Why are the near-death experiences of Indians and Americans different?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Near-death experiences of say Indians and Americans quite different. Are you talking near-death experiences primarily or which ones? You mentioned that near-death experiences, isn’t it? Yes. Of Indians and Americans are somewhat different.
Yeah, yeah. And then there’s somebody named Rajiv, who wasn’t on YouTube, he was an Indian who had a near-death experience and he was greeted by angels. He was greeted by Gabriel and another angel.
And eventually he understood that God is impersonal. That was his ultimate conclusion after his near-death experience. But his wife said, how come you were greeted by angels? Yeah, I feel that the soul can be on a multi-life journey and whichever spiritual guides may have influenced that soul the most, either this life or a previous life, they may manifest in a vision like this.
So, generally it is that Hindus see something like Yamadutas or they see some other celestial beings. Christians see some sacred figures from Christianity. But it could well be that a soul who was born in India in a previous life might have been very religious and that’s why that connection is more.
So, are you saying that it’s based on how the person was raised? Or it could be on a previous life. Basically, because the spiritual evolution of the soul is over multiple lifetimes. And then in some lifetime the soul may have been very spiritual, another lifetime the soul might not have been so spiritual.
So, in that case, wherever the soul has been more spiritual, that is what influences the soul the most. Like we have the story of Bilwamangal Thakur and Chintamani, where Bilwamangal Thakur, you know, his guru Somagiri instructed him through a prostitute in this lifetime. So, he was completely infatuated with this prostitute and he came through a stormy night to meet, to see her.
And she said to him, what are you doing? We had so much enthusiasm for Krishna, you would be liberated by now. And she felt this is his guru speaking through her. So, like that, sometimes some forces from previous life might also come to guide us.
And there is some amount of cultural conformity, but not always. It is also that say, just like when Krishna reveals himself, Jesus, when he came, he spoke in the local language of his times. We can’t expect Jesus to speak in English.
English were not existing at all. When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came, he spoke in Bengali and Sanskrit. Just like we have the verbal language as a tool for communication.
Similarly, the cultural conceptions could also be a tool for communication. So, a particular messenger could speak through the particular cultural conceptions that people have. That is why I say, Americans, when their near-death experiences happen, they often see things which are shaped by their cultural conceptions.
And others see things shaped by their cultural conceptions. Now, the problem is, the atheists often say that this means that there is nothing more than the cultural conceptions, that everything is constructed by the culture. But that’s not necessary.
It could be that there is a core experience and that experience is perceived or understood through the lens of one’s cultural conceptions. It is Bhaktivinoda Thakur says in Chaitanya Shiksha Amrit that, you know, why are there differences in different religions? Because God reveals his message according to time, place, circumstances, according to culture, according to mentality, according to level. So, that way there are many differences in religions.
But the essence remains the same. So, I feel that trying to understand anything conclusive about the nature of afterlife, it is very difficult from these empirical studies. What we can know is that there is something more to life beyond this life.
There is something more to the world beyond the world of matter that we experience. It’s like with other questions of this kind also. By observing this world, we can point to the existence of God.
But we can’t prove the existence of God. We can’t really conclusively talk anything about the nature of God, certainly nothing about the personality of God. So, all those, we need an alternative way.
So, there is, there are basically two branches within theology which you could extrapolate. There is rational theology and there is revelational theology. So, like that we could have rational spirituality.
The word rational is used in the sense that, that which can be rationally inferred from here. And there is a revelational, which comes down from above. So, rational spirituality can take us only to some distance.
And if we try to go further beyond that, I feel it becomes too speculative.