Through Death's Gate: A Guide to Selfless Dying [Paperback]

Joel Morwood (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0962038717 | ISBN-13: 978-0962038716 | Publication Date: December 1995

This spiritual handbook provides essential mystical teachings and practices for spiritual practitioners who are facing imminent death. It will also benefit their friends, relatives, and fellow practitioners who may not presently be facing immanent death but wish to be spiritually prepared for it.

The spiritual instructions and practices contained in this guide draw upon the mystical classics of various religions to help you take full advantage of the precious opportunity for Spiritual Awakening which death presents to those who are properly prepared. In particular, this handbook contains three fundamental practices to help you transform your own death from a terrifying ordeal into what the Sufi poet, Rumi, called our "wedding with eternity."

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Although none of us can choose not to die, we can choose how to die. The real question, then, is: When the Angel of Death knocks at your door, how will you greet him? Are you going to receive him as a venerable teacher, or resist him as you would a thief in the night? Are you going to force Death to drag you off to the gallows like a condemned criminal? Or are you going to take Death's hand willingly, as you would that of a Divine Lover who beckons you to one last dance before your present life is over and a new one dawns?

Those who choose the latter course will, in fact, find that death has a second great blessing to confer. Not only does it awaken us to the futility of all worldly pursuits, but, as the Christian mystic, Simone Weil, wrote: "Death will ultimately open for us an instant when, for an infinitesimal fraction of time, pure truth, naked, certain, and eternal enters the soul. I may say that I have never desired any other good for myself."

Indeed, if you think about it you will see that, as a spiritual practitioner, you have actually been trying to 'die' all along. For it is only by dying to your separate self that you can discover the Truth which, as Jesus said, makes us free from all suffering and death forever. And while this spiritual death is not the same as physical death, nevertheless, the passage through Death's Gate will bring you to the very threshold of that other Gate--the Gate of Gnosis-- which leads from form to Formlessness, from the finite to the Infinite. Here, stripped naked and standing between two worlds, as it were, you will find that literally nothing bars the way. At this point (as we shall see) it is simply a matter of recognizing this 'nothing' for what it truly is--Pure Consciousness, Itself. This is why all spiritual traditions have considered physical death to offer a supreme opportunity for attaining the ultimate "death of deaths"....provided, of course, you are properly prepared.

Product Details

• Paperback: 83 pages
• Publisher: Center for Sacred Sciences (December 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962038717
• ISBN-13: 978-0962038716
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,502,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Facing Death or for Being There Helpfully, September 9, 2009

By 

Sylvia Hawley (Springfield, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Through Death's Gate: A Guide to Selfless Dying (Paperback)

Here is a small book with a large value. The author has brought much ancient wisdom from Tibet into terms relevant for us today. For a spiritual, conscious death, he recommends a death prayer peopled with whoever inspires you, is your image of the divine or is the ultimate symbol to you of peace, contentment and trust.

There is help here for those who are the friends and partners or helpers. There is instruction from the ancients.

As noted also by Eckhart Tolle, the experience of dying is an opportunity for full awakening. As reported in Tibetan sacred literature and in this book, really a booklet, there are eight phases in the process of dying and when we come to the place of heartbeat and breath stopping, we are half-way through. The next four phases can take about a half hour in time and this means if you are the companion to one dying, you should remain present, in contact, fearlessly and calmly supporting the one who on death's journey. That one will encounter a series of visions in which full awakening is possible. Death coaching means letting people know that whatever they encounter, to hold calm certainty, such as cultivated through meditation on one's death prayer, and fear not.

Joel also tells us that sometimes what your friend or loved one needs is to know someone will pay the bills or water the plants, take care of everyday business, communicate with others on behalf of the person who is passing. Someone may need to act as a secretary. Someone else may need to be close in a calm and encouraging way.

I feel this is one of Joel's best works. It is a little book and one that has helped me be a friend and helper at times and also to prepare my own death prayer, peopled with only beloved figures of compassion and wisdom. Joel recommends getting proficient with one's death prayer long before it is needed because when that time comes, we might not be as strong. Planning ahead for the culminating adventure of this lifetime in a spiritual way is encouraging and reassuring and empowering in and of itself.