Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsIntriguing, But.....
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2016
This book was fascinating in the beginning-- reading about the author's NDE and also his frank discussion of his cynicism, apathy toward his patients, anger and materialism.His NDE seemed plausible (although the lengthy descriptions of what the angels said to him seem like more than he could have accurately remembered). But afterward, Parti seems to have been looking to the wrong spiritual guides. He quotes Jung, who delved into the spiritual realm in a fascinating way, but then Jung's ego seems to have taken over-- he had an affair with a patient, and began to think of himself as a god. Parti also quotes Foucault-- a nihilistic philosopher who was fascinated with uniting sex and death, and who sought out AIDS through a sexual encounter.
Parti concludes that losing one's ego and becoming nonjudgmental and loving are the are purpose of life. But what is love, disconnected from LAW? It degenerates into New Age, Oprah-Style sentimentality in which the person's goal in life is to "find himself" -- but are all "selves" really valid and genuine? They can't be.
Parti says he had an encounter with Jesus, farther on in his personal journey. But Jesus is not the god of just "love" -- he operated under Judaic law, and Jesus said clearly, in the Bible, that he did not come to change the law. If Parti now believes in Jesus, why does he not believe all of what Jesus taught?
So something is missing in Parti's journey after his NDE,. Where he gives selflessly (as in accompanying his dying doctor friend Naresh to the end of his life), it would seem right that Parti would be able to have a "shared death experience" because he shared his friend's suffering in a noble and loving way. But learning to "just become nonjudgmental" is a trap. If "everything goes," then nothing is true and right, and the world is meaningless.
So I found the book intriguing but I wouldn't take the author's lessons learned without serious consideration of whether or not he is truly on the right path.
