Introduction
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They were more sensory here-and-now experiences than physical journeys off to specific destinations. So, while keeping some of those traditional ideals in mind, I’ll be discussing and describing Heaven in terms of those states of being—experiences of light, sensation, and potential (in this earthly life or in lives to follow) rather than as any single, actual location we may eventually arrive at. Lots of NDEs, as different survivors attest, are very similar to one another, and follow familiar motifs, like seeing one’s own lifeless body from above, traveling down a tunnel toward a light at the end of it, meeting one’s relatives in a radiantly lit field, having a life review, or actually meeting God in one form or another. Many of them don’t at all resemble the classic concepts of Heaven as featured in religious illustrations, while others do. What they do all hold in common is that peek into a highly personalized realm of wondrous possibility: the expansive visions of a place of Love and light, where the continuation of life carries the promise of joyful realization, and where bliss isn’t luckily discovered in little bits here and there but instead is the regular condition of being. Of the three NDEs that I experienced, all of them fit into one of those classic motifs, yet like so many afterlife experiences, each was entirely different from the others––save one thing: no matter the differing circumstances of each, I never exited the realm of Consciousness in any of them. That is to say, I never felt like I was not myself, or in some way disconnected from the experience of living––it just wasn’t this life. I was always conscious, but I experienced my own consciousness in a very different way than I typically do in this world. Perhaps I was experiencing a completely different world of Divine Consciousness––an unbounded world without limitations—absolutely connected and cared for, intuitively empathetic, and wrapped in Love. That’s the heavenly experience that doesn’t rely on any location or on supernatural capabilities; it was just that sensation, that profound knowledge of Love and a constant divine connection, alive within an inexpressible, expansive quality of Consciousness. That was where Heaven was,