I know most people here don't believe in the continuation of consciousness, and I am not talking to those people here. Really.
Just skip this post.
For those that can entertain the continuation of consciousness, I will mention something here. I have studied thousands of NDEs in 4 different languages and one of the most common scenario that appears in NDEs, mind you even in the NDEs of prior atheists, is as follows, just a high-level summary:
Person that just died (PTJD): Oh, wow, I am HOME, I feel pure love, I remember this place, this is HOME, this is incredible, the love, the peace, this is my real home.
Other loving entity (OLE): you cannot stay
PTJD: But I am at HOME, I love it here, I want to stay.
OLE: you cannot stay, you have to go back.
PTJD: I don't want to go back .It is horrible there. So much pain. So much suffering. I am finally HOME. I am staying here.
OLE: You cannot stay, you have to go back. You have a purpose.
PTJD: I am not going back. You cannot make me go back. I refuse to go back. It will be all right, my family will be all right, my kids will be all right. I am staying. I will not go back. I refuse.
OLE: You have a purpose. You have agreed to it. You have chosen this.
PTJD: I have not agreed to anything. When did I agree to it? I don't agree to go back. I will stay.
OLE: You have a purpose. You agreed to it prior to birth. You have to go back.
PTJD: I cannot. I will not fit into that body any longer. I am so expanded now. That body is so tiny, it cannot house me.
OLE: You will be back here soon enough and we will be waiting for you here.
PTJD's body is being sucked back into the body, that feels like a cold, small wet-suit, way too small, way too uncomfortable.
Some variation of the above happened thousands of times, people with all religions, people with no religion, people from all cultures and countries, and yes, to militarist atheists too.
I think the only time they don't try to send you back when the physical body no longer is capable to sustain life.
And just for completeness, some people are given a choice to go back or stay. But that seems to be the minority. Most people argue their heart out and are sent back anyway against their will. Including people with kids, happy life, loving husband or wife, children, overall happy life.
I think our Soul is not our current physical persona. Out Soul sometimes agrees to complete a certain purpose, which our current temporary persona will not remember but our Soul does.
Many people think that our current physical personality is same as our Soul, but in fact at the time of death, both the physical body, and the physical persona, including our Ego, dies.
So I think the quote "not yours to take" is often true from the physical persona perspective. Our soul might have made a pre-birth commitment, on its own free choice, that our physical persona is not aware.
I know it is hard to believe for many people that we are part of something much bigger than what we can comprehend. There can be situations when the physical persona wants to exit, and the Soul tries to keep its pre-birth commitment. Our consciousness is bigger than what our physical brain can hold or what our physical temporary persona can comprehend. If the Soul is the actor in a theater performance, then the persona that the actor plays is our physical persona and the costume is our physical body. The Soul will shed both after CTB as both of those just a tool for a temporary learning assignment called earthly life.
Of course, all of the above also would mean that our Soul is not a victim, and we chose this. And I know this is very hard for most people to accept. Victimhood is like a pacifier to a kid. You take away and you feel like you are left with nothing.
Our physical brain cannot know, nor comprehend, the purpose of the Soul and the purpose of a lifetime. Once we detach from the physical body, we will remember or rather know immediately and forget it once more once we return to the body.
And I also think that some people die and not allowed to remember anything once they come back. If remembering would interfere with the completion of their purpose, they will not remember anything, it will be completely wiped.
What I described above is extremely common.
Those that don't believe in the continuation of consciousness will say that this is a hallucination of the dying brain.
It is peculiar that thousands of people hallucinate a passionate debate with a loving entity, begging not to come back to physical life and something about an uncompleted purpose.
Mass hallucination? I don't think so.
These stories have been collected since Plato's time so they are also not new.
People don't hallucinate this scenario during drugs, or dreams or mental illness.
It happens only during clinical death (accidents, medical emergencies)
So maybe under some circumstances the quote in fact correct.
We are prt of much bigger than we can imagine.
Us analyzing this scenario with such limited amount of information is like an ant trying to understand physics. It is simply impossible. Certain information will not be available to us while in the physical form, operating from our limited physical brain.
(Also, this thread has so much hate, it took me several days contemplating if I even want to share this. It almost feels like a thread about US politics, people operating from hate on all sides. JP I think is a genuine person and even if I don't agree with many things he says, I do appreciate him being a genuine human being, honest, authentic, searching for meaning in the world and struggling with severe depression and benzo withdrawal, having a severely ill daughter in her childhood, his wife going through cancer, him going into induced Coma in a hospital in Russia. I really don't understand what all this hate about. He has opinions. Everyone has them. He resonates with a lot of people and don't resonate with others. Why the hate?)