[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He said:One morning, during an initial training, I began to feel that the pain andthe discomfort were gradually fading away and this was accompanied 9780415455206_4_002.qxd 6/6/08 4:44 PM Page 5252 Journeys in the afterlifeby my consciousness gradually becoming clear and transparent.It wasa peaceful state.Then at the moment when I started feeling peaceful,my soul swiftly went out of my body and I was looking down at mybody, which was sitting in meditation, two to three meters above thefloor.Even though I, who was sitting in meditation, had my eyes closed,I could clearly see, for example, steps in front of the God-altar, thewindows, the ceiling, and the sitting cushion.I felt very strange andmystified, wondering what had happened, but at the same time I alsohad a feeling that it was nothing extraordinary.In ten minutes or so, Ireturned to my body.Afterwards, I remember going through a kind ofa blissful state for several hours.In less than a month after this experi-ence, I had another experience of the kundalini ascending through thecentral tube of the spinal cord.This experience enabled me to exit mybody at will.(Motoyama 2008)Hiroshi Motoyama holds the view that thanks to his meditative practices hewas able to awaken his soul to a higher dimension of consciousness.I tookthe opportunity to discuss with him some of the features of the near-deathexperience, such as the meeting with other beings, or God.He believes thatthere are many ontological dimensions of beings.Interactions among themcan take place on both a vertical and a horizontal level.The latter happenson the plane of the same dimension (e.g.we meet and communicate withother people.Such a communication also happens in the rest of the animaland vegetal worlds.In this sense, a plant communicates with a plant, a rabbitcommunicates with a rabbit, and so on).According to Motoyama, of a dif-ferent nature is a vertical relationship , which happens between beings thatbelong to different ontological dimensions.An example of this is the meet-ing with beings of light, or deceased relatives during a near-death experience(NDE).He suggested that such interaction is possible because there is a field(basho) of the same dimension in which multiple beings are simultaneouslyplaced.In one of his numerous publications, he wrote:In order for beings to exist at all, there must be a basho (i.e.field) of thesame dimension in which they are placed, wherein each recognizes theother(s) as homogenous with its own being, as well as recognizing itsown being as heterogeneous with other being(s).(Motoyama 2008)Interestingly, Motoyama coined the terminology, World of Places in orderto describe the state of Samadhi.He observed17 that:When the mind and the object are unified, the subject (the mind)becomes Place, and the new unity is sustained and supported at its base 9780415455206_4_002.qxd 6/6/08 4:44 PM Page 53Journeys in the afterlife 53.Unless the mind becomes fundamentally Place (Topos), it cannot beunited with the object, for if they are separate, they cannot be one.(Motoyama 1991: 136)This could be further supporting evidence that Place is indeed the core aspectof the NDE.Motoyama, who is currently a priest in a Shinto shrine in Tokyoas well as President of the California Institute for Human Science, believesthat the human soul survives at the death of the physical body as a soul witha distinct individuality, and it forms a community in the spirit world:Human beings were created, who in turn can create society, religions,science, and art unique to them.Only the human soul can continue toexist, after death, as a soul with a distinct individuality, and it formsa community in the world of the spirits.The divine self dwells in thecreated things produced in the natural and human worlds; it is alwaysworking (preserving) in order that the beings so produced can continueto exist for a certain period of time under a definite order, organization,and energy.It also works on the souls in the spiritual world; it works,preserves and negates them in ways appropriate to them, so that theycan be evolved into higher souls.(Motoyama 2008) 9780415455206_4_003.qxd 6/6/08 4:44 PM Page 543The river of no return1As Edward Hall, the anthropologist, said: There is no such a thing as experi-ence in the abstract as a mode separate and distinct from culture (1959: 143).We may wonder, does this claim apply to NDEs? This chapter will addressthis question by presenting the results of various cross-cultural studies of NDE.It will also introduce for the first time the results of a small-scale study thatI carried out in Japan and explore its cultural significance in terms of Deathand Life Studies.Cross-cultural study of the NDE is a relatively new and complex field ofinvestigation.Some researchers hold the view that the NDE is a universalexperience, which has basically the same structure around the world,although cultural and religious beliefs influence various details and the waythe NDE is interpreted.For example, we currently know that an Indian per-son is more likely to see Yama, the King of Death, or his messengers calledYamdoots (Pasricha and Stevenson 1986), rather than Christ or angels.Onthe contrary, others, like Cherie Sutherland, have reported cases where thecontent of the experience was actually different from the cultural or religiousbackground of the person who reported the experience (Sutherland 2007).Sociologist Allan Kellehear thinks that the idea that the NDE is a uni-versal experience is particularly appealing to those who support a biologicalexplanation of the phenomenon and he considers this kind of conclusionpremature on the basis of the limited existing data in non-Western countries(Kellehear 1996).In order to support his view, he offered a systematic com-parison of near-death experiences reported in India, China, Western NewBritain, Guam, Native America, and New Zealand.He published his resultsin a book entitled Experiences Near Death (1996), in which he came to theconclusion that only two features are universal: (1) the transition into a periodof darkness; and (2) the meeting with other beings , once arrived in the otherworld.Other aspects, like a life review , are nearly always absent in non-Western accounts.He wrote:In every case discussed, deceased or supernatural beings are encountered [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]