Column: CEO Learnings
Reflections on Eben Alexander’s “Proof of Heaven”
Proof of Heaven is a compelling account of a near-death experience (NDE) that will challenge both believers and skeptics alike.
What makes this NDE so extraordinary is the author himself: Dr. Eben Alexander.
Dr. Eben Alexander is a highly trained neurosurgeon who spent 15 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. A man of science, Alexander once dismissed NDEs as mere byproducts of a brain shutting down – nothing more than chemical reactions and fading neural activity.
Like many shaped by secular culture and scientific materialism, Dr. Alexander questioned the very existence of God and heaven. His worldview left little room for anything beyond the physical. But in 2008, a life-threatening case of E. coli meningitis completely shut down his neocortex. What he experienced while clinically brain-dead profoundly changed him – and it may change the reader as well.
My personal interest in this subject began in 1979 when my father, a proud and grounded man, told me of an NDE he had during a severe case of uremic poisoning. He described moving through a dark tunnel toward a brilliant light, only to be stopped by his deceased parents, who told him, “You’re not ready.” It shook him.
A few years later, while at Columbia University during an executive program, I encountered Roger Blackwell, a top university-based consumer marketing expert. Blackwell, who served on a national task force studying NDEs, shared his team’s findings with us over several hours. I’ve been a student of NDEs ever since.
What happened to Dr. Alexander?
Eben Alexander was utterly unprepared for what unfolded during his own coma. Initially, his consciousness entered what he describes as a dark, murky realm – a place of pounding, featureless gloom, lacking time, memory, or identity.
He felt fused with this strange, semi-biological environment, until a light appeared and with it, a sound—“the most beautiful music one could ever imagine.” This light was not simply illumination; it was an entryway into a new realm.
He soon found himself in a stunningly beautiful world, filled with vibrant colors, fields, waterfalls, and joyous people. Accompanying him was a radiant woman who communicated without words, yet with profound clarity. Her message came in three parts:
- You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.
- You have nothing to fear.
- There is nothing you can do wrong.
She told him he would see many things, but that he would eventually return.
“The Core”
Next, Dr. Alexander entered what he calls “the Core,” an infinite void—utterly dark, yet overflowing with a sense of comfort and peace. There, he encountered God, the Creator, the Source of all life. Though there was no distance between him and God, he was keenly aware of how vast and magnificent the Creator was in comparison to his own being. He was told that evil exists because without it, free-will would not be possible—and without free will, we could not grow or become the beings God longs for us to be.
Love, the basis of everything…. but not what you think
The most powerful truth he learned? Only one thing truly matters: love.
Love is not just an emotion—it is the foundational reality of all existence. It is unconditional. It is the driving force behind the universe, the very breath of God that sustains everything. Alexander writes:
“Love is the basis of everything. It is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth that lies at the heart of everything that exists or ever will exist. No understanding of our true-identity is possible without it. It is not just the most important emotional truth—it is the most important scientific truth.”
Transformation
Upon waking, Alexander was transformed.
He felt a deep calling to share what he had experienced—to dismantle the cultural “big lie” that matter is the only reality, and that spirit, thought, and consciousness are merely byproducts.
He rejects the belief that God is absent or impersonal. Instead, he insists that our truest self—completely free and unbound by worldly concerns—exists within us, waiting to be awakened through prayer, meditation, and the practice of love and compassion.
A powerful twist
In a powerful twist, Alexander later discovered that the beautiful woman who had accompanied him in the other realm was a biological sister he had never met – someone he had not known existed until a family member showed him a photograph after his recovery.
“I was blind,” he says, “and now I see.”
RELATED RESOURCES:
- Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, by Dr. Eben Alexander
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