Practical guide to death & dying - how to conquer your fear and anxiety through a program of personal action

185 Pages·1980·4.252 MB·English

by  White, John

A PRACTICAL
GUIDE TO
DEATH
&
DYING
Cover design by C. F. Evans
A PRACTICAL

GUIDE TO
DEATH
DYING
JOHN WHITE
This publication made possible
with the assistance of the Kern Foundation
The Theosophical Publishing House
Wheaton, Ill. U.S.A.
Madras, India/London, England
©Copyright 1980 by John White.
All rights reserved. This is a Quest original
published by the Theosophical Publishing
House, Wheaton, Illinois, a department of the
Theosophical Society in America.
Inquiries for permission to reproduce all or
parts of this book should be addressed to
Quest Books,
306 West Geneva Road,
Wheaton, IL 60187
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
White, John Warren, 1939-
A practical guide to death and dying.
1. Death. 2. Theosophy. I. Title.
BP573.D4W48 299'.934 80-19350
ISBN 0-8350-0539-6 (pbk.)
Printed in the United States of America
With affection and gratitude for their lessons in living,
this book is dedicated to my parents,
Jane and Robert White
and to my parents-in-law,
Dorothy Devin and her late husband, Bill.
. . .so few know the art of dying. For dying, like living, is an
art and if only most of us mastered the art of dying as much
as we seek to master the art of living, there would be many
more happy deaths.
The fact of the matter, however, is that the art of living is
not different from the art of dying; in fact, the one flows in-
to the other, and cannot be separated one from the other.
He who has mastered the art of living has already mastered
the art of dying; to such, death holds no terrors.
M. V. Kamath,
Philosophy of
Death and Dying
When you were born you cried
And the whole world rejoiced.
Live such a life that when you die
The whole world cries and you rejoice.
Traditional Indian saying
vii
CONTENTS
Preface.............................................................................................. xi
1. The Difference Between Death and Dying.............................. 1
2. The Scientific Evidence for Life After Death...........................5
3. Admitting Your Fear of Dying............................................... 26
4. Laughing at Death...................................................................33
5. Dealing with the Pain of Dying.............................................. 37
6. Saying Goodbye to Your Body...............................................41
7. How Will You Be Remembered?
—Writing Your Own Obituary.......................................51
8. Practice Exercises for Learning to Die................................... 58
9. Meditation—The World’s Best Fear Remover.......................67
10. Meditation on Death
—The Eastern Craft of Dying........................................ 81
11. Dying the Good Death
—The Final Hours of Saints and Heroes...................... 87
12. Growing Old Gracefully—The Phenix Society......................96
13. Planning Intelligently for Your Demise............................... 102
14. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
—Volunteer Organizations for the Dying ........... 110
15. Out-of-Body Experience
—The Ecstasy of Astral Projection..............................124
16. You Have Died Before
—Reincarnation and Past Life Therapy.......................135
17. A Closer Look at Heaven and Hell.......................................142
18. How Can You Die Since You Were Never Born? ................151
Appendix 1: Is Death Necessary? The Prospects for
Physical Immortality................................................ 161
Appendix 2: Self-Destruction versus Self-Sacrifice:
Suicide and the Question of Identity................... 164
About the Author.......................................................................... 170
ix
Preface
Death—the great unknown, the final frontier. People regard
it with fascination, loathing, fear. From Halloween skele-
tons and ghosts through soap opera heroines in peril to
political assassinations and war stories, death is a perennial
topic of conversation, drama, and news. Lately, it has also
become the subject of feature stories, college courses, public
conferences, and best-selling books.
Death is everywhere and, like the weather, it seems not
much can be done about it. At least, that was the attitude
until recently. Years ago, W. C. Fields could joke, “This
world’s a hard place. A fella’s lucky to get out of it alive”. In
the past decade, however, for a variety of reasons many
people have seriously entertained thoughts of “doing some-
thing” about death.
First, there were biomedical advances. Heart and other
organ transplants—real and artificial—gave prolonged life to
ailing people. New medicines and vaccines tamed many
traditionally-dreaded illnesses. Sophisticated technology
kept people alive, albeit in a vegetative-like coma, even
when vital signs had disappeared altogether.
At the same time, a movement arose called “death edu-
cation”. Its purpose: to dignify death and humanize its fear-
fulness. Its premise: understanding death can enhance the
quality of life and expand our consciousness of existence. In
xi