That was Brittany Maynard, a
young 29-year-old woman who was diagnosed with a terminal brain
tumor called a “glioblastoma.”5
She would have preferred for her life to go on had she been
perfectly healthy (she made it clear that she did not wish to die) but,
given that there was no cure available to her, she chose to give
herself six months to spend with her loved ones and then to die (as
permitted by Oregon’ s Death with Dignity Act ). She explained that she preferred this option of a “death with
dignity” rather than to suffer the debilitating consequences of the
brain tumor that would eventually take her life. Brittany Maynard’ s story captured a lot of media attention, and I
think the bless ing in this youn g woman’ s choice is that it opened the
world’ s eyes to an alternate way of looking at death and dying . It
provided a real-life account of how it would look to give the patient
the choice. NEALE: Yes. And that’s the way it should be. In an advanced,
intelligent civilization, that is, of course, the way it should be . We depend on the medical profession to use every miracle at
its disposal to keep us alive, precisely so that we can make our own
decision about it. DR. COOPER: I got it! NEALE: And I’m saying that so often—I’ve said it five times now—so
you can rearrange your thinking. DR. COOPER: And save you, Neale? NEALE: Of course! If I can’t depend on you . . . You know , it’s not your job to decide what’ s best for me! It’s my
job. Your job is to keep me alive, so that I can make that decision! So
I want you to rearrange your thinking, so that you won’t be so
negative about , “Well, the medical profession shouldn’t be so biased
in favor of extending life.” Of course it should! That’ s what medicine’ s
about! To give us the freedom . The sadness is that modern life has not given human beings
the freedom. The medical profession saves a person’ s life, then that
person’ s trappe d by society , by actual laws that stop us from making
our own choices. That’ s where the problem is. DR. COOPER: That makes so much sense. And I totally agree. Thank you for that. NEALE: Well, I’m telling you right now if I’m in my family room in my
house and you happen to be visiting me and I have a sudden stroke
sitting in the chair , while you’re sitting across the room, I’m not going
to let you decide, “Well, you know what? He’s had a good life. He’s
probably going  to wake up from this stroke and not even be able to
move, he’ll be unable to speak, he’ll be a vegetable. I’ll just let him
die.”
No, no, no! I’m gonna depend on you sitting there to do whatever you can
do to keep me alive! That’ s why you’re a doctor! DR. COOPER: Y es, yes! And I will! NEALE: Now, getting back to your earlier comment around the
benefit of releasing our fear of death . . . it is profoundly true . Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was the first person I heard that
from. She put it in one simpl e sentence. One simple sentence! She
said in her delightful heavy Swiss accent, “When you are not afraid
of dying, you are not afraid of living.”  She captured all that wisdom in
about twelve words. So to sum it up, I would say this: The individual person is well-
advised not to be afraid of death. But doctors  should well be afraid of
their patients dying! Because  if they are not afraid of their patients
dying, and if they do not do everything they can do to stop their
patients from dying, their patients won’t have the option of making
the choice they wish to make  with regard to life and death. That’ s not
the doctor ’s decision to make. DR. COOPER: I agree. NEALE: Unless there’ s an Advance Directive that says “No
extraordinary measures,” or words to that effect. That’ s a whole
different story . But if I don’t have an Advance Directive, believe me,
I’m depending on that guy in the operating room to perform  whatever
miracle he has to perform to keep me alive! DR. COOPER: For sure!And if I’m sitting across from you and you have some thing
happen, I’ll do everything I can to keep you alive! NEALE: Oh good! So you won’t think that you’re wrongly “biased” in
favor of life? Good. I’m glad you said that. That makes me feel much more
confident.Chapter Five
 
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL:
What Happens At the End
 
 
DR. COOPER: I think it’s important we touch on the idea of Oneness
in this book. Not only because it is one of the most powerful and
transformative spiritual concepts, but also because if Medicine has
taught me anything, it has showed me with astonishing clarity the
truth of our Oneness. NEALE: It is one concept that, if fully embraced and understood,
would single-handedly change the world. DR. COOPER: It absolutely is. I can’t tell you how many patients I
have sat at the bedside with, in the final moments of their lives, who
have had moments of great wisdom and profound insigh t into what
matters. At the end of their lives, they have come to see that the
things that matter most in life all relate back to our Oneness —be it
our relationsh ips with others, the services we have given to
humanity , and our connection to the world at large. And patients have actually shared this with me! They have
shared their “pearls of wisdo m” into what matters, in hopes that I
could benefit sooner rather than later in my life. And I have beenextremely grateful for this. It has certainly been one of the gifts of
working in the medical profession. NEALE: There’ s a very important and fundamental reason why the
first impulse— or perhaps, to reframe it, the final impulse, the last
impulse—that people feel when they are faced with the final
moments of their lives, and they know it consciously , there’ s a
fundamental reason why that final impulse is the impulse to express
their remembr ance that the most wonderful moments of their life
were the moments when they experienced Oneness. And there’ s a fundamental reason why whenever we talk to
people who are in the final moments of their life, and they know it,
there’ s a fundamental reason why they say those things. And the reason is that the basic instinct . . . people think that
the basic instin ct is survival, but it is not. The basic instinct is the
impulse toward Divinity . And that impulse can be defined as the
experience of Oneness, or Unity—the Unity of All Things. It is instinctive  for human beings to seek the experience of
Unity and Oneness with All of Life—not just with other people, by the
way, not just with other human beings, but with All of Life. We pass a garden and we want to put our nose in the lilacs. W e
want to be just part of that experience! We look up at a night sky and
we yearn, we long—almost sometimes with an aching in our heart—
to some how merge with those diamonds in the sky. And even from
this great dista nce, from millions of light years away , we can still feel
the Unity  of being One with the night sky, and there’ s not a perso n
alive who has not felt that. DR. COOPER: It’ s so true. I love looking up at the night stars! NEALE: Y es. And it’ s the experience of everyone. And similarly, some people are drawn to the sea, and they’ll
stand silently at the seashore—I don’t know a person of any age who
hasn’t spent at least three minutes of their life standing  all alone,
silently , where they can hear the roar of the ocean as it smashes on
the shoreline, and even maybe catch a bit of the water with their feet
in the sand. And they feel that sense, as the ocean crashes in on
them, that they are part of the whole milieu of life. And as the water recedes back into the ocean itself, having
washed the beach with each incoming wave, as it returns to itself, a
part of us goes with it. And we feel that. I’m not making that up! That’s
not just a poetic thing to say. We actually feel a part of ourselves
going back to the ocean. Which is why we stand there and allow ourselves to have the
experience over and over again. And I’ve had that experience of standing on a seashore and
watching the ocean come in and crash in on the beach and wash
back out again, taking an aspect of me with it. DR. COOPER:  It’s so true—there is that presence that washes over
us in moments  like that, inviting us to become one with it. And of
course we are one with it—it is simply a matter of seeing it, knowing
it, and including it as an aspect of our awareness. I find it interesting that many people are called to the water—or
called to Nature in general—during times of struggle and stress in
their lives. It is almost as if we know that when our smaller selves,our “ego selves,” get lost and caught up in the rat race of day-to-day
life, that returning to Nature allows us to reconnect with our larger
selves—the piece of ourselves that is eternally connected to All of
Life. And having that reminder, that connection with the natural world,
helps us to reclaim the peace, the truth, and the joy that is a part of
our essential nature. I remem ber personally going through a stressful time in my life,
about a year ago. I felt a powerful pull to go down to the beach at
night and to watch the sunset, whenever I had time to, and whenever
I could . And I actually remember thinking to myself in those
moments, “Gosh, I wonder if I am called back to the ocean , and back
to the sunset, to see and to remember a piece of myself .” And it
sounds like this is true, from what you just said! It was almost like an evening  “date” to go and say hello to my
soul again! To return to the Oneness— and in doing so, to remember
Who I Am. NEALE: Not only that, my dear, not only that. Those are the magical
moments that are easy to identify . But the fact of the matter is that
every moment in life is design ed to call you back to yourself. You are
standing at the ocean shore every moment of your life. DR. COOPER: Y es! NEALE: Not just when the moments that are so magical you can’t
miss them, but when the moments are part of every single element of
your life. Nothing occurs in life that is not a “street sign” pointing back
Home. DR. COOPER: Why then do you think it’s difficult for many people to
see that, or to implement that in their lives? To see that every
moment, and every situation, is an opportunity to “return home”? NEALE: Because all of our lives we’ve been told the Story of
Separation. It starts  with a Separation Theology , which says that God’ s over
there and we’re over here, and we hear it everywhere! Even if we
don’t buy it, even if we don’t believe it, even if we don’t have it as our
personal theology , we hear it everywhere! And the Separation Theology produces a Separation
Cosmology . It simply creates a cosmological view of thing s that says
we live in an environment  where everything is separate from
everything else. And that Separation Cosmology produces, inevitably , a
Separation Psychology—a psychological holding of life that says that
I’m over here, and everyone else is over there, and I’m separate
from everyone else. My longing to be otherwise notwithstanding, I’m
separate from everything else. And that Separation Psychology
produces all kinds of psychoses! As every psychiatrist will tell you, and every psychologist as
well, that Separation Psycho logy inevitably produces a Separation
Sociology . That is, an entire society that imagines itself to be
separate from other societies. And “better”—not just separate, but
“better than.” I’m better because I’m white. I’m better because I’m
black. I’m better because I’m gay. I’m better because I’m straight. I’mbetter because  I’m male. I’m better because I’m female. I’m better
because I’m tall. I’m better because I’m short. And that Separation Sociology inevitably produces a
Separation Pathology . Pathological behaviors of self-destruction. Observable on our planet everywhere you look, across thousands of
years. That’ s the answer to your question “why”! It’s because we have
been immersed in a Separation Theology , which produces a
Separation Cosmology , then a Separation Psychology , then a
Separation Sociology , then a Separation Pathology . The pathway is quite clear . And the reason that we find it so hard to follow the instinctive
call to rejoin the All—say , that’ s my poem for the day!— the instinctive
call to rejoin the All! The reason we have difficulty doing this is that
everything in our lives has pointed us in the opposite direction,
producing the outcomes I just gave you. So it’s not a surprise to me. It’s not a surprise to me that we have a difficult time embracing our
Unity , except at the end of our life, when we realize that, in fact, our
life itself has proven it, over and over again. We think back on the days and times of our life, and we notice
then, just as we are ending our life, that the only truly meaningful
moments were the moments in which we experienced our Oneness. Not just with other people, but with the ocean, with the sunset, with
the night sky , and with All of Life itself. And not only does that dawn on us, not only is that made clear
to us emotiona lly and psychologically at the moment of our Death
because of the glorious and happy joyous memories, but it alsoovercomes us at the moment  of our “Little Deaths”—the times in our
life when meaningful relationships and experiences end. And we experience it so fully, in such a present way, as our “Big
Death” approaches because of the joyous and happy hopes that it is
a harbinger—a signal of things to come. And we smell it like the
fresh morning dew! “Ahhh! It’s back to the Oneness I’m going to
now! I know that I’m leaving here, but finally , finally—at last—my
periodic ‘alone ness’ is over. Everyone who I have ever loved will be
there! Everything I have ever deeply enjoyed will be enjoyed again! And the God that I have adored with such open heart and open arms
will be welcoming me with open arms! DR. COOPER : I get it! That is beautiful. So it is not only a
recollection of the most mean ingful moments of our lives, but also a
foreshadowing  that the Onen ess is and will always continue to be
the truth of Who W e Are. It really makes me wish more people could come to these
realizations sooner in life . . . and that we could all experience first-
hand evidence of our Oneness with All of Life, and with God, without
having to get to our deathbed to know that it’s true. I mean, it really
surprises me how such a popular spiritual message—We Are All One
—can be so readily embraced conceptually, but can be such a
challenge to live by experientially. That doesn’t surprise you at all? NEALE: It doesn’t surprise me, given what I know about life. Fear is a powerful emotion. It’s the second most powerful
emotion, next to its parent—which is Love. All Fear is born of Love,of course. But Fear is a very, very powerful emotion. So I’m not
surprised, because even as we yearn for the sloughing  off of our
individual and separate ident ity, for our experience of Oneness, we
fear it. And that is the Divine Dichotomy . That is what I call the
Supreme Irony . That even as the average human being yearns to
merge back with the Onenes s and seeks to never know  loneliness
again, in the self-same moment it fears the loss of its identity . DR. COOPER: So it is fearing that it will lose its sense of self if it
embraces Oneness? NEALE: Yes. That it will lose its sense of individuation. Yet the Great
Promise of God is that this will not happen. That even when you
merge back into the All, that is not your eternal state. The eternal
state is the experience and the expression of our individuated soul. Now the Great Promise of God is that we will not lose our
sense of self simply because we merge with the All. Because the
process of merging with the All is not eternal. That is, we merge with the All, and it is a temporary process . And what occurs, ultimately , is that we emerge. Firstly we merge
into, and then we emerge from, The All, and return again to the
individuated identity of the soul. And then we are allowed to decide if we wish to continue on the
expression of physical life in the identity most recently embraced—in
my present case, as Neale— and if that’s what’ s so, then we literally
“return to life.” We come back to life, whether we’re on the operatingtable or whether we’re clinically dead in some other way, or
whatever , we come back to life as who we have been. We can also make the decision to “stay dead,” so to speak; to
stay on the other side, to continue our Spiritual Journey , in which
case we become then aware , in the Realm of the Absolute, of all the
identities we have ever expressed as—that we have ever embraced. And we come to know all those identities—that is, we meet all of our
other so-called “selves.” We experience ourselves as every aspect
and expression of Divinity that we have ever embraced, throughout
all of time. By the way, not just those we have embraced in what we call, in
our illusion, the “past,” but those we are going to embrace in what we
call, in our illusion, the “future.”
That is, we know ourselves as all of our selves. And we get so
excited! That is, by the way , what brings us back to physical life. People have often asked me, If heaven is so wonderful, why do
we come back to Earth? I’ve had some people say to me, “I don’t
want any more incarnations, I’m done!”
But I can tell you that I’ve been reliably informed that when we
get back to the Realm of the Spiritual, we are made aware of—we
meet up again , if I could put it that way, with—all the selves we ever
have been, or ever will be! And our next future self is so exciting to
us! It’ s so thrilling to us! We don’t “see in the future” in the sense of knowing exactly
what will happen to that Future Self. This would  suggest
Predestination, and such a thing does not exist. But we do see all
the possibilities, all of the endless and exciting choices, that our
Future Self will have placed before it. So that we decide, of course ,to come back into physicality to experience that particular
incarnation, and to confront all those choices. Or, to experience
another version of our present  incarnation—for the exact same
reason. So, you know , this all gets wonderfully sophisticated and
complex—people have heard me talk of these things and they’ve
said, “You’ve got a great imagination, Neale, but you know, this is
really starting to get pretty  weird.” At which point I quote my
wonderful friend of the soul, William Shakespeare. It was Bill who said: There are more things in Heaven and
Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy . DR. COOPER: I have a question, then. You say that when we “cros s over,” and do the thing called
“die,” all of our “selves,” past, present, and future, will be known to
us. And we will find this remarkably exciting, and—
 
NEALE: Especially the future ones, yes! DR. COOPER: Yes! So my question is: What is the difference
between an Individual Soul and the “One Soul”? Have we, at some point, been every single person who has
ever lived and who ever will live, past, present, and future? Or, is
there a distinction? Like when people consider the notion of “past lives,” is it correct
to say I’ve had 647 past lives, just to give an example? Or, is it, in
fact, true that I am every single thing in the cosmos, which wouldimply that I have had infinite lives and that there is no distinction
between myself and any other person or being or thing. So my question is: Am I the All of It, experiencing Itself in all of
its parts simultaneously? Or , am I a discrete part? NEALE: Y es . . . DR. COOPER: Or, am I both, experiencing life as a Divine
Dichotomy? NEALE: The answer is Y es. (Laughs.) When you merge with The All, you experience the part of
yourself that is The Only Thing There Is. You experience yourself as
everyone and everything that ever was, or is now, and ever will be. And that is, in fact, the point of merging . And you get to experience
that. You get to experience that not only are you coming Home, but
you are Home. You are All There Is, All There Ever Was, and All There Ever
Will Be, including every perso n who’s ever lived. And, for that matter ,
every thing  that has ever been made manifest at any level of
physicality . You experience that you are Everything. All Of It. That
there is Only One Thing, and that this thing is You. In short, you
experience your T rue Identity , as God. Then you emerge again, in a sense. To borrow a phrase, you
are “born again”—you emerge from the One, and are then given the
opportunity to remember and to foresee both, to remember and to
foresee all of the particular individuations that the Singularity you nowexpress as has embraced, or will embrace, in the eternal and only
moment, called Now. DR. COOPER: So in this lifetime, if I’m interacting with someone, or
looking into a loved one’s eyes, am I in fact looking into a piece of
myself? NEALE: Of course! Absolutely! In the sense that we are all part of
The Only Thing There Is, in the sense that we are all waves on the
same ocean, yes, of course. And that’s why we can’t look into anyone else’s eyes for very
long, even someone that we deeply love. There’ s a limit to how long
we can look into someone ’s eyes when we’re in human form,
because ultimately we see ourselves there . And that insight—literally “in sight,” to see into oneself, by
looking into the eyes of another—is at once both disarming and so
producing of absolute bliss that it’ s almost more than we can bear . It’s the reason why we actually have to look away from each
other. If we look at each other for too long, . . . and for some people it
would be longer than others . . . but no one can hold that stare for
very long, because we begin to see ourselves, and we fall in love with
ourselves again. And when we see ourselves  in the other , we also come to a
place of uncon ditional love, because we are seeing ourselves as the
other . Everything that the other has ever done—wonderful things and
not so wonderful things—are suddenly completely and totally
understood. Because we see that it is identical in some basic form to
everything that we have ever done. DR. COOPER: I love the idea that, as we look into someone’ s eyes,
if we look long enough we will see ourselves there . It is the “human
gateway” into the experience of Oneness! As you just said, it is the moment in which complete forgiveness
and understa nding become not only possible, but inevitable . Because as we look into another ’s eyes and truly begin to see
ourselves there , we immediately see that whatever they may have
done to us or for us, we have  done to or for another to some degree
as well. And so our entire “viewpoint” is altered dramatically! And gosh, if that doesn’t cause us to take a double-take on any
sort of judgme nt we may have inflicted, and if it doesn’t immediately
open us to a space of overwhelming compassion and unde rstanding,
then I don’t know what would. But getting back to the Oneness idea, I have read a lot both in
the CwG books as well as in other spiritual literature about how
embracing the idea of Oneness would profoundly alter life on the
planet for the better . And about how, if we saw each other as all
members of the same “human family ,” and began sharing and
demonstrating this truth throu gh our choices and actions, the state of
our world could be transformed literally overnight! And I see the
power and the importance of this message. However , what I’m really interested in focusing on here is how
we can incorporate the conce pt of Oneness into our individual lives,
and what impact it would have if we did. To me, this is where the
question is at . . . because in order to create change on a global
scale, we must first consider how it would look in our individual lives. Am I making sense here? NEALE: Y es, of course you are. DR. COOPER: So I’m very curious what your thoughts are on how
can we embrace Oneness more in our own lives. NEALE: By calling it to mind deliberately . By asking ourselves certain questions, and by using certain
mental “tricks,” I want to say , or mental tools. One of my favorite mental tools is the tool of “I Am.” Most
religions have shared with their followers the great statement that
God is purport ed to have made at some point along the way: “I Am
That I Am.” When I was a child I heard that in my Catholic  Parochial
School more than once. “I Am That I Am.” Supposedly a statement
applying to all things, a pronouncement of all truth, from God to
humanity . And I asked the priest in my catechism class, “What does that
mean, I Am That I Am?” And he said, “I really can’t tell you
specifically and literally. It means broadly that God is everything, but
the literal translation of that into those words  . . . you know, I’m not
sure I really understand how that gets there, how those words take
us to that place of awareness.”
And then I was invited by God, in my Conversations with God,
to repeat that statement with regard to everything that I looked at. To
once a week walk down the street for fifteen minutes and quietly say
in my own mind, to no one else, just saying it to myself, with regard
to everything upon which my eyes light: “I Am That.”
“I Am That. I Am That. I Am That.”And I remember doing that once, just silently when I was
walking down the street with a friend, actually . I didn’t want to make
a big issue of it, and I just did it in my mind, in my head. But she saw
that I was preoccupied with something, and she finally said, “What
are you doing? I don’t understand . . . what are you doing?”
And I said, “Oh, I didn’t realize it was that obvious. I’m just
saying something to myself.”
And she said, “W ell, what are you saying to yourself?”
And I said, “Well I’m just saying ‘I Am That. I Am That. I Am
That. I am that beautiful flower across the street in the flower pot, I
am that garbage truck going by, I am that beautiful French poodle
with its tail wagging for its master, I am that other lady walking. I Am
That’.”
And my friend looked at me and she said, “Wow, you’ve really
gone over the edge! You’re really losing it, man. You’re not that! You’re you! Did this New Spirituality of yours make you think that
you’re not you anymore?”
I said, “No, no! I am that!”
She said, “No, you’re not that!”
I said, “No, no, no, I am that, I AM!”
And then I heard what I just said. I heard my own voice. “I am that,” I was insisting. “I am that, I
am!” And then I realized that the Great Statement of God had been
historically mistranslated. It had been, from the start, “mis-written”! They forgot to put the comma in. The place for the comma is, “I am
that . . . (comma) . . . I am.”
And then I understood.So that’s one tool that I use. Once a week I walk down the street
or walk around the house for fifteen minutes and repeat to myself, in
my own mind, “I Am That.” Whatever my eyes light upon. And I don’t
reject it if it’s ugly or doesn’t seem pleasant, and I don’t allow myself
to feel somehow overblown in my own mind if it’s something beautiful
and wonderful. I just notice that I’m telling myself the truth about
everything. Now a second tool that I use is when I see anyone do anything
—and this is not a once-a-week thing. I try to do this as often as I
can during a regular day—when I observe what looks like another
person behaving in a certain way . This is particularly useful when their behavior is a little bit off-
putting, but it can also be used when their behavior is attractive as
well. I say in the moment that I observe the behavior of another ,
“There I go again. There I go again. ” And then, by that means, I
notice two things. One: I’ve done the same exact thing in my life that
I see that person doing. And two: I’m doing it again in my life! Through that other person. Because there really is no Separation. And so that’s how I allow myself to feel “at one” with the other
person. I often ask myself the question, “Have I ever experienced a
part of me that’s behaved in this exact same way?” And the answer
inevitably comes back, yes. And then I have a physical experience of
being one with that other . And the third way, the third and final tool that I share with people
about being able to bring that experience of Oneness forward, is by
noticing that there have been times in my life when I have felt the
feeling of another as if it were my own. And I can remember those
times vividly.There have been moments when I have been so empathi c that
I could actually feel the feelin gs of another as if I was feeling them,
right then and there. And that is not terribly unusu al. All of us have those mom ents. But when I have those mome nts, I store them in my memory bank, in
a special place that I return to when I’m feeling separate from
another , or when I’m feeling the need or the desire to reconnect with
my sense of Oneness. Feelings are the language of the soul, and I’ve had many
moments in my life when I have joined another in their feelings so
completely that they might as well have been my own feelings. And
then the Separation between us virtually disappears. Moments of
great sadness, moments of great happiness, moments of great joy,
moments of great victory , moments of defeat—I have shared those
moments emotionally as if they were my own. I have not merely
observed them, I have not merely witnessed them, I have actually
shared them. I have felt them simultaneously  with the other . All of us
have had those kinds of shared experiences. And recalling those
moments, and being on the lookout for them again, is another tool
that I use when I want recall the experience of my Oneness with
others. DR. COOPER: With all of the practice you’ve had spiritua lly, how do
you find your experience now, day-to-day , in terms of feeling
Separation versus feeling Oneness? NEALE: I’m feeling Separatio n probably 60 or 70 percent, maybe 80
percent of the time. And I’m feeling Oneness maybe 10 or 15 or 20percent of the time . . . as opposed to how it used to be, when I felt
Oneness abou t 2 percent of the time. So I think I’ve made huge
strides. But Mastery , of course, is feeling that experience of Oneness all
the time. I’m not even close to that. But I’m heading there, and I’m
increasing the number of moments in my life when I feel that. I can
feel it increasing almost on a day-by-day basis. So am I feeling  more “at one” with another and with every thing
else in life than I did twenty years ago, before Conversations with
God? Oh, my gosh, yes. Becaus e in those days I really didn’t
experience that more than 2 or 3 percent of the time—when I had a
particular moment of incredible, singular bliss. But not these days. Today I can experience that without necessarily having it be
accompanied by , or be an intrinsic part of, some kind of transcendent
moment. DR. COOPER : Yes. I got it. Well, thank you for those tools. I’m
excited to try them!Chapter Six
 
MEDICAL MIRACLES:
Are They Within Our Reach? DR. COOPER: The concep t of “medical miracles”—wh ether they
exist and, if so, what increases one’s chance of having a “miracle”—
has been debated and discussed both in the medical and the
spiritual literature. Y et the two have contrasting viewpoints. Medical science holds the viewpoint that “miracles” are rare and
out of our control; that they defy all logical understanding. Yet
spiritual teache rs across the globe have been saying otherwise for
as far back as anyone can remember . Still, no solid conclusions have been reached about medical
miracles, and how they come  about. It is certainly a topic that invites
us to consider the very title of this book. For it seems to me that the
Intersection of the Physical and the Spiritual  would be the most likely
realm from which a miracle could, and possibly would, emerge. NEALE: Let’s stop for a mom ent to define the word “miracle.” Let’s
start off giving our readers a chance to understand . . . because
“miracle” is a big word. DR. COOPER: It is. NEALE: I am holding, in my vocabulary , that a “miracle” is an event
—and, in the context of this book, it’s a medical event, or a health
occurrence—that stands outside of, that runs against, all the odds of
what would normally or usua lly occur in a circumstance surrounding
a particular medical condition. That is, it defies the odds for sure, and
it appears to be an occurrence that has no logical explanation from a
strictly medical, from a traditional medical, point of view. So that’s
how I would define a miracle. And, of course, we all know that they occur . Doctors are
astonished and flummoxed and often shocked and surprised by
certain turns of events that occur in the lives of their patients from
time to time. So we have known throughout human history that
miracles occur . As you just said, the question becomes: Why, and
how? DR. COOPER: Yes, it absolutely becomes why, and how, do
miracles happen . . . But before we delve into that, I have an important observ ation
about the medical profession in general, and this is that the whole
foundation of medical science is based on  probabilities. What I mean by this is that anytime a patient has a disease,
technically we do not know what is going to happen. There is no
hundred-percent guarantee that the person will get better, or get
worse, or need surgery , or not need surgery , or live, or even die for
that matter . All we can offer the patient is our best guess as to what
will occur next.It’s really kind of a statistical way of looking at things. It’s like
saying, “Okay , 95 out of 100 patients with this illness are going to
proceed in the following way.” And the way in which medical
treatments are designed is to try to group people in the most
probable way in which their outcome will ensue. What this means is two things. First of all, it means that
“medical miracles” have to exist by virtue of the fact that we cannot
logically (and scientifically) account for all possible outcomes. That
is, if we are treating based on probabilities and the likelihood of
certain outcom es occurring, there will be by definition  a select few
cases that are deemed “miracles” because the outcome was so
unexpected it could never have been predicted or anticipated based
on the medical research. Secondly, though, and perhaps more importantly, it opens the
question and the discussion around what explains medical miracles? Because the mystery behind “medical miracles” is not only that they
are exceedingly rare, but perhaps more intriguingly that they are for
the most part utterly and completely unexplainable by modern
medicine and science! This is where the “spiritual door” opens, and
invites us to consider a new perspective. We begin to ask what, in
fact, could be responsible for such a drastic shift for the better in
someone’s state of health and wellbeing? Anita Moorjani, author of Dying To Be Me, is an advocate  for
the idea that “miraculous healing” can occur at the behest of the
soul.6 Having been diagnosed with a terminal cancer , Moorjani
experienced herself “dying” and “crossing over to the other side,”
only to realize that the journey of her soul was to come back to
experience life as a gift (which she called “Heaven on Earth”), and toshare her experience with others. She went on to write a bestselling
book about it, which has certainly touched the lives of many , many
people. So to summarize what I’m trying to say here, medicine is about
predicting future outcomes based on past data and past outcomes. It
utilizes the mind to synthesize all of the previous data from similar
cases in order to create an anticipated outcome, which is called the
patient’s “prognosis.”
But nowhere in western medicine is there space for the soul. The soul, I believe, is open to all possible outcomes—even those
that cannot be explained by past data, or by the so-called “most
likely trajectory” of the illness. So it is completely understandable that
there could be a spiritual underpinning to some of the most
unexplainable outcomes that have so often been deemed “medical
miracles.”
This is precisely what happened for Anita Moorjani. And I happen to believe that it can occur for anyone, should it
be what their soul absolutely and unequivocally desires. NEALE: It is entirely understandable that the medical profession
would, at first blush, reject the idea of miracles as a “to-be-counted-
on” occurrence  in medical circumstances precisely because, while
the medical profession admits and acknowledges that miracles do
occur , such outcomes do not occur with sufficient reliability or
predictability to satisfy any reasonable projection of expectation, to
say nothing of literally a scientific prognosis,  for a patient’ s future. So precisely because the nature of miracles is that they’re
entirely unexpe cted, unpredic table, and inconsistent, doctors have towarn—and we, as authors of this book, need to warn our readers as
well—not to look for or depend on miracles as their highest
probability . We need to make it clear to the people who are reading
this material that, while we agree that miracles occur , and that
they’re an observable part of humanity’ s experience of itself and
have been, as we said, across thousands and thousand s of years,
we nevertheless don’t want this chapter to give people false hope
that there is some kind of a process—some kind of meta physical or
spiritual process—that is guaranteed to produce miracles routinely . So that presents an interesting dichotomy! For us as writers,
and for the people in the world. The Dichotomy is that at the same
time that we say that miracles occur , and that we believe that there
are certain conditions and circumstances that could reasonably be
described as causing  them to occur , in the self-same moment we are
making it clear to people that they should not feel “let down,” or
disappointed by life, if a miracle does not occur in any particular
case. So the Divine Dichotomy there—the interesting circumstance—
is that we invite people to use the power of positive thinking as part of
a mental and spiritual approach to the creation of miracles, at the
same time that we discourage people from expecting, demanding, or
requiring that their spiritual approach will generate the outcomes that
they desire. DR. COOPER : I would venture to say that one of the dangers  of
spirituality today is the notion that there is a reliable “spiritual
process” by which all illness can be cured. I do not believe this to be
the case.I believe it is a dangerous thought not only because it is untrue
(or at least an “incomplete teaching”), but also because it causes
people to feel at fault if they are unable to cure themselves. Some
people may also go as far as to feel somehow metaphysically
responsible for “attracting” the disease to themselves in the first
place! So if we’re not careful, this type of thinking can actually
multiply the negative effects of the disease. There is a fine balance
that needs to be respected here, and as a physician—as someone in
the healing profession—I am acutely aware of it. I would say that it impacts my work in two regards. First of all, it
makes me very aware and cognizant of the effects it might  have on a
patient to give a specific prognosis. By prognosis, I mean an
“expected outcome”—an expected trajectory for the disease, if you
will. While this information can be useful to patients, it can also be
harmful to the degree that it closes one’s mind to other possibilities. So in giving prognostic information to patients, I would assess each
case separately in terms of how much information is helpful, and
necessary, to share. Of course, if the patient specifically asked for it,
it would be my professional duty to provide that information. However, if in doubt, I would allow more “room for error,” so to speak
. . . and more room for the soul to be invited in and to play a role in
the patient’s healing. The second way it would impact my work is that it would
change my definitions of “success” and “failure.” So often in
medicine these terms equate to “life” or “death,” and “cure” or “no
cure.” In the medical professi on, the urge to preserve life is so strongthat we may be tempted to see anything and everything else as a
“failure.”
Yet how interesting it would be if doctors began to treat not just
on the basis of outcome , but on the basis of experience. That is, if
we could measure our “success” or “failure” as a physician not
simply based on the patient’ s outcome—which is presumably their
living or dying—but if we could consider our success based on our
ability to facilitate the patient having a better experience of their
illness—including being okay with whatever ’s going on . Including coming to a place of total acceptance around
whatever may be occurring with their health, given that nothing can
occur in our lives that does not serve a greater purpose at some
level. So the over-arching point I am trying to make here is that
perhaps the miracle doesn’t simply have to be an outcome  that is so
remarkable that it defies medical knowledge. Perhaps it can simply
be walking the road with the patient, and helping them to come to
terms with their experience of the illness to the point where they fully
accept it. This, first of all, opens them to the possibility  of a miracle ,
because from that place of acceptance we open ourselves to being
able to create alternative outcomes, and secondly . . . NEALE: That’ s precisely correct! Because what you resist persists. DR. COOPER: And secondly , regardless of whether the “desired
outcome” (life or death, cure or no cure) is achieved, who’s to say
that any one outcome is “better ,” at the level of the soul?So perhaps the miracle is simply being okay with what is
occurring. Because in being okay with what is occurring, rather than
resisting it, you align yourself at all levels of creation. You will therefo re inevitably experience what is in your highest
good. NEALE: Y es, in my understanding that’ s precisely right. DR. COOPER: Also, when I said earlier that I believe anyone who’s
soul absolutely and unequivocally desires a certain outcome will
experience that outcome, that statement comes with an important
caveat. And this is that we are not always consciously aware of the
highest desires of our soul. In fact, very few people are, on a
consistent basis. So to presume that we know what outcome is “best”
is, in many cases, inaccurate. “Healing,” in my view, is not necessarily the “best outcome” as
defined from a strictly medica l point of view. I do not consi der it to be
the guarantee that whatever  disease process is underway will be
reversed, or “cured.”
I believe that there are times when an illness is used as a
means, or a vehicle, through which to demonstrate Divinity. And I
also believe that there are times when “healing” is simply moving on
—to another lifetime, and to another phase of the soul’ s journey . NEALE: So it seems to me the true miracle is acceptance. Because,
just as you said, acceptance opens the door to non-resistance. And
non-resistance, in turn, opens the door to the far finer energies—the
finer, more delicate, nuanced energies—that could and would, ifthere were any possibility for it to happen, produce what we call a
medical miracle. Because a medical miracle is defined in energetic terms as a
change—and often a subtle change—in the energy signature  of a
person surrounding a particu lar physical condition or circumstance. And that energy shift is extremely nuanced, in compari son to the
energy signature of a person who is resigned  to their impending
death or, even if it’s not a terminal illness, to their particular
condition. So I think there’ s a difference between being  accepting
and being resigned . And that’s a difference we should be exploring
verbally in this chapter . A person who is resigned  to their circumstance, whether it’s . . . (feigned cough  attack) . . . whether it’s choking to death on the
telephone, or some other circumstance—whether it’s a non-terminal
condition such as paralysis, or some handicap, or some debilitating
circumstance that’s not lethal, that’s not life-threatening, but
tremendously inconvenient, such as random nerve firings, we want
to make a point in this chap ter. We want to say to people: “Do not
confuse being resigned  to a circumstance with being accepting of a
circumstance.”
 
DR. COOPER: Absolutely . NEALE: Because being resigned  is a form of negative energ y. The
nuances of the energies are very delicate here, and the nuance of
resignation is primarily nega tive. It doesn’t have to, but it tends to
mentally move toward closing of f better possibilities.“Oh well, I guess that’s just the way it is, and I guess I don’t have
any choice. And so I best just be, you know, resigned to it and not
fight it.” That’s a form of non-resistance, or non-opposition, but it’s a
negative form of non-opposition, as opposed to a positive form of
non-opposition. Acceptance, on the other hand,  is the open acknowledgement
that what is occurring is perfect and, unlike resignation, it does not
tend to close off future possibilities of any kind. DR. COOPER: What comes to mind as you say that, Neale, is that
resignation  seems to imply a subtle sense of suffering  around
whatever it is that one may be resigned about. Versus acceptance,
which seems to offer a sense of peace , and from that sense of
peace—I just have to insert  this one thing—it has been  shown in
studies on meditation that a sense of peacefulness around
something can actually create biological changes at the cellular
level, which promote healing! 3
So that nuance between states of being —between resignation
and acceptance—actually produces measurable biological changes
that can strengthen one’s immune system, diminish inflammation,
and demonstrably increase one’ s overall chance of a cure. I just had to insert that little piece . . . NEALE: That’ s good stuff. And now people can see the difference,
just as there’ s a difference between the other side of resignation,
where acceptance becomes—how would I call it—kind of a
“Pollyanna” idea that there’ s no doubt that total healing will occur . Which is not what we’re after , either .But I’m wonde ring where doubt comes in . . . because that’s a
key question, metaphysically speaking. DR. COOPER: It is. NEALE: So we need to clarify  in this chapter as well that to not doubt
that a physical condition will be reversed (even a condition that
would not require a “miracle” to occur for it to be revers ed) opens
one, as we said earlier , to the possibility of deep disap pointment,
anger with God, and horrific frustration that will only add to the
negative medic al condition. So not doubting that a reversa l of even a
minor medical condition will occur is not, I think, a healthy thing to
advise or suggest. Not doubting that the “perfe ct healing” will occur is another
matter altogether . We then move to the point in this chapter where
we have to define what we mean by “healing.” Again, we spoke of
this when we addressed the subject of miracles a moment ago. Does healing equal the complete transformation and change of
a medi cal condition, the shifting of a condition from one state to
another , or does healing define a different transformation altogether? Could “healing ” refer to a spiritual and mental transformation which
may not produce any shift in the physical presenting of a
circumstance, but may shift one’s mental and emotional experience
of it such that whatever was intended to be “healed” has been
healed, in that we have stopped emotionally suf fering from it? DR. COOPER: I have two thoughts on that. I love these  questions
you’re bringing up.With regard to doubt, perhaps what we’re seeking to no longer
doubt is not what outcome specifically will occur , but to not doubt
that whatever happens . . . how can I put this . . . I think  that if we
can come to the knowing that whatever happens will be . . . NEALE:  . . . to our highest benefit. DR. COOPER: Y es! You know , if my patients could know one thing, I would  want
them to know that we’re not going to go backwards in terms of our
ability to express Divinity or to enjoy life (when we consider life to be
the eternal process of life). In other words, we’re not going to be
“worse of f” spiritually because of a given medical outcome. So I think the point we’re trying to make here is to not doubt the
outcome, regardless of what it is. Because whatever is occurring is
undoubtedly  (laughs), if I could use that word, yet another
opportunity to continue to demonstrate higher and higher versions of
ourselves. Conversations with God points out that the purpose of life is to
continually evolve into grander and grander versions of ourselves,
and this process is not going to be reversed or made impossible by a
so-called “negative outcome” with regards to our physical health. It is
important to get very clear on this, for it is the pathway to peace. NEALE: Indee d, there is no such thing as a negative outcome. And
spiritual awareness provides that insight. DR. COOPER: Exactly . Seco ndly, in regards to healing, my thoughts
around healing  have evolved so much since I first starte d medicalschool—this was before I knew you, Neale, and I thought that
healing meant “curing the physical ailment.” As you know , I’m very
clear from our discussion today that this is a superficial and
incomplete definition of healing. Then about two or three years into my work towards my
medical degre e, I remember coming to the realization that healing
involved more than the physical ailment, and that there was most
certainly a mental and an emotional component to it as well. But I’ve
come even a step further than that now . To me, when I hear the word “healing” now, I hear some thing
that reminds me of what your beautiful wife em said when she came
downstairs to your family room to visit with us last week . . . and,
hearing us talk about this book, she remarked: “Maybe God and
Medicine are One.”
So what I hear with the word “healing” now is: Resolving the
separation between the Journey of the Body and the Journey of the
Soul. I’m not sure if that’ s the right way to put it . . . NEALE: That’ s a great way to put it! That’ s a great way to put it. You raised my eyebrows when you said that. That is precisely
correct. Nicely put. DR. COOPER: Is that your thought on healing, too, then? NEALE: Y es! I mean, I love what you just said!Healing is eliminating the difference . . . what did you just say? Eliminating the dif ference between . . . ? DR. COOPER: I said that healing is resolving the separation
between the Journey of the Body and the Journey of the Soul. It is
where the two become one. It is, effectively , where God and Medicine meet. Which speaks
to the title of this book. NEALE: Yes. That is it! That is it. It re-words what we spoke of
earlier , when we talked about the place where spirituality and
physicality meet. Healing is when we see the two as one and, in fact, when we
see all three— the physical, mental, and spiritual journeys— as part of
a singular process. And seein g it in that way, it is impossi ble to hold
that any particular aspect of it is somehow “out of alignm ent”— such
a thing would be impossible, given Who W e Are. DR. COOPER: And when our body , mind, and soul are in alignment,
all of our levels of consciousness  are also in alignment. Conversations with God talks about creating at the
subconscious level, at the conscious level, at the superconscious
level, and ultimately at the supra conscious level (all three combined). And when we’re creating from the supraconscious level, I would
venture to say that everything is a miracle,  becaus e we’re creating
exactly “on purpose,” and exactly in alignment with the Agenda of
our Soul. NEALE: With the greatest level of perfection. DR. COOPER: And with the greatest level of efficiency at doing so,
because everything is in harmony . NEALE: Yes. But the obviou s question becomes, “How does one
create outcome s in one’s life?” That is more than I can go into in full
here, because it’s a whole book’s worth of material, but the question
is explored deeply in the book Happier Than God, which is part of
the Conversations with God cosmology . Briefly , creating at the supraconscious level involves setting
aside all of one’s own Little Me desires and opening to the vibrations
of Absolute Needlessness and Unconditional Love that emanates
from Divinity Itself. Those vibrations can be felt in every moment and
at every Choicepoint in our lives. Responding to them becomes
easier and easier the more we move deeply into the expression and
experience of Who We Really Are, aided by an absolute
determination and commitment with the Self to do so. When we do, it turns out there’s no such thing as an “unmiracle,”
because we see that everything that is happening is miraculously
perfect. DR. COOPER: Y es, I guess you could say that. NEALE: There’ s no such thing as an “unmiracle.”
Which is the reverse of “everything is a miracle.”
There’ s no such thing as an unmiracle!And when we believe that, and hold that to be true, we find and
create enormous, enormous peace in our lives. And if peace isn’t the
best medicine of all, then I don’t know what is. If anything is going to have a medicinally healing effect—if
anything is going to have an energetically beneficial effect on our
lives at any level—it is going to be the energy that we call, in human
language, peace. Which is the quietest form of Love. Peace is the quietest form of Love. DR. COOPER: And peace is, at the very least, the absence of
suffering. Which I think is what we’re truly trying to avoid. I don’t think
we’re trying to avoid death nearly so much as we’re trying to avoid
suffering . . . NEALE: I agree. DR. COOPER: Suffering around the uncertainty of death, or around
the idea of intolerable pain. One of those. But I think suffering is the
ultimate outcome we are trying to avoid. NEALE: Y es. DR. COOPER: And if you have peace, you don’t have suffering. So
the struggle ends there. NEALE: Nice. DR. COOPER: Shall we move onto the next topic now? I feel
complete with this one. NEALE: Onward, then.Chapter Seven
 
THE MEDICAL SYSTEM:
Is There a Place for God? DR. COOPER: If healing is the point at which the Journey of the Body
and the Journey of the Soul become One, it invites us to consider the
role of physicians in an entirely new light. It brings up a whole new
series of questions. How, if at all, can physicia ns adopt this new viewpoint on
healing? Is it possible to incorporate into the wester n medical
model? If so, how would it change the way we show up in the room
of patients? There is just so much to consider here . . . NEALE: There is. But first, let me say something. The sadness about
the medical profession, from my point of view as a layperson, is that
the whole of the medical intervention in a person’ s life seems to be
directed at avoiding death in the patient. That a doctor  considers
himself to be “successful” if he’s managed to keep the patient alive. And she imagines that she is a “failure” if she has not kept the
patient alive. Now I know we spoke of this earlier , and this relates to some of
what we touched on in that earlier exchange. What I’m saying here isthat medicine— modern medicine—tends to measure “success” or
“failure” by a simple and rather crude measuring stick:
Level 1: Did the patient survive or not? Level 2: W as the patient relieved of abject suf fering, or was he
not? And . . . Level 3: Did this patient’ s health, and did this patient’ s condition,
improve or did it not? Those seem to be the three levels of measurement, as I
observed it, by which physicians determine whether they’ve been
successful or not successful in their intervention with the patient. Sadly , at none of those three levels is the patient’ s spiritual
well-being even considered or focused on. Which is ironic, because
their spiritual well-being could  conceivably play an enormous role in
the other three areas that are being measured by physicians! But when physicians approach a patient, by and large (this
seems to me to be true with the largest percentage of physicians in
the world), they approach the patient and they measure the
effectiveness of their interaction with the patient based on those
three criteria. Did they survive? Was their suffering reduced? And
ultimately , has their health actually improved? At no point is there a measurement of what their spiritual
experience has been. Which brings up the question of how doctors
are being educated in the field of spirituality— and what role, if any,
the physician has in igniting, arousing, and impacting or affecting the
spiritual response mechanism of the patient. There are certain healing mechanisms of all patients—the
immune system being the obvious one, and there are others as well
—that physicians are traine d to trigger . They can either trigger itpharmaceutically , or they can trigger it mechanically through a thing
called surgery , or they can trigger it psychologically , as you said
earlier , by the way they walk into the room and the way they talk. But
how does the physician trigger the patient’ s spiritual healing
mechanisms? Or, does the physician even have a role in doing that? I would argue that she does , but the medical profession over
the past several hundred years appears to have paid scarce
attention to that, and, I think, to its failing. DR. COOPER: I agree! Conversations with God makes it clear that
we are three-part beings, composed of Body , Mind, and Soul. Medicine focus es primarily on the physical, and it is at best a blend
of the physical and the mental/emotional aspects of healing (for
those doctors who are kind enough to have what we would call
“good bedside manner”). However, rarely , if ever, is the soul brought
in. So it’s like riding a tricycle with only one or two wheels and
wondering why , even after we’ve “fixed it,” it’ s still broken! And I believe it’s because we have failed to address the full
picture—and we have missed out on what is arguably the most
important aspe ct of Who We Are. And this is the connection to our
soul, to our Highest Self, and to the real reason we are here on the
planet. When we begin to embrace a more “holistic viewpoint,” one that
honors the Body-Mind-Soul Triad, it changes everything— from our
experience of the illness to our experience of the very thing we call
“healing.” In my opinion, being “healed” and being “cured of a
physical ailmen t” are not the same thing, as we have now discussed
several times. And the mere fact that a patient “survived” does not byany means guarantee a life filled with joy and peac e, free of
suffering. A life filled with joy and peace, free of suffering, is a spiritual
choice. It has little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and
much to do with how we choose to relate to those circumstances. This is powerfully illustrated by the late Ken Keyes Jr., author of
Handbook to Higher Consciousness.7 Keyes experienced the great
“tragedy” of becoming a quadriplegic (paralyzed from the neck down)
at the young age of 25, secondary to contracting polio. Yet rather than
allowing this unexpected and perhaps unfortunate turn of events to be
his downfall, he used it as a platform from which to experience his
Highest Self. He moved into a place of acceptance , and ultimately into a
space of gratitude,  for the adversity with which he was faced, and he
learned to free himself from mental and spiritual suffering, despite
the limitations placed upon his physical body . Ken Keyes Jr. went on
to become a great teacher and mentor to others, for he illustrated
what it truly means to be “healed”—not strictly in the physical sense,
but in the more global sense of knowing and experiencing Who We
Really Are and why we’re on the planet. This inevitably  leads us to ask: could Ken Keyes Jr. have
achieved such a profound and inspiring transformation in his life
without having contracted polio? In this context, was his illness a
setback  or a springboard? For that matter , the way we see anything  in our lives—as a
challenge  or as an opportunity —is entirely our choice, and this is
precisely the point that the life of Ken Keyes Jr . illustrates. Indeed, it is where the spiritual part of healing comes in. NEALE: Ken explored this question in a book that he authored about
this period in his life, titled Discovering The Secrets of Happiness . In
it Ken himself suggested that his disability may have been  a blessing
in disguise. He wrote:
“Perhaps I would have been so caught up in the business and
social rat race that I wouldn’t have sat still long enough to study my
security , sensation and powe r illusions — and then discover how to
deal with them so I could open up my heart to loving more . My reality
is that I am far too busy and involved in my life activities to have time
to concern myself with self-consciousness in the wheelchair
department. Today I view my so-called ‘handicap’ as another gift my
life has of fered me.”
The reason Ken Keyes’ book  Handbook to Higher
Consciousness  is so powerful, the reason it sold so many copies and
touched so many people, is that his personal life setba ck was so
dramatic . People could not help but look at his situation and think,
“Oh, my gosh! If you can reframe your point of view around being
paralyzed from the neck down, if you can still see your life and your
situation as a blessing , then for heaven’ s sake, who am I to
complain? !”
I had the privilege of meeting Ken Keyes in person shortly after
Conversations with God was published. DR. COOPER: He sounds like a truly remarkable and deeply
inspiring man. NEALE: He was. He most certainly was. He has since celebrated his
Continuation Day . DR. COOPER: I know you have mentioned him in a number of your
Conversations with God  books. It is no small feat to live an entire life
wheelchair-bound, paralyzed from the neck down, and to still
powerfully believe that you have everything you need within you to
live a life of complete happin ess and fulfillment . We certainly don’t
witness many people living that kind of a life. This is why Keyes is a perfec t illustration of the larger point we
are trying to make here . . . which is that true healing cannot occur
unless and until we have addressed the larger metaphysical picture
of what is going on with the patient spiritually . NEALE: So the question then becomes: Does the medical
profession, as a field, even begin to consider the validity of what
you’ve just said at any level? Is there any room in the current
operating model for a metaphysical aspect? DR. COOPER: I would say, as far as my experience has been, the
answer is no. I would say that we are shifting toward more of a holistic,
all-encompassing, and perhaps even verging on a “mental-emotional-
spiritual” approach to health and well-being . . . but that it is not even
close to being at the level of which you are speaking. It is getting
closer, but it is certainly not “there” yet, which is why I think having
conversations like this one, about what it might look like, are an
important first step.With that said, there are certainly doctors who “break the
traditional mold,” and who are taking the first steps and paving the
way for others to follow . And these doctors have been a huge
inspiration to me in my own journey . But it has been their own choice
to bring that metaphysical aspect, or spiritual energy , into the room. It hasn’t been based on their medical training, as far as I know . There is one story that is particularly touching that I would like
to share here. This particular case was a baby who was born prematurely at
23-and-a-half weeks—just a few days before what is called the
“threshold of viability” (whic h is the minimum age for a baby to
survive, and is normally at 24 weeks). Anytime before that their little
bodies are just not ready to survive in the outside world. Their lungs,
for instance, will not be sufficiently developed to breathe , and their
digestive tracts will not be developed enough to absorb their
mother ’s breas t milk. They are close to being able to survive, but not
quite there. The little baby boy I am talking about here was just a few days
shy of the developmental stage he needed to attain in order to
survive in the outside world. His mother was overwhelmed with
worry , sadness and grief as the doctors regrettably told her that her
baby would in all likelihood not survive. He was simply too young. In
fact, the odds were a hundred to one that he wasn’t going to make it. It would have been nothing short of a miracle should this young baby
boy have successfully made  the transition from the womb to the
outside world. But here’ s what shocked me. Here’ s what touched me. And
here is the piece that I will never ever forget, for as long as I live andfor as long as I practice medicine. And this is that, despite the seemingly tragic and hopeless
nature of the situation, the two medical spec ialists—the
Neonatologist and the Obstetrician—of fered to be present for the
birth. Even though the chances of the baby surviving were next to nil,
they offered their presence as an emotional support to the mother
and to the family, if nothing else. They said to the mother , “We are
here in the tiny chance that something can be done to help your
baby . . . and if not, we are here for you.”
Sure enough, the baby did not survive. Out he came, the
smallest thing I had ever seen, not more than eight inches long with
legs and arms as thin as a dime. The specialists examined him
briefly , but they knew he would not live more than a few minutes.
Where_God_and_Medicine_Meet-_Neale_Donald_Walsch.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        That was Brittany Maynard, a
young 29-year-old woman who was diagnosed with a terminal brain
tumor called a “glioblastoma. ”5
She would have preferred for her life to go on had she been
perfectly healthy (she made it clear that she did not wish to die) but,
given that there was no cure available to her, she chose to give
herself six months to spend with her loved ones and then to die (as
permitted by Oregon’ s Death with Dignity Act ). She explained that she preferred this option of a “death with
dignity” rather than to suffer the debilitating consequences of the
brain tumor that would eventually take her life. Brittany Maynard’ s story captured a lot of media attention, and I
think the bless ing in this youn g woman’ s choice is that it opened the
world’ s eyes to an alternate way of looking at death and dying. It
provided a real-life account of how it would look to give the patient
the choice. NEALE: Yes. And that’s the way it should be. In an advanced,
intelligent civilization, that is, of course, the way it should be. We depend on the medical profession to use every miracle at
its disposal to keep us alive, precisely so that we can make our own
decision about it. DR. COOPER: I got it. NEALE: And I’m saying that so often—I’ve said it five times now—so
you can rearrange your thinking.
She chose to end her life with dignity, as permitted by Oregon's Death with Dignity Act.
What was Brittany Maynard's choice in the face of her terminal illness diagnosis?
They are emphasizing the importance of embracing oneness and unity in our individual lives, and how it can transform our world.
What is the main point that Dr. Cooper and Neale are trying to make about the concept of oneness?
According to Neale, the medical profession focuses primarily on preserving life, rather than considering the spiritual well-being of the patient.
What is the main focus of the medical profession, according to Neale?
Neale believes that medicine should be used to preserve life so that individuals can make their own choices about life and death.
What is the purpose of medicine, according to Neale?
Neale emphasizes that the book's message is not about using spirituality to cure physical ailments, but rather about embracing the divine and the importance of unity.
What is the main message of Conversations with God, according to Neale?