In the News (from Horizon Research Foundation): “What Is An Out of Body Experience?” A group of Swiss doctors carried out a procedure that is often performed on patients with intractable epilepsy. Electrodes were implanted in the brain and used to stimulate different portions of the brain… The patient reported seeing herself ‘lying in bed, from above’ and also ‘floating’ near the ceiling.

The Swiss doctors had been able to induce an out of body-like experience in someone. This seemed to suggest that the reported sensation of leaving the body during a brush with death might simply be an illusion created by abnormal stimulation of a specific area of the right side of the brain called the angular gyrus. The Swiss researchers had concluded that out of body and near death experiences might be influenced by a portion of the brain misfiring under stress.

My Comment: Now anyone can sign up for stimulation of the brain and go on a journey to the “world on the other side”; maybe people can even choose what adventures they’ll go on!

It’s time to say goodbye to Raymond Moody’s theory about the “afterlife,” along with all the other theories by different researchers, as much as we’d like to hold on to our sweet hopes for the future. It’s time to see the truth: when your body dies, you’re left only with whatever part of the “world on the other side” you have revealed during your life in the physical body.

One Kabbalistic text states, “You will see your world while you are still alive!” And if you don’t reveal the Upper World (which can only be done using Kabbalah), then you will die just like an animal. Afterward you’ll receive a new (protein-based) life – another opportunity to reveal the Upper World during your lifetime. Therefore, “If a person did not engage in studying Kabbalah, he will have to return to this world again” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the book Fruits of Wisdom”).

A person is like an animal in every respect, and just like with animals, one’s death is final! There is only one other alternative: to acquire the quality of the Creator, which is love for one’s neighbor. Through this quality, one is able to feel the Upper Life because one comes out of the self and enters others.

None of the religious promises about “life after death” (interpreted differently by every religion) will come true. There is no reward waiting for you “there” for anything you do here. We can attain all of creation and the Creator only “here,” in this lifetime.

Therefore, “Every person has to study Kabbalah. And even if a person has learned all the intricacies of the Torah and exceeds all the righteous people in the world, still, if he did not study Kabbalah, he will have to return to this world again in order to study Kabbalah” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Fruits of Wisdom”).

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Do We Have to Keep Coming Back Here?
Laitman.com Post: A Conversation About Love
Kabbalah Today Article: To Be or Not to Be?
Lesson on Baal HaSulam Article: “The Introduction to the Book “From the Mouth of a Wise Man”
Lesson on Article: “Attaining the Unity of the Universe”

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