(NOTE: This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)
CNN reports this morning that a comatose Australian hospital patient has died after the hospital in which he was being treated turned off his life support. Paulo Melo was 29. He was in an automobile accident on Dec. 5, rushed to the hospital, and fell into a coma. Over 20 medical experts said that there was no chance for his recovery. Still, the family of Paulo Melo begged the hospital to give him a chance to live, and said that he showed signs of progress, demonstrating what they believe to be deliberate brain activity, including moving his eyes and head in response to his family’s visits.
A judge lifted a temporary injunction against turning off his life support, saying his medical condition was futile.
Let me say on a personal level that I am bothered by the relatively quick decision of the hospital in this case. If Mr. Melo had been comatose for many months or several years, I could understand its decision better. But the man was in this state only since Dec. 5, and that seems far too short a time in which to make a life-and-death decision such as this. I am trying very hard not to make a judgment here, but it has all the markings of a strictly financial decision made by the hospital’s board. Whether I am right or wrong about that, it does seem to have come way to early in the process. If I was in a coma I certainly hope the hospital I was in would wait a little longer than 15 days to shut off my life support. Good heavens.
Having said all of that, I note with deep interest that Home With God in a Life That Never Ends has some interesting things to say about situation such as this. From the point of view of the New Spirituality we learn that nothing happens in God’s world that violates the highest good and the inner will of every human soul–and the Will of God…which is the same.
Because God and every soul are One, it is impossible for any human being to die at a time or in a way violates any soul’s desire. In other words, no soul leaves any body at a time when it does not want to, when it does not choose to. Nor can any person die at a time or in a way which is against the Will of God. This is obvious, because if it is against the Will of God, it could not happen. Nothing happens against God’s Will. By definition that must be so…unless God’s Will in these matters means nothing at all.
Yet this brings up the subject of what IS “God’s Will” in any given circumstances. What does God want? I sought to answer this question in my book, What God Wants, and in that text it says that God wants nothing at all. Ever. That is, the Totality of the Essence of Divinity that we call “God” has no preference in the matter. In ANY matter.
Yet, the Individualization of that Essence may very well have preferences in individual matters–and, in fact, does. Most traditional religions recognize this, calling it Free Will. And since every soul is an Individualization of Divine Essence, that soul’s individual will cannot be violated. Hence: no soul leaves the body at a time or in a way that is not agreed upon by the soul itself.
This may be a comfort in times such as those being endured today by the family of Paulo Melo.
(For more information on the three stages of death, life after death, and the decision to die, please see Home With God in a Life That Never Ends, from Atria Books.)
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TIME MAGAZINE NAMES PUTIN
‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’
Plenty of controversy has followed Time Magazine’s choice of Russian President Vladimir Putin for Person of the Year. Some U.S. presidential candidates have called the selection “appalling” and “disgusting.” Both Mitt Romney and John McCain have said that U.S. Army General David Petraeus, who has led in U.S. troop surge in Iraq (and, not insignificantly, brought down the death toll in Baghdad), should have received that honor.
Personally, I am sorry that the news magazine feels that it has to name anyone Person of the Year. I think the designation promotes non-beneficial thinking.
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SCIENTISTS SAY LINK MAY HAVE
BEEN FOUND BETWEEN LAND
ANIMALS AND WHALES
Scientists reportedly have found a link between land animals and whales, drawing an evolutionary line between the two, and further establishing the ultimate oneness of the origin of all species.
There’s nothing new here, from the standpoint of the New Spirituality, which has been saying for years that We Are All One. In fact, that there those who say that whales and dolphins may be the higher of the species of sentient beings on this planet, having moved into the sea and developed a sociology virtually devoid of intra-species violence…
What would it take, do you imagine, for the human species — the supposedly more advanced of the two — to create the same ethic?