The dissolution of the body is followed by an inner dissolution that dissolves the gross mind-body experience at death. This inner dissolution is the psychological experience of the final stage of death. The inner dissolution of the mind is from the gross to the subtle, where the gross mind of confusion is dissolved into the subtle mind of its own true nature. This dissolution is a powerful transformation of consciousness, which happens as the awareness that identifies with the elements that make up the body is transformed into an awareness of the true nature of the mind.

   This transformation also includes the powerful experience of leaving the body. The experience of leaving our body is an unusual experience, and in the near-death experience Raymond Moody observes that many people describe being confused. For me, it was an extremely powerful sensation as if I was free falling while my body was dissolving in an internal explosion. Leaving the body and meeting the light is an intensely emotional sensation that the near-death experiencer cannot find words to describe.

   This is when we discover that we have left our body. When the body is alive it is the support of our consciousness, but when we die the body is no longer able to support our consciousness. Therefore, leaving the body is described as the experience of falling, since there is no longer any feeling of weight connected to our consciousness.

   As our consciousness leaves the body, the gross mind is dissolved with the elements, and we find ourselves in the subtle mind of our true nature. The reality that we perceive through our senses is manifested by our senses, and these senses are made from the elements that make our body. The reason we see reality as it is in this physical dimension is that our senses are dependent on the elements that make them. When the elements dissolve, the senses and the awareness connected to the senses also dissolve and our mind awakens to a new reality.

   This new reality dawns at the moment that the two elements meet—the gross mind and the subtle mind. The gross mind is the ground of confusion since it is connected to our senses and our relative world. But the subtle mind is the ground of liberation because the true nature of reality dawns from experiencing it.

   The gross mind, which we can also call the conceptual mind, gives birth to the enlightened mind; “What remains when all of these thought states have ceased, is simply the unconstructed nature of mind...it is the naked awareness itself.”

   The Buddhist tradition calls this awakening to the naked awareness the meeting of mother and child. The mother is the clear light of naked awareness (emptiness), and “this is the fundamental, inherent nature of everything, which underlies our whole experience, and which manifests in its full glory at the moment of death.”

  When some people ask: what does heaven look like - they expects to find a physical place similar to something we know in this dimension. However, what we can learn both from the Buddhist tradition and testimonies from near death experiences is that 'heaven' is a non-physical dimension with consciousness at the center of the experience. The Tibetan Book of the Dead tells us that the fundamental nature of everything is in fact naked consciousness, what Buddhism calls clear light and what near death experiencers call "the Light".

   The naked mind and the clear light are one, as the true nature of our mind meets its mother as the ultimate reality. The naked awareness is both empty and luminous, which is the fundamental nature of everything. The naked mind and the clear light meet as “old friends,” like a river flowing into the ocean. In this flowing into the ocean all that is left of the mind is space that is “totally free from mental constructs, yet naturally endowed with cognizant wakefulness.” And as the dissolution of the gross mind is over, we awaken as a mental body—a point of awareness.

   The inner dissolution process has the following steps. First consciousness dissolves into space, and then space dissolves into luminosity. Then luminosity, or light, dissolves into union, which dissolves into wisdom. Wisdom then dissolves into spontaneous presence, which then finally dissolves into primordial purity.

   These experiences we also find in the near-death experience. Here among the core experiences we can find “illuminated environment” as luminosity, and “feelings of oneness” as union.We also have “profound knowledge”as wisdom, and “heightened awareness” as spontaneous presence. At the point when the luminosity dissolves into union, in the Tibetan tradition, the essence of “peaceful deities” are experienced. The experience of peace is also one of the most common core experiences in the near-death studies, which is experienced in some studies by up to 82 percent.

 This was an excerpt from Chapter Seven on the Inner- and Outer Dissolution at Death.