain.
Those who experienced clinical death say that they saw the light at the end of the tunnel, said goodbye to relatives, looked at their body from the outside and experienced a feeling of flight. Scientists cannot understand this, because the brain almost completely stops working in this state soon after the heart stops. It follows that in a state of clinical death, a person, in principle, cannot feel or experience anything. But people feel. We collected stories of people who experienced clinical death. Names have been changed.
Novel
— Several years ago I was diagnosed with hypertension and admitted to the hospital. The treatment was vague and consisted of injections, systems and various tests, but there was nothing special to do in the second half of the day. There were two of us in the four-bed ward; the doctors say that in the summer there are usually fewer patients. I met a colleague in misfortune, and it turned out that we had a lot in common: we were almost the same age, we both like to tinker with electronics, I am a manager, and he is a supplier - in general, there was a lot to talk about.
Trouble came suddenly. As he later told me: “You spoke, then fell silent, your eyes were glassy, you took 3-4 steps and fell.” I woke up three days later in intensive care. What do I remember? Never mind! Nothing at all! I woke up, very surprised: there were tubes everywhere, something was beeping. They told me that I was lucky that everything was in the hospital, my heart didn’t beat for about three minutes. I recovered quickly - within a month. I live ordinary life, I take care of my health. But I saw no angels, no tunnel, no light. Nothing at all. My personal conclusion: it’s all a lie. He died - and there was nothing further.
Anna
— My clinical death occurred during pregnancy on January 8, 1989. Around 10:00 pm I started bleeding heavily. There was no pain, just severe weakness and chills. I realized that I was dying.
In the operating room, various devices were connected to me, and the anesthesiologist began to read their readings out loud. Soon I began to choke, and heard the doctor’s words: “I’m losing contact with the patient, I can’t feel her pulse, I need to save the child.” The voices of those around them began to fade, their faces blurred, and then darkness fell.
I found myself in the operating room again. But now I feel good and at ease. The doctors fussed around the body lying on the table. She approached him. It was me lying there. My split shocked me. And she could even float in the air. I swam to the window. It was dark outside, and suddenly I was seized with panic, I felt that I definitely had to attract the attention of the doctors. I started shouting that I had already recovered and that nothing more needed to be done to me—to that one. But they didn't see or hear me. I was tired from the tension and, rising higher, hovered in the air.
A shining white beam appeared under the ceiling. He descended towards me without blinding or burning me. I realized that the beam was calling me, promising liberation from isolation. Without hesitation, she headed towards him.
I moved along the beam, as if to the top of an invisible mountain, feeling completely safe. Having reached the top, I saw a wonderful country, a harmony of bright and at the same time almost transparent colors sparkling around. It is impossible to describe in words. I looked around with all my eyes, and everything that was around filled me with such admiration that I shouted: “God, what beauty! I have to write all this." I was overcome by a burning desire to return to my previous reality and display in pictures everything that I saw here.
Thinking about this, I found myself back in the operating room. But this time I looked at her as if from the side, as if at a cinema screen. And the movie seemed black and white. The contrast with the colorful landscapes of the wonderful country was striking, and I decided to be transported there again. The feeling of fascination and admiration did not pass. And every now and then the question arose in my head: “So am I alive or not?” And I was also afraid that if I went too far into this unknown world, there would be no return. And at the same time, I really didn’t want to part with such a miracle.
We were approaching a huge cloud of pink fog, I wanted to be inside it. But the Spirit stopped me. “Don’t fly there, it’s dangerous!” - he warned. I suddenly became anxious, I felt some kind of threat and decided to return to my body. And she found herself in a long dark tunnel. She flew along it alone, the Holy Spirit was no longer nearby.
I opened my eyes. I saw doctors, a room with beds. I was lying on one of them. Four men in white clothes stood near me. Raising my head, I asked: “Where am I? And where is that beautiful country?
The doctors looked at each other, one smiled and stroked my head. I felt ashamed for my question, because they probably thought that I was not right in my head.
This is how I experienced clinical death and being outside my own body. Now I know that those who have gone through this are not mentally ill, but normal people. Without standing out from the rest, they returned “from there”, having experienced feelings and experiences that do not fit into generally accepted concepts and ideas. And I also know that during that journey I acquired more knowledge, thought and understood more than in my entire previous life.
Artem
“I didn’t see my body from the outside at the time of death.” And I really regret it.
At first there was just a sharp refracting light, after seconds it disappeared. It was impossible to breathe, I panicked. I realized that I had died. There was no peace. Just panic. Then the need to breathe seemed to disappear, and this panic began to pass. Afterwards, some strange memories began of what seemed to have happened before, but slightly modified. Something like the feeling that it happened, but not quite with you. It was as if I was flying down through some space and watching slides. All this caused a deja vu effect.
In the end, the feeling of being unable to breathe returned again, something was squeezing my throat. Then I began to feel as if I was expanding. After I opened my eyes, something was inserted into my mouth, and the resuscitators were fussing about. I felt very nauseous and had a headache. The feeling of revival was extremely unpleasant. I was in a state of clinical death for about 6 minutes 14 seconds. It seems that he didn’t become an idiot, didn’t discover any additional abilities, but on the contrary, he temporarily lost walking and normal breathing, as well as the ability to ride a car, then it took a long time to restore all this.
Alexander
— I experienced a state of clinical death when I studied at the Ryazan Airborne School. My platoon took part in reconnaissance team competitions. This is a 3-day survival marathon with extreme physical activity, which ends with a 10-kilometer forced march in full gear. I did not approach this last stage in in better shape: the day before, I cut my foot open with some snag while crossing the river, we were constantly on the move, my leg hurt a lot, the bandage came off, the bleeding resumed, I had a fever. But I ran almost the entire 10 km, and I still don’t understand how I did it, and I don’t remember well. A few hundred meters before the finish line, I passed out, and my comrades carried me there in their arms (by the way, they counted my participation in the competition).
The doctor diagnosed “acute heart failure” and began to revive me. I have the following memories of that period when I was in a state of clinical death: I not only heard what those around me were saying, but also watched from the outside what was happening. I saw how something was injected into my heart area, I saw how a defibrillator was used to revive me. Moreover, in my mind the picture was like this: my body and the doctors are on the stadium field, and my loved ones are sitting in the stands and watching what is happening. In addition, it seemed to me that I could control the resuscitation process. There was a moment when I was tired of lying around, and I immediately heard the doctor say that I had a pulse. Then I thought: now there will be a general formation, everyone will be tense, but I have deceived everyone and can lie down - and the doctor shouted that my heart had stopped again. In the end I decided to return. I will add that I did not feel fear when I watched how they revived me, and in general, I did not treat this situation as a matter of life and death. It seemed to me that everything was in order, life was going on as usual.
Willie
During the fighting in Afghanistan, Willy Melnikov's platoon came under mortar fire. He was one of the thirty who survived, but was seriously shell-shocked. He was unconscious for 25 minutes, and his heart did not work for about eight minutes. What worlds has he visited? What did you feel? Willy Melnikov did not see any angels or devils. Everything was so fantastic that it is difficult to describe.
Willie Melnikov: “I moved in the thickness of a bottomless, boundless essence, matter comparable to Stanislav Lem’s Solaris. And so inside this Solaris I moved, maintaining myself as such, but at the same time I felt like I was part of it all. And I heard some languages that were unheard of by me before. It’s not that they were heard, coming from there - they lived there, and I had the opportunity to breathe them.”
He continued his journey and reached an embankment of unimaginable height. Behind her stretched a space of indescribable depth. There was a great temptation to fall down, but Willie resisted. Here he met strange creatures, which were constantly changing.
“It was a kind of symbiosis of plant, animal, architectural and, perhaps, some other field form of life. And benevolence, and friendliness, such a kind invitation that came from these creatures.”
Like many other people who found themselves in a state of clinical death, Willy Melnikov did not want to return. However, upon returning, the 23-year-old realized that he had become a different person.
Willy Melnikov today speaks 140 languages, including extinct ones. Before he experienced clinical death, he knew seven. He did not become a polyglot overnight. He admits that he has always loved learning foreign speech. But I was very surprised when for the first time post-war years inexplicably remembered five dead languages.
“It’s amazing that the rather exotic languages of the indigenous inhabitants of the Philippines and the Indians of both Americas “came” to me. But there are two more that I still haven't identified. I can speak, write, think in them, but I still don’t know what they are and where they come from.”
Based on materials from the newspaper "AiF"
There is life after death. And there are thousands of evidences of this. Until now, fundamental science has dismissed such stories. However, as Natalya Bekhtereva, a famous scientist who has studied the activity of the brain all her life, said, our consciousness is such matter that it seems that the keys to the secret door have already been selected. But behind it there are ten more... What is behind the door of life?
“She sees right through everything...”
Galina Lagoda was returning with her husband in a Zhiguli car from a country trip. Trying to pass an oncoming truck on a narrow highway, the husband sharply pulled to the right... The car was crushed by a tree standing by the road.
Intravision
Galina was brought to the Kaliningrad regional hospital with severe brain damage, ruptured kidneys, lungs, spleen and liver, and many fractures. The heart stopped, the pressure was at zero.
“Having flown through black space, I found myself in a shining space filled with light,” Galina Semyonovna tells me twenty years later. “In front of me stood a huge man in dazzling white clothes. I couldn’t see his face because of the light beam directed at me. “Why did you come here?” - he asked sternly. “I’m very tired, let me rest a little.” - “Rest and come back - you still have a lot to do.”
Having regained consciousness after two weeks, during which she balanced between life and death, the patient told the head of the intensive care department, Evgeniy Zatovka, how the operations were carried out, which of the doctors stood where and what they did, what equipment they brought, from which cabinets they took what.
After another operation on a shattered arm, Galina, during her morning medical rounds, asked the orthopedic doctor: “How is your stomach?” From amazement, he did not know what to answer - indeed, the doctor was tormented by abdominal pain.
Now Galina Semyonovna lives in harmony with herself, believes in God and is not at all afraid of death.
"Flying like a cloud"
Yuri Burkov, a reserve major, does not like to remember the past. His wife Lyudmila told his story:
“Yura fell from a great height, broke his spine and received a traumatic brain injury, and lost consciousness. After cardiac arrest, he lay in a coma for a long time.
I was under terrible stress. During one of my hospital visits I lost my keys. And the husband, having finally regained consciousness, first of all asked: “Did you find the keys?” I shook my head in fear. “They are under the stairs,” he said.
Only many years later did he confess to me: while he was in a coma, he saw my every step and heard every word - no matter how far I was from him. He flew in the form of a cloud, including to where his deceased parents and brother live. The mother tried to persuade her son to return, and the brother explained that they were all alive, only they no longer had bodies.
Years later, sitting at the bedside of his seriously ill son, he reassured his wife: “Lyudochka, don’t cry, I know for sure that he won’t leave now. He will be with us for another year." And a year later, at the wake of his deceased son, he admonished his wife: “He did not die, but only moved to another world before you and me. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
Savely KASHNITSKY, Kaliningrad - Moscow
Childbirth under the ceiling
“While the doctors were trying to pump me out, I observed an interesting thing: a bright white light (there is nothing like that on Earth!) and a long corridor. And so I seem to be waiting to enter this corridor. But then the doctors resuscitated me. During this time I felt that it was very cool THERE. I didn’t even want to leave!”
These are the memories of 19-year-old Anna R., who survived clinical death. Such stories can be found in abundance on Internet forums where the topic of “life after death” is discussed.
Light in the tunnel
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, pictures of life flashing before your eyes, a feeling of love and peace, meetings with deceased relatives and some luminous creature - patients who returned from the other world talk about this. True, not all, but only 10-15% of them. The rest did not see or remember anything at all. The dying brain does not have enough oxygen, which is why it is “glitchy,” say skeptics.
Disagreements among scientists have reached the point that the start of a new experiment was recently announced. For three years, American and British doctors will study the testimony of patients whose hearts stopped or their brains turned off. Among other things, the researchers are going to put various pictures on the shelves in the intensive care wards. You can see them only by soaring right up to the ceiling. If patients who have experienced clinical death retell their contents, it means that consciousness is really capable of leaving the body.
One of the first who tried to explain the phenomenon of near-death experiences was academician Vladimir Negovsky. He founded the world's first Institute of General Reanimatology. Negovsky believed (and the scientific view has not changed since then) that the “light at the end of the tunnel” was explained by the so-called tube vision. The cortex of the occipital lobes of the brain dies off gradually, the field of vision narrows to a narrow strip, creating the impression of a tunnel.
In a similar way, doctors explain the vision of pictures of a past life flashing before the gaze of a dying person. Brain structures fade and then recover unevenly. Therefore, a person has time to remember the most vivid events deposited in his memory. And the illusion of leaving the body, according to doctors, is the result of a failure of nerve signals. However, skeptics reach a dead end when it comes to answering trickier questions. Why do people who are blind from birth, at the moment of clinical death, see and then describe in detail what is happening in the operating room around them? And there is such evidence.
Leaving the body is a defensive reaction
It is curious, but many scientists do not see anything mystical in the fact that consciousness can leave the body. The only question is what conclusion to draw from this. Leading researcher at the Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitry Spivak, who is a member of the International Association for the Study of Near-Death Experiences, assures that clinical death is just one of the options for an altered state of consciousness. “There are a lot of them: these are dreams, and drug experience, and a stressful situation, and the consequence of illness,” he says. “According to statistics, up to 30% of people at least once in their lives have felt leaving the body and observed themselves from the outside.”
Dmitry Spivak himself examined the mental state of women in labor and found that about 9% of women experience “leaving the body” during childbirth! Here is the testimony of 33-year-old S.: “During childbirth, I had a lot of blood loss. Suddenly I began to see myself from under the ceiling. The pain has disappeared. And about a minute later she also unexpectedly returned to her place in the room and again began to experience severe pain.” It turns out that “leaving the body” is a normal phenomenon during childbirth. Some kind of mechanism embedded in the psyche, a program that works in extreme situations.
Undoubtedly, childbirth is an extreme situation. But what could be more extreme than death itself?! It is possible that “flying in a tunnel” is also a protective program that is activated at a fatal moment for a person. But what will happen to his consciousness (soul) next?
“I asked one dying woman: if there really is something THERE, try to give me a sign,” recalls Doctor of Medical Sciences Andrei Gnezdilov, who works at the St. Petersburg hospice. “And on the 40th day after death, I saw her in a dream. The woman said: “This is not death.” Many years of working in a hospice have convinced me and my colleagues: death is not the end, not the destruction of everything. The soul continues to live."
Dmitry PISARENKO
Cup and polka dot dress
This story was told by Andrey Gnezdilov, Doctor of Medical Sciences: “During the operation, the patient’s heart stopped. The doctors were able to start it, and when the woman was transferred to intensive care, I visited her. She complained that she was not operated on by the same surgeon who promised. But she could not see the doctor, being in an unconscious state all the time. The patient said that during the operation some force pushed her out of her body. She calmly looked at the doctors, but then she was overcome by horror: what if I die before I can say goodbye to my mother and daughter? And her consciousness instantly moved home. She saw that the mother was sitting, knitting, and her daughter was playing with a doll. Then a neighbor came in and brought a polka dot dress for her daughter. The girl rushed towards her, but touched the cup - it fell and broke. The neighbor said: “Well, that’s good. Apparently, Yulia will be discharged soon.” And then the patient again found herself at the operating table and heard: “Everything is fine, she is saved.” Consciousness returned to the body.
I went to visit this woman’s relatives. And it turned out that during the operation... a neighbor came in with a polka dot dress for a girl and the cup was broken.”
This is not the only mysterious case in the practice of Gnezdilov and other workers of the St. Petersburg hospice. They are not surprised when a doctor dreams of his patient and thanks him for his care and touching attitude. And in the morning, upon arriving at work, the doctor finds out that the patient died during the night...
Church opinion
Priest Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the press service of the Moscow Patriarchate:
— Orthodox people believe in the afterlife and immortality. There is much confirmation and evidence of this in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We consider the very concept of death only in connection with the coming resurrection, and this mystery ceases to be such if we live with Christ and for Christ’s sake. “Whoever lives and believes in Me will never die,” says the Lord (John 11:26).
According to legend, in the first days the soul of the deceased walks through those places in which it worked the truth, and on the third day it ascends to heaven to the throne of God, where until the ninth day it is shown the abodes of saints and the beauty of paradise. On the ninth day, the soul again comes to God, and it is sent to hell, where wicked sinners reside and where the soul undergoes thirty days of ordeal (tests). On the fortieth day, the soul again comes to the Throne of God, where it appears naked before the judgment of its own conscience: has it passed these tests or not? And even in the case when some trials convict the soul of its sins, we hope for the mercy of God, in whom all deeds of sacrificial love and compassion will not go in vain.
There is no such person born on the planet who can calmly relate to death. Such thoughts cause fear in more than half of humanity. What is the reason for fear? Illness, poverty, stress, and difficulties do not frighten us, but why does death make us afraid, and why do the human stories of survivors make us tremble? Maybe the reason is that even about a serious illness there are a couple of lines, but about life in the afterlife we don’t even know who to ask.
Past upbringing once again proves: after all, almost all the inhabitants of the planet are sure that life after death does not exist. There will be no more sunrises or sunsets, as well as meetings with loved ones and warm hugs. All important senses will disappear: hearing, vision, touch, smell, etc. This article will help you figure out what happens after death and whether the stories of people who have experienced clinical death are true.
What does our body consist of?
Everyone has physical body and a disembodied soul. Scientists and esotericists have discovered the factor that a person has several bodies. In addition to the physical, there are also subtle bodies, which, in turn, are divided into:
- Essential.
- Astral.
- Mental.
Any of these bodies has energy field, which when combined with thin bodies form an aura or, as it is also called, a biofield. As for the physical body, it can be touched and seen. This is our main body, which is given to us at birth for a certain period of time.
Etheric, astral and mental body
The so-called double of the physical body has no color (invisible) and is called etheric. It exactly repeats the entire shape of the main body, and also has the same energy field. After the death of a person, it is completely destroyed after 3 days. For this reason, the funeral process does not begin until 3 days after the death of the body.
“The body of emotions”, also known as the astral body. A person’s experiences and emotional state can be changed by personal radiation. During sleep it is capable of disconnecting, which is why, when we wake up, we can remember a dream, which is only a journey of the soul at that moment while the physical body rests in the bed.
The mental body is responsible for thoughts. Abstract thinking and contact with the cosmos distinguishes this body. The soul leaves the main body and separates at the time of death, rapidly heading towards a higher world.
Return from that world
Almost everyone is shocked by the stories of people who have experienced clinical death.
Some people believe in such luck, while others are skeptical in principle about this kind of death. And yet, what can happen in 5 minutes at the moment of rescue by resuscitators? Is there really an afterlife? afterworld, or is it just a fantasy of the brain?
In the 70s of the last century, scientists began to carefully study this factor, on the basis of which the book “Life After Life” by Raymond Moody was published. This is an American psychologist who has made many discoveries over the decades. The psychologist believed that the sensation of out-of-body existence involves stages such as:
- Disabling the physiological processes of the body (it has been established that the dying person hears the words of the doctor who pronounces death).
- Unpleasant noisy sounds with increasing
- The dying person leaves the body and moves with incredible speed along a long tunnel, where light is visible at the end.
- His whole life flies by before him.
- There is a meeting with relatives and friends who have already left the living world.
Stories from people who have experienced clinical death note an unusual split in consciousness: you seem to understand everything and are aware of what is happening around you during “death,” but for some reason you are unable to contact living people who are nearby. Another amazing factor is that even a person who is blind from birth sees a bright light in a mortal state.
Our brain remembers everything
Our brain remembers the whole process at the moment when clinical death occurs. Stories from people and research by scientists have found explanations for unusual visions.
Fantastic explanation
Pyell Watson is a psychologist who believes that last minutes life, the dying person sees his birth. Getting to know death, as Watson said, begins with scary way which everyone needs to overcome. This birth canal at 10 cm.
“It is not in our power to know exactly what is happening in the creation of a baby at the moment of birth, but perhaps all these sensations are similar to the different phases of dying. After all, it may be that the pre-death images that emerge before the dying person are precisely experiences during the birth process,” says psychologist Pyall Watson.
Utilitarian explanation
Nikolai Gubin, a resuscitator from Russia, is of the opinion that the appearance of a tunnel is a toxic psychosis.
This is a dream that is similar to hallucinations (for example, when a person sees himself from the outside). In the process of dying, the visual lobes of the cerebral hemisphere have already undergone oxygen starvation. Vision quickly narrows, leaving a thin band that provides central vision.
For what reason does your whole life flash before your eyes when clinical death occurs? The stories of survivors cannot give a clear answer, but Gubin has his own interpretation. The stage of dying begins with new brain particles and ends with old ones. Restoration of important brain functions occurs in reverse: first the old areas come to life, and then the new ones. That is why the memories of people who returned from the afterlife reflect more imprinted fragments.
The secret of the dark and light world
“Another world exists!” - say medical specialists, stunned. The revelations of people who experienced clinical death even have detailed coincidences.
Priests and doctors who had the opportunity to communicate with patients who returned from another world recorded the fact that all these people have general property shower. Upon arrival from heaven, some returned more enlightened and calm, while others, having returned from hell, for a long time could not calm down from the nightmare they had seen.
After listening to the stories of survivors of clinical death, we can conclude that heaven is above, hell is below. This is exactly what is written in the Bible about the afterlife. Patients describe their sensations as follows: those who went down met hell, and those who flew up found themselves in heaven.
Word of mouth
Many people have been able to experience and understand what clinical death consists of. The stories of survivors belong to the inhabitants of the entire planet. For example, Thomas Welch was able to survive a sawmill disaster. Subsequently, he said that on the shore of the burning abyss he could see some people who had died earlier. He began to regret that he had worried so little about salvation. Knowing in advance all the horrors of hell, he would have lived differently. At that moment the man saw a man walking in the distance. The unfamiliar appearance was light and bright, radiating kindness and mighty strength. It became clear to Welch: this is the Lord. Only he has the power to save people, only he can take a doomed soul to his torment. Suddenly he turned and looked at our hero. This was enough for Thomas to find himself back in his body and his mind to come to life.
When the heart stops
In April 1933, Pastor Kenneth Hagin was plunged into clinical death. The stories of survivors of clinical death are very similar, which is why scientists and doctors believe it real events. Hagin's heart stopped. He said that when the soul left the body and reached the abyss, he felt the presence of a spirit that was leading him somewhere. Suddenly, a powerful voice sounded in the darkness. The man could not understand what was said, but it was the voice of God, of which he was sure. At that moment, the spirit released the pastor, and a strong whirlwind began to lift him back up. The light slowly began to appear, and Kenneth Hagin found himself in his room, jumping into the body the way one usually gets into trousers.
In heaven
Heaven is described as the opposite of hell. The stories of clinical death survivors never go unnoticed.
One of the scientists, aged 5, fell into a pool filled with water. The child was found in a lifeless state. The parents took the baby to the hospital, but the doctor had to say that the boy would no longer open his eyes. But the greater surprise was that the child woke up and came to life.
The scientist said that when he found himself in the water, he felt flying through a long tunnel, at the end of which a light could be seen. This glow was incredibly bright. There was the Lord on the throne, and below were people (perhaps they were angels). Getting closer to the Lord God, the boy heard that the time had not yet come. The child wanted to stay there for a moment, but in some incomprehensible way he ended up in his own body.
About the Light
Six-year-old Sveta Molotkova also saw reverse side life. After doctors brought her out of her coma, a request came in for a pencil and paper. Svetlana drew everything she could see at the moment the soul moved. The girl was in comatose for 3 days. Doctors fought for her life, but her brain showed no signs of life. Her mother could not look at the lifeless and motionless body of her child. At the end of the third day, the girl seemed to be trying to grab onto something, her fists clenched tightly. The mother felt that her girl had finally grasped the thread of life. Having recovered a little, Sveta asked the doctors to bring her paper and a pencil so she could draw everything that she could see in another world...
Soldier's story
One military doctor treated a patient for fever different ways. The soldier was unconscious for some time, and when he woke up, he notified his doctor that he had seen a very bright glow. For a moment it seemed to him that he had entered the “Kingdom of the Blessed.” The military man remembered the sensations and noted that it was best moment his life.
Thanks to medicine, which keeps pace with all technologies, it has become possible to survive, despite such circumstances as clinical death. Eyewitness accounts of life after death frighten some and interest others.
American private George Ritchie was declared dead in 1943. The doctor on duty that day, a hospital officer, determined death, which occurred because the Soldier had already been prepared to be sent to the morgue. But suddenly the military orderly told the doctor how he saw the dead man move. Then the doctor looked at Ritchie again, but could not confirm the orderly's words. In response, he resisted and insisted on his own.
The doctor realized that it was useless to argue and decided to inject adrenaline directly into the heart. Unexpectedly for everyone, the dead man began to show signs of life, and then the doubts disappeared. It became clear that he would survive.
The story of a soldier who experienced clinical death spread all over the world. Private Ritchie was not only able to cheat death itself, but also became a medic, telling his colleagues about his unforgettable journey.
We continue to introduce our readers to the Spas TV channel program “My Path to God,” in which priest Georgy Maximov meets with people who have converted to Orthodoxy. The experience experienced by the guest of this episode of the program is dramatic and at the same time... bright, because it radically changed his life, which was rapidly rushing downhill, and turned him to Christ. How and why Vasily ended up in the world he experienced there how the feeling of Christ's love helped to correctly comprehend life Here , is his story.
Priest Georgy Maximov: Hello! The program “My Path to God” is on air. Our guest today, I will say right away, experienced very dramatic events in his life, which led him to God. Among people far from faith, there is a saying: “No one has returned from the other world.” It is pronounced with the subtext that no one knows what awaits us after death. However, the story of our guest refutes this saying. But before we talk about his death and return, let's talk a little about the background. Vasily, am I wrong if I assume that you grew up, like many of our generation, in an unbelieving environment and were unfamiliar with faith?
: Yes. I was born and raised in a different era. And after the army - for me it was in 1989 - a completely different paradigm arose. Soviet Union crumbled. I had to somehow get my own food. A young family, a child was born. After the army, I worked a little at a factory, and then ended up in a security agency - a private security company. Now, of course, this is a slightly different structure, but then they were security guards, and at night they were bandits who extorted debts. I've done a lot of bad things. Lots of terrible things. There is no blood on my hands, but everything else is enough. That’s why I’m still ashamed, even though I repented. Many people died nearby. Some were imprisoned. But, since my daughter was born at that moment, I decided to leave this path. Little by little I managed to move away without much loss. I just moved to another place and cut off all connections completely. I tried to somehow build my life, but there was no money, and I worked anywhere: I traded, I drove my car. I met some friends at the market. Back then it was called “scam”. Worked for three years in the markets of Moscow and the Moscow region. There he became addicted to drugs.
Father George: How did this happen? You were already an adult and you probably heard that it was dangerous.
Heroin is a very tenacious demon. He takes a person into his arms and does not let go. Twice is enough
: I had a fight with my wife then, I lived alone in a communal apartment, and I had a meeting there big company drug addicts. I looked at their happy faces as they injected themselves and said: “You don’t need this.” It was more like: “Just don’t throw me into a thorn bush.” And so I wanted to try it. At first it was scary. I sniffed it - it didn't have much effect. Then he injected himself once, twice, three times... And that’s it. I think twice is enough. Heroin is a very tenacious demon. He takes a person into his arms and does not let him go. No matter how many people were treated, tried to somehow leave, get off this topic - only a few succeeded. I know only one girl who succeeded, but even then at the cost of great effort, and she was a fiasco in the female department. That is, she won’t give birth anymore. Well, the rest died. Moreover, people experienced clinical death from an overdose and then went for a new dose.
I remember an incident with my friend. We were sitting in the kitchen: me, him and his girlfriend. They pricked him - he fell. He felt bad, they called an ambulance. They arrived quickly. They dragged him onto the landing. There they opened the sternum and performed direct cardiac massage... This sight is not for the faint of heart, I tell you. They pumped it out. And still it didn’t give him anything, and literally two months later he left us due to an overdose. Scary things. I sat there for about a year. This is relatively little. It hits people in different ways. Some live on heroin for 10, 15 years - I don’t know why it took so long. But usually a drug addict lives 5-6 years maximum.
Father George: Yours own death Was it also due to an overdose?
: Not really. At that time, there was an opinion: you can drink vodka, and through alcohol you will be able to get off heroin. But, as it turned out, this is not really the case. It was the May holidays, and for that purpose I drank and drank. To get off heroin. But it didn't help. I couldn’t stand it, and on May 11, my friends and I injected ourselves at the entrance. It was in the evening, after 10 pm. And vodka and heroin mean death right away. I don’t know what influences what, but it’s practically immediate. And I was still under the influence of alcohol. I remember the darkness. It’s as if consciousness collapses. The eyes close and bells ring in the ears.
Father George: So you experienced clinical death?
: This is the very moment of death. I didn't feel any pain. My eyes closed softly, calmly, and I fell down, sliding towards the garbage chute. There he remained. I only remember how literally a moment later I saw - as if from under water and in slow motion - a girl, one of us, running, knocking on the apartments so that they would open the door to call an ambulance - mobile phones It didn't exist then. My comrade, who was nearby, Sergei, is trying to give me artificial respiration. But, probably, he wasn’t very good at it. Then I remember that I was already lying in front of the entrance. The ambulance has arrived. The body is lying. I see my body from the outside. They are doing something there. And somehow it didn’t matter to me anymore. Completely uninteresting. It started to pull somehow to the right and up. Everything is accelerating. And such an unpleasant sound, a hum. It spun and flew up the big pipe. My thoughts did not stop for a second.
Father George: Didn't you get scared when you realized what had happened?
: And at first I didn’t have this understanding. It came later. I began to be pulled faster and faster. Then such translucent walls, a tunnel, an ever-accelerating flight. There are some pictures around that can be compared to star photographs Hubble telescope. And there's a bright light ahead. The brightest. It's akin to an attraction in a water park, when you fly down in a spiral, go down and fall into a pool with warm water. And such a chord of some kind of unearthly music, or something. That's when I looked at myself. Only then did the realization come that I had died. There was no regret about it. I felt joy, peace, pleasure. I could see where I was. I saw my body lying in the ambulance. But I’m somehow... completely indifferent to him. Without any contempt, without hatred, just...
Father George: How is it already something alien?
I immediately realized that it was Him. And He is like a father. No one has ever talked to me like that
: Yes. Here's how you walk past - there's a stone lying on the street. Well, it lies and lies. After that, I was pulled upward, you know, as if a warm palm began to lift me up. I felt straight waves of happiness and absolute calm. Absolute protection. Everything around is saturated with love - such strength that it is not clear what to compare it with. It was as if I was being pulled through some clouds. How the plane takes off. Higher and higher. And a figure appeared in front of me in a dazzling radiance. She was wearing a long robe, a chiton. You know, before that time I had never opened the Bible and never had any thoughts about God or Christ. But then I immediately realized with every fiber of my soul that it was He. And He is like a father. He met me with love that you will not see on Earth. No one has ever talked to me like that. He did not reproach, did not convince, did not scold. He was just showing my life. We communicated in thoughts, and His every word was perceived as law. Without any doubt. He spoke quietly and affectionately, and I became more and more convinced that I was monstrously wrong not only to myself, but also to my family, and to everyone in general. I cried, sobbed, my heart, breaking, cleared, gradually I felt better.
You know, this comparison stuck in my head: when a potter is making some kind of pot, and his clay piece falls - and he begins to straighten it with his hands... Just like a potter, He straightened my soul. She was so dirty... So, He played my life like a picture before my eyes.
It is known that this happens, I later read this from the same Moody or from others who experienced similar things. Nothing new here. I'm not making this up, I'm not lying. They lie, probably, to achieve some goal. I just want to talk about what I saw so that people can hear. I’m already used to the fact that many people don’t believe me and sometimes twist their finger at my temple.
So here it is. He could stop life anywhere. It's like some kind of movie. But, what’s most interesting, I could go anywhere to look at myself. Feel the situation from the point of view of each of the people around me.
Father George: Understand how they perceived it?
: Yes. As possible. It’s like... for example, the bullet and knife wounds that I had cannot be compared in any way with how a person can be wounded by just one thrown word. And how you remember this for the rest of your life. What consequences will this lead to? How careful you should be in your actions. Many people think that there is only this life, and then everything, some dark hopeless something and nothing. No, my friends, everyone will have to answer for what they have done. Absolutely everyone.
I realized: I need to go back to earthly life. Wife and child flashed before my eyes
Well, He and I sorted out these pictures. Then He took me by the hand, we walked... I remember that there was some kind of foggy substance under my feet, it was constantly shimmering. The brightest light. That is, there is no shadow there at all, although it is difficult to imagine here. I felt translucent. Like in the movie “The Invisible Man,” where his boundaries are simply marked. And He took me by the hand and led me and enlightened me with this brightest light. Then we found ourselves again in the place where we first met. And I don’t remember what He asked, but the main thing is that I realized: I need to go back to earthly life. His wife and child flashed before his eyes. By the way, by that time we had a fight and had not lived together for almost a year. In general, I realized that I need to return. I promised Him to come to his senses and improve. The deepest sadness arose in me, and at the same time they made me understand that we would meet again. I probably still live with this hope. Honestly, I want to go there. Any minute now.
Although, of course, so wonderful was what I experienced, so bad can it be for those who end up in hell. I was not in heaven, but, probably, in some kind of threshold of heaven. I don’t know how to say... This feeling is probably stronger than all the drugs on Earth combined and multiplied by infinity. The explosion of omniscience literally “knocked” me off my feet, perhaps. The truth only passed through me, but I felt the endless creative potential that lies within us. To know everything... there’s no way to retell it, just take my word for it: it’s great, we certainly won’t be bored there. It was so wonderful there. Warm, cozy. Precisely with Him. I felt that He was the father. Real father. Not like earthly fathers... S biological father I wasn’t very lucky, and neither was my stepfather.
In short, it turned out that I was already returning in reverse order. In May, the sun sets late... I remember that it was still sunset, and I was sinking. Through the leaves of the trees, through the roof of the car and into the body. My consciousness jerks back. I take a deep breath, my ribs hurt really bad. And I grab the paramedic’s hand. He has a watch, keys, money in his palm...
Father George: Yours?
: Yes. Everything from my pockets. Pockets are turned inside out. I don’t want to say anything bad about the ambulance workers. I myself am the son of doctors. My sister and I worked at Ambulance. I was a corpse. As it turns out, it’s already 14 minutes. Naturally, they no longer took any resuscitation actions, they simply took me to the morgue. Well, well... So, I grabbed his hand. These eyes were a must see. I have never seen such horror before.
Father George: I can assume that in the future this man would no longer risk searching the dead. (Laughs.)
: Yes, there was money there... I remember I counted half of it to him - it was just a bottle of beer. And for the second half I bought myself a bottle of beer, sat right next to him and sat thinking to myself. The next day I woke up to the doorbell ringing. And I still didn’t practically understand what had happened to me. The realization happened gradually over several weeks. So, I open the door: my wife is standing. And we haven’t seen her for a year. In general, we talked for about an hour. I gave up everything. Everything that was in that room. He closed it and we went to her place. I never returned there again. I cut off all the ends at once.
Withdrawal is a terrible pain. You can't stand, you can't lie down, you can't find peace at all
But heroin addiction has not gone away. Literally by the end of the day I felt really bad. And for the next two and a half months I had the following diet: a bottle of vodka, diphenhydramine, tazepam, phenazepam - just to switch off completely during withdrawal. My wife is simply a holy person. She walked me out. She went to work and bought me vodka. And I was lying at home. When you start taking hard drugs, you don’t think about what will happen to you next, you feel good, and let the whole world wait. And when you want to end it, you find that the demon won’t let you go. You no longer have veins; the ones you had were “burnt” long ago. You are rotting all over, you are shaking and breaking in the literal sense of the word. Withdrawal is a terrible pain. Not like a cut or bruise. It is rather akin to rheumatic pain, when the joints are twisted. But, again, the pain is multiplied many times over. And it's inside you. You won't tie, you won't do anything. It starts to wring you out. You cannot stand, you cannot lie down, you cannot find peace at all. Plus all sorts of nightmares accompany all this. The most terrible condition. And it is very easy to stop it. You just need to pick up the phone, call, and in half an hour you will already be injected, and everything is fine. But I gave my word to give it up.
By at will It is extremely difficult to overcome withdrawal; the support of loved ones and, of course, the desire of the patient are very important here. But the most important thing is that God helps you in this matter.
I now understand that the Lord granted my wife the gift of caring for me and gave me strength. I couldn't stand it alone.
It was scary summer. But I recovered. Then I stopped drinking. I won’t say that I quit myself. After the vodka, after all this “treatment” I suddenly turned yellow. The ambulance arrived and said: “Yes, you have hepatitis C. If you continue to drink, you will have cirrhosis, and hello.” I started drinking beer instead of vodka. It got even worse. In general, the matter was nearing the end. No longer from drugs, but from alcohol. We went to the clinic, where they code using the Dovzhenko method. And now I haven’t drunk for 17 years. And it doesn’t last. I look at those who drink, and it makes me laugh - it’s just a circus. People don't understand what they are doing. I stopped drinking, and, naturally, I’m just bored in all these drunken companies.
And cessation drug addiction, and liberation from alcohol addiction- this all happened precisely after that incident. Some kind of internal directive arose or something.
I went to work. Naturally, he stopped cheating on his wife immediately after that moment. Stopped smoking, stopped swearing
Now I understand that this is all connected with God. He puts you on the right path. I went to work. Naturally, he stopped cheating on his wife immediately after that moment. Stopped smoking, stopped swearing. It's gradual, step by step. In all my endeavors, I asked God for help. This is what I asked silently, and He always helped. By the way, a month after I turned yellow, I went again and had my blood tested. The diagnosis was not confirmed. I took the test several times later - no hepatitis. He just disappeared.
Father George: Despite all this, did you not immediately reach the Church?
: Yes. It was long haul. It’s as if you first had to remove everything unnecessary from yourself. And the Church is already tuning, bringing to perfection. Getting rid of the dependencies that I listed above was, I believe, only a rough tuning; now I have to fine-tune. Fine tuning will continue until my last breath. It is much more important and immeasurably more difficult than the first stage. After all, quitting smoking is much easier than quitting being jealous of someone. Or quitting drinking is easier than stopping hating someone or forgiving someone.
I didn’t get to the Church right away. And at first I just read a lot about people's post-mortem experiences. I walked in some wilds: Blavatsky, Roerich... There I was looking for the truth. But I found it only when I read in the Bible: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Orthodoxy teaches about this. I did not find this in other teachings. AND there, in my posthumous experience, God is love. Absolute love. Exactly there I get it. I was protected, loved, understood. Like a son who found his father. It is Christianity that teaches that “to those who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the power to become children of God” (John 1:12), “Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ” (Gal. 4:7). And guided by this, I went to Church and took communion. Probably for the first time after baptism. I was baptized in 1980; then we were in Vladimir, when everyone was kicked out of Moscow for the Olympics, and there in the church my mother baptized me. Although she herself is a communist, her father is a communist. Doctors...
Father George: Just because of tradition, perhaps?
After my first communion, I was surprised: “How can this be? Both there and here"
: Yes. I didn't pay any attention to it then. To be honest, until I was 20 years old, I didn’t even think about what God is—whether He exists or not. We just live, that's all. So here it is. After that incident, probably six years passed before I came to church... I began to periodically go to Communion once every three weeks. Confess, receive communion. The first time I took communion was something unearthly. In general, I am a rather harsh person, sometimes I can be rude. But here I just relaxed, and all the people seemed like such kind angels to me. This lasted for about a day, probably. And it's very similar to the feeling I had there. A similar, kindred feeling. Grace. But when we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, we become akin to Him. And after my first communion I was surprised: “How can this be? Both there and here.” Well, now, of course, this doesn’t happen every time. And the first time it happened... I was almost knocked off my feet in church.
I realized many interesting things when I comprehended what I saw there. Those people who go to hell, they are then thrown into outer darkness. It turns out that a person who ends up there after his death, he... How sinful his soul is - it itself moves away from God. She condemns herself. The more sinful you are, the further you are from the Light, from God. You yourself will not be able to approach Him, covered with the dirt of your thoughts and actions. You are carried further and further into the pitch darkness, where all your fears await you. And around Him there is no fear, only bliss. Life always ends suddenly for a person, and you will appear before Him with the whole set of your deeds, and nothing can be changed there. And then you will condemn yourself and will not allow yourself to get closer to the Light, for you will be unbearably burned. Like can only come into contact with like. This is not the Last Judgment, as it is often presented...
Father George: Well, as a matter of fact, you are up to Last Judgment We haven’t made it yet. Because the Last Judgment will be at the end of history, when the resurrection from the dead occurs. The souls will unite with the bodies of the dead, and then people, together with their bodies, will appear at the Last Judgment. In the proper sense of the word, heaven and hell will already exist after the Last Judgment. And before that, as Saint Mark of Ephesus says, souls fall into a state of anticipation of the Last Judgment. And in accordance with what everyone’s soul is, they either expect future torment and thereby suffer, or they expect future benefits and experience bliss from this.
: Apparently this was a small trial. Own condemnation. To be honest, I have seen a lot, but I don’t even want to think about angering the Lord. At least somehow. There is not even such a thought. I've done crazy things before. Now, knowing everything that there maybe... How much there it can be good and how bad - I can’t even think about it. I couldn’t live before without thinking about a cigarette or: “You didn’t smoke marijuana today or inject yourself - the day was in vain.” And now I gave up everything after what I found out. To be honest, I'm not a coward, but I act like a good girl. I don't want to go there. It's scary there.
Father George: Into this outer darkness?
: Yes. Moreover, it is forever. I also realized this thing: it’s like we have two births. The first time we are born from our parents, and the second time is after death. And in this life, when we are here, in this earthly world, we must decide: with whom we are and what actions we commit. I am extremely lucky to have been given another chance. God gave me new life, in which I was able to understand what love is. You just need to come to your senses in time. As said Venerable Seraphim Sarovsky: we must acquire the Holy Spirit here.
Father George: It is here on earth, because there there is no longer any choice. Regarding the birth, I remembered the words of St. Gregory of Sinaite, who said: “Here on earth, a person bears the embryo of his future life. Or eternal torment, or eternal happiness with God." And, strictly speaking, with death he gives birth to that eternity for himself, which he determined by his direction of will: what his will turned out to be directed towards - towards God or towards sin.
My consciousness was not interrupted for a second. And this confirms that we are not dying. I say this for atheists, for those who reject the Lord God
: And that’s actually what prompted me to tell my story. This is all deeply personal, in principle... Not everyone will agree to tell this about themselves. I want to testify that personality is indestructible. My consciousness was not interrupted for a second. And this confirms that we are not dying. I say this for, for those who reject the Lord God. Because if they are hoping for something here, maybe in the prince of this world, then there he won't protect them. There they will be rewarded according to their deserts. This is absolutely accurate.
And you must not only believe, but also do good deeds. Think about it: why were you born? Is it really the most difficult? biological organism on the planet created just for empty time? Our life on Earth is a moment, but a very important one: it is here that we determine whether we come to Him or not. There will not be a second such moment, and after death nothing can be corrected. Try, while you have time, not to do evil, ask for forgiveness from those you offended. Do everything for the Glory of God.
Let me remind you of the two commandments that Jesus Christ brought to us. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind...” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark 12:30, 31). If all people fulfilled these two commandments, then the entire planet Earth would be shrouded in love. And in this regard Orthodox Church- this is the flagship. I believe that this is the only true teaching, and it is this that leads to the next life. And what this life is, I was actually convinced. Perhaps my story will help someone think about their actions and rethink their behavior. Many said: “You were hallucinating, the effects of drugs, some kind of delusion that occurs when the cerebellum falls asleep somewhere”...
Father George: But the fact that your life has changed so radically already indicates that these could not just be hallucinations. Because every addict sees hallucinations regularly, but this does not change his life. Life can only be changed by real experience. And I think the Lord, let’s say, showed you in advance what could be. Because according to you previous life everything led you to a completely different place, into that very outer darkness, but the Lord, out of His love, showed you in advance what awaits you, so that you could manage it correctly. And, thank God, you really made the right use of your second chance.
Thank you very much for your story. God bless you!
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