THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH

«A man is a part of the whole named «Universe»; it is a part, limited in space and time. He experiences himself, his thoughts and his feelings as something totally separate from all the rest,- as an optical illusion of Consciousness. This illusion is a peculiar prison to us, that limits us to our personal wishes, desires and attachments to several close people.

Our purpose is to let us free from this narrow prison by enlarging the circle of compassion, which must be spread around on all living creatures and the beauty of Nature.»

Albert Einstein.

The period of dying is always the event of the greatest importance, because the moral, ethical and spiritual position of a dying person at the moment of his/her Death determines not only the level of his/her postmortal existence, but also the quality of a future incarnation of the Soul. The essence and the course of the next incarnation, in their turn, are actualization of the person’s manner of Death. But, unfortunately, until now the majority of people do not consider the processes of aging, deadly diseases and dying as integral parts of the united and inseparable process of Life. They look at all these events as a complete failure and unhealthy misunderstanding of limited possibilities of human beings to control Nature.

The attitude towards the world, Life and Death, imposed on us by science and materialistic philosophy makes the position of a dying atheist terribly hard. Such person is absolutely sure that nothing exists beyond limits of the materialistic World. Science states that only living organisms, with functioning sense organs are able to perceive the reality. Science considers Consciousness only as a product of the physical brain activity, so that decomposition or annihilation of the brain leads to the irreversible end of the human Life.

The horror of Death raises up so many sufferings, so many gloomy Thoughts! People usually connect this sort of fear with the realization of their Life trajectory. Unlike animals, human beings know that they are mortal and that sooner or later they will have to experience the end of their biological existence. In addition all of us keep in our subconsciousness functional matrixes containing all episodes of the Soul’s real connection with Death that ever happened in its Existence.

Analyzing the reasons of human fear before Death in the second part, we have found out roots of this fear: most often the dying people are afraid to let go the moment of their Life, they are terribly afraid to be lost for ever in the unknown SOMETHING, or to stop their existence at all, whatever it is. The majority of people cannot cope with this particular fear, because it is full of dread of the transient, unknown, uncertain and next ever changing moment of Life.

When you do not trust Life, you cannot trust Death. Human beings make so many mistakes during their Life taking wrong decisions. But thoughtlessly they put all the responsibility for their own mistakes on other people, considering them guilty. They do not even guess that they deceive themselves, that Life does not deceive them severely. If their own foolishness, ignorance and egoism became main reasons of their mistrust towards Life, then all these qualities will become main obstacles for their faith in their future Death as the Transition to a new Life.

Those are really ready to die who have lived such a full Life that they are not afraid of any notions of non-existence. Those who live their own Life so wholly that they include Death naturally and easily into their Life cannot have spiritual sufferings or disappointments during dying. But to live so fully you must stop postponing your own Life «for later». Because together with your Life you «put off» your Death, being rather naive and supposing you will have enough time in the future to enjoy your Life «properly», «as you really want», «like normal human beings».

So, if you do not wish to open yourself and let go everything negative you have acquired during the years of your inadequate Life, you also constantly postpone «for later» the possibility of your Liberation. In order to come as close as possible to your Liberation, you must learn to stay in the present, here and now, being only positive. You must consider with love each moment of your Life as a precious gift - whether it is a disease, joy, sorrow or even more, Death itself.

Imagine that you were born into this World only to meet one particular, really precious and unique occasion during your whole Life, but you do not know anything about it: its character, when and how, in what circumstances it will happen to you. That is why each moment of your Life, every day, all the time you must be wide awake, must pull yourself together, be always prepared to be always ready to meet with dignity this extraordinary trial.

Read in the part «The Warrior and Death» how in ancient times Warriors considered this most important and leading moment in their Life and you will understand many things. You must understand only one simple thing: in order to really get to this main moment - your own Death - you must not leave any single instant of your Life without your personal attention. For that you must constantly open for all Life manifestations.

To be always open for any moment of your own Life, for everything happening in it without any exceptions - this is the best way to be really prepared for you forthcoming Death. Because if you decide from the very beginning that everything is fine in your Life, except Death, then soon you will definitely notice that you start to consider many things as negative and unacceptable parts of Life: a quarrel with a beloved person, the feeling of a loss, love failure, etc.

With such thinking you will inevitably start to shut yourself off from Life itself, gradually making the circle of events that you consider safe and acceptable narrower, until finally you will find yourself in a complete isolation. And from its point of view any somewhat significant unpleasant thing, let alone the possibility to die any moment, you will consider the ruin of all your hopes and all the meaning of your Life. It is possible to open yourself to Life endlessly, because it has so many trifles which you would like not to have and so many trials which you would prefer to escape, that even during the longest Life you would not be able to exhaust all of them.

The only thing you need is to open yourself to this inexhaustible flow, accept it kindly; allow it to enter into you. If you risk to start living in this very way, then very soon you will notice for yourself that the more you are open ABSOLUTELY TO EVERYTHING HAPPENING WITH YOU AND AROUND YOU, the less you will see your enemy in your future Death. Enemies, like a category of people threatening your safety and your peace, will disappear altogether from your Life!

When you start using Death for deepening and spiritual enrichment of your Life, very soon everything around you will become as it is in reality, not as you imagine it. Only then you will get the possibility to live a real Life, to the best of your abilities, not being afraid of anything any more: either Life, or Death.

At least for a moment imagine yourself as a child fully trusting its mother. The child follows her and does not even think whether it would influence somehow its safety, comfort or dependence. It obeys and trusts the mother absolutely in everything, whatever she does. IT TRUST! It does not even think that, due to her experience and knowledge of Life, the mother has a much broader perspective of their joint existence in Life than the child itself. It SIMPLY BELIEVES AND TRUSTS HER ABSOLUTELY AND INFINITELY!

You should also trust, that God Himself (which means that your Life itself) is full of an absolute, unlimited, unconditional Love for you personally and does not want to make you suffer from suffering, pain or anxiety. You cause all these feelings yourself, as you do not really trust either God, or Life, taking the lessons taught to you every moment in a wrong way, negatively, egoistically and one-sidedly.

Let us discuss again the situation with that mother and her child. When the child stops trusting her, when it becomes naughty, doing everything in its own way, it tears itself from its mother and stops following the line of least resistance in Life. The child begins to tear about chaotically, interfering in other flows of Life, getting blows, slaps, spits, pushes which cause pain, humiliations and sufferings to it.

As soon as the naughty child behaves too bad, plays the rogue, rents the air with loud cries, the mother has to use more and more strict and strong measures to discipline it, call it to order and help it to return back to a normal behavior. Depending on the degree of its mischievous behavior, the child may be strictly blamed, warned against its bad actions or slightly spanked.

The mother has to take all these measures not because she hates her shiftless son, but because she wants to teach it decent norms of behavior in the particular society (on Earth, in Cosmos) and by these lessons make its future existence safer. All this would not happen if her son was obedient and followed accurately his mother’s advice. Then his mother would take upon herself the majority of blows from outside. She would also solve most of their problems - for herself and for her son.

His duty and his part, as an obedient child, would be to hold on tightly to his mother’s hand, look around carefully, observing from outside all the events taking place around them, and infinitely trust and be sure that the mother will find a proper way out and make a right decision in any situation. Your «mother» is your Life, God! All the rest, by analogy, correspondingly depends whether you behave like an obedient son, or make the mother take exclusively strict measures towards you, when each moment you try to do everything AGAINST anything, not FOR THE SAKE OF higher, noble, right ideas.

Everything, absolutely everything in your Life happens not from somewhere or something outside, but depends on your personal attitude to somebody or something, whether you take a right decision each moment of your Life. Only when you learn to live properly, - not being resistant to Life, when you trust, believe and positively take each next moment of Life, however «bad» it might be from your personal point of view, - only then you will learn how to die properly. There is no other option.

Please, remember one more thing: the more you hide from yourself, the more you wait and postpone your Life, the more you will be afraid to die. Putting off your Life, you also set aside your Death. Having a negative attitude to Death, you soon willy-nilly will start to reject Life itself, you will start to be afraid of its hardships, vicissitudes and unpleasant surprises. You must know that the fear of Death is proportional to the fear of Life, to the fear to part and lose all that you call “your self”, lose the possibility to be «yourself».

The stronger, more rooted is your notion about your personal «ego», the deeper and fundamentally you start to separate yourself from Life, that is run away from your «mother». That means that the fear of Death will also possess your Consciousness more and more. The more the dying defend their own personality, identifying themselves with it, the less they will manage to experience that SOMETHING located beyond their visible personality.

The more the dying defend the right of their own «ego» to exist separately from the WHOLE, the more they will push off Life from themselves, the more they have to be surprised by its complete meaninglessness, consequently the more illusory and transient things they will accumulate, which they will be afraid to lose during their Death.

In order to get rid of the fear of Death, you have to cross over its boundaries, cross over the limits of your physical body’s Consciousness restricted by this World and therefore of the one who can die. Consciousness of a physical human being is so nervous because it is consciousness that is threatened with the destruction and decomposition into chemical elements. That is why Consciousness denies so furiously any Thought about its decease.

You must try to reach a higher level of Consciousness, that is the Consciousness of your own subtle body, and to merge as full as possible with vastitude of Existence that all of us are used to call immortality. Only in such a case your Death will become a Revelation for you and a possibility for the spiritual ascension of your Soul.

That is why as a practical preparation for Death, we suggest you to try to stay open for everything unpleasant. Whatever happens to you, learn to accept and release all your negative emotions, especially such as irritation and fear. For instance, if you make a list of your limitations and attachments, as full as possible, you will be able to see yourself as if from outside and you will be convinced of a complete inability of what you are used to consider your own personality.

This will help you to stop identifying yourself with your outer manifestation. This will allow you to get rid of that imaginary fear to lose your factitious earthly «individuality»; otherwise your fear of Death will become stronger and stronger. Consciousness of a physical human being and Consciousness of the Soul closed up in the physical body, are at absolutely different levels, exactly in the same way as differ consciousness of the heart and the one of the bowels. Not so long ago I had the possibility to make sure of it, when - following demands of my mature Karma - I went to the mountains and lived completely alone in a cave, fasting and only drinking spring water during 40 days (from June 15 till August 25, 1996).

All the time Consciousness of the physical body tried to convince me, that the situation I pulled myself into willingly is extremely dangerous and has no sense at all. My lower “self”, worried about its safety, gave me so many proofs; but by that time I had already managed to separate my real essence from my physical personality, not perfect enough. That is why I managed to endure up to the end such a hard test which after a two hour’s coma ended well with a SPECIAL EVENT.

As we have mentioned the majority of people are afraid of the very Idea of Death, the uncertainty hiding behind this process. For most people it is extremely hard to imagine where they will go after Death. Whatever they are told concerning Death and “postmortal existence”, people accept with mistrust, even if they are given really convincing evidence as a proof.

Our mind is not able to defend us from fears. It does not allow us to enter calmly into the process of the other world’s investigation. We definitely know for sure that our physical body will disintegrate after our Death, but who will prove, that the same Energy making our body alive sometime ago, will not also disintegrate. Our identity with our body as our «self» is proportional to our fear of Death.

By the way, American Indians had a tradition to give a natural crystal to a dying person for meditation, like amethyst or crystal sparkling with all rainbow colors; this helps to distract the dying person from painful thoughts about a coming Death. Watching the shining stone helps the dying person to let his/her Mind go and go beyond its limits.

Besides clear and high frequency vibrations of these minerals help the dying person’s Consciousness to reach a higher energy level, distract the person’s attention from annoying earthly problems and Thoughts, and approach as close as possible to energies of the Worlds of higher quality. In such a way during their Death, human beings as if enter by their Consciousness into the rainbow of the crystal and part with their physical body much easier.

In order to prepare the dying for Transition American Indians also use the so-called «song of Death». To get such a «song» every mature Indian, while still being healthy and in the prime of his/her life, must go to a desert for several days and stay there absolutely alone, strictly fasting and praying to his/her Spirits. If the Indian is lucky enough, during such an individual state of Consciousness he/she receives from the Great Spirit some sacred directions for the future.

Being in the state of a trance, many Indians indeed experience specific lofty feelings of exaltation that help them to invent such an original sacred «song of Death». Later on they are supposed to sing it while in danger, in some critical situations or when Death approaches. This sacred song becomes an inseparable part of this person, the essential feature of his/her Life. It helps to concentrate instantly in any unfavorable situation, become focused, leaving the heart open, and the Mind clear and free from any kind of fear.

In fact this «song of Death» becomes a special secret code that helps the Indian to get into contact with something unknown, including his/her own Death. The song can be inherited by the Indian’s children, grandchildren and relatives. This sacred song of Death is a specific kind of psychotechnique that gives full scope to the vision and allows a believer to go practically instantly beyond limits of the known. Thanks to such a song many American Indians performed their Transition into the other existence in the state of a complete Consciousness clarity. The great Japanese poet Basho told his disciples who asked him to leave his «song of Death» before his decease:

«Since ancient times there was a traditional custom to leave after oneself a poem of death. Maybe I should also write such a poem. But each moment of life is the last one, each poem is the poem of death! Then in such case why should I write another poem? At this my last hour I have no poem...»

When his disciples insisted that at least the poet should write down something before his Death, he wrote only one single hieroglyph - «dream» and, with an evident joy in his eyes he peacefully and calmly left the vanity of this Life. We are neither American Indians nor Japanese. We grew up in absolutely different traditions that also condition our attitude towards Death. Unfortunately we do not have either our own «song of Death», or any other means, except prayer, that would help us to overcome a hard psychological barrier of the Transition.

Unfortunately most often there is nothing, except hypocritical fraud, shameless lie and terrible darkness of ignorance, surrounding the dying. Obsolete traditions and imperfect, rooted in our Consciousness, rules of the ritual contacts with the dying, force the living to create around the dying only the atmosphere of emptiness and fear by their own sad and gloomy Thoughts. This does not in any way help the dying to become ready for the forthcoming event, the most important in their Life. But the denser the pitch darkness covers their feeble helpless body, the more furiously their Soul is longing for Light, like a butterfly for fire.

This Light and this Fire are the very Divine Love, abundantly dissolved in the surrounding Space. It is Love that we reject so foolishly during our Life, and that each of us tries to catch it so eagerly during our Death, intuitively opening our hearts to it and turning towards it like a flower to the Sun. Because here, in this physical world, so comfortless, cruel and alien to us, there is nothing more precious, more real and more genuine than Divine Love of our Creator to us and our unconditional Love to Him.

And no words of consolation, and no any, even the most fascinating Ideas can substitute this Love for the dying. But many people, surrounding them, unfortunately substitute this sublime feeling with helpless groans, loud howls and whimpers that sometimes contain more pity for themselves, more deliberateness than real wish to help those leaving for the other World.

We are speaking here about Love as the moment of spiritual unity of two Hearts and a deep feeling of sincere closeness. But too many people understand this sublime notion first of all only as egoistic cobwebs of their wishes, sensual desires and carnal necessities. Usually such «love» is so fragile that any careless and imprudent sidelong glance or even the slightest ring of infringement of rights of one of two «loving» persons breaks at once this unity, which from the first sight seemed so strong. This feeling quickly breaks into plenty of various little manias, fault-finding, clouds of jealousy and resentment mixed with the feeling of guilt or the insatiable desire to completely possess another human being.

It is not the deep, unexplainable sympathy of Hearts, the absolutely altruistic and specific state of Existence that helps the Soul of one human being open instantly itself for another human being. Almost every day Life gives us plenty of possibilities to practice our openness to all events, unexpected and unpleasant for us. But only few of us may consider themselves to be really prepared for the coming of Death. Whether we fall and injure ourselves heavily, or sprain an ankle, or catch cold, or we have gall-stones moving in our gallbladder, or as a result of anther accident we find ourselves in a hospital - all these cases are excellent possibilities to practice our own «song of Death».

Because each of the situations mentioned above any moment may become a critical one or even have a lethal outcome. You may and should use each moment of an illness or a dangerous situation, without waiting it to become deathful, for learning how to let go yourself and become completely open to everything taking place, not holding to anything, not striving for anything, not resisting anything happening and not strengthening undesirable influences.

You only need to learn to take the attitude of an onlooker at the right moment, and stop to identify yourself with the one who suffers or is the victim of an accident, or «a horrible set of circumstances». You should perceive any of such situations as a teacher who is trying to wean you persistently from the habit of considering your Life as something eternally continuous.

It will help you to consider any trouble as a possible preparation to the process of dying that can happen any next unknown moment of your Life. Unfortunately, in most cases we have neither strength nor time, nor self-assurance to manage all our old fears, doubts, attachments we used to have during our Life.

You will be able to prepare in time for the fact of inevitability of your Death only if you manage to open yourself in time for the present. If you are completely here and now, then it will not be too hard for you to be completely THERE any next moment when comes a sudden Death. For that you must learn to live every next moment, completely dissolving in each of them, patiently and detachedly contemplating everything perceptible, visible and sensible, but not using your Mind sophisticated in life casuistry in the analysis of ever changing instant situations.

When you learn to open yourself to the very realization, not being kept away from anything and fully uniting with Life, only then you may consider that you know your real nature and that you are really ready to meet your Death with dignity. Tibetan monks also often use Death as a means for reaching spiritual Enlightenment. They use dying as a means of deep emotional experience of what underlies all delusions of our Life. The Tibetan Buddhism tradition has developed a complex technology of experiencing Death. Some meditations are specially meant for human beings to get to know this precious moment while they are still alive. We discussed them in the section «The art of dying» and we discuss them in more details in our book «The Spirit of Meditation».

Dying allows us to understand how we consider independent processes, taking place in our Mind, as our «self», that we are so much afraid to lose and that we try to defend from Death to the last gasp. While meditating on Death it is possible to feel this process not as disappearance, but as a gradual melting, during which each following phase helps a further and still deeper dissolution of our «Self» among ALL.

Many monks even drink water from cups made of human sculls and pray with prayer beads made of human bones, in order to remember constantly about Death. But all these things are purely external attributes, reminding human beings about the brevity of their stay on Earth and that Death can use its right of choice any next moment. Much more important is a deep understanding of the fact that any next moment you may be no more and you will not be able to say somebody any kind words, or become better and kinder. It is much harder than to allay one’s thirst drinking from sculls and to touch human bones while praying.

The Hindu have the tradition to die with the name of God on their lips so as to help the Soul return consciously back to the source of Existence. For that during your Life you need to learn to throw away all your conception ideas about surrounding World literally in a moment and to plunge your Consciousness into the Spiritual World, merging wholly with God. Many elders also died with the name of Christ or Holy Mother on their lips.

But in order to keep such a close contact with the most sacred inner part at the moment of the last gasp one must start to prepare for Death right now, not waiting its arrival that usually happens unexpectedly. Besides, the fear of Death or strong physical sufferings may paralyze your Consciousness and froze the heart to such a degree that there will be no possibility to concentrate on anything concrete.

In order to be always prepared for Death, so as to be able to die with the name of God in your heart and Thoughts at the moment of the Transition, you must concentrate totally your Life on God. This will promote a better quality of your incarnation and will help you to live a happier and wealthier Life.

Our books are another attempt of those who know the Truth in this particular matter not only to convince even utmost bitter-end pragmatics and atheists that a postmortal Life is real and that the atonement for everything done personally by them on Earth is inevitable, but also to help virtuous and kind people to prepare morally and ethically, in the best way, for the moment of their forthcoming Transition and get rid of the fear of Death. We help you in this, and you, in your turn, must also give your qualified and moral assistance to those who know nothing about Death and the art of dying.

When terminally ill persons are in a hospital, they know for sure that they may die any moment, that they may stop living in this world any moment. They do not know whether there is any future for them, whether there is another world after their Death. And nobody, neither relatives, nor doctors, nor anybody, even the dearest and cherished people, would be able to help them to become established in this new reality.

They need another KNOWING human being to reassure them that Death is not a horrible and mysterious Transition, but a joyful and long-awaited Awakening from many years of Illusion dream. They need to be reassured that their real Life is NOT finished now, but, on the contrary, it only starts with Death. In fact the release of the Soul from the physical body is accompanied with much less agony than a following transmutation of the illusory lower «self» of the Soul into the higher, spiritual «Self».

Each dying person needs somebody, who, having confirmed the soon coming of Death, would not spoil and aggravate this complex and serious moment of the Awakening with inconsolable sorrow and pity. On the contrary such human being will inspire the dying person with an invigorating impulse of Belief in an approaching new Rebirth. In such a way the human being will help the dying person to overcome first - the most crucial - minutes, when Consciousness enters in the state of a physical Death, in order to start successfully a new Life from higher vibrations.

All rough vibrations may and must be removed from your Life. You must not only be assured in your immortality, but to all your actions, to all your creative work you should add the Divine Sparkle of God’s Fire, one and indivisible for the whole Universe. Each of us has in the heart a part of that Divine Fire, which guarantees with an absolute conviction the indestructibility and immortality of our Essence.

Instead of limitless trembling before a merciless Fate and crying over dying beloved ones, you must be inspired with Joy of your Soul - yes, exactly with Joy - before another possibility for your intimates to renew their enfeebled form, which goes to pieces. If you properly understand and realize for yourself all these important things, then those with whom you will stay at this time will consider the process of dying not as «a complete and final end», but as an event even more important than Life itself.

My personal experience of contacts with cancer patients, all their previous Life very strongly focused only on reaching materiel priorities, gives me the right to say the following. Even such people, when they know the truth about their illness, can move substantially in their spiritual development just within several weeks or months before their Death. Thanks to the deep understanding of the «art of dying» they are taught, during the Transition they can make simply surprising leaps in their Consciousness ascension to the most favorable Worlds. But to make such a shift in Consciousness, naturally, there must be evolution/karmic preconditions, peculiar to each person.

In some cases appears practically a paradox situation. A person, who was always materially oriented and clung to Life with all his/her strength, having understood the inevitability of a close Death and believed sincerely in a further existence of his/her own Life in dimensions of different quality, suddenly breaks off with everything what used to be attractive on the Physical Plane. And with a furious persistence, surprising stubbornness and inconceivable obsession that used to help him/her to conquer the material World, the person starts to prepare for his/her main examination - Death «here» and a new birth «there».

Such a patient is afraid that he/she will not have enough time, or will be late or will not manage to learn all he/she has planned by the time of the Transition, and he/she starts to «push» feverishly a lot of books of religious and philosophic content into his/her mind. These books describe to a certain extent specific peculiarities of that mysterious and enigmatic process the patient has to go through soon. Those phenomena he/she did not trust absolutely at all before and had no idea about previously, now suddenly start to attract his/her attention and interest.

If such a person used to have a fundamental approach and to be armed at all points towards everything in his/her Life, he/she uses the same substantial approach concerning his/her own decease, trying to understand everything meticulously without missing anything that may seriously influence the result of his/her «business». I think that the story of one my acquaintance, a kind woman, who once came to me with a diagnosis of «stomach cancer» twice confirmed by medical doctors, may appear very useful for many terminally ill people, who have spent all years of their Life searching for shadowy material purposes of our illusory World.

I looked at her and determined the karmic cause of her illness, and I said that I was only a writer, not a healer, though sometimes I used to help some people in similar hopeless situations, when medical assistance was completely ineffective. But in such complex cases as hers the result depends not on me or my extraordinary capabilities, but it depends totally on her, her strength of Spirit, her Will power and also on the way she understands some BEYOND-material aspects of her Life.

I warned that I could cure her from cancer only if she would COMPLETELY reorient her whole Life into a spiritual sphere and by no means would think any more about materials problems. I explained to her shortly the karmic cause of her illness and noticed that people with similar diagnoses retire to a cloister in order to «disappear» completely for vibrations of the level on which the Soul gave birth to those particular karmic causes that, consequently, resulted in the illness so quickly developed.

The woman agreed with me and said that she was really ready even to retire to a cloister. In some days after several séances of working through her Karma I could start the healing. After nine days her condition became much better. But I warned her that in two weeks, on the 19^th of January, she would have a crisis, after which she would recover from her illness very quickly.

So it happened to a day. When the crisis was over, and she felt perfectly well, I asked her to take another x-ray of the stomach. You can imagine the surprise of her attending medical doctor, when her X-ray picture did not show any signs of her previous lethal disease!

During the process of healing, thanks to the constant spiritual contact with me and her keen interest in spiritual values of Life, her Consciousness was completely taken away from the rough material Plane. That is why most of karmic vibrations, which were the real cause of her illness, were neutralized partly by high frequency energies of the Spiritual Plane. Then everything depended only on her: whether she would hold on to that high frequency range of existence or lower down back to the previous level of thinking.

Each time I left her after a healing séance, she started to read literature, to which she previously paid absolutely no attention, because she was a woman of purely material interests, practical and business-minded. Now, following the instinct of self-preservation, she completely changed the sphere of her interests; she no longer showed any interest in TV, kitchen and domestic cares, political and economic problems of her city and country.

The real threat of Death, she was always afraid of most of all, made her extremely practical Mind, used to a constant hard work, to direct all its energy and strength to studying those aspects of earthly Existence that did not exist for her before. Just in several days of my healing she read eagerly all four books of the series «Life between Lives» published by that time. Then Sophia Mikhailovna started to study carefully «The New Testament», then I gave her to read «The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ», «Apocrypha of Ancient Christians», «Pheodora’s Ordeals» and some other books, which she read all through attentively during several days.

There seemed to be no end to her questions about the life beyond this World, but I patiently tried to answer them in full details. Seeing and feeling the marvelous results of my treatment, she considered me her Savior Angel. Her trust in me and everything I told her was absolute. All my stories about the Subtle World, what is happening there and how it is organized were not just idle words but an absolute reality to her after two weeks of our communication.

Her mind and rich imagination worked only in that direction, trying to fancy colorfully many pictures I told her about. Nothing interested her any more, except the Life after Death phenomenon, specific features and interests of the deceased existing now in absolutely different realities, that has nothing to do with earth Life.

She stepped completely aside from the current city and social life. Her relatives took care of all everyday necessities, she used to do herself. They did their best trying to get rid of her visitors, who came to see her and chatter about different problems of the world, politics and economy. It appeared not so easy, because people, being ignorant, naive and full of egoism, could not simply understand how this formerly active businesswoman, full of energy, suddenly stopped to be interested in all «earthly problems», willingly devoted herself to isolation, plunged into reading of religious literature, as if she lived not in the center of the city, but in a cloister.

But it did not last long, because when spring came again she started to be more and more interested in small family and social life problems, which made her health much worse. During one of my visits I checked her «energy» once more and noticed symptoms of cancer metastases, that spread again. At first I didn’t dare to tell her, but later on I had to tell her frankly how things were going, and explained her the real cause: she lowered the quality of her existence and therefore started to be dependent of her Karma again.

At first she was terribly afraid, but in a couple of days she called again and said that she is no longer afraid to die. So she asked me to help her to be better prepared for the Transition. I agreed, understanding all the evolutionary importance of her decision. During our meetings she remembered scrupulously everything I told her about first moments of the Transition; WHAT is going to happen to her; HOW she must answer properly to these or that impulses getting to her Consciousness during the period when her field capsule starts to reject the useless physical body; HOW to enter the LIGHT; what does it mean «to recognize yourself in this Light, etc.

After I left, she carefully analyzed all she heard and tried to model different variants of the forthcoming situation in her imagination. When we met, she tried to do her utmost to find out the concrete moments of the dying process, being afraid to lose some important details or misunderstand something. She was not afraid anymore of the forthcoming Death itself, because she felt now that It was SOMETHING like a final exam in an institute, though it looked rather extraordinary.

I made her distant astral injections that helped her to remove a terrible pain in her stomach. It allowed her to work efficiently with the literature during the day. It was much worse during the night, because astral injections helped effectively only for four hours maximum, so close to the morning she again started to suffer from the terrible pain. But soon I found a way out of this situation and entrusted my astral double to make astral pain-relief injections every three hours.

When one day at the end of April this patient started to die, I made my morning prayer, as usually penetrating all the Space above me with a powerful Ray of Light. Suddenly I saw in this flow of Light going up into Immensity, how the Soul of my patient flew up marvelously and graciously in a swift fly, powerfully rushing to merge with a bright Light that greeted and embraced her tenderly and motherly. «Thank you, Lord! - I thought, - it means that Sophia Mikhailovna died peacefully». That very day I interrupted my usual prayer and finished it by a special prayer for the Repose of the Soul of Sophia, a servant of God.

Sometime later, when in higher Astral vibrations I met again Sophia Mikhailovna, she was as extraordinary joyful, merry, young, beautiful and full of energy as she was before her terminal illness. She was glad to tell me what she did now, how beautiful are pictures - not on canvas, but real and living ones - «pained» by «local» artists, how wonderful are exhibitions organized together with her friends-artists and musicians, many of which she knew while living on Earth.

She did not even remember her earthly life, because a completely new and marvelous full Life was filling her now. All the Karmic attachments - thanks to the special and careful preparation to Death during her Life, - were annihilated practically in a moment in her astral body during the process of dying.

She sent best regards to her close relatives, who followed my advice and did their best not to bother her with grievous lamentations and sorrowful reminiscences. Sophia Mikhailovna, whom Death changed from an elderly ill woman into a beautiful, full of Joy and Light Sophia, thanked me that I helped her in proper time to turn to spiritual side of Life and managed to teach her the only right and wonderful way of the Transition.

She «chirped» all the time like a bird, admiring the radiant atmosphere of creativity, understanding and absolute spiritual intimacy that unites all inhabitants of that great country where she got into after her Death, which she did not remember at all. She admitted that feeling herself out of her physical body she was extremely afraid to miss the moment of Light’s appearance, that she did not even notice when she first found herself inside this Light, and then in a shining beautiful sanitarium, on the beach of the most wonderful azure sea, being surrounded by extraordinary warmth, love and attention of kind and amiable people.

«Every day I felt myself stronger, healthier and younger, - she told me. - You see, Sergey Vasilyevich, how I look now? Could I ever dream returning back to my youth and beauty? And all this happened thanks to your lessons!»

I tried to object and explain to her, that her really magic transformation happened not because of me, but it were her own efforts, exceptional trust in my words about people’s delusions and non-existing Death that gave such a wonderful result. But she was so happy and overwhelmed with joy because of our meeting, that she did not allow me to say any word. And I, with my face turned to warm and tender sunny rays coming as if from everywhere, did no want to talk her round.

«Sergey Vasilyevich, please, do not contradict, because I know for sure, if it were not for you, your help there on Earth, after Death I could have got into «the Valley of Sorrow», like plenty of other people. My friends and I descend there often to organize «patronage» exhibitions and concerts to give some little joy to those poor people, staying there».

I knew, that talking about «the Valley of Sorrow» she meant one of the Spheres of manifestation of the World of Doubles, where come people whose Consciousness during their Life was very strongly concentrated on values and attachments of the Material World.

Such people do not know during Life on Earth that there is a real possibility and reliable ways to indemnify them from getting into such kind of Worlds after Death. According to the principle of attraction of similar vibrations they were attracted into Astral Spheres with such type of Matter vibrations and stuck there for a long time, because they have to work out the karmic binds they created themselves by their wrong decisions, unworthy Thoughts and imperfect actions.

NOBODY DIES

«Easy, my dear, easy, when it is time to die! Nothing hard, peculiar, special. No rhetorical questions, no words. A conscious personality does not need to put on a favorite mask of Christ, Goethe or little Nelly. And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Only a simple act of dying, the fact of bright light».

A. Huxley

Life would be impossible without Death, as well as without destruction there would be no reconstruction, no rebirth, and no quality changes of EVERYTHING. Like plants could not exist in an eternal Sun Light, human beings would become common «zombies» without constant training of their free Will and without their irrepressible yearning for Light, which would also lose its Existence and meaning for them, if human beings had nothing but this Light.

A human being can become free from horrors of Death only due to the knowledge of the Truth that after Death the Soul does not die, but only transits, being born in the Subtle World, and after a certain period of time It returns back to Earth entering the body of a newborn baby. The Soul a human being reincarnates and lives plenty of Lives, constantly improving Itself. When the possibilities of functioning of the physical body are exhausted during Life, the Soul of a human being simply leaves it and goes away into its postmortal existence, taking with it all its Subtle bodies.

The first of these bodies - etheric, astral and mental - undergo some destruction transformations, during which they disintegrate, returning back to each Subtle Plane its Energy «borrowed» by the Spirit for its another reincarnation on Earth. Ultimately only the immortal Spirit is left again after finishing the cycle of human reincarnations (a Monad vested into the Matter of Causal, Buddhic, Spiritual and Atmic Subtle bodies).

Death is always a movement of the Soul-Aspect to its Spirit, no matter how ignorant a dying person might be in this subject. This process is automatic for majority of people, but in case of spiritually highly developed persons it is possible to observe the exact prediction of their own Death, up to a day and even hour.

In the majority of such cases Consciousness of this particular individual is still functioning actively, preserving its full power over Mind and body until the last moment of removal. For some human beings, who understand the laws of separation, this knowledge allows to leave their physical body during the Transition in a completely awake state of Consciousness and to begin immediately an active functioning at the Astral Plane.

Such preservation of Consciousness’ continuity helps to avoid the gap between the feeling of awareness on the Physical Plane and the same one after leaving this world. In such cases human beings continue to know themselves in the same way as before, understand feelings and Thoughts of those whom they loved very much and still love, though it is impossible for them any more to perceive or contact with physical bodies of the living.

But the deceased can still continue to contact them sensitively or telepathically through the Mind of a living person if there is a psychic contact between them. In such a case the astral and mental interconnection between the deceased and the living may appear more close and emotional than it was before Death. It is because the Soul of the deceased, becoming free from obstacles of its physical body, can contact directly with the Soul of the living.

Such interaction may be prevented by two circumstances: grief and strong emotional feelings of the living or personal ignorance of the deceased, when immediately after their Death they find themselves in totally new and unusual circumstances of postmortal existence. The process of Death may be taken completely under control, only when a human being gets rid of the fear of Death and acquires during Life understanding of the Subtle World, which is not at all based on hallucinations and hysteria, as sometimes esoteric amateurs try to portray.

Here are the admonitions of a Dalai-Lama concerning this problem: «When it is time to take your belongings and go through the gate of death, human beings find out that they cannot take with them neither their relatives, nor friends, nor servants, nor property. The Mind attached to things is the mind of an animal. That is why you should better get rid of attachment to anything.

It does not matter how strong is the pleasure human beings get, indulging their illusions; sooner or later they will have to suffer, circling around the wheel of ignorance, finding no shelter. That is why you should better get rid of any wishes.

Numerous people of our world, including parents, that raised you so carefully - all of them are searching only happiness. That is why you should better get rid of searching happiness.

Everything appealing to your feelings is empty by its nature. Still staying among deceptive and illusory images you are going to strive for truth. That is why you should better refuse factitious limitations.

When the moment of Death comes closer to you, you should better throw away distortions, fear and prejudices. Relinquish illusive hopes and apprehensions… When subtle energies of the body start dissolving, a subtle vision of Death appears. Realize it as a bright light and do not leave it for a single moment».

The search for happiness is the search for our real nature. To live only to satisfy transitory caprices or wishes does not imply happiness at all, on the contrary, it is suffering, because in the world of desires one can never find real spiritual satisfaction. To be NOT attached to somebody or something does not mean to simply eliminate desires.

Non-attachment is such a specific state of Consciousness, when at any moment it is possible to allow any quality, any Thought or any feeling in It. Non-attachment is an active receptivity of an incarnated human Consciousness to Life and events taking place in It - from the position of a detached on-looker.

The ambition for reaching one’s aim is the foundation of any desire. But even the highest desire of a spiritual Liberation may become a trap for an incarnated Consciousness. In order to get a true Liberation we must finally refuse even the desire to be free, releasing all attachments of our Mind and replacing them only by manifestations of our true spiritual Nature. As we are one whole with ALL, then what do we need to be free from?

As you know, a human being has a larger vital body, a copy of the physical one, which is called an etheric «double» of the human being. It consists of centers of Force - chakrams - and Nadis or force fields. These force fields are the foundation of neuroganglions and are etheric copies of the nervous system. There are three places in the human body, from which the Soul can leave the body trough openings: the first one is in the back vortex of the solar plexus, that is between shoulder-blades; the second one is in the brain, near the crown of the head, the third one is near the navel. They are defended by the thick net of etheric Matter, consisting of closely interwoven strands of Life Energy.

During the process of dying under the pressure of Life Energy, accumulated in the center of the maximum Consciousness concentration, in the web finally appears a puncture or an opening, out of which the Soul leaves the physical body, when the inner impulse of rejecting It becomes stronger. For animals, children and those whose Consciousness during their Life is completely polarized in the physical or astral bodies, psychic centers are the exits of the Soul: the solar plexus - Manipura-chakra and the sacral center - Svadhisthana-chakra.

For people of mental types, whose life activity was closely connected with high-vibration levels of thinking, and also for spiritually developed human beings used to an intensive interchange with Spiritual Plane’s energies, during their Death the Soul leaves through the crown of the head - Sahasrara-chakra. The Soul of an «average» spiritually developed human being uses (temporarily) the third exit - there is another opening straight under the higher part of the heart.

As far as mediums and psychic people are concerned, the web of their solar plexus often tears or breaks randomly during strong stresses or sufferings, that is why their subtle body leaves and comes back easily from their physical body. But they do not have continuity of Consciousness. This means that they have no logical connection fixed between events, which they witness during their Soul’ staying in the Subtle World and their physical existence. To speak plainly, when they return back into their dense physical body, they remember nothing and therefore they can tell nothing about Life in the other World.

There exist a close connection between the place of the next postmortal manifestation of the Soul on the Astral Plane and the energy quality of the center, through which Consciousness «leaves» the physical body at the moment of Death. For instance, if the Soul disappears from the Physical World through the exit opening, synthesizing energy of the SUBdiaphragmatic centers, then after Death, according to the law of attraction of similar vibrations, the Soul will be able to manifest Itself at once only in one of plenty Worlds of the descending demonic series that exist in Matter characteristics of identical quality.

That is why at the moment of their Death all evil and cruel people experience the amazingly identical and similar sensation of an endless fall, straight into different Hell Spheres, which is obligatory in order to get rid of rough energies in their astral bodies. If during their earth Life human beings fail to accumulate good energies in their field capsule, then they stay on these lower levels of postmortal existence for ever, and they are destined for a compulsory astral Death (this time it is final).

If the Soul leaves the Physical Plane through the highest exit opening, synthesizing in itself all high quality vibrations of SUPRAdiaphragmatic centers, then the rebirth in the Subtle World will be rather favorable, easy, joyful and satisfactory. Everything depends on the kind of vibrations, in which Consciousness of a human being was at the moment of Death. It also depends on the quality of dominant energies in the field capsule.

The exit of the Soul between shoulder-blades has a direct connection with middle subdivisions of the Astral Plane with multiple manifestations of the so-called «World of Doubles», which do not differ too much (for the better) from our world, but are strictly differentiated depending on the religious background of Consciousness of the deceased.

DYING

When the Soul starts leaving this physical World for its postmortal Astral journey, the physical body of the dying may still «suffer» demonstratively for a while from a painful agony accompanied with of all kinds of noise, sharp convulsions, anguished shouts, long-lasting mournful groans. For witnesses of this dying process it is full of suffering. It always frightens those who observe it, embarrasses them by its incomprehensible phases and even horrifies them.

The terrible picture of painful Death with agony convulsions, cramps, shouts and death rattle - all these are purely superficial effects, when Life leaves the physical body relinquished by the Soul. All these horrors have nothing to do with the ALREADY free Soul.

Besides, due to excessive carbon dioxide is discharged when the Soul leaves the physical body, the pain is completely absent in the body. So you should know that, at the very last moments of Death, the feeling of pain is practically always absent in every body, however painful is the process before dying and rejection of the Soul from its former dense capsule.

When the final end starts, the whole body of the dying becomes much weaker, the head bends down and the chin touches the breast, the breath stops and everything becomes still. This dying process is shown here in general terms, but in fact it is a purely individual process, so there are as many variants as dying people.

Dying is the process of contact with Eternity, it happens as if in the absence of Time and as if out of spatial environment. Often dying is accompanied with a phenomenon known as «an insight before Death», when the dying get a flash of Superconsciousness, before their physical activity comes to a complete end.

We would like to repeat once again for those who are so much afraid of pain: Death itself comes completely without any pain for the dying. They perceive it either as completion of a quiet extinction and liberation from painful tortures (especially if the process was long enough because of a terminal illness), or as awakening from a premortal unconsciousness, which is sometimes so natural that Death itself remains for a while unperceived by the dying.

That is why we advise the living, staying close to the dying, not to be afraid of these solemn moments, and better see about alleviating suffering of the physical body as a result of a serious illness. It will help the Soul to calm down. It is extremely important for the dying, because they enter their new Life in the same emotional state and with the same Thought that accompanied them during their Death.

Also you should not underestimate the grandeur and great meaning of the Death moment, because this Transition is still not easy and sometimes very hard for the dying, first of all from the psychic, emotional point of view. If you touch carefully the top of the head of the dying, you will feel as a light tingling in your fingers the vibration of Life that slowly leaves the body during several hours after medical doctors certified the fact of Death.

When you stay for a long time with the body of the deceased you knew for quite a while, it may give you incomparable understanding of the process of dying; in some cases you may even experience the soar of the Soul outside the physical body. It allows you to touch the inner feeling of separation, to touch suffering because of our attachments, and understand the last guide for any leaving Soul - the course only toward Light! Krishnamurti liked to repeat: «Observability is an observer».

All our experiences and feelings are functions of our models. They are like a form we put on the whole reality surrounding us. The same concerns fully our ideas about Death and the process of dying in general.

All of us experience only our own models, our Ideas, our personal dreams about reality. However, reality is completely different; it is directed not against a human being, not against an incarnated human Soul, but vice versa - for a human being, for the sake of the Soul. But our own distorted models of the World, often extremely far from the Truth, may distress us (and do distress). Because of them we ourselves give birth to the world of incessant desires and fear.

It is clearly seen in the case of the dying process. Here, first of all, sufferings are connected with the presence of the model of Death in our imagination as an extremely painful process. And the dying, instead of opening themselves to the most important current moment in their Life, stop being resistant to it, on the contrary, wait something painful, terrible, frightening and unknown that must certainly happen in a little while.

They start to adjust feverishly the reality according to their personal views of it, their own models of Death and therefore they really start to suffer. Waiting for pain we may get only pain, and preparing ourselves for darkness during a long time we really get nothing except darkness.

Let us imagine for a moment, that after a long and exhausting illness my organism is so weak, that I cannot participate actively any more in the surrounding world. Let us imagine for a moment, that I have my own office, where I write my numerous books, that I hold an important post which allows me to play an significant role in society (though I never had neither the first thing, nor the second one, leave alone the third one). But let us still imagine it.

So, I am dying in my bed. Gradually all illusions about my personal presentability and importance begin to dissolve. I do not have my famous office any more. I do not have my important job any more. My social position is already vacant for a long time, but for some reason few people notice it. Life is going on as usual, but without me.

So I am lying in my bed dying slowly, feeling how my body gradually disintegrate, all my strength leaves me and my former, illusory «self» goes away further and further to the background, becomes dim and fade away. From time to time I feel a burst of anger and protest appears in me: I still must do so many things, finish things, love more, laugh more, have more joy and happiness, live more…

I must get up! Maybe I only started to live properly now! I have not yet enjoyed Life and its benefits! I have never been to any sanitarium… I have not yet been to India or Japan… I have never traveled anywhere! But I have no strength to get up, my body grows weaker and decrepit day after day, I am in my bed all the time, my computer is switched off. Maybe I will never type a single page of my future books…

My favorite gym suit is hanging idly on a hanger. Maybe I will never be able to put it on, to take a walk around my city, along the quay of Yalta, to meet my friends… Even food is prepared separately for me by my beloved wife Marina. She has to feed me with a spoon, because I am too weak to eat myself. Maybe I will never enjoy eating my favorite potato dumplings with fried onions, will never taste a nourishing red borscht with sour cream, my favorite soft-salted herrings with fried potatoes and beer… All these tasty things are not for me anymore. Somebody else will enjoy this delicious food, not me…

The more often I observe Life, passing by me, the more often a natural question arises in my Mind: «Who was that human being, who typed on that computer, wore that suit, ate all these meals?» It was definitely not me, now lying helplessly in bed, sick and dying.

I will never be able to get up from my bed and take the same place in Life that belonged to me before. And I will never need that my self-image as a strong, clever, respectable, attentive and energetic human being. I will never be the one I used to be.

Who am I then? Who is this weak person, who cannot do anything himself, who cannot eat, drink, wash himself, and even go to the toilet? I was never like this before, I cannot be like this, because THIS CREATURE, whom everybody still call by my name, does not coincide at all with any of my image models.

My attachment to everything that was good and clear before, give rise to fear and confusion in my Soul. My dying turns into unbearable anguish of mind, into an absolute hell, because it takes away from me everything that was real, essential and available for me not so long ago. The very thought that all these things will not exist any more for me, makes me suffer terribly, agonizes my Soul.

Gradually I start to realize more distinctly that the person, whom everybody called Sergey Vasilyevich Tsvelev, who lived all these years, did something, created something, loved somebody, was not me, but SOMEBODY else. As for me, I am lying in bed, helpless and forgotten by everybody, and I am dying as if I never lived at all…

As soon as we lose the possibility to play our usual role in Life, we stop to understand who in fact we are. We are so much used to identify ourselves with our own person, our activity, our self-image what we are in Life, that when it is time for us to go away from this Life and we lose the possibility to correspond with this image, we stop to understand who had lived in fact and who is actually dying.

This happens because we constantly betray ourselves, changing one or another of our numerous masks, depending on our needs and circumstances. All the time we live trying to please some mythic interests, transitory desires and mercenary purposes.

The fear to lose everything, the desire to stay in this World by all means, our indignation when we realize that it is impossible - all these things raise obstacles when we search for our true self and let go naturally our Soul. Understanding this, instead of going deeply inside myself, I start to open my Heart to all those who visit me, especially to those to whom I am devoted.

All, that previously prevented my deep and sincere contacts with them, goes somewhere, giving place to Love, Kindness and Openness. In the face of one’s own inevitable Death, there is no need to feel embarrassed or shy towards anybody; there is no need to settle old scores with anybody or revenge upon anybody for resentments or evil done some time ago; there is no need to forgive or reproach anybody for unfair attitude towards me.

Everything that happened in my Life, - already happened, and there is no use now to keep it in my Mind. That is why I let go all my previous self. And I feel that all my affections towards people close to me are changed by real Love, without any reasons, explanations or boundaries. Real, True Love is not a short-term emotion or transitory feeling, but a state of Being, a state of Consciousness, not attached to any particular object.

It is possible to exist in such a state only by oneself, but one cannot use it for anything or towards somebody. I simply start to BE this «something» or «somebody». I stay indivisible with ALL and EVERYTHING stops to be NOT ME. And if there is no separation, then there is no fear to lose something or somebody, because I stop simply be «only myself» and become to be «one manifested in ALL».

In such a case, my attitude to ALL changes sharply, because I have nothing to lose and nothing to defend. It means that I do not need any more to think about my non-finished affairs, unsolved problems, about my parting with my beloved ones - about everything separating me from Life, Death and Love.

In the face of my own Death my work will be to open myself to all my attachments, observing as if from outside all my previous desires, emotions, expectations and projections. Only in such a way all models and illusory personal images formed during my Life will be able to leave my Mind to let me die myself, but not the one I considered myself. In each present moment of Death the Truth of Existence manifests on the basis of clarity and Love. In this Truth there is neither any dying person, nor those who help him/her to die…

I hope I made a rather picturesque and convincing picture of my own Death. I made it on purpose, neither using any abstract image as an example, nor projecting this process on you, my dear reader. For me personally there is no problem of my own Death. But you must remember that nobody, including me, is able to die your own Death instead of you, neither voluntarily, nor by force.

Your own Death by itself will be the most unique and inimitable, irrespective of how you imagine it during your Life. Though in principle, if you dedicate to this all your Life, when your hour comes, you will be able to realize your fantasy and die exactly in such a way you had imagined before. But again, it will depend on a dominant inner quality of your Life.

As you lived your Life investigating the Truth, forasmuch the Truth will be present at the end of your Life. The Death of such investigators of their own essence becomes only the means of a union of their Consciousness and an individual Cosmic Spirit. But if you spend all your Life only collecting material wealth, surrounding yourself with refined comfort and all kinds of attachments, then your Death will be only a disintegration of the physical body and those illusions you lose dying. That is the way your own Death can be - horrible and awful.

In the face of Death we become ourselves for a while, disidentifying (to a certain degree) with those numerous models of ourselves that we have invented. In our everyday Life we are so used to be not ourselves that, when it is time to go to the other world, we cannot even define more or less clearly, who really dies?

Many people resist such a humiliating situation to their last strength and that bring them terrible physical and emotional pains, which result in imagining in their dying Mind all sort of known horrible models of premortal sufferings. Immediately after Death, due to the plastic Astral Matter, the models will become the most powerful stimulus to the materialization of most terrible Thought-forms.

The more painful is the uncertainty of the present and the vagueness of the future for the dying, the more they worry about the moment of parting with this World, in which they virtually did not live as themselves. Only their numerous models lived. All their Energy and creativity were spent to manipulate and readjust the surrounding World according to their personal notions of how everything is and how it must be in their estimation. This is a voluntary isolation of the Soul from the surrounding World. It is a real prison, where human beings imprisoned themselves

They do not want to die YET, they are ready literally to «go up the wall», «lay themselves out», and for the smallest delay they are even ready to sell the Soul to anybody, even to the devil. The attachment to the models brings forth a stronger resistance of Consciousness of the dying to a coming Death. The resistance results in a greater insularity and a reduction of the Soul’s inner space where the dying could admit «the other World», approaching closer and more distinctly to them.

Only in such cases of a complete isolation and negation, the process of dying threatens to become an absolute Hell for human beings. If you realize it clearly now, when you are still alive, you may escape it and turn the last moments of your Life into a wonderful possibility to reach spiritual Enlightenment and Liberation. You must only be able to recognize the real source of self-isolation and try to let it go. Most often it is hidden in illusive ideas of the dying about themselves, about their personality, and in non-recognition of their inner spiritual essence.

Inability to become open to the Truth of the present moment, excludes the possibility for the dying to participate actively and creatively in the development of events during their Transition. Though it sounds paradoxically, it is precisely the resistance to the present moment of Life that makes it impossible for us to be ready to accept with dignity the moments of Death-Liberation as a gift of Destiny. This is that shortest path, on which the Soul, free from physical chains, goes towards its own Hell, built by itself.

When your Mind stops its tireless pursuit of satisfaction of all your various desires, when you stop being attached to your knowledge and open yourself to the Truth of every single moment, whatever it might be, then the Hell stops existing for you regardless of whether you die or are still alive.

Also you should not yield to another delusion, for which fall some people who pursue a «beautiful» Death considering themselves «spiritually enlightened teachers» and copying the Death of really Enlightened Beings. It is another dangerous model that not only fails to weaken all your attachments to the World of the living, but, on the contrary, also brings more suffering to you.

Allow your Soul to be actively present in each moment of your passing Life. Do no mix your dreams about your future with your dreams about your wonderful past with a singularity and beauty of the present moment, whatever it might look to your illusory personality. Try to let go self-control. Try to let go all your attachments and sufferings that support the feeling of your separation. Open yourself and enter into each of the present moments, where the models you designed are no longer present.

The refusal from the thirst of Life does not mean the thirst of Death at all. Each of these extremities only shows that human beings are attached to their own body; it is conditioned by a wrong understands of their real «Self». Until you stop considering Death your own enemy, your Life will be a constant battle between your own inner Heaven and your personal Hell.

Your conditioned Mind, urged by fear and anxiety, will continue its constant and feverish movement, which, in itself, is a cause of sufferings and a source of various diseases. Fear, fright, resistance or anger are able only to block your Consciousness; they do not allow you to become open to yourself.

In order to open the Truth, you do not have to strain after being «something or somebody». You do not have to bother your Mind with unfeasible plans for the future to which already you bear no relation. Coming closer and closer to the moment of Death, try to find in each moment a real Life, filled with a deep understanding of your unity with EVERYTHING, but not with an illusive self-admiration and self-praises.

Thanks to such an emotional experience human beings stop to be nervous about their physical demise and start to consider their Death a natural phenomenon of an infinite cycle of Energies and Forces of One Life. In case of convalescence, such an acceptance of Death may change drastically the whole life-style of the former dying. They will no longer take with fear, distrust and pain the changes happening to them and around them, because they will no longer feel dependent on external circumstances and will not become depressed or panic-stricken at the slightest misfortunes.

The closeness and right understanding of Death as a magnificent Transition of the Soul into a better World, in case of convalescence, may change radically the attitude of human beings towards the process of dying. When our views on Death transform so sharply and radically, the fear of our biological temporality disappears, leaving some space in our Mind to admit the possibility of Consciousness’ existence after apparent Death, which we totally rejected before.

Many of the former dying, after their return to Life, have gained a new attitude to the process of Death. For them it is more like a sort of adventure in the sphere of Consciousness, than a principal biological catastrophe. The realization of one’s perishable physical nature can strongly intensify interests of human beings in spiritual and philosophical spheres of Existence, to the derogation of their former strong focus on material problems.

In general, personal philosophical and religious views of the dying influence immensely on their behavior during the Transition and on the way they live the last days of their Life. We must also note that not only circumstances of Death, but also people surrounding the dying at the moment of their natural Death, have vital importance for those who have not reached stability in the practice of «dying» that we suggest and for those who are under a strong influence of external circumstances.

That is why it is extremely important that at the moment of Death any of loving relatives should sit close by the dying and, with deep attention, without ruffle or excitement, at least simply pay attention of the leaving Soul to all the moments of changes that happen to it, which we describe in detail below. If you do not believe in the power of prayers and psalms raising the leaving Consciousness to God, you may simply read our books. And your imagination that the dying listen to you will certainly bring much help and relief both to them and their intimates.

In this respect I would like to tell you a story that happened not so long ago, when I was fasting for forty days in the mountains. At that time one of my acquaintances, Alexander, who lived in Kiev, died in a car accident. His broken-hearted mother called me constantly, trying to find out anything about the postmortal Fate of her only son.

According to his Karma he was not supposed to leave this Life in such a way and that time. His Death was the result of a car accident, but the real cause of it was the urgent need to take from the Physical Plane one of two people: either him, or his mother whose love for her only child was so intensive that it outshined in her heart another, a much more important and spiritual feeling – the Love of a human being to God.

In order to prevent a further spiritual degradation of her substantially developed personality, the possible cause of this fall, her son, was taken away from the woman. The child’s death, - and for a mother her child is always a child, whether he is seven or thirty seven, - is always a fire burning in the mind. The son is no more, but the mother’s mind still continues to invent new possibilities of their joint Life that cannot come true any more.

Marina, my wife, sympathized with her, tried her best to console the poor woman and convince that her son was already in a much better World than ours. But it neither helped, nor convinced her, and the mother’s grief was really enormous. When I finally returned home after my 40-day fast in a cave, Larisa Maksimovna called me again and cried begging me to help her in any way to live through this terrible loss.

I immediately contacted with the energy-information channel of her son’s Soul and «saw» him, joyful as usual, but a bit concerned, accompanied by a woman. He «said»: «Sergey Vasilyevich, please, calm down my mother! Her condition and her tears bring me a great deal of sufferings, because they take away much of my energy.

Tell her and my father that I am all right, that my grandmother met me here and I, while she is in a healthcare center, am going to take care of and help her. Ask my mother to stop disturbing me and live a normal life and take care of her granddaughter. My grandmother and I will meet her, when the proper time comes…»

I told everything to the mother word for word and asked when his grandmother died. She answered that Alexander died 40 days ago, and her mother died 60 days ago. She believed my message and promised to calm down, «since Alexander told her to do so». But at the end of September she called again and again she was crying all the time during our conversation. She said that she invited her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter to live with her, but still no reasons could help her to calm down and resign mind to the Thought that her son is no more.

She said that she hoped very much for my visit to Kiev and was be all agog to see me. I said that those very days the publishing house «Vakler» issued the first volume of my book «Wanderings of the Soul». I gave her its telephone number to order and read the book before my visit. When I came to Kiev and we met, she was an absolutely different person. She understood at last that there is NO DEATH AT ALL, and therefore there is no parting for ever with those we love; there are only short-time separations.

Now this woman is patiently waiting for the end of her own «business trip» to Earth to reunite with her dearest and beloved ones. She believed in God and dedicated to Him that part of her precious feeling that before she intended to give only to one single person. Now she understands: since GOD IS ALL, her Love now spreads not on a single person, but ON EVERYBODY.

Most intensive emotional experience of the loss of those you love first of all happen that very few people at least once in their Lives asked themselves a question: «Was I ever born at all?» The answer to the question determines both the deep understanding of the Death process and the dependence of Consciousness on the fear of Death.

Because only those can die who were born. If you think that it was you who were born at the day considered your date of birth, then it is no wonder that you fear. Then you really are going to die. But at first you should better think over the following question: «Is it at all possible for your higher «Self», for your Soul to be born?»

Identifying yourself with your body that was born, grew up and must die one day, you start to treat all the rest in the same way, that is you start to think: since they were born, they are supposed to die. But tell me, please, did you know your child before it was born? Did you think about it before its birth?

No, the Thought about your child as your son or your daughter appeared in your Mind only after its birth and, if your child was destined for dying before you, the Thought about your child will not disappear after its Death, because you think about it as about your child. You must understand at last, that your Higher «Self», your Spirit exists eternally, and a born physical body simply is vested in the Matter of Thoughts and the Matter of feelings. First find for yourself, where from the Thought appears, - for it is the basis of all our problems.

Only a physical body is born by a mother and only the physical body will die. How can birth and Death influence the eternal «Self»? Do not mix your true Self with you own body, which is only a product of your Thought. If you consider yourself not as your physical body, then, though Thoughts will continue to be as before, they will not influence you any more, because they will not concern your true Self.

Then you will understand that the one who «died» in fact did not die, but simply returned back to one’s Source; that you yourself, your True «Self» also came from the same Source. That is why you will never become separated, even if you consider the person dead. Neither you, nor the person can die, because you both were not born. You, the True One, is eternal. Until you understand this simple Truth, the fact of Death of those you love will always bring you a great grief.

I told you this story only to show what an invaluable benefit you may get from timely information, the one we try to get over to your Consciousness. So many troubles we, both the living and the deceased, can escape, if we knew in details what is awaiting each of us beyond the Death Gates, beyond Death which is a True Life of the Soul.

I told you this story to convince you that it is useful to read our books to your deceased close relatives. In no case they should substitute the reading of prayers and psalms, but only be used as an addition to them. Even if the dying person is in a state of coma, you should talk to him/her as often as possible with all your heart: the person is always close by, he/she hears everything and understands everything, though nothing shows it externally.

Such a conversation helps the dying person to realize the fact that he/she is not at all the one he/she used to consider himself/herself, no the body, because his/her Consciousness exists beyond the physical capsule that does not show any signs of Life. Conversations, reading of sacred books, and a peaceful quiet music may be very useful in such situations.

We cannot give you an example of some «common» or standard variant of the Transition, as it is such an individual process, that it is practically impossible to describe it in full details. Feelings of common people with an average Destiny and ordinary qualities, that constitute the majority, and rarer cases both of people with a hard and gloomy Destiny and of their opposite, Initiates, are quite different.

We hear about Death of Zen Masters, saints, all those we consider outstanding spiritual people, and we learn that they die without any slightest resistance. They become simply Space in Space, Light in Light. As a rule, the Moment of Death is an instant of a Great Peace. Even those, who approach this moment with a feeling of inner worry and anxiety, experience opening of their Self before their Death (though in various degrees). The dying feel that everything will be all right, their Mind and Heart gradually become one whole.

But still in a slight degree there is some average, common for the majority of people and the most probable sequence at first stages of this process. We will try to describe to you its main phases as detailed and thoroughly as possible. For some individuals Death turns into a Great Initiation, when they let themselves enter into even more profound depths of ALL.

At such moments all values of the dying reveal at once. If their feeling of a gradual merging with ALL is only perceived as a loss of everything, what they thought of themselves, then they will experience nothing but fear. Trying inertially to get everything they can from this world, human beings pursue their desires and move farther away from immortality. But as soon as they go beyond the limits of their conditional Mind, their Death turns into Joy, Revelation and merging with Mystery.

Specific eschatological meditations that accompany the emotional experience of one’s own Death provoke, in the imagination of many dying people, such naturalistic visions as coffins, cemeteries, terribly mutilated dead bodies or separate decaying parts of the body, gloomy funerals, etc. All these unpleasant and sometimes most horrible images are connected with the rapid development of the acute feeling of a general biological crisis eating away like rust all organs and vital systems of the physical body. But it is not a real dying. It is only the first out of many signs of its unavoidable approach.

The purpose of all similar deep emotional feelings is to make those, who prepare for leaving this World, realize how vulnerable, terminal and caducous is their perishable physical nature; and by sly degrees bring their Consciousness to a deep crisis of a physical existence. The crisis will make them think carefully not only about the meaning of all their Life, but also about the meaning of the whole Existence. As a result there may be a spiritual reassessment of all their life values in their Consciousness with understanding the importance and priority of spiritual values.

Such eschatological emotional experience help human beings with a lower level of Consciousness to come to understanding of the fact that, irrespective of the type of their activity and their social status in the material World, nobody can escape the moment of parting with all material values, which they accumulated during all their Life, and for acquiring of which they spent so much energy and forces. Everything human beings have managed to get, achieve and collect with so much effort, sooner or later, they will have to leave in this World and transit into the beyond with nothing.

Many people, when they lose all these things, really find themselves absolutely empty inside before their Death, because they have not managed to gather at least a small portion of spiritual values during all their Life. However, even in a purely material Consciousness of those, - who dedicated all their Life to achieve illusory earthly goals, who strained by all means after glory and power, who wanted at any price, mostly unjust one, to win a top social status and take possession of something, - true values, which they missed, begin to shape by the moment of Death.

It is a depressed state of despair and the feeling of being deceived that will constitute a basis of the heavy burden they will take with them to the other World. And they will have to start their new existence with this burden.

STAGES OF DYING

The information we give you is not yet in any database of modern resuscitation, since modern medical science and psychology are still at the approaches to researches of last stages of perception of the dying. All the information that is conveyed to you was obtained during practical researches and astral observations of numerous cases of dying, when Oris’ Consciousness left the physical body. It is up to you to believe it or continue to live with your disbelief…

According to the eastern tradition the human body is primarily formed by Forces of interaction between the five types of Prana called symbolically “elements”: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether; or “airs”: the evenly coming air, the air of sustenance, the ascending, descending, and filling airs.

These five types of Life Energy form an embryo in the mother’s womb, and a tiny thing turns gradually into a body, limbs, head, etc. The same five Pranas, together, continue to support the human being during all his/her Life. And during dying they turn back into the types of Energy that generated them.

At the time of death the interaction of the five “airs” inside of the dense body decreases and one after another they begin to dissolve in the Environment. This process is accompanied with some external, inner and mystical sensations in the shape of smoke, fireflies, mirages, including “the sensation of whiteness, of redness, and of blackness”, which are described in full details at the end of this book.

Every phase of dying is accompanied with a subjective reduction of substantiality, with dithering and gradual dissolution of the contour of the physical form, with expansion beyond the body, followed by the transition of Consciousness into a nondifferentiable state. Less and less information comes to Consciousness from outside, but from inside a tornado of unknown information falls onto the dying. And any resistance, even the slightest one, to this tornado brings nothing but suffering.

During our astral observations of the dying process of various people we found a regular rarely varied pattern; the process of extinction of the central nervous function begins with younger structures responsible for thinking, and it ends with the oldest multiyear formations performing the functions of emotions.

The destruction of the psychic centers starts with Svadhisthana-chakra, the sacral center. When “the evenly coming air” leaves the body, the organism loses the ability to digest food. That is why most of the dying have no appetite. At this time they can only be thirsty to increase the function of the astral body that consists of the water element.

It is obvious to those near the dying that the body lives its last minutes, hours at the most. Therefore, juices and water must always be at hand. Usually, the dying need no intravenous injections at this stage. All the time all efforts should be focused not on cares for the body, but on the purification of Mind and on the opening of the Heart.

When “the air of sustenance” creating physical Energy leaves the body, elements of the physical body begin to dissolve: the Earth element dissolves the in the Water element and it seems to the dying that they sink in something vast and all-encompassing. The body organs gradually stop functioning. The body becomes very heavy, the neck cannot hold the head, the feet cannot hold the body, the arms hang heavily and lie relaxed along the body. The dying can no longer control them. The feeling of heaviness keeps them down, pressing to the bed.

The rough and subtle forms are gradually absorbed by a common whirl of energies and elements, the physical body loses its color, and there is no more strength in the body that used to seem so strong. The feeling of massiveness and solidity of the body weakens; the body becomes pale, with an ugly surface as if covered with fungi; the eyes and nostrils sink in. The dying can no longer move or focus their eyes. They stop blinking.

Eyesight and hearing begin to betray the dying. They hear the voices of people near them, but cannot respond to them, sometimes they feel that it is not them, that there is their real double near by.

The teeth are covered with stains; a liquid constantly runs out of the mouth and nose; and the dying themselves become less sensitive to their sensations and feelings. They cannot move their limbs by themselves. Intestinal peristalsis becomes substantially slower and the bowels require help from outside.

It is essential to help the dying to evacuate feces; it may even require removing it manually. You can regularly use enema, if this does not discomfort a lot, or use natural laxatives, herb teas.

At this time the dying begin to ask to raise them a little. The solidness that supported their self-identification with the body begins to disappear, as if melting in something very huge and vast. As the earth element melts more and more in the water element, the feeling of evanescence and fluidity increases until the dying start to feel as if absolutely everything around them is flowing with them in a continuous, gentle, slowly whirling energy flow.

Imagine desperate attempts of a human being trying to hang on to something solid what in fact is liquid. All subsequent attempts to find any support lead to the increased feeling of lightness and fluidity. All of a sudden, internal images of twinkling silver light appear reminding of heated water.

Due to increased hypoxia (scarcity of oxygen), the field of vision narrows greatly and only a narrow band of central neurons is left. This brings the effect of focal or “tunnel” vision. As a result it seems to the dying that they see a tunnel and light at the end of it.

After the navel center the heart center, Anahata-chakra, begins to destroy: the Water element dissolves in the Fire element. This is the beginning of the phase of the body cooling. Body fluids: blood, urine, saliva, semen and sweat are getting quicly dry. The body temperature begins to decrease immediately. The dying feel severe cold; first their limbs and then all their body is getting colder until finally the warmth remains only in the Heart.

Therefore, as long as the Heart remains warm human beings are still alive. When the Heart also gets cold, Life leaves the physical body for ever. It is good to keep an electric hot plate in the room to boil water, heat some meal, and be next to the dying all the time.

At the state of agonizing Consciousness, all extrinsic stimuli are cut off bringing disappearance of the feeling of linear time. During this phase the dying are no longer able to orientate independently in time; the sensitive capacity of Consciousness expands, and an immense amount of information kept at the unconscious level appears in the memory; often Consciousness begins to experience incredibly beautiful and light flights in Outer Space, existence in other planets, etc.

The feeling of fluidity becomes like a warm fog. Flows of substances in the body become slower. Consciousness becomes unclear and clouded. The dying begin to feel an intellectual burden, a strong internal discomfort, there may be all sorts of hallucinations that excite or frighten them.

Actually the dying start to submerge more and more to the depths of their own Consciousness, - into the collective unconscious of humankind; or even deeper, - into the information field of Earth. We noticed that the clearer it the state of Consciousness of the dying, the more colorful, logically coherent, saturated and distinct in their content are pictures that appear in the form of various visions and recollections from their Life.

At this phase of dying they should on no account attach their Consciousness to the things that so quickly appear and immediately melt away. We call this very attachment Purgatory, the resistance to what must happen with infernal fear of the necessity of each next revealing.

Each coming picture reflect a person’s character. The evil by nature have a great fear and see monstrous Thought-forms whereas the kind may experience heavenly and sublime visions. At this time the dying stop recognizing their relatives around them, their look stop to respond to external irritants staring into vacancy.

When the dying feel anxious, even a cold napkin on their forehead might be sufficient to soothe them. You may put on calm music and hold tenderly their hand and caress their head. Try to remember something pleasant from your common recollections.

It is helpful to hang an icon of Christ, the Blessed Virgin or Buddha (if this corresponds to their religion) in a place where the dying could see it. A beautiful photograph or a daintily made painting may help them to concentrate, reduce the anxiety, and enhance a deep feeling of Being. If the dying do not ask you, try not to tell them your opinion concerning the way they should die. At least let them die themselves.

The mouth and eyes become parched, the blood circulation reduces drastically and blood pressure drops strongly. Finally, the blood stops circulating in the vessels and is collected in the lower parts of body. That is why the dying have the feeling of lightness; it seems to them that the body is hovering in the air. The physical body no longer feels pain, suffering, and even indifference. The dying begin to understand that the feeling of happiness, suffering and indifference have the same nature. They do not see any more any difference between physical and mental experiences.

When the Fire elements dissolve, the dying begin to be very thirsty; they cannot satisfy the thirst; their lips get very dry and get split. When “the descending air” leave the body, human beings completely lose control over such automatic functions of the body as urination, and intestinal evacuation. In order to keep the bed dry and clean you should prepare in advance napkins and diapers. Digestion stops.

When the Fire element dissolves and turns into the Air element, the feeling of cold and warmth is completely absent and external conditions are no longer of any importance. The body becomes so cold that it begins to turn pale.

The feeling of lightness, like an ascending current of warmth, becomes a primary focus of Consciousness. It is quickly converted into the feeling of dissolution into subtler Space. The sense of smell leaves the body. The dying begin to see fire sparkles like shimmering stars rising far away.

When the Air element dissolves, the dying feel themselves soaring at the edge of a vast and very deep abyss without any support beneath. Everything around them becomes incredibly huge, moving continuously, leadening. The one, who remembers all previous earthly actions of the human being, his/her success and “importance”, is dissolved. The dying lose notions of the purpose and sense of secular activities. Everything loses its significance and seems idle.

As the Air element expands and turns into Consciousness itself, the warmth as if dissolves leaking into the Space vastness bringing the feeling of vastitude and infinity of EVERYTHING. Again, the slightest resistance brings severe sufferings, and vice versa the desire to float in this process only intensifies the feeling of expansion of Consciousness, of melting beyond the limits of solidity and of a more complete dissolution in the Divine Reality.

The disappearance of “the ascending air” complicates swallowing movements. Therefore, at this time liquid food may be given to the dying through a special syringe or it can be frozen and given as a candy. You can also give water in the form of ice-cubes or by a wet sponge pressed to the lips. The voice is distorted greatly, it is hard to speak and the eyes lose their sharpness and roll up showing the whites.

Muscle activity of the lungs slows down and the breathing of those close to Death becomes intermittent and not deep. Due to the difficulty during inhale, exhales are much longer, which brings asphyxia and death rattle.

At this time it is useful to have a little vessel with oxygen at hand; but even a touch of your hand to the heart of the dying or slight rubbing of the forehead can also remove the anxiety. Gradually exhales as if dissolve and disappear. There is no more perception of the body and its functions. Remains only the feeling of expansion and connection to ALL, the feeling of being dissolved in pure Being.

Soon the breathing stops completely. Taste also disappears. Tactile sensibility is also lost. The dying cannot any longer distinguish things by their surface. A vision of a dim red-bluish light appears like last gleams of a candle in a dark room.

When “the filling air” leaves the body, the dying become unable to move independently. They look absolutely like a corpse, but they are not dead yet. Then dissolve illusions of a separate reality of what we call “my mind”, “my Consciousness”. Dualistic conceptual prejudices of an obtuse aberrant mind are dissolving. There is no more hearing. The ears cease to detect the outward world sounds.

At this phase everything vaporizes out of the body and the body itself is left behind. A steady depletion of the body’s energy means that some qualities of elements, like solidity, fluidity, temperature and flow are no more dominating and there is only a free hovering of Consciousness.

Then come visions of great whiteness, like a night cloudless sky in warm autumn with full moon. They are changed by the vision of redness, like a copper-colored sunset over the whole sky.

At this moment the clairvoyant may see a gradual escape of the human Soul from the physical body with its Existents, which contain the experience of its present and all past Lives. Gradually, the vision of the dying turns into the ascent of clear Light. It is the vision of shining empty Space, like a clear sky after a continuous heavy rain. This is the clear Light of Death.

Within several instants Consciousness’s shining is greater than a thousand of suns and the dying experience in the form of Light the Divine Reality, which is the source of EVERYTHING created. What is called “the process of dying” comes to an end. The duration of these experiences vary with different people and depends primarily on a spiritual level of the dying and their willingness to open themselves to this Truth, to trust it and prefer it to anything else.

Along with the Soul’s release, there is a gradual release of biofields from various body organs. It happens in the following order: adrenal glands “die” first, 7-11 hours after real Death, not apparent one; then, after 17-19 hours, the liver biofield leaves the physical body; then, after 28-40 hours, kidneys turn into dead pieces of decomposing flesh.

Consciousnesses of the gastrointestinal tract, composed of Consciousnesses of the pancreatic gland, small intestine, ascending and descending colon, and rectum, completely leave the body within 30-65 hours.

The stages of dying and element dissolution described above may have another sequence, for the dying process is very individual. The gradual Soul release lasts from 20 minutes to several hours; and those doctors who state that Death comes instantly are grossly mistaken.

In one case the phases of element dissolution happen in the above sequence. Sometimes they have quite a different order: some phases can be more intense and loner, others can be very short. All depends on personal features: organization of the body, the state of energy centers and channels, and the cause of death.

The internal dissolution and release from the body is accompanied with some external phenomena, which medical officers relate to the cessation of some primary body functions.

When this or that type of Energy maintaining separate systems leaves the body, its presence in the systems is less detectible. In a moment some vital functions stop being perceptible, though the processes can still go on for some time. The moment, when most of the body functions cannot be detected, is generally called “the moment of Death”.

The Author’s Foreword

Metamorphosis of Death

THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH

NOBODY DIES

DYING

STAGES OF DYING

THE MOMENT OF DEATH

SIGNS OF THE COMING OF DEATH

A CONVERSATION WITH THE TEACHER