Lessons From The Dying

Several years ago I read the book called “Dying To Be Me” by Anita Moorjani and, for some reason, I’ve never been able to forget it.

A few days ago, I stumbled on her Ted Talk about the book and was just as fascinated and felt compelled to share the lessons from this book.

Anita Moorjani should not be alive today. February 2, 2006 was supposed to be her last day in this physical life because, on that day, the doctors told her husband and her family that she only had a few more hours to live. She was dying from end-stage Lymphoma, which is a form of cancer of the lymph nodes. She had struggled with cancer for four years up to that point. It had devoured her body.

But on the morning of February 2, 2006, she went into a coma because her organs had shut down. She was in her final hours. Her family was notified.

Unbeknownst to everyone around her, when she appeared that she was in a coma, she was aware of everything that was going on around her. She was aware of her husband by her side holding her hand. She was aware of everything the doctors were doing and every single thing that was happening. She felt as though she had 360 degree peripheral vision. She could also see beyond her room, as if she expanded out of her body. She could see her physical body lying on the hospital bed as if she could be everywhere at the same time.

She felt like she was in a realm of clarity, where she understood everything. In this realm, she became aware of the presence of her father and her best friend, both of which had already died. They seemed to be guiding and communicating with her. She understood why she had cancer and understood that we are all much greater and powerful than we are aware of in our physical bodies. She also felt as if she was connected to everybody — the doctors, the nurses, her family- as if they all shared the same consciousness. She could feel what they were feeling, the distress of her family, the resignation of the doctors — all without feeling emotional about it or getting sucked into the drama. It was as if we were all expressions of the same consciousness.

She felt that her father was telling her that she had to go back into her body — that it wasn’t her time. Although she was reluctant, she suddenly understood that if she chose to go back to her body, it would heal very quickly. Her father and best friend urged her to go back and live her life fearlessly.

Within five days, the tumors in her body had shrunken by 70%. Within five weeks, she was released from the hospital, completely cancer free.

As you can imagine, her life felt completely different and her view of the world had changed drastically. She shares with us her five biggest lessons from this experience:

1. The most important thing to focus our awareness on is Love. She is certain that one of the reasons she got cancer is because she didn’t love herself. When we love ourselves, we value ourselves. When we value ourselves, we teach people how to treat us. When you love yourself, find no need to control or bully other people nor do you allow other people to control or bully you.
2. Live life fearlessly. Most of us are brought up on a diet of fear. We are taught to fear everything — fear of cancer, fear of eating the wrong foods, fear of displeasing people. People think that fear keeps you safe and that’s not true. Love keeps you safe. When you love yourself and you love other people, you make sure that you keep yourself safe and that you keep other people out of danger’s way.
3. Humor, laughter & joy. We are born knowing this stuff. We are born knowing how to laugh because that’s what kids do all the time. We are knowing love and fearlessness, but it gets conditioned out of us as we grow up. Laughter, humor and finding your joy in life is so important. It’s more important than any other spiritual activity that you can think of. If we had more laughter, we would have a very different world. With more laughter, we would have less people with illnesses, we would need less hospitals and less prisons as well.
4. Your life is a gift. Even the challenges that come to you are a gift. Most of us live our lives as if it’s a chore, but we shouldn’t live that way. It’s unfortunate that, only when we lose something that we value do we realize the true value of it. If you’re in a challenge and it doesn’t feel like a gift yet, it means you haven’t gotten to the end yet.
5. The most important thing for you is to always be yourself. Be as “you” as you can be. Shine your light as brightly as you can. Embrace your uniqueness. Get to realize who you are and love yourself unconditionally.

With these 5 lessons, she invites us to live our lives fearlessly!!!