They have yet to quantify life essence though attempts were made a few centuries ago to weigh the body before and after death to measure the soul.

There has recently been a well documented and controlled case of NDE (near death experience). It was covered in a reputable magazine, but it will likely still remain a fringe story. Shall I go into it or just explain how it relates to Taoism and biology?

I want to hear about the near death experience. This woman suffered a severe aneurysm. Without extreme intervention it would have killed her outright. It was located near her brain stem. If they tried to operate on it in the normal way it would just have killed her. She would have bleed to death before they began to be able to fix anything so they had to induce clinically controlled death. First, they put her in deep anaesthesia. They proceeded to refrigerate her body (not as deeply as say cryostasis but comparable perhaps) to profoundly slow cellular processes. They especially had to zero out brain functions and metabolism.

So her blood pressure would drop and they could operate with out fear of bleeding out? They drained all of her blood so she for a time didn’t even have blood. This was the reason she needed to be refrigerated. So she was dead as far as science can even begin to define being dead without critical decay setting in.

She did not experience this process. Her consciousness skipped out of her physical form. She lingered near her body for a while, and though she was not conscious when they wheeled her into the operating room, she was able to describe attention getting features of the environment just as she might if she were just casually observing the process, like the tool they used to open her brain, and what it looked like to see them do so. Then she slipped into the “tunnel” experience which is now well documented, and does not differ between individuals. It doesn’t matter what their beliefs in normal circumstances were. Even if they were atheistic, everyone reports the same thing even if they interpret it a bit differently when they come back.

I think that tunnel you see is kind of like seeing static on the TV when there is no cable plugged in. Actually, it is associated with a sense of movement. It seems to always be associated with a feeling of space as if the person is going somewhere else, but it’s never described as being a long trip, as going very far. It’s more like stepping into an adjacent room.

The tunnel, in the thinking of today’s topic on the Tao of Biology, would be more like the neural tube that shapes the formation of our entire nervous system when we gestate in the womb, like reversing the process that spreads out into the organs of our stomach, heart and brain say. As if it were attempting to carefully preserve or upload what was recorded there, like that warning not to remove a USB stick from your computer until it’s safe. It’s always described as a slipping sensation, like an unplugging.

The brain is even observed to unplug in the stages of death. After a point, the neurons, even though they are not actually dead, withdraw from contact with each other, disconnect, though strangely we retain the process they call neuroplasticity up until the moment of death as if the brain is still trying to be receptive to something.

According to Taoist thinking, there is no death, nor did your life ever actually start. The only process that makes it seem like you had a life begin and end is a shift in balance of chi. In Taoist thinking, it’s the same self whether you are embedded in the Tao or expressed in the flesh. This is why they place so much importance of learning to manage chi. They see it as the way to maintain optimal coherence, maximum integrity, to not get confused/sick. In Taoist thinking, those two are the same thing. Sickness is confusion is sickness.

Being sick certainly makes one feel confused.

Death as we conventionally understand it being the ultimate confusion, and something they seek to surmount.

Maintain clarity through the transition.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~