THOUGHTS ON DEATH

I've just been reading some of Nora Ephron's thoughts on death in an extract from her book I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK, published in today's DAILY MAIL. Nora, who died on Tuesday aged 71, was, of course, the award-winning screenwriter whose credits include WHEN HARRY MET SALLY and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE.

It was thanks to her that my daughter won a luxury long weekend in New York (and took me with her!) a few years ago. How did that happen? One Saturday morning there was a quiz about WHEN HARRY MET SALLY on Capital Radio and Caroline rang in (it being her all-time favorite film back then), answered all the questions correctly - and WON first prize.

So I was sad to learn of Nora's death, but loved reading these thoughts of hers as she faced her own mortality: 'As for instructions for my funeral, I suppose I could come up with a few. For example, if there's a reception afterward, I know what sort of food I would like served: those little finger sandwiches from this place on Lexington Avenue called William Poll. And champagne would be nice. I love champagne. It's so festive.

But otherwise, I don't have a clue. I haven't even worked out whether I want to be buried or cremated - largely because I've always worried that cremation in some way lowers your chances of being reincarnated. (If there is such a thing.) (Which I know there isn't.) (And yet ... )

In a few minutes I will have finished writing this piece, and I will go back to life itself. Squirrels have made a hole in the roof, and we don't quite know what to do about it. Soon it will rain; we should probably take the cushions inside. I need more bath oil.

And that reminds me to say something about bath oil. I use this bath oil I happen to love. It's called Dr Hauschka's lemon bath. It costs about £15 a bottle, which is enough for about two weeks of baths if you follow the instructions. The instructions say one capful per bath. But a capful gets you nowhere. A capful is not enough. I have known this for a long time.

But if the events of the last few years have taught me anything, it's that I'm going to feel like an idiot if I die tomorrow and I skimped on bath oil today.

So I use quite a lot of bath oil. More than you could ever imagine. After I take a bath, my bathtub is as dangerous as an oil slick. But thanks to the bath oil, I'm as smooth as silk.

I'm going out to buy more, right now. Goodbye.'

FINDING DIVINE BLISS

How do we set about finding divine bliss? In at least one previous blog post I've mentioned James van Praagh's bestselling book TALKING TO HEAVEN (available via my Spiritual Store). Now I'd like to share with you his thoughts on meditation:

'It gives one solace to know that in a cold, disheartening world, where tragedy and intolerance appear to dominate, and the reasonable and rational self is nothing but a dream, a refuge exists where love stands supreme. It is a world of unlimited potential intermingled with divine bliss. This world of delight is available to everyone who chooses to open that door. Where is this place of contentment and love? This domain of peace is found in SILENCE. It is the silence of being ... just being. For it is in the golden silence of our own selves that the divine is found.

When we center ourselves and listen to that still small voice within, we are tapping into the silence of being.  This self-knowingness can be utilized in every aspect of life to ripen and enrich every experience. So many people go through their daily lives in search of their purpose for living. They bemoan their fate and suffer so. If they would just take a simple moment to stop and listen to their inner voice, they would begin to open themselves up to a level of indefatigable understanding. But how do we get to this SILENCE? How do we tap into our inner knowingness? How do we discern our inner voice? The answer to these questions, and the best way I know, is through meditation.

What is meditation? Simply, meditation is a focus of consciousness from one state of being to another. In essence, we turn off the outside, everyday world and tune in to, or become aware of, our inside world. When we sit in silence and begin to focus our attention inwardly, the awareness of self is strengthened and the spiritual dimensions of the soul are revealed ... '

I strongly recommend that you read TALKING TO HEAVEN and find out more about finding divine bliss and about a medium's message of life after death from James van Praagh direct. As for actual guided meditations that I can wholeheartedly suggest - here are some that I use and love: MEDITATIONS.

AFTER A DEATH - Animal Help

In his bestselling book TALKING TO HEAVEN, James Van Praagh tells us this inspiring story:

'Animals are often used by spirit. Many times spirit beings can influence a bird or small animal to come by us to get our attention in some way. It is another sign of their nearness to us. A good friend of mine died in February. I went to New York, which was buried under two feet of snow, to visit her outdoor crypt.

I had trouble locating it when suddenly a truck pulled up and a groundskeeper stepped out. "You're staring right at it," he said. I thanked him, and he went back to his truck and drove away. I thought it strange that he just happened to come by at that very moment. After he left, I looked up to her niche and next to it, a bright blue jay perched itself on the branch of a tree. Mind you, it was very cold with snow everywhere. I didn't think it so unusual until later that afternoon when I visited her husband, Jack, at their home.

I walked in the door and Jack's first words were, "If you want anything of Connie's, please take it." I turned my head to the right and there on a shelf was a glass bluebird staring back at me.'

DEATH

On my Facebook page a month or so ago, I gave a short extract about death from Kahlil Gibran's THE PROPHET. It has now occurred to me that you might like to see the extract in its entirety. So here it is:

'Then Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of death. And he said:

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, than shall you truly dance.'

 The Prophet is now obtainable from My Spiritual Store ...

LIFE AFTER LIFE

In his brilliant book LIFE AFTER LIFE Dr Raymond Moody tells us:

‘What is perhaps the most incredible common element in the accounts I have studied, and is certainly the element which has the most profound effect upon the individual, is the encounter with a very bright light. Typically, at its first appearance this light is dim, but it rapidly gets brighter until it reaches an unearthly brilliance. Yet, even though this light (usually said to be white or "clear") is of an indescribable brilliance, many make the specific point that it does not in any way hurt their eyes, or dazzle them, or keep them from seeing other things around them (perhaps because at this point they don't have physical "eyes" to be dazzled).

Despite the light's unusual manifestation, however, not one person has expressed any doubt whatsoever that it was a being, a being of light. Not only that, it is a personal being. It has a very definite personality. The love and the warmth that emanate from this being to the dying person are utterly beyond words, and he feels completely surrounded by it and taken up in it, completely at ease and accepted in the presence of this being. He senses an irresistible magnetic attraction to this light. He is ineluctably drawn to it.

Interestingly, while the above description of the being of light is utterly invariable, the identification of the being varies from individual to individual and seems to be largely a function of the religious background, training, or beliefs of the person involved. Thus, most of those who are Christians in training or belief identify the light as Christ and sometimes draw Biblical parallels in support of their interpretation.

A Jewish man and woman identified the light as an "angel." It was clear, though, in both cases, that the subjects did not mean to imply that the being had wings, played a harp, or even had a human shape or appearance. There was only the light. What each was trying to get across was that they took the being to be an emissary, or a guide. A man who had had no religious beliefs or training at all prior to his experience simply identified what he saw as "a being of light." The same label was used by one lady of the Christian faith, who apparently did not feel any compulsion at all to call it the "Christ."

Shortly after its appearance, the being begins to communicate with the person who is passing over. Notably, this communication is of the same direct kind which we encountered earlier in the description of how a person in the spiritual body may "pick up the thoughts" of those around him. For, here again, people claim that they did not hear any physical voice or sounds coming from the being, nor did they respond to the being through audible sounds. Rather, it is reported that direct, unimpeded transfer of thoughts takes place, and in such a clear way that there is no possibility whatsoever either of misunderstanding or of lying to the light.

Furthermore, this unimpeded exchange does not even take place in the native language of the person. Yet, he understands perfectly and is instantaneously aware. He cannot even translate the thoughts and exchanges that took place while he was near death into the human language which he must speak now, after his resuscitation.

The next step of the experience clearly illustrates the difficulty of translating from this unspoken language ... ‘

(To find Dr Moody's book LIFE AFTER LIFE - just click the live link in my opening sentence!) 

LIFE AFTER DEATH

Do you often look, as I do, at Nature's gifts to us and marvel over all the evidence we see around us of life after death?

Plants and trees that seem to die in winter return to life in the spring. Flowers wither, but will bloom again on a new stem.

We are surely no different. I was just reading a feature about Britain's most accurate medium, Gordon Smith, who has written the book 'Intuitive Studies: A Complete Course In Mediumship'.

When Gordon was seven or eight a friend of his mother's passed him on the street and stopped for a chat. But when he told his Mum about this she became very upset - because the man in question had died the previous week!

Thanks to his mother's reaction, Gordon learned to keep quiet about his subsequent experiences - until his early 20s, when a friend's brother died in a house fire.  At 3 am he appeared in Gordon's bedroom, but had vanished through the floorboards before Gordon could speak. It turned out the next morning that he had died at that exact time.

I find nothing strange in such manifestations of life after death. It seems to me an absolutely natural process that our spirit lives on when we leave our flesh.

GHOSTS

This rich Elizabethan merchant's house, built around 1575, is now the Totnes Museum. When run as a tea shop, pre-1958, its owner maintained that it had two ghosts - a man and a woman.  And I gather from Bob Mann's excellent little book The Ghosts Of Totnes that just before the close of the 1992 season a teenaged boy ran down the stairs in 'a very shocked condition' after seeing a ghostly figure in the reconstructed Victorian grocer's shop - where someone else also said she was aware of a 'presence'.

Ghosts do seem to frequent Totnes, don't they? Maybe one of these days I'll see the ghost of Mary Wesley, who once lived just beyond my garden boundary.  If I do, I'll be sure to tell you!