Make your own free website on Tripod.com

The Art of Dying
Death with Dignity, Conscious Dying and End of Life Issues

Paramahansa Yogananda—"The Last Smile"

A photograph taken an hour before his mahasamadhi (a yogi's final conscious exit from the body); at a banquet held in honor of Ambassador Binay R. Sen of India, March 7, 1952, in Los Angeles, California.

The photographer has here caught a loving smile that appears to be a farewell benediction for each one of the master's millions of friends, students, and disciples. The eyes that already were gazing into Eternity are yet full of human warmth and understanding.

Death had no power of disintegration over this incomparable devotee of God; his body manifested a phenomenal state of immutability.

Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, first paperback edition,
Self Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, California, 1973, p.571

Books

Embraced by the Light
by Betty J. Eadie
The author shares her best-selling account of life after death, describing in almost photographic detail the miraculous visions she saw and the emotions she experienced in the four hours following her "death," which greatly changed her subsequent life.

Meetings at the Edge: Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying, the Healing and the Healed
by Stephen Levine
Based on his extensive counseling work with the terminally ill, Dr. Levine's book integrates death into the context of life with compassion, skill, and hope. Capturing the range of emotions and challenges that accompany the dying process, Meetings at the Edge offers unique support to readers dealing with this difficult experience.

Saved by the Light
by Dannion Brinkley, with Paul Perry
A man who "died" for twenty-eight minutes in 1975 and again a few years later reveals what he saw and how it transformed his life, including the psychic gifts he gained and the numerous accurate predictions he has made.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche
In 1927, Walter Evans-Wentz published his translation of an obscure Tibetan Nyingma text and called it the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Popular Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche has transformed that ancient text, conveying a perennial philosophy that is at once religious, scientific, and practical. Through extraordinary anecdotes and stories from religious traditions East and West, Rinpoche introduces the reader to the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism, moving gradually to the topics of death and dying. Death turns out to be less of a crisis and more of an opportunity. Concepts such as reincarnation, karma, and bardo and practices such as meditation, tonglen, and phowa teach us how to face death constructively. As a result, life becomes much richer. Like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Sogyal Rinpoche opens the door to a full experience of death. It is up to the reader to walk through.

Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying
by Stephen Levine
This is the first book to show the reader how to open to the immensity of living with death, to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next. Levine provides calm compassion rather than the frightening melodrama of death.

A Year to Live : How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last
by Stephen Levine
Socrates believed that we should "always be occupied in the practice of dying" in order to appreciate our living. So imagine that you only have one year left to live. What would you do differently? For one year Stephen Levine (also the author of Who Dies?) consciously chose activities, relationships, and spiritual practices that reflected life's urgency rather than life's complacency. From his experience comes this year-long program of strategies and guided meditations to help us feel satiated when our numbers come up. Lessons include "Gratitude," "Disposing of the Corpse," "Finding the Lotus Before Winter," and "Beyond the House of Death."

*