I have written a dozen books on near-death experiences (NDEs), four
of which are New York Times bestsellers. The subject of NDEs is one
I’m devoted to, and as a result I am constantly in contact with
researchers in the field of near death studies as well as those who
have had the experience.
NDEs are extraordinary. The idea of leaving one’s body at the point
of death, traveling to a Heavenly realm and seeing beloved relatives
who have passed, is truly the hero’s journey of our modern age.
People who could have died are now kept alive with technology and
medicine that didn’t exist just a few years ago. It is because of
those advances that the threshold of death is pushed back and NDEs
become deeper and the stories richer.
It is these stories that may eventually answer mankind’s greatest
question: What happens when we die?
Which brings us to Dr. Rajiv Parti, former chief of anesthesiology
at Bakersfield Heart Hospital. His is most likely the best NDE I
have ever heard, not just for the experience itself, but for the
transformation it led to.
In 2008 Rajiv Parti, MD, was Chief of Anesthesiology at Heart
Hospital in Bakersfield, California. He derived his identity and
happiness from the incredible amount of wealth and prestige his job
gave him. He lived in a mansion, had several luxury cars, and was
able to purchase most any material goods he wanted.
For some reason this made him feel invincible.
In August of that year - everything changed. He was diagnosed with
prostate cancer. A routine surgery to treat it, in the same month,
led to complications that left him incontinent and in excruciating
pain. He was forced back into surgery three times between Aug and
Dec 2008.
The cancer was gone now, but he was living in pain; impotent,
incontinent and wearing diapers. He was prescribed pain meds and
soon learned firsthand that his body had a quick dependency on pain
medication. He became an addict and within time was diagnosed with
depression, too.
On December 14, 2010, he went to UCLA Medical Center for the
surgical placement of an artificial urinary sphincter. In the days
after this surgery he became very sick, running a fever of 104-105.
He could not urinate and his pelvic area was red and swollen. Heavy
antibiotics were prescribed, but he was not getting better.
Ten days later, Christmas Eve 2010, Dr. Parti was admitted to the
emergency ward of the UCLA hospital for severe infection and fever.
Emergency surgery was called for immediately to drain the pelvic
region of infection and remove the artificial sphincter. His last
waking memory had been the searing pain of a catheter being inserted
in him to drain his urinary bladder.
His next memory was of no longer being in his body. He had been
given anesthesia, but instead of being “put out” in the traditional
sense, Dr. Parti was outside of his body.
It was here, dying and heavily anesthetized, that he “woke up.”
Although deeply asleep from anesthesia, he was very aware that his
consciousness had separated from his body. From a vantage point near
the ceiling he could see the surgeon cut him and then all of the
operating room personnel react as the odor of the pus from his
infected abdomen seeped throughout the room. He saw a nurse apply
eucalyptus-scented water to the surgical masks of everyone
performing the operation. He even heard the anesthesiologist tell a
joke so dirty that he blushed when he later told it to the
anesthesiologist in the recovery room.
Dr. Parti’s senses became so acute in this out-of-body state that he
could hear, see and smell things outside of the operating room. He
then left the operating room and began to drift toward familiar
voices in India, where he could hear his mother and sister talking
about dinner preparations for that night. They finally decided to
have rice, vegetables, yogurt and legumes. He could see that it was
foggy and frigid that night, and since there was no central heating
in the house, they were bundled up to protect from the cold. A small
electric heater glowed, helping to take the chill out of the room.
Rather than being fearful, Dr. Parti became euphoric. People are
never far away, he thought. He had the sense of his presence
spreading around the world, a feeling of oneness with the world and
everyone in it. Fear found its way into the
situation. He had the feeling of being pulled into a bleak darkness,
one that was filled with the screams and sounds of fighting.
His awareness drifted from the physical world of the operating
theater in Los Angeles and the kitchen conversation in India to a
place where a great wild fire was raging. He could see lightning in
dark clouds and smell the odor of burning meat. He realized that an
unseen force was pulling him into Hell, leaving him “in the midst of
souls who were screaming and suffering.”
What is my Karma, he wondered. What did I do in my life or
past life to deserve this punishment?
In the middle of this horror, Dr. Parti began to have the strong
awareness that the life he was living was very materialistic: His
life was always about him. So much so, in fact, that when he
met new people Dr. Parti asked himself, “What can I get from this
person?”
The truth dawned on him there in Hell: that the life he was living
on earth was without love. He was not practicing compassion or
forgiveness towards himself or others. He also had an unsavory
tendency to be harsh towards people he perceived to be lower than
him in social or professional status. He felt deeply sorry for the
lack of kindness in his behavior, wishing he could have done certain
things in his life differently. As soon as he had that realization,
Hell faded away.
These two elements, transcendence and transformation, are what
interests me most in near death experiences. In the research I have
done and studied, I rarely meet a person who hasn’t been transformed
by their NDE. These people become kinder, gentler versions of the
person they were before their NDE. Sometimes this change is so
complete that they are no longer recognizable. That was the case
with Dr. Parti. His brush with death opened an entirely new world to
him – an otherworld if you will – that replaced the
materialistic world he had so carefully constructed.
Dr. Rajiv Parti was literally transformed by the light.
_____________________________________________________________
Paul Perry is the co-author Dying to
Wake Up and four New York Times bestsellers, including Evidence
of the Afterlife, Closer to the Light, Transformed by
the Light and Saved by the Light.
Rajiv Parti, MD, is a world-renowned cardiac anesthesiologist and
was chief of anesthesiology at Bakersfield Heart Hospital for more
than a decade before having had his life-changing near-death
experience.
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