Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing

I read this book immediately after "Proof of Heaven" by Dr. Eben Alexander. I found that the two books complemented and supported each other's message beautifully. These are amazing books, for those with open hearts, and eyes to see. I rank them all the way up there with the best spiritual classics I have ever read, such as the amazing "Ramakrishna and his disciples".What is the central message of each of these books? Learn to live in the Eternal "Now", which exists beyond our human conceptions of time and space. After all, "past" and future" have no intrinsic reality and are mere concepts in our consciousness. It is unnecessary to die or wait for a better life tomorrow, or after death. As Father Anthony De Mello SJ writes in his book "Awareness", it is always those who are most afraid to live right now who are most concerned with whether there is a life after this one. Nobody seems to understand the importance of: "Is there a life before death?"It is pretty clear to me, from the deeply personal accounts of these two authors during and after their NDE's, that they both experienced a spiritual awakening which was the substance of their NDE's. This explains their profound post-NDE interest in living fully now, and their enhanced ability to do so, after their respective illnesses. Only someone who is unafraid of living fully now, loses their morbid interest in a life after this one.They also provide interesting clues of how to do this: They echo each other in trying to convey how crucially important total self-acceptance is. This means no matter who you are, you must learn to accept yourself in totality, both the allegedly good as well as the allegedly evil parts. No matter how "bad" you think you are, or how "depraved", you need to learn to approve of yourself and to love yourself, including the "evil" bits, unconditionally. That opens the door and allows you to be healed. This, I think, is also the central message in the Bible: Despite being sinners, we can be saved. But a precondition is that we must stop judging ourselves and stop rejecting the parts of ourselves that we think are evil. As we succeed, we discover that only we were judging ourselves. The door to awakening is always an open door. Nobody, not God, nor any person, stands in the way of all this joy, the unconditional love and immutable bliss which can be ours right now, except our own unwise self-judgements.Some readers on this website were very critical of the touted concepts of unconditional self-love and unconditional self-approval, suggesting that these are very dangerous doctrines. They seem to interpret this as meaning "do as you please". However, doing just what you like, presumably at the expense of others, does not lead to personal liberty, or direct access to the present. Just the opposite. Further, having unconditional love for the worst criminals, doesn't mean that they should not be contained or restrained. As the great Ramakrishna is quoted as saying in his wonderful book "The Gospel of Ramakrishna" (also available from Amazon), "being love" doesn't mean you should not hiss like a snake. It only means not to inject your venom in your "victims". In other words, this world would be so much a better place if only we stopped being afraid, stopped judging, stopped our hatred, stopped worrying so much!Dr Alexander postulates that consciousness is a field that pervades all of space-time, and is in fact the very fabric of space-time. The human body is a filter or valve that limits that experience and confines it to a bodily experience, both authors write. Both authors however make it quite clear, based on their own direct experience of life in the Here and Now, that it is quite possible to experience the unity and non-duality of consciousness, pervading the entire Universe, right now. This experience is accessible to every person, saint and sinner alike. To begin accessing it directly only means that you must learn to get out of your own way. Well-established ways of doing so is through prayer, by awakening faith, and / or daily meditative practice.Besides the human body acting as a filter or a valve which restricts consciousness, language is the only other filter. We can't do anything about the former, but we can vastly expand our own direct experience and understanding of life, and its true meaning for each of us, by gaining insights into the terribly restrictive and distorting filter which language creates in each of us. The only barrier between us and our direct appreciation of the Eternal Now is our own language. The purpose of language is obviously to communicate, but we misuse and abuse it by killing ourselves, our neighbours and earth. How? Through self-judgement. By the same yardstick by which we measure ourselves, we unconsciously mete out judgement and our version of what we imagine to be "justice" on others and in fact our entire world. Therefore our journey to true freedom, if that is what we really want, must begin and end with ourselves.Insight into the afore-said is not an intellectual process. No traction can be gained by simply reading about this, although this can be an important first step. This is also the message we find in these two amazing auto-biographical books. In this regard, many readers were incredibly disappointed, and sceptical, because they found the accounts of each of the NDE's to be so brief, sketchy, and seemingly lacking in cohesion. However, what these two writers learnt directly, is that reality, instead of the distortion most people experience as reality, is unfathomable and inconceivable. It is beyond telling. No words can ever approach the Almighty. In Genesis in the Bible we find in the centre of the Garden of Eden the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life. The former is the man-made ego, developed from an early age using language as the means, and the latter is our eternal selves, to which we should make wise efforts to awaken to. As we succeed, we realize we were always in Eden, from the very beginning, always are, and always will be.How specifically is language a filter? Consciousness is an impartial mirror, which reflects anything and everything that appears within it. There is no "me" in that mirror. The mirror is the entire Universe. But we artificially create the "me" by picking from the mirroring what we like, and pushing away what we dislike. The only tool for doing so is our learnt language. Therefore, when we look at a tree, or a beautiful sunset, we don't simply see a tree or a sunset. Our thoughts, which includes our worries and fears, are superimposed on our perception, killing our joy and all that beauty that is ours, right here and now.So I think the true message of each of these books is not an attempt to convince the reader about a nicer life after this one. The true message for each of us is to do the necessary work, on ourselves, and in our lives, here and now, to awaken here and now. To the extent that we succeed, and know this immeasurable and unknowable Unity directly, we gain all the "Proof of Heaven" that we need to have. No scientist and no sceptic can ever take away that personal certainty.JP

I've been reading about NDE, afterlife, and "astral" experiences off/on for decades. Overall, this is my favorite individual account. It illustrates the true natural of our spiritual selves and facilitates healing on many levels. I want to make it clear, though, while others have similar experiences and come to similar conclusions about spiritual reality and God, there are those who have near identical experience with "oneness" and do not come to the conclusion we are the same as God. At this point in my understanding, I'm finding it more logical to say we in God, the essence of God, able to relate and experience AllThatIs through God, but it is not most accurate to say we are God. There are so many levels to reality outside of this existence, I find it a little presumptuous for a person to say I experienced "this" outside of my body, and "this" is AllThereIs/GodSelf. (I wonder what Bob Monroe's take would be on this book.)Another good book on NDE experiences is Glimpses of Eternity (shared death experiences) by Raymond Moody. Together, they've given me tremendous peace of mind.If you make it through those two without thinking they're more deluded than the average person, try Frank DeMarco. His ideas on co-ordinating soul lives (not past lives, since God, Universe, Creation, AllThatIs exists at once, outside of time) were an eye-opener and affirm what others have said about how "past" lives are only past in OUR dimension. Moorjani uses a CD analogy to explain perceptions in time. I've used a vinyl record playing on a turntable, and wherever you drop the needle is your point in time, but. I sometimes wondered if maybe I was crazy for believing we can experience it all outside of this focus point. Now... I am thankful, I am blessed, to know this small slice of truth.BTW, I read Moorjani's free online short account quite a while back and forgot about it. I've been busy researching ideas on other levels of reality and didn't think any more NDE accounts would be helpful. For some reason, this book came up on a side bar. I was curious about the health applications, and decided to load it on my Kindle last night. SO glad I did. Additional information relating to commonly asked questions are inlcuded. Her explainations confirmed my "gut" feelings on some spiritual ideas that are taken as complete truth in the Christian and/or New Age literature I tend to pick up (esp. in regards to forgiveness and fears of living).I still have a few questions and doubts about what she wrote. For example, I don't feel inclined to share my bodily resources with most parasites and predators (unless I'm ready to pass on, then death by predator seems preferable to what happens in modern hospitial run by death-terrified humans). And I can't say I'm in agreement with any higher "purpose" that involves skeeters or ticks. ;-) Also, I suspect people who refuse to use the concept of "wrong" and don't see a need to change the world never had a child tortured and murdered. However, 95% of her ideas and feelings about her experience made perfect sense to me.I'm giving this book five stars because she's done an excellent job relating her complex "other life" experience. And, I wholeheartedly believe the essence of our discord comes from the false judgments we've been taught to believe about ourselves. So much of what is taught by our family, cultural tribe, one religious group or other as necessary to spiritual connection is simply not true. The old axiom "follow your heart" and ALLOW the life force to flow through our BEING (as opposed to DOING prescribed and/or ritualized steps that "attract" certain situations and "stuff") will bring about the world we want to experience.

This book is very profound and truly resonated with me. It brought me some amazing new insights as well as a lot of recognition having been going through metastatic breast cancer, completely debilitated in a wheelchair an diapers, but came back from that. Having had that experience, books like this are important. To remind me of my inner power, of our power as human beings. So to not give up when doctors give you a very dark prognosis, no chance of survival. I felt trapped and did not see a way out but knew there had to be. And there is. There always is. But also our view of death needs to change. Its not something to fear and just as much part of life as being born. But I am not ready here. I am here because I want to be. Because I want to enjoy all of life's beauty. And after facing death, it truly is more intense and you see the beauty in all the small, but actually really big, things of life. Sometimes I get trapped in the fear again. Afraid it will come back and hurt me again. Then books like this remind me that I am my body and disease is just a consequence of our emotions. Then I let go of trying to control everything and let life unfold itself. Knowing that whatever happens, all is well and just part of a story. That we never truly die.

Brilliant Read that explains NDE in detail.

I could not put this book down!! A beautiful and down to earth compelling story.Anita portrays so well what happens when we live a life to conform and then live a life true to our soul. She very cleverly marries the 2 lives from before and after her NDE!I thoroughly recommend this book, especially to every empath and HSP!!Thank you Anita for telling us your incredible story and that you’re now finally living your best life and steering us on how we can too! Thank You!

The book is really good! Arrived on time and eell keor. Will help you go on fighting cancer

I am really glad I read this book. I have had the title of the book for about several years to look into but have never gotten around to purchasing it until about 3 weeks ago. When I started reading the book I could not put it down. I would stay up till 3am reading the book. This book has given me stools I needed to move forward in life. Thank you Anita for letting God use you as a vessel to bring us back to who we are.