By: Maria Wirth
A German friend sent me a YouTube video about an Indian, Santosh Acharjee, who had a near death experience. He is telling his experience to a Christian interviewer, Randy Kay. It was posted 2 months ago and had already over 2,8 lakhs views.
I guessed he would advise everyone to “accept Jesus”, because it is one of the propaganda methods of the Church. There are several videos like that. They try to make people believe that the “loving God” whom people encountered during their time out of the body, is Jesus Christ. It’s a powerful tool for them. They tell those whom they target for conversion, “Look, he was at the gate of heaven and has seen Lord Jesus. Therefore, you better also accept Jesus as your saviour, so that you won’t end up in hell.”
I started listening to what Santosh Acharjee had to say. It sounded genuine. Yet in the end, he gave exactly the advice which I had expected. I cringed when the interviewer hinted that Santosh was lucky (as a Hindu) that the Lord ‘saved’ him. And he speculates why this happened: The Lord knew that this Hindu man will genuinely search for the truth and will share it – meaning he will come to Christianity, the true religion, and bring by his testimony others to the true faith…
My feeling was that Santosh got trapped by those ‘kind’ (with a motive) Christians. He accepted their ‘help’ in interpreting his experience and actually betrayed what transpired in the conversation between the Almighty, as he had called that giant compassionate figure, and himself.
Let me tell in brief his story:
His father was a respected Sanskrit scholar. Yet he “took a different route” and went into engineering. He had a responsible job, earned well, travelled all over, lived in Germany, Canada, Brazil, and mainly USA.
In October 2006, he fell very sick and was in the ICU. His family was around him when he collapsed. He couldn’t see anything, but still could hear. His family was sent out, doctors hectically took over and the last he heard was “we just lost him”. He came back to consciousness after 3 days. Later he came to know that they had induced an artificial coma, when they ‘lost him’.
His experience after the doctors “lost him”
He says, once out of the body, all was dark. He couldn’t see anything, but suddenly realized that his “physical death did not finish” him. He was still alive. He could still think. Then a bright light came near him. He knew this light had ‘superior authority’. He could see now his body on the hospital bed. The light engulfed him and he knew it was there to protect him. He actually fell in love with this divine light. Together they “travelled for quite some time”, and once in a while they “went through some dark tunnels”. At the end, the light stopped over a beautiful compound with beautiful mansions. He realised it was the kingdom of heaven and wanted to go inside, but the gates were closed. He was standing on the left side of a huge high platform. Looking down, he saw a burning lake of fire. He was afraid to fall down.
In the centre of the huge platform there were 3 steps and on the last step a throne. A giant figure sat there and he knew it was the Almighty, the Lord of all.
He felt shame and guilt, because he had committed so many sins who were flashed before his eyes. “Lord, pleased forgive me”, he kept pleading. He was afraid to fall into the lake of fire, as “this would be the end of me”.
Then the Lord spoke to him, with so much love, tenderness, and mercy and he “could understand him through all the languages he knew”.
He said “What are you doing here. I will send you back to the earth.”
Santosh saw a narrow gate near the feet of the Almighty and wanted to go through it, but knew that he needed his permission.
Since the Almighty was so loving, he asked him, “Lord, please tell me, when I am back, which church, temple or mosque I should join?”
The Almighty did not respond. He kept pleading. “Please tell me otherwise I commit the same sins over and over. Next time I want to go through this narrow gate.”
After much pleading, the Almighty told him: “Those things are not important.”
Santosh was shocked because he “thought that one needs to be a religious person to enter the kingdom of heaven”. Instead, the Almighty said, “I want to see an honest relationship. I want to see how sincere, how honest you are with me. Not just once a week, every day.” Santosh didn’t understand what he meant.
“Lord I am simple human being, please tell me what I need to do”, he pleaded again.
One directive and five instructions
Then the Almighty gave “one directive and five instructions”.
The directive was: you must love your family and children when you are back.
The five instructions were:
1. always tell the truth. Don’t lie and search for the truth.
2. the wages of sin are death. Commit no more sins.
3. surrender yourself completely unto me in your daily life. Let me be the driver in your life.
4. walk with me.
5. always be kind and generous to the poor.
He asked him also to write two books.
The Interviewer intercepted and asked him, how Jesus revealed himself to him, since he grew up as a Hindu and had not connection with Christianity.
He replied that he didn’t know at that time that this was Jesus. But he knew it was the Almighty, the Lord of all.
After he was back, he kept wondering for long what he had seen during his near-death experience. He wondered, why he had not encountered Hindu gods and goddesses. Yet he was not religious earlier. He thought that with the death of the body, everything is finished.
Then, 4 or 5 years later, he happened to attend an Easter mass though he was not a Christian. The priest spoke in his sermon of “the narrow gate into heaven” and it struck him that that’s what he had seen. He started reading the Bible and attended mass weekly. He went more and more into the Bible and became convinced that it was none other than Jesus whom he met. The priest probably did his bit to help him come to this conclusion.
Santosh fulfilled the instruction and had written 2 books. As he didn’t know how to write, he felt as if it was dictated to him. Later, he said, with the help of his Christian friends, the two books were put together into one book with the title, “My encounter with Jesus at heaven’s gate”.
It would be interesting to know if these two earlier manuscripts were different and if they had mentioned Jesus.
Self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the Interviewer
The interviewer asked him for a message. Santosh said that ‘we need to love. God is love and he loves all of us, never mind from which culture or which religion we come. He wants ALL to come to him. He is waiting for us. Just ask him to forgive you. Everyone who asks will get his mercy.’
The interviewer didn’t seem too pleased and became more explicit.
He tells him that the God he saw was not like those “Hindu gods with four arms and strange faces” and asks him, “Why do you think God saved you?”
Santosh replied that “Love is the name of God. Love God with all your strength. This is our purpose. When we love, we cannot sin.” And adds, “I am not here to change others. I change myself.”
Again, the interviewer did not seem satisfied and proposed now an explanation why God saved him, ‘God knows all things. He knew that you sought after the truth and you found the Bible. The truth set you free, when you became a believer in Jesus.’
Then he asked regarding his family. “Do they know Jesus as their saviour or do they still live as Hindus?”
“All my family are Hindu”, Santosh replied. “They don’t know the Lord. Some of my family don’t want to hear what I say. I leave it all to my Lord.”
Now the interviewer becomes again annoying. He says, Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me”. You cannot bring impurity into heaven (did he mean Hindus?). But in your case, I can see why he returned you. You have a message. Pick and choose. He wanted to save you from the fire. He gave you a second chance.”
He asks Santosh to lead in prayer.
Santosh starts, ‘regardless which religion you have, if you even commit one sin, you have to dive into fire. Please don’t do this. You don’t have to be a religious person. God made it so simple for us. Love is only through the Lord Jesus. Nobody else can save us. Only by surrendering to Jesus, you will come to him. Repent for your sin…’
Now the interviewer seemed satisfied and I felt annoyed.
Did Santosh Acharjee not go against what the Almighty told him? “Your relationship with me needs to be honest. Church, temple mosque are NOT important. Follow the directive to love and follow the five instructions.”
How do Christians, and now also Santosh, dare to limit the Almighty as the property of Christianity? How does he dare to tell someone, who loves Krishna or Shiva or Devi, that he will be saved only through Jesus?
The Almighty told him to surrender to Him, to walk with Him, to be honest in his relationship with Him. If someone genuinely loves the Almighty through Jesus, he will reach there in the same way, as someone who loves the Almighty through Krishna or Devi. But to declare that Jesus alone can save, is self-righteous, hypocritical and preposterous.
I hope Santosh Acharjee realizes this and with him, other Hindus who fell for the Christian propaganda.
