NDE: Chief of anesthesiology has out-of-body experience and spends time in the spirit realm

Dr. Rajiv Parti was the chief of anesthesiology at a hospital in California when he had a near death experience. He had prostate cancer at the time and had developed a very dangerous infection where he needed surgery to remove the infection. In his book, he describes himself as a very non-compassionate person, obsessed with materialism, his big mansion, and his many expensive cars. He cared little about how his patients felt and rarely listened to them when they spoke. Since he was an anesthesiologist for heart surgery, he would often hear about his patients' near death experiences and spiritual experiences when they awoke from surgery but he paid little attention. He would tell them he had to see other patients and would not return to listen to their experiences. He just wanted to get back home to his mansion where he could play the stock market. He also describes the way he parented his children, specifically his oldest child. He constantly put pressure on them to do better. He says that he was depressed with an addiction to pain pills, which caused him to be very moody and angry around his children. So you get a pretty clear picture of who Dr. Parti was before the near death experience.

Once he is on the operating table during surgery, Dr. Parti says he is zooming out of his body up to the ceiling like he's in an elevator. He watches some of the surgery, remembering minute details, even remembering a joke that a doctor told the other doctors during the surgery. He starts questioning how he can be in both places at once, his physical body is on the operating table but how can he also be on the ceiling observing. He says that it hits him, "there is a soul, and it can survive outside the body". While he's out of his body, he actually starts to get nervous that he may have to try to explain this experience to people he knows and other doctors. This was interesting to me because it shows that we keep our personality when we die. Dr. Parti also describes seeing the operating room in one view and his mother and sister in New Delhi, India so he was able to see both scenes in front of him. This seems to be common in NDEs where the person out-of-body has a much wider view of reality and sharper senses.

Suddenly his world becomes dark for a moment and he thinks he's returning to his body. Instead he finds himself in a hell-like environment. He hears a voice that tells him, "You have led a materialistic and selfish life." He then gets flashbacks to the way he treated patients with little compassion. Dr. Parti feels shame, starts to pray, and his dead father shows up. He describes his father looking at least thirty years younger than when he died. His father puts his arm around him to comfort him but Dr. Parti is initially frightened since his father was cold and physically abusive while alive. However, now his father is full of compassion, love, and comfort.

Dr. Parti is then pulled into a tunnel and is shown that his father was abused by his grandfather and that this was a generational issue. Dr. Parti's father wants him to stop the generational issue of anger. His father tells him the following, "Anger isn't usually about an event. It's passed on from father to son. If you know that, you can stop it; you can choose not to be angry." Dr. Parti's grandfather is also there and tells him the following, "Love is the most important thing there is. I am glad to let you know that simple truth while you can still make change in your earthly life." Dr. Parti's ancestors tell him to not pass on the anger and abuse. They also want forgiveness for their deeds in their Earthly life. This is an interesting part of the book as I think many people are on the planet right now to do this exact thing, to heal and release ancestral issues that have been passed on generationally. Alcoholism, drug addiction, anger, repressed emotions, and abuse are all generational issues that can end based on our free will decisions.

While in the tunnel Dr. Parti is also shown past lives. He is shown a past life where he is sitting in a royal courtyard in medieval India. He feels powerful and sees farmers tilling the land. He sees himself getting up and whipping the farmers. He is then shown his current life where he experienced a torn ligament and pain in his right wrist, pain so severe he became addicted to pain pills. He wonders if the pain in his wrist is from that life of whipping others. At one point he sees the parallels of how he condescendingly looks down on people that have less money than him in his current life to that life in India. He is then shown another life in the mountains of Afghanistan in the nineteenth century where he owns a field of poppies. He becomes an opium addict in that life and frequently consumes his own product. He is then shown how this parallels his own addictions to pills in his current life. Dr. Parti says at the end of this chapter that after his NDE he also worked with hypnotherapist Dr. Brian Weiss and relives more of these past lives during hypnosis.

The next stage of the NDE, Dr. Parti is led down the tunnel toward the Light. He is pulled by a radiant powerful love. He says that two angelic forms emerged into the tunnel that introduce themselves as Archangels Michael and Raphael. I know, this is a pretty extensive NDE! He says that in a moment he was lifted by them and guided toward the light. They explain to him that those like him aren't used to the spirit realm and how one moves there which is through thought so he needs their help to guide them. Michael and Raphael are quite the characters which is actually in alignment with other accounts of those who have come across them. They seem to have a sense of humor and a good understanding of human life. Below are a couple quotes from the book:

"As we went to a higher plane and then a higher one still, this heavenly realm became more formless, until I was surrounded by a landscape of clear light. I must have appeared nervous at being in this formless, nameless environment because Michael put his hand on my shoulder as a means of comfort and communicated, The higher you go up in the spiritual realms, the more formless it becomes.

Raphael touched my other shoulder, communicating further information. That’s right. You become surrounded by a powerful entity of energy, of pure love and intelligence, and this pure love is the base reality, the underlying fabric, of everything in the universe. It is the source of all creation, the creative force of the universe. Yes, communicated Michael, this pure love is the source of all that makes the universe. It is contained in everything imaginable yet somehow ignored by so many. Enlightenment comes when a person realizes that love is everywhere and is the only thing that matters."

Dr. Parti is brought to a Being of Light. Telepathically he is told by the Being of Light that his purpose in life is to become a healer of the soul. Essentially, he is to give up his career as an anesthesiologist and learn to become a consciousness based healer. He must heal himself of his depression, addiction, and obsession with materialism and then help others. He is told this multiple times and the Being of Light patiently goes through an explanation. Because he had the addictions himself, he is better equipped to help others. After this is all described to him he feels himself moving rapidly away from the Being and falling into fluffy white clouds. He then wakes up in the operating room with a doctor standing over him asking him how he feels.

Dr. Parti then goes through the process of trying to explain and convince his doctors what happened to him. He receives the same response he once gave to his own patients. He is glossed over as his doctors look uncomfortable, and they never return to listen to the rest of his story. Dr. Parti heals quickly and returns home to integrate his experience. He moves his family out of their mansion into a smaller house, he starts meditating daily, sometimes multiple times per day, and he ends his addiction to pain pills. He also works to heal his relationship with his children, especially his older son. He leaves his job as an anesthesiologist and focuses on his new purpose, to become a healer of the soul.

The book is called Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor's Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back by Rajiv Parti M.D.