Dr. Rajiv Parti
Dr. Rajiv Parti, founder of the Pain Management Institute of California and Chief of Anesthesiology at Bakersfield’s Heart Hospital, specialized in cardiac anesthesiology. On Christmas Eve of 2010, after two years of battling chronic pelvic pain, incontinence, and impotency due to surgical complications from prostate cancer, Dr. Parti was taken to the Emergency Room at UCLA. Suffering from sepsis (a life-threatening infection) and in excruciating pain, Dr. Parti had an out-of-body experience. Floating ten feet above his body, Dr. Parti watched his medical team as they struggled to save him. While part of his consciousness remained in the operating room in Los Angeles, another part of his consciousness journeyed to India where he watched family members prepare a meal. From there he visited hell, experienced a life review, met deceased loved ones, travelled through a “time tunnel,” and visited Heaven where he met a Being of Light (whom he regarded as God) and two guardian angels. During the experience, Rajiv was told that he was going to be alright, but that when he returned to his body, his life purpose would be changed forever: he would leave behind his materialistic lifestyle, stop practicing anesthesiology, and become a healer.
When Dr. Parti’s consciousness returned to his body, his mental, behavioral and psychological priorities changed dramatically. In the weeks that followed, Dr. Parti abandoned his career, and with the support of his wife and children, downsized his family home from a 10,000 square foot mansion to a modest home. He traded in his Hummer and Mercedes for a Toyota hybrid and now spends his time volunteering for community projects and teaching that chronic pain, addiction, and depression are “diseases of the soul.” In a radical departure from his conventional medical training, Dr. Parti now advocates a consciousness-based approach to healing.
Websites & Background Information
• Dr. Rajiv Parti Website
• Dr. Rajiv Parti on Facebook
• Dr. Rajiv Parti on Twitter
Book
Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back
By Rajiv Parti (Author), Raymond Moody (Foreword), Paul Perry (Contributor)
Amazon Description:
A rare glimpse into heaven, hell, and previous lives — Dr. Rajiv Parti’s near-death experience brought him on a journey through the afterworld, leading to a spiritual awakening that transformed his career, his lifestyle, and even his fundamental beliefs.
Before his near-death experience, Dr. Rajiv Parti was a wealthy man of science with a successful career as the Chief of Anesthesiology at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital in California. He demanded the same success from his son, whose failures provoked episodes of physical abuse from Dr. Parti. All in all, Dr. Parti was the last man to believe in heaven or hell — that is, until he saw them with his own eyes.
When Dr. Parti had his near-death experience on the operating table, he first watched his own operation from the ceiling — even recalling a joke told by his doctors during his surgery. He was greeted by archangels and his deceased father who led him through the tortures of hell and revealed the toxic cycle of violence that has plagued his family for generations. He even reviewed the struggles of his previous lives which, in many ways, reflected those he still faced in the present. Finally, he experienced heaven. From the angels, he learned lessons of spiritual health that they insisted he bring down to earth—to do so, Dr. Parti knew he had to change his ways.
After his near-death experience, Dr. Parti awoke a new man. He gave away his mansion, quit his career, opened a wellness clinic, and completely turned around his relationships with his family. To this day, he still converses with angels and spreads their wisdom to the living.
In this remarkable true story of spiritual transformation, Dr. Parti provides rare details of heaven, hell, the afterlife, and angels. In sharing the lessons and eternal truths from the Divine that changed him forever, Dr. Parti offers his audience the opportunity to attain peace and live a better life here on Earth.
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Dr. Rajiv Parti on NDE Radio (August 25, 2014) (MP3)
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Indian American Physician Turns Spiritual Healer After Experience With The Afterlife
By Reena Rathore
India-West
November 2, 2016
He was a materialistic and selfish man, Dr. Rajiv Parti, former chief of anesthesiology at Bakersfield Heart Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., confessed to India-West, who continued to push himself for social and material gains, but his brush with death nearly six years ago made him delve deeper beneath the glossy façade.
The Indian American physician, who is now a transformed man, has authored a book called “Dying to Wake Up,” which chronicles his journey to spiritual awakening following the near-death experience.
“Not just for wealth. I have three kids in college and I have to pay bills, too,” Parti told India-West in explaining his hectic career. “My life was just about me. It was selfish. I didn’t care about my wife’s or my kids or even my patients’ feelings.”
Born and raised in India, Parti attended a medical school in New Delhi. During his years as a young medical student, Parti said he was inclined towards spiritual activities, went to the Himalayas and came so far as to dreaming of becoming a monk.
“But the swami at the Ramakrishna Ashram sent me back to finish my education,” he recalled.
Armed with a medical degree, Parti came to the U.S. in 1982, and the spiritual part was left behind, he told India-West.
“I did two residencies, one in pediatrics, but that wasn’t satisfying especially financially, so I changed to anesthesia and I became a cardiac anesthesiologist,” explained Parti, who earned his residency in anesthesiology from Nashville, Tennessee, before moving to Bakersfield to live closer to his sister.
“I was driven by success and my dream became a runaway American dream,” shared Parti.
He lived in an 11,000-square-foot mansion, drove fancy cars, which included brands like Hummer and BMW, and there was no end to materialism, he claimed.
In 1999-2000, during the early days of the dot-com bubble, he gave up his practice of medicine to become a stock trader. But life took a different course in August 2008 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. A surgical operation led to more complications such as incontinence. And to fix that overwhelming suffering, he went to the UCLA Medical Center for the surgical placement of an artificial urinary sphincter on Dec. 14, 2010. That, too, led to a severe infection.
Parti was again rushed to the UCLA Medical Center when he was running a fever of 104 to 105 degrees, where he underwent emergency abdominal surgery to remove the artificial sphincter.
It was during that operation that he had the near-death experience.
“From that I learnt quite a few things, like what I eat, what I drive, my relationship with my wife, kids and even with God, everything changed,” Parti recalled to India-West. “The person who went to sleep on the operating table and the person who woke up were two different people.”
Twenty minutes after surgery started, Parti found himself floating near the ceiling of the operating theater, he recounts his experience in his book, which he co-authored with Paul Perry, a New York Times best-selling author, over a period of three years. With all of his senses intact, he watched his medical team as they struggled to save him. While part of his consciousness remained in the operating room in Los Angeles, another part of his consciousness journeyed to India where he watched family members prepare a meal, he writes.
“There are drugs like Ketamine which are anesthetic and, which cause similar effects. I looked at the records; it wasn’t used,” Parti explained to India-West. “The main thing about this experience in general is how it affects a person. If it is a hallucination or a dream, you don’t see transformative changes in a person.”
“I went to different realms,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I went to the hell realm and looking back my experience was Hindu-Christian mix,” he told India-West. “The hellish realm was more like a Hindu ‘Narak.’ Then I met angel Michael the Archangel. I also met my dead father.”
Parti said his father, who was “abusive” to him as a boy, showed up when he cried for help at the pitch dark realm of hell and walked him down to a “tunnel of light,” which was akin to the light of a thousand suns, but still pleasant to the eyes, he recalled.
The meeting, he said, made him realize that his father loved him and cared for him but could not express it.
“That’s why I was able to forgive him,” Parti said. “I was always confused about my relationship with my father. I was angry at him.”
His meeting with the Guardian Angels gave his life a new direction, Parti noted, adding that they taught him “consciousness-based medicine,” which focuses on “forgive, love and heal.”
“It’s time to forgive people who have hurt you, ask for forgiveness from people who you have hurt, and also to forgive your own self for hurting others and yourself,” he said.
When Parti’s consciousness returned to his body, his priorities changed dramatically. He gave up his lucrative career, downsized his home to a more modest one, and even swapped his fancy cars for a Toyota hybrid.
“I am not living a poor life now,” Parti asserted to India-West. “But I am not a materialistic-minded man I used to be. My life literally went from hummer to a hybrid but everything in balance is good. It’s more like Buddha’s middle path.”
The spiritual knowledge he gained also changed his family dynamics. “My daughter and my wife have been very supportive. My two boys are kind of agnostic but they like their new dad,” said Parti, admitting that he had demanded his son to follow his path. “I forced my son to go to a medical school and when he dropped out, I was angry at him. But now that anger has gone away. He is doing computer science in San Francisco now, and I am okay with it.”
“I used to put people to sleep and now I wake them up,” stated Parti.
Parti said he has found support in a lot of people across the world, but there are still many out there who doubt on his story.
“People will be skeptic as I can only tell what my experience was, and whether you believe it or not, it’s your choice,” he said. “There is no chemical way or a machine through which I can measure God. Spiritual experiences are very subjective experiences.”
Parti went to Dharamshala, India, for a Buddhist retreat where he experienced the rising of Kundalini.
“I also quite often get intuitions which work out well. It has changed me from materialistic anesthesiologist to a more spiritual teacher,” the physician said.
He now advocates a consciousness-based approach to healing. His next book describes how changing your consciousness can change your life.
“There are three things I talk about: prayer, meditation and service, which I call ‘seva.’ And ‘seva’ is not going to a kitchen and spending two hours but it’s a different mentality and mindset,” he explained to India-West. “You do not have to have a near-death experience to transform.”
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A Journey to Hell/Heaven and Back to Earth
My Near Death Experience, December 24, 2010
By Dr. Rajiv Parti
In 2008, I was a busy cardiac-anesthesiologist and Chief of Anesthesiology at Heart Hospital in Bakersfield, California. I derived my identity and happiness from the work I did and my family. But in August of that year, everything was turned upside down. First, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Then, a routine surgery to treat my cancer led to complications, which required three additional surgeries.
As if cancer, and four operations to treat it, wasn’t enough, my new reality included constant, excruciating pain, impotence, incontinence and wearing diapers. As an anesthesiologist, I was the first to advocate traditional pain medications to manage severe pain. So I used them myself. But I soon discovered that I became addicted to these medications. I was now a cancer survivor living with post surgical complications, chronic pain AND addiction. Inevitably, within a year, I was also diagnosed with depression.
On December 14, 2010, I was back in surgery for placement of an artificial urinary sphincter. After this surgery, I was very sick, running a fever of 104-105 degrees F. My entire pelvic area, including penis and scrotum, was very red and badly swollen. I could not urinate. I was placed on heavy-duty antibiotics, but was not getting better. Something was very, very wrong.
Ten days later, on Christmas Eve, I was admitted to the emergency ward of the UCLA hospital for sepsis (a life-threatening, severe infection). Christmas morning, the medical staff performed emergency surgery to drain the pus from the pelvic region and take the foreign body (the artificial sphincter) out. I was in a lot of pain and heavily medicated. When the medical staff inserted a catheter to drain my urinary bladder, the pain was so intense that it triggered an out-of-body experience. Though my physical body was heavily medicated and ‘asleep’, I was now conscious and aware of a different plane of existence. I could see my body, from above, in the hospital. I was aware of conversations taking place. In the operating room, I observed the surgeons cutting me open. The smell from the pus (the infectious fluid in my pelvis) was awful. To counteract this smell so the medical team could keep working, the nurses applied eucalyptus-scented water to their surgical masks. I also heard the anesthesiologist tell a joke. To this day, I remember it clearly, but I cannot write it here, as it was not a clean joke! Later, in the recovery room, the anesthesiologist verified this episode to me.
During and after the surgery, my awareness — a consciousness that was me, but was not limited to the location of my body — was completely intact. Not only was it completely intact, but it was more acute and expanded. I remember being in the operating room, looking down at my body from 10-15 feet in the air. I was looking from the left side of where the surgeons were operating on me. I could see, hear, and smell not only everything in the operating room, but also things far away. My senses had become hyper sensitive.
With my awareness still in the operating room, I simultaneously heard a conversation between my mother and sister. They were in India. They were talking about what they were going to prepare for dinner that night: rice, vegetables, yogurt and legumes. It was very cold and foggy there. My family was bundled up, using a small electric heater to stay warm, because there was no central heating. I discovered that it made no difference if people were near or far away: my awareness was everywhere simultaneously.
I would love to say that my awareness then moved into a very serene, love-filled space, to be with the presence of an all-loving, forgiving entity. But that was not the case. Instead, my awareness moved from the physical world of the operating theater in Los Angeles and the kitchen conversation in India to a place where a great wild fire was raging.
Dark entities with two horns and crooked teeth were running about. I was taken to this place screaming and fighting. There was lightning in dark clouds. A perpetual, fierce storm raged. There was the smell of meat burning. It did not take long to realize that I was in Hell. It was excruciatingly painful. I could hear other souls screaming and suffering. Needles were being poked into me and I was being badly tortured. I was made to lie on a bed made of nails. Blood was oozing from various wounds. I kept wondering what I had done in this life or past lives to deserve such punishment?
As I experienced this horror, I began to have the strong awareness that my life had been very materialistic. Everything had been about me. When I met someone, I always asked myself “what can I get from this person?”.
The truth dawned on me in Hell that my life on Earth was devoid of love. I was not practicing compassion or forgiveness towards myself or others. I had a tendency to be especially harsh towards people that I perceived to be lower than me in social or professional status or hierarchies. I remember feeling deeply sorry for the lack of kindness in my behavior and wishing I had done things differently.
Immediately, as these realizations became crystal clear to me, this place — Hell — began to fade away. My father appeared, with his father at his side. My father took my hand and guided me toward a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, there was glowing white light. As I moved through the tunnel, it was as if time and space disappeared. I became aware that I was in two places, or states of consciousness, at the same time.
Inwardly, I experienced Shanti (a Sanskrit word that describes a complete and cosmic peace; a state of pure harmony, without any disturbance or excitement). I felt total, undisturbed bliss in which I sensed the cosmic connection of everything in the entire universe.
That space, which I understood to be Heaven, was very serene. Words are inadequate to describe it. I was also in the presence of a very calming, loving, formless bluish light — an Entity which I somehow knew and felt was supreme love, knowledge and intelligence personified.
At the same time, I was back in the tunnel with my father. He was leading me. I could see my past, present and future. I saw myself in a past life that I had actually seen once before during a “Past Life Regression” session with Dr. Brian Weiss. I was an Indian prince in medieval times who was mercilessly, senselessly whipping the poor. I also saw myself 200 years ago as an Afghani poppy farmer who was addicted to opiates from the poppies that he farmed for a living.
My father shepherded me through the time tunnel. As he did, a profound awareness washed over me. I saw how my current life echoed my behavior from my previous lives. Once again, I was behaving with a lack of love towards those less fortunate than me. I was misusing my material wealth and social status. I was also addicted to painkillers. As these insights pulsed through me, another wave of awareness washed over me: if I returned to Earth, these patterns and my behaviors would need to change completely.
Then my father ‘spoke’ to me. When I say ‘spoke,’ I mean non-verbally. I did not see him ‘speak,’ but felt his words inside me.
“If you keep your consciousness clear, and be truthful to yourself the universe and the divine will take care of you.”
These words already held profound meaning for me because they were the last words my father said to me before he died some twenty years ago. He had died in Fresno, California from complications of heart surgery. I had missed him all those years. Now as he led me through this tunnel, with me holding his hand like a little boy and him flooding my entire being with these familiar words, I felt deeply soothed. I knew that in this moment – NOW — my life was being redirected.
After my father helped me cross the tunnel, I arrived in a place of profound calmness, light and joy. I was greeted by two beings who were like young men, radiating energy and light, full of vigor, enthusiasm and love. They told me, again without speaking, that they were guardian angels. Their names were Michael and Raphael. They guided me through this beautiful place. There was a meadow. There were fields with many different colored roses. There were mountains and a fresh crystal water stream was flowing. Cool, soothing air was blowing. The air had a sweet fragrance. I could hear a soft chant, as if in the distance, and yet completely audible; simultaneously, the chant felt far away and yet very near to me.
Michael and Raphael made me aware of the nature of higher consciousness. From them I understood that they were helpers. At their level of consciousness (which was far more advanced than mine) there was still some form. There was also a level of consciousness that was completely formless. This was the highest level of consciousness. At the highest level of consciousness, there was no form, but an all-pervading force, a powerful Entity of energy made of PURE LOVE. This pure, unbound consciousness was actually the base reality, the underlying fabric of absolutely everything in the universe. It was the source of all creation.
As my awareness absorbed and understood this, I found myself instantaneously immersed in the formless, shapeless blue light. The Light Being began ‘speaking’ to me, but I heard the words as if through a gentle wind that was whispering in my ear. The Light Being seemed to be diffused throughout this entire dimension. It is hard to describe in words how it felt to be in the presence of the Light Being: PURE LOVE pervaded everything, as if all the five earthly senses were soaked in love. It was present everywhere, and all-powerful. My consciousness felt merged with the supreme primordial consciousness. I was at once communicating with It and in It. The closer, or more connected I became with the Light Being, the clearer and more intensified the chant in the distance became. The sound I heard was ‘ONG’ (which I didn’t understand at the time, but have since learned is a primordial form of ‘OM’ taught in Kundalini yoga.)
The Light told me that it was not my time to leave the Earth. Everything would be all right, but my path now was going to be as a healer. I was told that I would have to leave anesthesiology and materialism behind. It told me:
“Now it is time to be healer of the soul, especially of the diseases of soul, of the energy body, addiction, depression, chronic pain and cancer.”
I was told that this was the reason I needed to experience the diseases that had befallen me — so that I could have empathy for others; so that I would know how it felt to be in their shoes.
The Light Being gave me glimpses of my future: writing books, speaking to audiences, helping many people.
This was a complete revelation to me. I was an anesthesiologist who barely spoke to patients — and I liked it that way. I actually suffered from severe anxiety about public speaking and avoided it at all costs. Left to my own inclinations, I would have happily continued as an anesthesiologist: it was my passion and I was very good at it. I didn’t interact with people much, but I was the most requested anesthesiologist in the area where I lived and worked.
My job afforded me a lifestyle that I had come to enjoy and identify with. While I had not been a compassionate man, I had been very well off. Until now, I had reveled in that. I loved my work, my reputation, and the material comfort it gave me. If it were up to me, I would never have given up my position and prestige.
But here I was, being given direct orders from this magnificent, supremely loving, intelligent and gentle Light Being that my behavior had to change. I was being given my life back ONLY to live it differently.
I did not feel any anxiety or resistance to what I was being told and shown. How could I? I was in a place of unconditional, pure love and reassurance. All I could feel was deep joy and inner peace. I accepted what I was being shown with silent and profound love.
As I accepted what the Light Being was showing me, some words seemed to flash in the sky above me. They read “A Course In Miracles.” At that time, being born into a Hindu family with my sense of religion and spirituality being dominated by my own Hindu cultural experience, I had no idea what those words meant. I have since discovered this to be a spiritual book popularized by Marianne Williamson in which the themes of love and forgiveness are taught with intelligence and love.
Finally, I became aware, with every fiber of my being, that my earthly life was being given back to me so I could help others who were suffering from chronic pain, addiction and depression.
My next memory is of waking up in the recovery room. A nurse was there, but not my family. Within 30 minutes, my family members arrived to see me.
In the days ahead, the rate of my healing was nothing short of miraculous.
Much to the wonder of the medical staff, my sepsis and infection was all but healed within 72 hours and I was discharged. Within days, the inflammation and pain in my pelvic region also rapidly decreased. In the months ahead, it dissipated altogether.
Most incredibly, within three weeks of being discharged from hospital, I resigned my position as an anesthesiologist — and never returned to the hospital environment.
As a result of this experience, my whole world changed very rapidly, with life-long ramifications for all of my family: we decided to downsize from a 10,000 square foot house into a modest home. I began to volunteer and look for opportunities to perform ‘seva’ (selfless service) for others every day. I went from driving a Mercedes to a Toyota hybrid. I used to have a Hummer prior to the Mercedes and my friends and I now joke that my life literally and figuratively went from “Hummer to Hybrid”.
After this visit to another dimension, the depression which had blighted my life for years, was gone. So, too, was my addiction to pain medications. This is nothing short of a miracle: my own psychiatrist and some of the best addiction specialists in Los Angeles did not know how I managed to overcome years of addictive behavior and become free without undergoing an intensive rehabilitation program.
Eight months after being given another chance to live, I was able to have my incontinence corrected, which freed me of the need to wear adult diapers for the first time since August, 2009.
Twelve months after my near-death experience, my life was hardly recognizable: I had resigned from anesthesiology, downsized my home, car and neighborhood, and my health was transformed. Most importantly, my nature and demeanor had shifted: I was now more caring and loving, with more compassion towards others.
The insights from the other dimension propelled me to start writing and giving seminars on spiritual wellness. As both a pain management specialist who prescribed pain medication and as a patient who has seen the havoc these medications wreak on the mind and body, I urge people to look first for healing through non-pharmaceutical, non-invasive therapies. I advocate the need for a consciousness-based approach to healing, and espouse systems that promote an individual’s connection to Higher Consciousness.
In October, 2012, twenty-two months after my visit to the other side, I published my first full-length book on the topic of spiritual healing, The Soul of Wellness, available on Amazon.com.
The words ‘A Course in Miracles’ which had flashed in the sky in the other dimension have become the foundation of my spiritual message. I read and started practicing The Course diligently. I also read works by Marianne Williamson, especially her book, Return of Love. Inspired by that book, my core message has become forgive, love and heal. This is also the title of my forthcoming book. I have started applying these teaching in my own life first: instead of sweeping my dark shadows and failings under a rug, I share them openly. I tell how it was necessary for me to recognize and accept the dark parts of myself so that they could become my impetus for change and healing. I do this with the intention of helping others do the same.
Most profoundly, my entire outlook has changed. I am filled with a desire to help, to be of service, and to have my voice heard to help people heal. I have made changes in my life to make myself available to do this.
The full meaning of everything I experienced is continuing to reveal itself to me, moment to moment. I still feel connected to the Light Being and vividly recall the experience of Hell and of Heaven, and of my father and the time tunnel.
It seems to me that the full extent of the changes that were meant for me could not all be implemented in one day, week or even one year. They seem to be continuously unfolding as my life changes, and my awareness shifts more and more towards its new purpose. The transformational process I am going through is not yet complete. Rather, I sense that I have been put back on Earth on a path — and my job is to put one foot in front of the other and follow that path with a trusting heart — just like I did holding my father’s hand in the time tunnel.
In all these changes, I have felt no fear. I know I am not alone, and while I may not yet have full sight of what my future looks like, I do know that there is a plan — and that the plan is a good one.
In my old life, I used to put people to sleep. Now I wake them up. And I have woken up too.
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