Does end-of-life care prolong life or does it prolong suffering? Should it be a part of health-care reform?
As a humane gesture, comforting people at the end of their lives is valuable and has been part of the hospice movement, not to mention pastoral care, for a long time. As anyone who has spent time with the dying knows, it’s the family who is most distraught; the person who is actually nearing the end has generally come to terms with his situation and found some measure of peace.
In a perfect world I’d like to see this area of compassion carried further. If every person, and not just the dying, became convinced that there is no end of life, the experience surrounding death would change radically. We tend to assume that only the most extraordinary people, like Gandhi or Socrates, can die with peace and equanimity, and far away in exotic places like Tibet, preparations for a spiritual transition are complex and esoteric.
But I’d like to argue that peace in the face of death is possible for everyone. It requires two steps only: getting past the fear of physical extinction and turning one’s focus to consciousness instead. In the Judeo-Christian tradition death has become a kind of risky lottery where the soul discovers, to its delight or horror, that it’s headed for heaven or hell. But many wisdom traditions around the world make a different argument, that the afterlife is an extension, in non-physical terms, of present life. In other words, wherever consciousness goes when you die, you can go there now. There is no life more intense than what you can experience here, this very moment, because all modes of living come down to consciousness.
If near-death experiences teach us anything, they reassure us that consciousness is continuous even when the physical body ceases. It may be that some forms of suffering continue, but they aren’t a kind of divine punishment. Rather, the everyday demons of guilt, shame, anger, and fear remain to haunt us. The good news is that these enemies of peace can be confronted now, long before dying is an issue. Similarly, any spiritual work done today will benefit you tomorrow, even if that tomorrow happens to coincide with dying.
The general rule here is that whatever you do to raise your consciousness — meaning, to acquire more clarity, peace, love, compassion, centeredness, and silence — cannot be taken from you, even in death. Indeed, those who claim that life never ends speak from experience, having done the work to raise their consciousness. I can think of no great sage, saint, or spiritual guide who has said anything but this.
The sad truth is that most people never think about dying in any positive sense. They learn a few folk tales about God and the devil, heaven and hell about age five, after which they forget the entire subject. This reliance on primitive, unfounded beliefs makes the dying process immensely more difficult. In the face of fears hidden in the shadows of the psyche, what can a few weeks of counseling do, however compassionate and well-intended? But for anyone who has seriously begun to approach dying with clear sight and a willingness to explore consciousness, there is no reason why this aspect of the human life cycle cannot offer peak experiences as genuine as those we hunger for when we pursue love and peace our entire lives.
Published in the Washington Post OnFaith
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Thank you for this article Deepak.
I totally agree with you.
I only once in my life experienced such an extaltic peak experience.
Never could explain it to anyone or myself.
But it may perhaps have been a small stroke.
I have encountered something so beautiful that when I die I am convinced am going back into that state.
Jill Bolte Taylor has told her story about this and confirmed the experience I had, only not so heavy as she has experienced.
If someone is interested in Jill’s story, Google her name and much information can be read about it.
Love and respect for your courage!
Mieke
I knew during that experience exactly what I had to do to keep myself healthy for the rest of my life.
Your books have been a big support in this too
Love
Dear Hacm@an,
How can You be so sure of this?
Is it only by studying the Bible or did you have a real personal experience too?
You judge Deepak, may I ask who has given you the right to do so?
Mieke,
He thinks he has a right to judge because of how he interprets the Bible…He actually believes literally in fire hell and damnation, eternal punishment….He does not understand that his own attachment to that evil thought is the very damnation, which he eventually will bring upon himself in one way or another, until he lets that false thinking go…He has does not understand the metaphysical and Spiritual meaning of the Bible. God, is still sleeping in him, that is the best way I can put it, as God never really sleeps….He has been falsely conditioned to interpret the Bible the way he does like all the other so called born again Christians who think they have no responsibility for their own redemption…They believe they can keep right on sinning because they have been saved by another individuals sufferings…How sad is that…Let us let him ramble what he thinks is Truth…He too is God’s expression and we can know that for him until he is quickened and transformed by his own individual Realization in the One God of us all….
The Great Awakening-Ref to(Romans 13:11)
“Now it is high time to awake out of sleep”
The belief in a life apart from Good is a dream from which we must awake, if we are to taste the waters of Reality, which flow from the source of Life.
As one awakens from a nightmare, so the mentality awakens from the dream of a living death to the realization of eternal life. We cast off the works of darkness when we realize that evil is not an entity but a fraud. The armor of light is the Truth, the very knowing of which makes me free.
This awakening is a process of evolution, a little here and a little there, until the whole eye is opened and we see that life is neither separate from God nor different from Good. Life is God and Good is the only power there is, or can be….
E. Holmes(Science of Mind)
Dear Gyanama,
So true, so true
Both your comments.
Love and appreciation from
Mieke
Dear Hackm@n,
Of course you are right, there is good and evil in everyone of us.
But I believe that it is up to each of us to take up this cross and ones own responsibility.
We have to have a good law system because of this.
But I was always told that if you really want to change the world, you start with yourself. You recognize that the evil resides in yourself as much as the good. And with this recognition you are given the mission to deal with this in your life.
And every human life is different. In the western part we have been ‘indoctrinated’ with the Bible, in the eastern part with another so-called holy book.
I do believe in one God. I can find this notion of God back in the Holy Bible, in the Holy Koran, in the Holy Baghavad Gita.
Just to mention a few. There are lots more.
Why should the Bible be the only holy book?
In the core of the matter the cross to me means that whatever you do, whatever you experience in your life, you will always end up in the middle of your own wisdom, which lies inside in your heart.
Life is a learning school and everyone has his/her own cross to bear.
I discovered the labyrinth some six years ago. Funny thing is that when you start to design a seven path labyrinth you start by drawing a cross
Many times in their lifes people will stand on cross-roads, have to make a U-turn. He/she who binds his heart to a purpose in life trusts the cross-roads and u-turns in his/her life too.
This is how I see the cross.
And when I die, I disappear too and no one knows what is and what is not after one dies.
No one has come back to tell us all about it yet
Jesus is a most wonderful example to see as your rolemodel.
Mary Magdalene is too for me.
All the best to you, I do appreciate your writings and learn from them too.
You are also a teacher in my life.
Everybody has a message.
Love from the heartphone.
Jesus as the son of man was human: Christ as the Son of God was divine. This divinity was reaching
humanity through the crucifixion of the human, — that momentous demonstration of God, in which Spirit proved
its supremacy over matter. Jesus assumed for mortals the weakness of flesh, that Spirit might be found “All-in-all.” Hence, the human cry which voiced that struggle; thence, the way he made for mortals’ escape. Jesus bore the cross to show his power over death; then relinquished his earth-task of teaching and demonstrating the nothingness of sickness, sin, and death,and rose to his native estate, man’s indestructible eternal life in God. -By MBE
It is unfortunate to think that Jesus came to free us of sin, sickness and death by demonstrating eternal life, and yet we continue to sin, be sick and claim that we die. As long as we continue to believe in sin, sickness and death, it will be that long that we keep experiencing these beliefs….Jesus healed disease to show that man is perfect, and yet many still believe in disease as a reality. Jesus cast out sin to show that man is perfect, yet there are many who choose to still sin. Jesus died on a cross and rose again to demonstrate eternal life and yet many still believe in death….eternal punishment is the holding on to a false human nature, that of which includes, the false ideas of sin, sickness and death. If we continue to deny our true nature in Spirit, God, Christ, it will be that long before we experience our Perfection in God…
St Paul said “I die daily so I can live in Christ”.
He obviously did not mean that he dies everyday, what he was conveying is the real meaning of death, is a death of the false man and his false ideas of one who sins, gets sick, suffers and is physically limited… Mortal man doesn’t understand that death is a transformation that carries us on into the infinite Christ Divine life and experience forever. The Christ is Now…we can die now to the false man who sins, and live in the light of Christ Now….expressing Love and goodness to all…
Dear Hackm@n,
Indeed the central question remains
Did it really happen?
No one has been able to prove it.
Same with scientific investigations. No one can prove anything for sure.
We are now so far that scientist are investigating the brain.
We know so little about the brain and all its hidden potential.
Philosophy also ponders a lot, yet hasn’t proven a thing either.
So where does this lead us to?
To know exactly one thing and that is that we know nothing, like Socrates already stated.
Still, you know as much as me and if Jesus really fulfilled this divine mission than I would say to you: Congratulations!
You are a free man if you accept Jesus. Try to live accordingly and accept responsibility for your own life. At the same time, while taking responsibility for your own life, you would not want something to happen to your neightbour that you would not want to happen to yourself. Because if it does it will affect you too.
So that implies solidarity.
Something Jesus also taught.
Politics and religion should remain separated. It always was this way in your country and it always was in mine.
Let us keep it that way.
If we would, then we could discuss things like abortion etc. in a more rational way.
Am away for a couple of weeks but you gave me much to reflect upon.
Am going on a retraite and will let it all sink in.
Thanks for the conversations we had up till now.
Gyanama, also thank you.
Best, always in all ways to ALL and much love from
the heartphone.
The genuine practice of Christianity is scientific. Through the practice of Christianity one can prove to themselves and even to other individuals the efficacy of the teachings of Jesus Christ, and therefore even validate the existence of Christ through one’s own individual life experiences, healings of thyself and others, and realizations and revelations…Remember when Christ took Peter, James and John on the high mountain(symbolic of High state of Consciousness) They saw the Light of Christ and there appeared Moses and Elias(two other manifest forms that they themselves projected from their own Christ state of awareness….We have the ability to project any form through the Christ Mind…..Jesus is a real manifestation of God, and just like you and I, he did trod this relative field called earth( with a Christ message….
love to all…
Have a beautiful trip Mieke. And everyone have a nice weekend…Gyanama
Your entitled to your own processing of information and beliefs…As am I
Peace
However you want to process the information that comes to you is entirely up to you
Peace…
What is God to you?
John said in the Bible God is Love…
Can’t see Love itself but you can be a witness of love and you can be the expression and outlet of love, but you can’t see the quality of Love itself unless expressed, it is invisible..
You can’t see Awareness either. and you can’t see energy in and of itself…
In 1 John 3:2 it states Beloved, “now” are we the sons of God, and it does no yet appear what we shall be,but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is….
Notice the word NOW in that scripture…it doesn’t say after we die..
If you are aware of God’s love now and express it, you are living as the Son of God(Good) IN other words you are the very expression of God(Good)..It’s all rather simple to me to understand but some individuals like to make the Bible difficult, especially those who want to hold on to evil beliefs.
And some just really don’t understand yet….