What We Learn about Life from a Near-Death Event

Ava Kaufman seemed to have it all: impressive dancing career, successful business, loving husband and a wonderful adopted daughter, Jade. But like many of us, Kaufman wanted things to be just a teeny bit more perfect. If only she could lighten some of those pesky fine lines in her face!

Soon after having cosmetic injections, Kaufman was stricken with dermatomyositis, an autoimmune disease that quickly progressed. Just weeks later, she was on life support and near death. The donated organ from a 17-year-old boy saved her life, but her problems were far from over and she was put into a medically induced coma.

“During the 10 days I was on life support, I had a lot of hallucinations,” remembers Kaufman. “One evening, when I was starting to come out of the coma, I felt I was ready to let go. Everything around me was beautiful, and I was sitting in the palms of two huge hands. I looked everywhere for my mother, my ex and so many friends who had passed away, but nobody was there. I was sitting in these hands in the middle of this huge space, and all of a sudden I felt my 11-year-old daughter pulling me back.”

At that point Kaufman made a promise that she would spend the rest of her life “giving back,” if she could go back to the way she had been before her illness.

What happens when we die?

The promise of life after death is at once an appealing proposition and an elusive mystery. The question it inspires is a common thread that runs through the world’s religions and the imaginations of people leading back to the dawn of humanity. More recently, it has become a phenomenon that doctors, psychologists and other scientists are exploring.

One of the commonalities among those experiencing a near-death event (NDE), say Michelle Szabo, RMT and Dennis Grega, PhD, who have dedicated many years to studying the phenomena, is that life-after-death is often nothing like what we’ve been taught. “It’s an extension of our spiritual existence, our personal growth and everything that surrounds that,” they say.

Malibu- and New York-based psychotherapist Dr. Paul Hokemeyer found that some patients returning from NDEs experienced a profound shift that displaced elements of the personality that were not serving them. They came back with a renewed awareness about the more qualitative aspects of life.

“Many come back feeling more connected to the universe in all of its totality, whereas before the trauma, they felt more of a separation,” said Hokemeyer. “Afterward, they fell more integrated with the oneness of the world.”

Dr. Eben Alexander, bestselling author of Proof of Heaven, would agree. The neurosurgeon suffered a near-fatal onset of meningitis and spent seven days in a coma on a ventilator.

“I was encountering the reality of a world of consciousness that existed completely free of the limitations of my physical brain,” Dr. Alexander remembers. He says he learned that the hardships people experience in life are there, “by plan and intention,” and encourages others to see hardships as, “gifts that allow our souls to grow.”

Dr. Alexander believes his NDE provided a way for him to expand his understanding of the relationship between consciousness and the brain that goes far beyond anything explained in his old paradigm as a physician prior to his illness. He also sees that transcendent place as the reflection of a world undergoing change, with people reawakening from their traumas with a renewed desire to make the world a better place.

This is consistent with Hokemeyer’s findings. He observed that when people return from an NDE, “Things that used to bother them before are now irrelevant. Commercial interests and motivations move to the background and in their place come peace of mind, wholeness and serenity. There is a surrender that occurs. A lot of things an individual may have striven for, or clung to, melt away.”

The Journey Back

Lisa Garr’s NDE journey not only led her to a higher consciousness, but to a career that includes her local KPFK radio program, The Aware Show, and her book, Becoming Aware, in which she examines how an accident (brain damage sustained from losing control of her bike during a race in 100°F heat) shifted her outlook on life and the world.

“One minute, I was on my bike,” she recalls, “and the next, I was at the bottom of the hill looking up at my bike. As I tried to climb the hill, I kept losing my balance and then I found myself drifting. I was at that moment that I experienced one of the most incredible states of consciousness in my life. I found myself instantly out of pain and not in my body. I was not aware of the physical presence of my body, of the physical containment of the body. I felt the greatest sense of expansion—no limitations, everything was seamless.”

Dr. Alexander explains it this way: “The best way to look at [NDEs] is a deeper consciousness coming to us in whatever fashion is most appropriate. My soul journey had everything to do with the fundamental nature of consciousness… of trying to make sense of the deeper lesson: remembering our divine connection to the oneness we all share, and that we are directly linked to our very existence with that powerful, infinitely loving creator of the source that all is.”

But whereas Dr. Alexander recovered relatively quickly, it took several years for Garr to regain the power of speech she’d lost and to fully recover. During the process she regained consciousness intermittently, and felt she wanted to get back to, “this place of space, expansion, and harmony.” The higher state of consciousness she experienced propelled a quest to learn more about the mind’s inner workings.

“While I was healing, I found myself consuming new information about how the brain works like candy,” she says, when discussing how she came to write the book. “I wanted to explore how we can learn to expand the mind and open that space to greater possibilities. The brain can be used to heal, by getting negative thinking under control.”

It took Ava Kaufman two years to regain her health and get her life back on track. Since then she’s launched 501c3 Ava’s Heart (AvasHeart.org ) to help other transplant patients. To date, the organization born out of her ultimately successful transplant has helped 200 patients and their families with their medical expenses.

“When you survive something like that, you realize how much power you have,” says Kaufman. “That power enabled me to start a successful non-profit with no money. I learned that the only thing that really matters is love.”