Quotes from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

Eben Alexander ·  196 pages

Rating: (45.1K votes)


“Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal-and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows-the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“A story-a true story-can heal as much as medicine can.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the Universe itself and all the beings withing it are ultimately goind.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“My journey deep into coma, outside this lowly physical realm and into the loftiest dwelling place of the almighty Creator, revealed the indescribably immense chasm between our human knowledge and the awe-inspiring realm of God.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife



“Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth—no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger picture love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be triumphant.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“The brain itself does not produce consciousness. That it is, instead, a kind of reducing valve or filter, shifting the larger, nonphysical consciousness that we possess in the non physical worlds down into a more limited capacity for the duration of our mortal lives.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through heaven’s gates I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne, He said, “This is eternity, And all I’ve promised you. Today your life on earth is past But here it starts anew. I promise no tomorrow, But today will always last, And since each day’s the same way, There’s no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Though there were times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do. But you have been forgiven And now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand And share my life with me?” So when tomorrow starts without me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“Science—the science to which I’ve devoted so much of my life—doesn’t contradict what I learned up there. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife



“For all the successes of Western civilization, the world paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence - the human spirit. The shadow side of high technology - modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources - is bad enough. Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“Physical life is characterized by defensiveness, whereas spiritual life is just the opposite.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“Your family is who you are.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“there are really no “objects” in the world at all, only vibrations of energy, and relationships.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“Those implications are tremendous beyond description. My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife



“I didn’t just believe in God; I knew God.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong. If I had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way: You are loved. And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would (of course) be, simply: Love.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“We can only see what our brain’s filter allows through.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife



“Hallucinogens affect the neocortex, and my neocortex wasn’t available to be affected.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“To say that there is still a chasm between our current scientific understanding of the universe and the truth as I saw it is a considerable understatement. I still love physics and cosmology, still love studying our vast and wonderful universe. Only I now have a greatly enlarged conception of what “vast” and “wonderful” really mean. The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part. In my past view, spiritual wasn’t a word that I would have employed during a scientific conversation. Now I believe it is a word that we cannot afford to leave out.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“Omniscient, omnipotent, personal—and loving us without conditions.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.” “You have nothing to fear.” “There is nothing you can do wrong.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife



“None of us are ever unloved. Each and every one of us is deeply known and cared for by a Creator who cherishes us beyond any ability we have to comprehend.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


“There were children, too, laughing and playing. The people sang and danced around in circles, and sometimes I’d see a dog, running and jumping among them, as full of joy as the people were.”
― Eben Alexander, quote from Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife


About the author

Eben Alexander
Born place: in Charlotte, The United States
Born date December 11, 1953
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays


“As use-values, commodities differ above all in quality, while as exchange-values they can only differ in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use-value.”
― Karl Marx, quote from Capital, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production


“In clear-cutting, he said, you clear away the natural forest, or what the industrial forester calls "weed trees," and plant all one species of tree in neat straight functional rows like corn, sorghum, sugar beets or any other practical farm crop. You then dump on chemical fertilizers to replace the washed-away humus, inject the seedlings with growth-forcing hormones, surround your plot with deer repellants and raise a uniform crop of trees, all identical. When the trees reach a certain prespecified height (not maturity; that takes too long) you send in a fleet of tree-harvesting machines and cut the fuckers down. All of them. Then burn the slash, and harrow, seed, fertilize all over again, round and round and round again, faster and faster, tighter and tighter until, like the fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird which flies in ever-smaller circles, you disappear up your own asshole.”
― Edward Abbey, quote from The Monkey Wrench Gang


“Everything seems to be working." Except me. I'm broken.”
― Julie Anne Peters, quote from By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead


“I held my breath and wished for that moment to last as long as it possibly could, because a waking dream is always more fleeting than a sleeping one.”
― Vikas Swarup, quote from Q & A


Interesting books

الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
(211.3K)
الحرب والسلم [War an...
by Leo Tolstoy
De dömdas ö
(158)
De dömdas ö
by Stig Dagerman
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
(207.2K)
The 5 Love Languages...
by Gary Chapman
Glass Houses
(18.6K)
Glass Houses
by Louise Penny
A Skinful of Shadows
(1.6K)
A Skinful of Shadows
by Frances Hardinge
The Emperor's Handbook
(815)
The Emperor's Handbo...
by Marcus Aurelius

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.