Life After Death: The Burden of Proof

My wife died two years ago from breast cancer, and I've been studying spiritual principles more deeply than ever since then. For me, the biggest change has been living less in my mind and more in my body, and turning my awareness less to my thousands of daily thoughts and more to my feelings and spiritual awareness. Deepak's book has helped me find hope for fusing scientific thought in the West with the spiritual practices of the rest of the world. He helps me see a balance between science and faith. In this book, he has introduced me to Vedanta and compared Indian spiritual traditions to other traditions. He helps me visualize a consciousness that lives through all of us and to which we return after death. He has described how this conscious field of being appears from different levels of consciousness and how these different "appearances" manifest to different people at different times to explain the huge variety of religious experience in our spiritual and scientific literature. For example, Near Death Experiences (NDEs) from Jewish people contain Jewish symbology while Christian NDEs reflect Christian symbology and NDEs from other backgrounds reflect the symbology particular to those backgrounds. Deepak has also helped me visualize a universe that consists largely of subtle matter that is undetectable yet is capable of being instantly collapsed into a reality once an observer notices it. I had heard of the Possibility Wave Collapse Theory (PWCT) already, but Deepak seems to understand it from several levels and explain the ideas in a flexible way that allows for many perspectives on it. Again, levels of conscious awareness seem to impact material reality, both in the body and out of the body. Amazing stuff to think about, I believe. As I try to send my dead wife my deepest love, Deepak's book comforts me and gives me hope that she feels my love. His book makes it easier for me to accept that the cardinals that dance outside my kitchen window are her way of saying she loves me. The squirrels that frolic on the tree outside the bedroom window are my wife's way of saying hi to me. And, that on our daughter's birthday just before Easter, the infant bunny rabbits I found nesting in our lawn were my wife's way of saying Happy Birthday. Knowing my beloved wife as intimately as I have during her life, this type of gift seems perfectly consistent with how I imagine her to be in spirit. This book has meant a lot to me. It has helped me find a peace between science and faith in this difficult question of the death of those we love. To me, that is Deepak's greatest contribution in this book.

I was broght up in the Christian tradition, but deep in the depths of my heart, I always felt that the dogma I was being fed was just wrong. How can it be, that a God I loved, and loved me, could throw any soul away into a pit of fire forever? Why would only Christians be entittled to eternal peace? (Or eternal assited living, as Deepak described it.)The heaven described to me in church sounded boring, but I was made to feel if that wasn't what I longed for in the next life, I was wrong. I finally am hearing answers to my soul's questions in this book. He reads his own book with a lilting soft voice that makes listening all the more pleaseing. This book will take you deep into your own soul, and help you listen to your own soft still voice within.

Excellent book, I'm impressed about the wisdom of Deepak Chopra to talk about this subject,by reading this book you will have an awakening about who you are and this book can help you also to understand the source of your fears and the sufferings and you can deal better with them.

This book presents a very good discussion of the principles of quantum theory that support ancient Vedic beliefs about the consciousness of the universe. Earlier titles that covered similar ground include The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav, The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, but Chopra's new work is worth reading because it includes scientific information that was not yet discovered when these other books were written. Chopra neatly articulates a few of the basic Vedic beliefs about the continuance of human consciousness after the death of the physical body, and then marshalls evidence from quantum physics to support these ancient ideas. This includes the classic idea that human souls "devolve" and incarnate in physical form in order to experience life lessons that are charted while in between lives, a state that the Tibetans called the Bardo. (You can read a lot more about this in a first-rate book by Michael Newton called Journey of Souls.) The sub-title of the book, "the burden of proof," is somewhat misleading, as Chopra doesn't actually attempt to "prove" anything. Instead he focuses on the quantum concept of randomness at the most minute, sub-atomic levels of the universe and the role that consciousness plays in influencing how that randomness eventually plays out in either/or choices. He eventually leads the reader to the BIG IDEA of the book -- that the whole universe and everything in it is conscious, and that together all conscious beings create reality. That includes rocks, trees, cosmic dust, the works. By the time Chopra gets to this rather awesome statement, the reader (or at least this particular reader) is ready to believe that it could not only be possible, but even likely. It's a tough topic to summarize effectively in a review, so I will say only that I have read many, many books on the topic of life after death, as well as issues related to it, and this book is above average. I have only one reservation: It is a bit slow going in the beginning of the book, not helped by the fact that Chopra introduces the book by telling an old, rather rambling parable about a woman who tries to cheat death. Stick with it, though, and you will be rewarded because the text picks up speed at the book's mid point, and ends up offering a wealth of ideas to consider regarding post-death survival.

In this book, Deepak Chopra gives us an intriguing look at both the scientific and spiritual aspects of life after death. For several years I've been looking for a book that helps to reconcile the afterlife with what we are learing in the field of quantum physics and this book comes as close to offering a cogent analysis as anything I have seen. Using a Hindu folk tale about death as a springboard, Chopra examines issues related to Near Death Experiences, Reincarnation, Remote Viewing, ESP and many more by examining the areas in which Science and the Vedic Tradition merge. This book is enjoyable to read, but requires a little time to digest. Although written from a Hindu perspective, Chopra takes the time to discuss other spiritual traditions, including Christianity and Buddhism. This will be a wonderful addition to your collection of philosophical works.