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Having researched about 1,500 near-death experiences, some people clinically die. They say they come out of their body.
Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen interview pastor John Burke about 1,500 near-death experiences and what they suggest about purpose, God, and the afterlife.
Key Takeaways
- NDE research, as presented by Burke, points toward a personal purpose for each individual.
- Burke presents NDEs as evidence that consciousness may extend beyond the brain, though this remains contested in scientific circles.
- Reported experiences of God vary widely, and the interpretations are shaped by the experiencer's faith and background.
- The episode blends empirical anecdote, theology, and speculative physics, so claims should be weighed with that in mind.
What the video covers
- Host Mayim Bialik introduces John Burke, author of 'Imagine Heaven' and 'Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven', who has studied about 1,500 near-death experiences.
- Burke argues NDE reports, such as out-of-body observation of resuscitation, suggest consciousness may not be purely brain-based.
- He claims each person is created uniquely with gifts, passions, and experiences that shape a specific purpose.
- About 30% of NDErs report a life review, and many say they were sent back with a purpose still to fulfill.
- Burke says roughly half of experiencers encounter a loving, personal God of light, while others have shallower experiences.
- The discussion covers how NDE accounts vary in depth, with deeper experiences involving travel, beautiful landscapes, and welcoming figures.
- Some segments discuss hellish NDE accounts, which Burke interprets not as divine punishment but as consequences of one's own choices.
- The conversation draws parallels between NDE reports and Old Testament and Talmudic themes, including the idea of the world being created for each individual.
- Hosts and guest touch on speculative physics, such as other dimensions and string theory, as possible frameworks for the supernatural.
- The interview is promotional in nature, tied to the release of Burke's new book, and includes product-style advertising inserts.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Guest Welcome
- 03:30The Uniqueness of Human Purpose
- 08:00Shallow vs. Deep Near-Death Experiences
- 16:40Encountering the God of Light
- 28:20Hell, Judgment, and Life Review Accounts
- 43:20Biblical Parallels and Jewish Perspectives
- 55:00Science, Dimensions, and Consciousness
- 70:00Closing Reflections on Purpose
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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They observe their resuscitation. Those who have deeper experiences, a portal opens up. They travel. They still are themselves, and that's been consistent.
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I don't think we've spoken to someone who has this broad canvassing of these exceptional experiences.
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10 points of evidence convince me this cannot be just brain based. John Burke has interviewed thousands of near-death experiencers all over the world. What he's found reveals powerful messages about our unique purpose and what's waiting for us in the next life.
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What if supernatural is another way of saying other dimensional? We know that general relativity explains the macro, quantum mechanics explains the micro, but they don't work together.
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What you've arrived at is there's a message about your purpose. You've been created by God for a one-of-a-kind relationship. No one else has your unique gifts, your passions, your past life All these near-death experiences, how many were told, "I'm sending you back.
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You still have a purpose to fulfill." Everyone. Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen.
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And welcome to Art Breakdown. Today we're going to be talking about a very, very unique perspective on near-death experiences. What if near-death experiences aren't just incredible scientific phenomenon, but are truly revealing something about God, about heaven, about why we are here, and what
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our unique purpose is? Today, we're going to be talking with best-selling author John Burke, weeks before the release of his new book, *Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven*, where he talks about what NDEs are actually revealing about our unique purpose, the blueprint
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that's been laid out for us, and what we can expect in the next life.
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John Burke has spent decades interviewing more than 1,500 near-death experiencers and comparing what they report.
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He also has a very unique perspective as he is a pastor, and he looks into the Old Testament, the New Testament, and how reports of experiences from thousands of years ago echo what NDEers are reporting today.
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Just before we bring John on, take a moment, make sure you are subscribed to the channel. It's the easiest way to support the show and helps us make amazing episodes like this.
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You might think it doesn't make a difference if I subscribe. Guess what? It does.
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And with that, we will welcome John Burke to the breakdown. John, welcome. Break it down.
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Well, thank you so much. It's great to be here. I wonder if you can start us off by talking about the blueprint that all of us have.
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What my research has shown me is that we actually are all created unique for a reason.
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You know, the even even I think our fingerprint is a reminder of that. The there are no two alike, but that even the the uniqueness of our gifting, our passions, desires, our unique experiences, the good ones and the bad
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ones. They all play into how we were each designed with a unique purpose in mind.
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And we can each live that purpose out. We can we can fulfill it. Can you help us understand some of the framework of on the one hand, the uniqueness that is, right, the human experience in particular, but also the
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sense of unity that we have as a larger whole, as people? How do you sort of balance the Talmudic story I tell, right? The world was created for me, and also I'm dust and ashes, right? We're both incredibly significant, but also in
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many ways incredibly insignificant in the scope of a larger universe. Can you help us reconcile those?
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Doubt it. Okay, and that's John Burke. Well, I mean, isn't that the truth of it though? It's like, man, there's so much to know and so much to understand and the more I learn, the less I know.
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There's there more mysteries than things I understand. So, that's the the humbling reality of humanity. Um we we are a drop, you know, a tiny drop in the ocean of possible understanding and knowledge and all the mysteries there
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are. So, I'm coming from having researched about 1,500 um near-death experiences, interviewed many people all over the world, but that also led me to become a pastor.
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And so, also dealing with people and their struggles and and and all of that and I think all of those together, both of those really helped me see that we all have an intuitive sense that our lives do matter, they're supposed to matter.
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The why of that, we could argue, but it's pretty clear that most people need purpose.
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Uh and without it, we quickly lose hope. Um we go to bad places. But I believe that what this research into near-death experiences shown is that, uh, people when they have near-death experiences, consistently, about 30%have a life review
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in the presence of this God of love and light who knows them intimately, personally, and then sends them back, many times saying, "You still have a purpose to fulfill." In this life review, we get a lot of clues about
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about what that purpose is and and how um how we fulfill it. I think back to your question in that sense, you know, like, that means each one of us actually matters because we have a part to play
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in this grand scheme of whatever all this is about. Um we really do matter.
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Uh we really were intended for love. Love really is important. But at the same time um each one of us is a small part of a of a much greater whole and and we do have an impact on everything else. I
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think that's another humbling fact. One of the things you talk about in the book is globally about 50%of people that you've studied that have had near-death experiences have a very specific relationship with what they describe as God. And obviously
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this can take on many names and many forms, but about 50%of the time the God that people are interfacing with even if they came into their near-death experience without faith is a very very personal, intimate, kind of familiar, safe, and loving place to
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land. You refer to it as this kind of God of light. And in many cases people describe that it's just a blinding light, right? Like in a lot of those paintings that we that we know from the Renaissance period, right? Can you talk
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a little bit about what this God of light is and what is the other 50%of people experiencing when they're experiencing God in a near-death experience?
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Yeah, about 48%have this experience of the love and light of God. Um let me start with the other. The others it doesn't necessarily you can't really conclude anything that they did or didn't. I One of the things I've
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realized about near-death experiences is some are what I would call shallow and some deep. In the first book I wrote Imagine Heaven, I trace about 40 commonalities of what people consistently report. I'm showing how these these things show up
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again and again and again in various percentages. Now, some near-death experiences they people clinically die.
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They say they come out of their body. They feel more alive than they've ever felt, not with five senses, more like 50 senses.
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Um they observe their resuscitation, which when I was still a skeptical engineer, that was what started to convince me. Like, okay, this isn't just brain-based. There there might be more to this.
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Um but then they might come they might be resuscitated right then. And so so they just had a few of the elements, right? But then those who have what I would call deeper experiences, they a portal opens up. They travel.
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They go to this place of exquisite beauty. They have a welcoming committee of these people who've passed on before them. I would say the, you know, half that don't experience the love and light of God, it could be because they had a
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very shallow experience. They were quickly resuscitated. Although that's nebulous because it doesn't actually matter how long they were technically clinically dead. That doesn't seem to correlate with time on the other side at all. Don't know why that is, but that seems to be true.
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In your research, can you talk a little bit about the variability? You know, we've spoken to people who have been zipped up in a body bag, you know, for 2 hours and then brought back.
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Um we've spoken to, you know, people who were out for minutes and came back with about the same information as the people who've been gone for 2 hours. What's your understanding of either time frame or how information is also delivered when
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you are dead? Time definitely does not work the same way. Um in in Imagine Heaven, I I I postulate that if, you know, we live in one-dimensional time that goes in one direction.
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But if you had even two-dimensional time, at every point on our timeline, you would have another horizontal line of time that you could experience that moment for I don't know, indefinitely. Um if you had three-dimensional time, picture that flat plane now wrapping around a
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globe. And so, let's say our time is going from, you know, this is just a an analogy, but going from Ameri- um South America over to Africa, right?
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And at each moment of our time, someone in three-dimensional time would experience longitudinal second di- second, uh, dimensional time for each of those moments that would meet at a North Pole point of third-dimensional time, and therefore at that point experience
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the beginning and end and every moment in between, all in one moment of third-dimensional time. So, I mean, that's exactly what God says in the Bible, "I'm the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end." It's It's It's like a picture of
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at least three-dimensional time. Of course, that's I mean, it's a theory I have, but um it it seems to make sense. So, on the other side, near-death experiencers say some Many of them have told me, "Well, there was no time."
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Time didn't exist. But then others said, "No, you experience the past, the present, and the future all together." And then others said, "No, there was time. It's just that nothing was rushed.
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You had all the time in the world." Near-death experiences as a whole um uh my analogy for them uh uh actually comes from uh reading a book, Edwin Abbott's Flatland, a long time ago. Think about this life we're living in three dimensions, but
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imagine if we're really living it on a flat black and white painting in in your room.
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And so, you have up and down and side to side, but you don't even have a third dimension. You don't know what out or in is. It doesn't exist in your world.
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So, at death, your self, your consciousness, your soul peels off that flat, is separated from that flat world, and suddenly is brought out into three dimensions.
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You're still yourself. Cuz you have two dimensions, but now expanded into three, you're experiencing a three-dimensional world of color all around you. And now imagine getting resuscitated. You get pressed back into your flat two-dimensional black and white world, and you're trying to
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describe three-dimensional experience of colors, but in two-dimensional words and black and white terms. And how would you do it? And when I've used that analogy ask near-death experiences I've interviewed, they've said, "Oh, that's that's exactly what it is." And so, I
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think that's true of time, too. They're trying to describe things that they experienced that made sense there, but they're having to use our linear time frame. So, sometimes it it doesn't make sense.
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Something kind of caught me when you said, you know, you're still yourself. And I don't mean to, you know, go here so quickly, but like what what is the self? Because, you know, what so many NDE-ers describe is that they see that
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this incarnation is them in the meat suit, you know, that they're kind of operating in in this world; but that our existence is actually linked to a larger consciousness system and we're part of something much, much bigger that
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we're trying to understand in the body that we've been placed in. But, you know, who who are we really?
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And I'm curious what your kind of understanding is. Near-death experiencers that I've interviewed almost they almost always say, "I was still myself. In fact, I was more myself than I've ever been." In these reunions, which is very common,
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uh 57%of near-death experiencers encounter deceased loved ones, always deceased. So, they're not they're not encountering people still alive. Um but deceased loved ones who come and greet them, they still have their memories. They still laugh. There's there hug It's like
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real life, but in in another dimensionality. And um so they still are themselves, and that's been consistent. However, they also experience this connection to everything that's way beyond what we experience here.
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So like Dr. Mary Neal was a a spine surgeon that I interviewed, um died when her kayak was pinned under a waterfall in Chile. And you know, she said um there's this welcoming committee of people who are greeting her. They're
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just bursting with light and love and um But and and and they take her on this beautiful pathway and this incredible nature, and she said uh and this is almost verbatim what a commercial airline pilot told me as
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well. He said this the nature um was something you didn't just see, and it wasn't unlike Earth. Beauty, you know, forests and trees and grass and valleys and mountains, all that, streams, but you understood it.
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There was a connection to it. Another one said, you know, we don't have a sense here of experiencing the things around you growing. We know a tree is growing.
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You don't experience it growing. You don't experience the life in it. And and so there's this connectivity of all of creation that people do experience. And even person to person, you know, on the other side, you know, death experience there's commonly um say
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that the communication was impeccably pure. It's perfect. Some call it telepathy, but many say, "No, it's more than telepathy." Telepathy is thought to thought, but this is like heart to heart. Some say it's like imagine not only the understanding of what I'm thinking,
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but every thought associated with it, the emotion, and all that goes in around it.
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And so you just can't misunderstand one another. So that would be a a connection that would solve a lot of problems on Earth, quite frankly.
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A lot of what you're describing is a is a result of a a lot of reports of huge serotonin influx. You know, Molly, ecstasy, right?
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I'm looking to the room for people to nod their heads. You know, when And And I'm not saying that makes what you're saying any less true. I'm just like as a neuroscientist, I'm kind of interested in like what is the mechanism to have
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this kind of notion and feeling of love and connection. And we do know a bit, you know, about what that sort of is is like in pharmaceutically induced states.
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It also goes back to the earlier point about the difference between our unique individuality and the fact that we're just somewhat insignificant as a connection to a part of a larger whole. It sounds like the people who go off and have NDEs
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experience what it's like to both be individuated, but also so connected to something else that they're not individual at all. So much so that they can feel everything and translate everything. And that the only way that I can imagine
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having that level of understanding of things growing and other people is that you're actually not separate.
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If you weren't separate at all, then you wouldn't have your own thoughts, memories experiences.
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And they do. So that's why I say it's a both and. As a pastor who's dealt with a lot of drug addicts, by the way. I know a lot about DMT and and ayahuasca and all the, you know, um psychedelic drugs that
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supposedly make the same experiences as near-death experience. In In my book, Imagine the God of Heaven, I put 10 points of evidence that convinced me this cannot be just brain-based.
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And you know, most of the alternative theories would, you know, they're just a variation of brain-based theories. I think it has a lot to say to us though about even the struggles we have in this life. Our separateness requires a lot
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more work to be unified. If you've ever been in a relationship, you have arguments and you're you're missing each other. Well, one of the problems is I can only speak about 125 words a minute, but you're thinking 400 words a
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minute. So, you're adding like, you know, 3/4 interpretation to every word I'm saying and you know, and and then thinking about what you're going to say and so it's very hard to really understand each other unless we really slow down and
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work at listening. And and you know, for me though, seeing that that on the other side, that what I think life is going to be, is intended to be, there is that perfect communication, helps us maybe have a little more
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patience with one another. And and and we have to work at uniting. Even across, you know, you just think about all the divides, right?
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It means you have to stop judging the other for what you think you know, and you have to start listening more to understand even if you disagree. You can disagree.
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But but instead of just slamming the hammer down and pushing them away as an other, completely other, you stop and you learn to consider, you know, the opinions and the thoughts and and and that's, you know, that's the
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only way unity comes in our diversity of of humanity. I don't think I've ever heard that, the difference in your verbal ability versus your cognitive thinking ability. Besides Dr. Jeffrey Long, I don't think we've spoken to someone, you know, who has
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this this much of a broad, you know, canvassing of these exceptional, exceptional experiences that human beings have and have had, you know, for thousands of years. But I I wonder if you can take us a little bit into like
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the darkness of the belly of the NDE beast because, you know, one of the things that is so potentially terrifying is what if you have an NDE and it's not sunshine and roses, right? Can you tell us a little bit about some of the things
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that happen in those kinds of NDEs and what you believe it tells us about sort of the nature of reality? I mean, so many people speak about heaven, right?
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Or this intermediate place that they go in an NDE which has, you know, indications and echoes of the sort of biblical heaven, right? That that many of us are raised with. But, you know, the flip side of heaven is hell. And in
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many traditions, you know, the the purpose of that light is to also have that darkness, which in many cases can direct behavior and keep people, you know, in line. But, you know, if there's truth in what your you know, what your cataloging of these
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experiences, then if there's truth to the light, is there also truth to that darkness?
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In one study of near-death experiences that was done by the International Association of Near-Death Studies, 23%of people coming forward reported a hellish near-death experience. But at the same time, you know, Dr. Pim van Lommel, who I've interviewed, he's a Dutch cardiologist,
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he has said and and others like Dr. Rawlings, who was also a cardiologist, that these hellish experiences are vastly underreported.
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And and here's why. And I mean, it's really hard to understand, but consistently what near-death experiencers say is that this life is the shadow.
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That's the real thing. And so, what I like to say is I believe that God has given us a a very muted taste of heaven. In other words, all the beauty and all the love and all the things we enjoy is just like
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a little muted taste of what's to come. And near-death experiencers consistently say that. Like life continues on, but it just gets better. Like expands.
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But at the same time, um and you know, people people will will will say, you know, gosh, if there really is a God and he truly is loving and all-powerful, how in the world could he allow so much evil?
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So much suffering. It's, you know, number one argument against God. But what if he's not? What if God is actually limiting, greatly limiting our experience of evil?
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And good and love, and we are actually in a time capsule of choosing and learning why love matters most.
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Why kindness matters most. Why not dominating and my will be done, but rather thinking about God's will be done.
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Why that matters most. And so, the Jewish scriptures talk about how we are in the knowledge of both good and evil.
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That that's what we all are growing up with. And I mean, it's pretty it's pretty clear and evident. But I say that because when people have hellish near-death experiences, they say it was more real than this, and many of them come back with PTSD.
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It's real. So, like um Howard Storm is um a man that I'm good friends with now and I've gotten to know well, but he was an atheist uh college professor, tenured college professor.
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Um which another thing I love to point out is that these people that I write about are their spine surgeons, they're their medical doctors, their commercial airline pilots, they're tenured professors, you know, they're scientists. It's like why in the world would they make up
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crazy stories about dying and going to heaven or hell? Like all it does is hurt their career.
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They don't need money, they're not making money selling books, you know, the kind of things people say. But no, that doesn't make any sense. But what they consistently say is no, this was the most real thing that ever happened
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to me. He thought when you die, uh it's just unplug the computer, blank screen. There's nothing.
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And you know, by his own admission, he he had not been a good person. He had lived for himself. He had not paid much attention to his kids at all. He had had affairs on his wife. He was like it was
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it was all about, you know, his career and and himself. Hadn't even treated the students very well.
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He is he gets uh his lower duodenum ruptures and when he's on a an art tour in France.
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And you know, usually have like 5 to 8 hours and then you're gone cuz it's toxins spilling out in your gut.
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Uh well, uh they couldn't find a surgeon. It was a Saturday. After 8 hours, suddenly he goes from the worst pain he's ever been in in his life and he said I was standing by my bedside and I felt great.
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I I felt like Superman. I felt wonderful. And I asked him, I said, "Did you know you were dead?" And he said, "No.
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No, I'd never felt more alive." He said, "And I could feel everything." He said, "I'm an artist, so I could like sense and feel everything. Like I could count the bumps on the tile, you know, with my toes, you know, it's like
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But he didn't realize and and this is very interesting cuz Dr. Mary Neal and others said the same thing to me that at first they didn't realize they were dead.
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It's not the first thing that you'd think of. I mean, I would if I saw my body lying there, I guess, but I don't know. I don't understand that, but they've many have said that. So, initially, Howard feels great. Now,
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at the same time, he hears these people in the hallway of the hospital, Howard, "We're here for you." And he And he turns and looks, and it's it's like these people look kind of like they're dressed in hospital outfits, but he can't really
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see them very well. And he said,"I I need surgery. I'm I'm I'm dying."They said,"Oh, we know. We know all about you.
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Don't you want to get better? Come. Come with us. We want to help you." No, Howard. No, Howard.
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If Howard had had a shallow near-death experience, meaning right then, somehow he was resuscitated, what would his interpretation of his near-death experience have been?
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It's all good. Right? I felt great. I'm I'm I'm still alive, and these nice people, and but that's not where it went.
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So, he starts to follow them, and they begin to lead him. Not only does time work differently on the other side, but distance does, too.
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Um I I don't fully understand this, either, uh except by analogy. Like, you know, right now, I'm in Austin, you're in Los Angeles. That's a long way, right? Cuz it's like a a long walk, but a 3 and 1/2-hour flight, 3-hour flight.
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But what if What if in an instant I could just think it and be there? How far away is Los Angeles?
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Well, now, there's no distance. Anyway, he follows them, and he starts to realize, like, we've gone too far.
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A hospital can't be this big. And And we're on the second floor, so how am I How do we keep going like this?
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And it's getting dimmer and darker. And he starts to ask,"Where are we going?" And they start to get ruder and and more like "Shut up and keep going." And it becomes super dark.
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And um and he realizes they're not up to any good and he starts to try to get away.
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And he said it turned into the worst prison scene you can imagine. Of them turning on him and literally mauling him and doing things to him that you don't want to imagine, but the worst you can think of.
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Everything you can think of. And he was just being eviscerated. And so here's this atheist tenured college professor and in the midst of this he has this in his solar plexus, he said, like in his chest, pray to God.
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And he thinks to himself, I don't believe in God. And he has it again, pray to God.
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He's like, I don't pray. What do I pray? I don't even know how to I don't know what I'd pray. And then again, pray to God. And he starts just piecing together like he didn't know any he's just like my
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country 'tis of thee, God bless America, anything he could think of with God in it and and he said they became furious.
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But he started to notice and and they started to say, you're really going to we're really going to hurt you now. You have no idea where we're taking you. It gets much worse than this.
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But they were backing off. And he realized they were backing off, so he kept going.
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Long story short, I I've got the full account in Imagine Heaven, but long story short, um he's, he's there after they back off and he said he has time infinite to think about his life; and he said,"I realized that I had lived
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a garbage life and I was in the sewer of existence." Terrifying because none of us are perfect.
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We'll get to that cuz I agree, I'm not for sure. So he remembers a song from when he was a little kid and his next door neighbor took him to Sunday school, Jesus loves me.
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And just in desperation, he in tears said,"Even if Jesus is real, how could he love me? I've I'm so horrible." And yet he cries out,"Jesus, save me." And he says, this atheist uh you know, tenured college professor says,
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"Pinpoint of light starts into this darkness, gets brighter and brighter until it becomes brighter than the sun.
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Arms reach out, pick him up, and he can see all the all the gore, but it's it's gone, and hold him as he cries like a baby, and then just starts to rub his back like like a mom or dad would
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comfort a child." Takes him out of there, and Howard then with Jesus holding him in the presence of angels, gets a life review, which is That's fascinating, too.
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He came back from this, and 2 years after this near-death experience, leaves his tenured professorship to become a pastor.
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And his wife divorces him cuz she was still an atheist and thought he'd gone crazy.
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What? But but here's here's the thing, you guys. I have interviewed people all over the world with similar stories. A Jewish girl, she's also a good friend of ours today, um Heidi Barr.
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She uh grew up with an atheist father who was pretty abusive. Every night he would tell his three daughters,"There is no God. Your life is worthless. Jesus Christ is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind." And yet, she always believed in God and
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always prayed to God, like every night. And again, pretty abusive situation. I won't tell you all about it, but she would pray and feel like God was really her father who was comforting her.
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Knew nothing about Jesus at all. Um other than he's a hoax. At 16, her horse uh steps off the back of a cliff, rears up, falls on her, crushes her.
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She's 40 ft up above her body looking down at the scene of the accident, watching her sisters freak out, them rush to the barn to try to get help. Um and she said,"There's a light over my right shoulder, and I turn and I look,
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and there floating with me is this man of light in a white robe with a beard and this huge grin on his face, and she said,'I know you.'" And she said,"I I knew who this was." She said,"I knew this was the God I had
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always prayed to. I knew this was Jesus. Then he shows her her life review, and he shows her even how when she was a little girl of eight praying at night, how he was there by her bedside comforting her,
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caring for her. Now, I've also interviewed um Hindus like uh Rajiv, Dr. Parti, who was chief anesthesiologist at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital.
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An an anesthesiologist did not believe in near-death experiences at all. He had heard people come back and say these things, you know, and he he would give them, you know, a a shot of anti psychotic drug because he
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thought it was psychosis. And then he has his own while undergoing surgery for it was it turned into sepsis.
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He has his own near-death experience. He's up above his body. He's able to later report what the anesthesiologist said as a very crude joke.
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He sees what his mom and sister are doing. You know, he was in LA, his body, they were in India.
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It all checked out when he came back. He also experiences a hellish experience. Told me he cried out to God in repentance.
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Um because he he had he had become addicted to opioids and he had also not been very kind to his son. He His father had been kind of abusive. There'd been abuse there. Um but he cries out to God
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and he says these two angels come and take him through this portal to this place of great beauty, lush beauty, in the presence of this God of light.
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And he later and he says and he sends him back. He says, "I'm I'm sending you back. You still have a purpose to fulfill." He later encounters the same God of light and asks, "Who are you, Lord?" He came back seeking, trying to
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understand. Cuz he said, "This is not what I learned in the Hindu scriptures." This very personal God of light and love knew me intimately. You know, he had a life review as well, knew everything about me, things I had forgotten.
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Um but he he asks, "Who are you, Lord?" And he says, okay, again, a Hindu, never read the Bible, you know, that He says Jesus steps out of this light, holds out his arms, and says, "I'm Jesus, your
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savior." Now, why in the world would he say that? Why would he make that up?
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Does him no good. Doesn't fit his cultural expectations. I interviewed a woman in Tehran. Same thing. A a Muslim imam in Rwanda.
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Same thing. I I not believe hell is God punishing us for the sins we've done.
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I believe that hell is God creating us in love for love. That love is the governing rule of the universe when we when we get down to it.
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And in fact, love requires free will. You you you cannot have true love without free will. You know, I can I can give you gifts because I want you to love me. Maybe you stick around, but maybe you love the gifts, not really me,
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right? So, love can't be bought. Love can't be forced. You know, if you won't love me, I stick a gun to your head and say act like you love me. Well, we all know that's not love. Love must be free.
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What if um quantum superposition and the collapse of the wave form with observation is the same as the collapse of the wave form of possibilities with choice.
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And that maybe that's the substrate through which God has created us to be free will agents who can choose to love and it affects everything because it is the it's the underlying causality of of everything. So, I think
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hell is the free will creature saying I want to be God. My will be done.
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I don't want anyone else messing with my life. I know I know what I want. I know what I desire.
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And it then is God saying in love and in sadness, okay, your will be done.
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But there's only one place where the light and the love and the life of God, all the good gifts that God created us to enjoy and experience stays out.
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And it's a place where there is outer darkness and where it's dominate or be dominated. It's it's a battle of the wills of free will creatures.
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The notion of a God that would say, I have the power, you know, to control your experience.
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And this is the lessons I'm going to give you. You know, this is what a lot of people have trouble with, you know, regarding religion, regarding, you know, fights over borders, or, you know, I mean all sorts of battles. And, you
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know, for thousands of years, you know, battles have been waged in the name of God. Can you help us a little bit with that distinction between the God of your understanding, right, and the sort of God of religion that many people find,
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you know, increasingly problematic? Well, I think the biggest problem is that we confuse God with people.
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People can say lots of things. Uh Jesus said, "You'll know them by their fruit." You know, um and God is love. Jesus claimed that he came and demonstrated the the amount of love God has for every single individual created
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that he would take the bullet for us. And so so you said, you know, none of us are perfect. You're right. I mean, you know, I'm I'm so aware that like, wow, I am such a screw up. Like, I can't
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control my thoughts daily. You know, and um and I do, you know, and I've done things that are hurtful to others even when I don't want to. I believe that what what God has been telling this love story
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uh that actually I think the Bible is a love story if you can get past the things that trip us up.
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And the and the love story is that yes, we all screw up. We hurt one another. We we break God's moral laws. We break our own moral laws. I mean, think about it.
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Have you ever said, "I'll I'll never." or that is wrong. And yet you did it.
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You know, like we can't even keep our own moral laws. And and yet, I think God and love has said, "Okay, but I will pay the price of my own justice so that anyone growing up again in the knowledge of
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both good and evil where we see good and experience good, and we can be loving and kind, and then we can turn and think thoughts about others and say things about others and hurt others and, yeah, all kinds of things right?"
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We grow up in that, we all fall prey to that, and yet God says, "I I will forgive anyone and take them back as my children if they want it." That's it.
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I'm listening to the words you're saying, and mostly I'm just afraid that if I ever have an NDE, what if it's the bad kind?
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Like, that's all I'm thinking. Like, indeed, none of us are are perfect, right? I'm thinking Dolly Parton may, you know, if she ever had an NDE, would probably be like beautiful and fantastic. But like, for most of us, you
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know, I think this is this interesting thing. Like, I'm wondering, what is this experience, right? That so many people who experience NDEs do have a prickly past.
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People like Howard, who he, you know, he was not a good person. He saw it in his life review.
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But God was willing to forgive him and take him back and and make him right with himself. And and I think that's the other thing. It's like, it that doesn't mean that our actions don't matter.
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It's it's a it's a different way of looking at it. It's like, um if my children do wrong, I don't throw them out of the house and abandon them.
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But if they're not willing to kind of turn back to me and let me guide them, we don't really have much relationship.
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I don't have much influence in their lives because they're free will creatures. I think the incredibly hopeful message that I believe NDErs around the world are confirming is that God is love.
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Yes, what he cares most about is how we treat one another, how kind we are to one another, how we love one another. I mean, that's exactly what God said to Moses. He said, "Love God." It's the Shema. You know, that's the the number
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one command. Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. Second is love your neighbor as yourself. And then, of course, Jesus is asked the greatest command and he reiterates that.
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And um and that's what near-death experiencers who have a life review in God's presence, it's what they say, almost verbatim. Like, God is love, unconditional. Like they try to describe they said human love doesn't even come close. Human love
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is like standing in the ocean and the little ripples of of waves of love at your ankles, and then here comes God's love, it's a tsunami.
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And it just washes away all fear, all worry, all anxiety. Everything except left with peace and joy and and this incredible sense of belonging.
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So, I think it's incredibly hopeful because here's why, because it would mean that we don't have to jump through a bunch of religious hoops. You know, no one has perfect karma.
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All right? Uh no one no one keeps the five pillars perfectly or the eightfold path of of Buddhism or the Ten Commandments. None of us.
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And and and so we all know deep down, okay, well, I've screwed up. So, what does that mean? Am I condemned?
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And I think what God has been saying throughout history, but I think NDErs confirm is that no, you're not condemned.
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You're forgiven. If you want it. And that's for the purpose of relationship so that we can we can have relationship with God growing now more and more to help us love one another better.
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And then it doesn't end. It keeps going. There's a story that you talk about in Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven that is you know, one of the one of the strongest pieces of evidence that there's something going on in
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near-death experiences that we just do not have the words to explain. And this is you know, it's also it is it it's very biblical, right? It's the blind can see.
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And I wonder if you can walk us through a near-death experience of of an example of the blind being able to see.
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Yeah, and I'll tell you when I was you know still a skeptical engineer thinking about all this stuff these um probably these three things convinced me this can't be brain-based. No brain-based theories explain this.
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The first is verifiable observations. So, I won't I won't go into that right now, but when people are above their body, they view their resuscitation.
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I've interviewed cardiologist who who said they described to me their resuscitation with such technical detail, I could have recorded it and taught other physicians.
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There's no way they could have known what they described. And yet they had a flat EEG, no brain waves. Where are these new memories being made if we're all just brain matter, right? Okay, so that's one. And there you know, there
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there are there are studies that have been done of these verifiable observations. That first convinced me. The second was what you said is when people blind from birth, and I've interviewed about seven of them now when they are blind from birth
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when when they have a near-death experience, they see. They have visual understandings, perceptions, and they report all the same commonalities as sighted near-death experiencers. Vicki was one of them.
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I'll I'll tell you hers cuz it's a pretty a pretty cool one. Brad uh Burrows was another one I interviewed.
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You can hear him on my podcast describing and he's blind still, you know, so they come back and they're still blind.
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But you can hear him describing visual perception as he's leaving the hospital and rising up and he sees the street outside where he was.
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He sees lights moving and a trolley car moving and he said, "But I couldn't really hear them." So I was like, "How am I perceiving this?" Cuz hearing was the way he would have perceived traffic, right?
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And then he said, "And then I started moving and the lights became smaller and smaller and smaller." He's going up.
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But that's a visual perception. And he's describing this. So Vicki is is one that's fascinating. She was 22, she was in a car accident.
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Um she's up above her body in the hospital room. The doctors are panicking cuz they're losing her.
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She feels great. And she's like, "Why are they panicking?" And then she notices the orange blossom on her ring on on the body that she's looking at and realizes, "Oh my gosh, that's my ring. That's me.
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I must be dead." And then she starts to lift and she goes up through the ceiling of the hospital, up out of the hospital, enters what some call a portal or a tunnel.
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And she said, "You know, I would I was seeing colors, though all I can describe is is varying brightnesses cuz I don't have words for the colors." Another fascinating thing, right? And she said, "I entered this tunnel and
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then there was no color. Maybe that's what you call darkness." Which is a commonality of these, right?
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They They travel through this dark tunnel or portal, and she comes to this light at the end and comes out in this garden-like setting, just beautiful, and and says the the light there was something very emotional to me, because
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I could I could never understand what light was like. She said the light, though, was coming out of everything.
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It was coming out of the trees and the birds and the flowers and even this group of people coming toward her.
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And she said, "But the light was something palpable. It was something you could feel, and it felt like love." Pause, because multiple blind near-death experiencers have said this about the light of heaven.
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Where would they ever get that idea? They would hear on Earth light shines on things, not out of everything.
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And light feels hot, which they would know, but it doesn't feel love. Yeah, I mean, talk about the universal language, right, being love. No matter what language you speak, no matter if you have no vision, right? Like that the
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universal language is a feeling called love. My study of this, my you know, kind of, I guess, expertise in it is not just all the near-death experience commonalities, but kind of how does it fit with what the Bible's been saying, and what's the
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meaning of all this, you know? So, what's fascinating is back to Isaiah, who wrote in about 680 BC, writes, "There is no sun or moon in heaven, for for God is its light." Okay, then John, one of Jesus' disciples, is
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claims Jesus calls him up and then he's taken to heaven. He writes the Book of Revelation. In Revelation 21, he is up on a very high mountain looking at the holy city, which, by the way, I had a Hindu manufacturing engineer
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describe that exact same city. He'd never read the Bible before. Mhm. We can come back to that. But, John says there is no sun or moon for the glory of God is its light, and the nations will walk in that light.
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Now, that's what blind near-death experiencers describe today. We, you know, got to speak to D.W.
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Pasulka, and Dr. Pasulka talks about, you know, we use whatever language is in the current vernacular to describe all of these incredible experiences and interfaces that we can have with something divine, something bigger than ourselves, you know, spirit, the larger
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consciousness system, right? Whatever you want to call it. So, maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, because these things were recounted, right? In documents that, if nothing else, we know are thousands of years old, right? What can we assume?
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And especially for those of us maybe who are not Christian, right? What can we understand about the fact that this language about these experiences has been used for thousands of years?
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One thing I think is important is I don't think this is is Christian. Um I I think that that actually gets I think that weighs it down and puts it in a category that you you you end up making some assumptions I
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think aren't aren't true. However, I do think these near-death experiences align with what I've come to believe God has been revealing over thousands of years recorded in through the Jewish prophets that ultimately I think foretold the coming of Jesus and and what was told
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there. And I think what people miss is that from the very beginning, so all the way back, Genesis chapter 12, you know, about 4,000 years ago, God called Abraham and Sarah and creates the Jewish nation and and says,
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"I'm going to, I'm going to bless you so that you will be a blessing to all the nations." My point is, it's always been for all the nations. And I think this is really important because go go search uh the
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the scriptures of the world's religions and see how many are addressing all the nations. Like that God cares about all people of all nations. The Jewish Old Testament, you know, it was written uh from about 1400 ish BC to about 400, so over about
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a a thousand years uh by about 40 different authors. And yet there's this consistent theme of God pursuing us, we keep turning away, God pursuing us, we keep turning away.
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So, one of the biggest things that convinced me um of God's reality was what he claims in in the old in the Jewish Old Testament.
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So, to Moses and to Isaiah, he claims, "Here's how you'll know I'm really God.
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I alone can foretell what's going to happen. I tell what's what's to to pass, and then when it does, you'll know. You'll know I'm real. You know it's me." And he says this to Moses, he says it in
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Isaiah as well. Okay, then there's several things that happened in history that can be checked out.
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So, when I was still a skeptical engineer, these near-death experiences opened my mind to this because so many people in their near-death experiences are seeing this God of light and love and even Jesus. I knew enough to know, "Oh,
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well, you know, this God of light apparently appeared to Moses in this burning bush. I wonder if it's the same one, you know?" When I started to really study it, here's what I realized. God has been foretelling what he's going to do, and
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he's done some things that are pretty hard to explain away. In chapter 45, God says, you know, I'm the one who knows the the the beginning from the end. I alone know what's to come. I will I can
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tell you what's to come. In Isaiah 11, he says, in that day, and he said the the day the root of Jesse, which is referring to Messiah, is the nations rally to him. The nations. So, again, it's about the nations. I will put a
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banner or a sign for all the nations. I will re-gather the scattered people of Judah a second time.
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Uh and and he says that I will do this as a sign to all the nations. Then on Isaiah 66, he says, can a nation be born overnight?
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Of course, it's a rhetorical question. No, it's never happened. And he said, yet no sooner is is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.
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Rejoice with Jerusalem. He's talking about something in, you know, with with Jerusalem and the Jewish people. Okay.
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So, then Jesus comes along and he says in Matthew 24, you know, that um that we didn't recognize the day of his coming and that the Jewish people would be scattered to the four quarters of the earth until the time of the Gentiles,
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the non-Jewish people, is fulfilled. Okay, all all all crazy wild stuff except that in 1948, it actually happened after like 1,900 years of the Jewish people remaining a people scattered throughout the earth. First of all, when has that ever happened? No
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government, no land, um no common language uh even. It was lost until like almost 200 years ago.
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And then you also have this bizarre thing of evil trying to exterminate the Jewish people. From Haman to Hitler, and you kind of go like, what in the world?
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So, from the time Zion is in labor, which was right after the Holocaust, in 1948, Israel becomes a nation overnight.
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Like, it's literally it was in the New York Times. After 1,900 years, Russian Jews, American Jews, Ethiopian Jews, I mean, literally from all over the world, come back and and resettle.
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Now, I know. I know. I know. It's very, you know, this is a very politically heated topic right now.
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And I don't think that means everything that's going on is right or good. People still do wrong. But, I think it does say something about how do you explain that that actually happened in history and it was foretold
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in 680 BC? Some of the things that are described, right, for thousands of years, um in many cases, echo a lot of the experiences that people have with the divine.
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Near-death experiences? Yeah, even some of the conversations we've had, you know, um with people who have had experiences of either encounters with what they perceive as non-human intelligence, right? There's all these sci phenomena that in many cases are echoing, you know, some of the
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most, I don't want to say outrageous, cuz that feels disrespectful, but, you know, some of the most phenomenal, you know, kind of aspects of of prophecy, right? And and for me and for Jonathan and kind of for all of us here, for us,
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that's not saying that like, we know what's right, right, with a capital R. We don't know what truth is, but what we know is that for thousands of years, people who have a special connection with the God of their understanding have
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experienced phenomenal things. And, you know, Isaiah's vision is one that comes to mind. Jacob's ladder is another that comes to mind. And the idea is not so much to say that, oh, the Old Testament proves, right, that that God exists or
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it proves that NDEs are real. But the notion is that, for thousands of years, we've been trying to explain, right, incredible experiences that happen whether those happen in a trance state, whether those happen in that space between awakeness and sleepiness right,
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which is prophecy: was usually in a vision, in a trance, or in sleep. And how many people are experiencing incredible things and you know, something like, you know, the the visions of of Ezekiel, right? These things of, you know, flashing orbs of
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light with eyes that can see into your soul and, you know, this feeling of trembling and awe, right? To us that's so interesting because even the fact that over thousands of years people can have a similar language for things that
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many dismiss as supernatural. There's a way to also ground it in in a true experience. Talk a little bit about that, especially from your experience with people who have had NDEs and are interfacing with God on a very intimate
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level. Yeah, well, I go back to the 2D 3D analogy. I think what if supernatural is another way of saying other dimensional, multidimensional.
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I That's not that hard to understand. I mean, you know, we know that general relativity explains the macro really well, you know, the laws of general relativity, and quantum mechanics explains the micro really well, but they don't work together,
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right? Except, interestingly, um two mathematicians, Kaluza and Klein, introduced a a paper where they put a a fifth dimensional tensor into the equations and showed that other dimensionality could resolve this, you know, seeming paradox.
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And and so I think I mean, quantum mechanics I think is showing us the same thing that they're they're probably are other dimensionalities. I mean I don't know if string theory is true but it is talking about you know what 11
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curled up dimensions somewhere that we can't So there's a lot of things that even science is pointing to that has has been in our literature.
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It's been in in people's experiences that they've tried to talk about or write about and maybe we're finding you know new more detailed language for it.
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But I think it's a way to confirm rather than saying like oh well that's just all myth because we're so smart now. You know I think we did say that for a while.
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All it created was the nuclear explosion. You know but I think quantum mechanics has led us into a little bit more humbler state of like okay something's going on here but there's a lot of mystery.
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Dumb question is it possible that near-death experiences happened more often? Is it possible that the you know the disciples were also experiencing things that were out of our understanding of reality and that they were having these experiences?
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Yeah I think the Apostle Paul had a near-death experience. Kind of like the guy Rajiv I told you about. You know he had the same experience. He he did not He was a Pharisee who did not believe in Jesus. The
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Pharisees are the ones part of the one you know the group who had him turned over to the Romans and the Romans crucified him. He's on his way to arrest followers of Jesus and have him persecuted. Same brilliant
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light appears to him on the Damascus Road. He says who are you Lord? He says I'm Jesus who you're persecuting.
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Just like Rajiv. You know this Hindu, uh, you know, chief anesthesiologist. And um, but later it says in Acts chapter 14, he's then going around talking about Jesus, and in Lystra, they turn on him, and a mob turns against him, um, cuz it
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was messing up their profits, I guess, and stoned him to death. Okay? Um, so, when he was when he was stoned, uh, he's dragged out of the city and left for dead. He is laying there dead, and it says his his followers are around
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him, and he gets up, and he goes back into the city. Okay, so, that doesn't seem like, I mean, they knew how to kill people back then, how to stone them with rocks, and, you know?
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But, the interesting point is he says in 2 Corinthians 12, "14 years ago, whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don't know.
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Only God knows, but I was taken up to heaven, and I heard and saw things inexpressible, some things no one is allowed to tell." So, was he referring to that time? Was that 14 years earlier in Lystra, when he was
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stoned to death? Did he have a near-death experience? I kind of think so, because of all the things he describes that correlate, and you know, that's what I'm showing a lot of in Imagine Heaven.
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There was a third piece of evidence that for you solidified that NDEs are real.
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What was the third one? That 48%encounter the same God, no matter what their religious background or expectation.
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All three of those things would not have been in the brain. You got to do better than just saying, "Oh, well, it's neurotransmitters flooding the brain at death. It's just the way of easing our passing." Okay, that doesn't explain anything.
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Why would DMT or other gateway drugs have some of these same things? I have theories about that. You probably know this as a neuroscientist, but you know, Dr. Wilder Penfield, do you know about his research?
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Yeah, so in the '50s, you know, he did research on epileptic patients and basically zapped across um you know, areas of the brain and mapped the brain.
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And you know, he he was a materialist, but it changed him because, you know, he would zap across one area of the brain and the patient's arm would shoot up, but the patient, you know, because they were conscience conscious while he was
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doing this, would say, "I'm not doing that." You did that." Which really confused him cuz he thought we are our brain matter. Consciousness comes out of the brain. Well, what was the I that was separate from the brain that
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was able to observe that I wasn't doing that, you did that? So, it it changed his understanding.
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This book, Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven, is kind of taking all of this research you've done over decades and decades, and what you've arrived at is there's a message here. There's a message about your purpose, like why you're here, why some of us struggle,
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you know, what we can sort of look forward to. Can you leave us, you know, with a little bit of a taste of how this information has led you not only to a personal relationship, right, with God, especially as a as a shepherd, as it
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were, but but what does it tell us about what we're doing here and what we're supposed to do next?
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What I'm trying to show is through the the clues I've seen through all these near-death experiences of of how many were told "I'm sending you back. You still have a purpose to fulfill." And that's almost everyone. I mean,
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everyone. I mean, not every NDEer hear hears that, but it doesn't really matter their background. They they they hear that.
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And and yet, even in God's presence, he doesn't tell them what it is. In fact, this one CEO I interviewed, um he was like,"I don't want to go back."Most of them don't want to go back. They say that's home. That's where we belong.
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It feels like we're coming back into the sewer here. And so, they don't want to go back. But, you know, he was used to five and 10-year plans and and he was like, "Well, then tell me tell me the plan.
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Tell me my purpose." And and God said,"No, I won't tell you your purpose because you'll be tempted to get out ahead of me and do it according to your will. Our purpose is multifaceted. I mean, not not all of us
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are Hollywood stars like you. Um I'm tempted to call you Amy still, you know? It's like But, people tend to think like, well, I'm a nobody.
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I'm not celebrated. I'm not known. I haven't come up with some genius thing. I struggled in school. I haven't led a big corporation. I haven't made some great discovery. My life doesn't matter.
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And that is absolutely false. So, what this tells us is that no, we can't compare ourselves to someone else.
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You've been created unique by God for a one-of-a-kind relationship with God. This is the other thing that's just mind-blowing. How many of them told me in God's presence, I I knew it wasn't completely true, but I felt like I was the only one he loved.
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Like I was his only only child, and he was so crazy about me. And she and and they consistently said that.
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You you are created to have a a one-of-a-kind relationship with God. But also no one else has your unique wiring.
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No one else has your unique gifts, your talents, but also your passions, your past life experiences, you know, your your your good experiences, even the bad experiences. And all of that comes together as a matrix that whatever career path you're taking or
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job you're doing or, you know, it it changes with seasons. However, we can fulfill our purpose in and through all of that.
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Because the core of it is about love. It's how we treat the people around us.
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It's how we use all we've been given to serve humanity, to make people better.
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It's about the motives of the why we do what we do. All of that matters. How we treat our families, our kids, the sacrifices we make, even and I have a whole chapter on, you know, the purpose of suffering.
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Even when we're going through the trials and the difficulties and the evils of this life, how we handle them, either either they can take from us or we can actually make something of them that serves our purpose.
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It calls to mind, you know, there are no mistakes in God's world is something that, you know, I've been told throughout my life. Once you frame it that way, it it can be a real source of strength because even the challenges can be seen
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as, oh, this is an opportunity, right? Or, you know, I've been told God has two answers, right? Yes or not now, I've got something better for you, right? What if every no wasn't a no, but a hopeful, you know, a hopeful moment,
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right? Be patient. All these things. Really so lovely to speak to you. Um, John Burke, the the new book is Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven. Where can people find out more about the work you do?
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The books are on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. Um, the the Imagine Heaven podcast, you can hear me interview a lot of these people.
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We think you do a really good job. So, thank you so much for for here. We really appreciate it.
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Well, thank you so much for having me on. I really like this idea: that if you were to view life as even the hardest parts the suffering, the pain like what even that has a lesson, it's not a mistake. You're not
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forgotten, God didn't leave you behind or whatever; the universe has not forgotten that you're there. That to me is a a kind of um an an overarching inspiring umbrella category that I think we can pull out of this
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kind of conversation about NDEs. That's just my hot take. March 3rd, 2000 and 25. Kyrie Irving is playing for the Dallas Mavericks and he tears his ACL in a play.
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It was a game against the Sacramento Kings. Okay. Despite being in severe pain, knowing his season was over, when you get injured like that, you know I'm assuming you're not having a stroke.
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There's a reason you're telling us about this. Trust. He gets up, he goes to the free throw line, and before he shoots his free throws, the camera catches him mouthing, "Thank you, God." He hits his free throws, his season is over. He has I I
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believe he has surgery in the off-season. And imagine that. Imagine having the gratitude, the faith that whatever the plan is for life, even in the moments where you're injured, where your season is over, where you're not sure if
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you're going to recover or not, that you can have trust in the process. I saw this clip uh about this story, I think it was 2 days ago, and I have thought about it ever since. And the fact that
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we're talking about this right now to me is actually quite powerful because how much of life is determined by what we want?
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What we think should happen, when it should happen, how it should happen, and how upset we get when things don't go our way.
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We think we know how things are supposed to go. Now, I want to be very cautious here because there's a caveat for me.
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That doesn't mean to not have an like not to try, not to have an attempt, not to set a goal for something.
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You don't turn everything over to God to that extent. Because I think that you could be cautious, right? It's like, "Oh, something horrible happens and there is action to take and I won't take it because that's just the way it's meant
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to be." And I think that is you know, you can make it a dangerous philosophy but to know and to have a sense that we are in a plan that is unfolding can offer us extreme comfort.
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Think of all the expressions we have surrounding this. Uh, you know, one door closes, another door and the window opens, right? That's how I like to say it, right? You know, the skeptical atheist or agnostic might be like, "Well, that's just something
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you're saying to make yourself feel better." Which is not untrue. We also know from our conversation with Bruce Lipton, even from our conversation with Joe Dispenza. Guess what? It matters if you feel attached to something that gives you hope. There is this notion that if
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you're looking for the scientific grounding and sort of the the the real-world experience of what it means to be positive, right? It's not toxic positivity. It's being able to say there's something that happens when I create an opening and when I create the
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possibility for emotional abundance that allows my body to heal, to feel safe, and to seek out rather than to to rail against God.
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It's very hard to imagine that we're all part of some grand symphony that is unfolding and that it has a purpose. And we've had some guests that have asked the question, "Is the Is the world conscious? Is the universe conscious? is
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there consciousness that has agency in and of itself. Uh Nikolai Kukushkin broached that topic, but we did not I don't I don't think he really felt like there was an inherent will. Um others do believe that. Others in the earth school
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mentality believe that we're here for a reason. It is unfolding. We are all part of the learning and experience that is happening on the planet and each one of us are experiencing that learning. And so there's a parallel path happening. As we
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all learn, the planet is also experiencing this evolution and we're moving towards something. That being said, it's hard to imagine as, you know, there are hurricanes and there are natural disasters. Like it's, you know, the God's eye view of the plan for the world
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is very difficult to really grasp. It's only difficult if you anthropomorphize God and you think that God has the same feelings that we do or that God, you know, doesn't like when there's rain cuz you have to hold an
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umbrella. But one of the ideas that really actually inspires me is the notion that the small acts. It's not that our life has to have this grand mission of running a major company and trading on the stock exchange or, you know,
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making hundreds and millions of dollars in order to invest or build school somewhere; but even the small acts throughout our day have such huge implications that they have impact through the community. How we make someone else feel can change how
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they interact with someone else and so on and so on and so forth and that we can have impacts in a much more significant way with much smaller outputs than we imagine.
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Many of our near-death experiencers, you know, who have talked about feeling the impact of um you know, not only the the evil things they did and seeing how much it, you know, was hurtful to people, right? I think of Betty's Betty's example, Buddha
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Betty. But seeing how small acts of kindness To come back from any NDE and be like, I had a life review. That's incredible already. But to have witnessed like I'm even going to be like super scientific here. Why would your brain
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replay for you a small act of kindness that you did for someone when you're in theory dead on the table, right?
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Why would that be what what comes to you, especially if it's a memory that you know, something that you remember, right? It's not like a conjured imaginary, you know, kind of scenario.
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It's not a dream. It's not a fantasy. It's like, oh, I remember when I did that thing. We had this when we spoke to Nancy Rynes.
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Yeah. Right? That she like was nice to a clerk in a store who was having a rough day.
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And when she died on the table, that was given back to her. Remember when you did this thing? Whatever you believe, it does not have to be God, but whatever you believe is going on in the brain and
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nervous system when someone is coming back from being dead to say I was nice to this lady and it mattered to her. And I felt what she felt when it was like getting somebody being gracious to her.
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I got to expe Why? Like why if not for there being some larger purpose of like guess what, be nice.
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Practice random acts of kindness. Like be a kind person because the universal language, guess what, is love.
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Well said. I just like kind of want to be a fly on the wall in John Burke's life. Like going all these places, meeting people from all over the world and being able to pull all those threads of what's
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similar. It's just so cool. It's so cool. And outside of Dr. Long, I don't know anybody who's spoken to that many people.
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Check us out on Substack. Mind Be Alex Breakdown on Substack. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.
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It's my amygdalic breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two.
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And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.
Topics:near-death experiencesNDEJohn BurkeMayim Bialiklife reviewpurposeafterlifeheavenconsciousnessspirituality
