Death - Word of Untruth           

Death?
No-one should fear that untruth: "Death".
That sad old word
Of manmade threats and fables of extinction
With all Awareness' end.

confidence should be of change -
Individual, Free and blessed
With immeasurable Peace -
And calm relief from body pain.

For the body, transient giver of senses:
Sight, scent and music hearing or the softest touch;
Serving child, teenager and, maybe parent or lover,
In chemistry moves to sinking, like the beauty of a
                                               once bright sun
Likewise dissolves; its purpose served.

But the eternal core, the soul within
Is caught up into the infinite wonder of a loving God

And
In fine gossamer substance that is, yet, Aware,
Shedding problems of worry, grief or pain,
Rejoins the millions who have gone before,
In beauty of spirit places that transcend this lovely earth
Peopled by loved ones of brightness
And their gentle embracing welcome....
                                                     Eric Gladwin 1991

Cradle - Song

This year
we had a cradle
at the foot of our bed.

Oh, not the kind we used to have
where slumbering babies slept
securely wrapped,
but one that kept the bed-clothes
off your legs:
even the lightest sheet
put too much pressure
on your shell-thin feet.

Now you are gone
covers lie flat again
But the weight of your absence
is a blanket of heaviness.

I knew we had to part
and do rejoice
at your relief from pain,
but how I long to hear your voice -
that vibrant baritone
which often reached
further than you intended,
for you had no whisper.

I wish I had a cradle
to keep this grief
from pressing on my heart.
                              Mary Sheepshanks
                              Thinning Grapes

No medicine that does not acknowledge the ever-present reality of death deserves to be visited on mankind, whether it is called orthodox, traditional, scientific, allopathic, homeopathic, new age, alter native, or holistic.  Any medicine that denies death is grotesque and cruel because it promotes fear and anguish instead of the ecstatic certainty of immortality.  Whether or not death is fully acknowledged as a rightful part of life is the great watershed for the various schools of medicine that ask for our allegiance today.  It does not make any ultimate difference whether pills and surgery are traded for herbs, crystals, meditation, homeopathy, chiropractic, massage, or anything else.  If death is not an accepted step in therapy, these therapies have no right to claim our attention.  Beyond the question of how well they work, the ultimate criterion for all of them is the extent to which they acknowledge and live consciously with death.  If they fail this acid test they are unfit to be used on human beings, for they will themselves be death in disguise.
                                                                        Larry Dossey - Recovering the Soul

This pain, this biting, burning aching flesh holds me to the earth.  In its solid gnawing reality I take refuge from the tempest that would overwhelm, and carry me away to oceans too deep to escape without damaging that precious part I hold like a fragile pearl in the shell of my skull.  My mind.
  I could not surface from such pressure unscathed.  Could I?  I could not hold my breath and rise on a silver stream of bubbles so far up from the dark?  For who knows what monsters lurk in this ocean - all far more terrible than physical pain - what grief, what rage, what emptiness will take its place.  And yet the pain is part of me now.  It is no shield yet I cannot shed it.
  Then suddenly a line was thrown to me from one I did not know.  I caught it in her healing touch.  And armoured by her hopeful, joyous grasp I started to ascend and knew I would not drown.
                                                                          Janet

...what is it really that you own in this life as truly yours?  Is it your bodies or your consciousness?
                                                                          Kyriakos Markides - Fire in the Heart

...the noble truth of suffering is the first step on the path to the eradication of suffering.  But suffering is the essential lens, as the microscope is to the bacteriologist...
                                                                          Paul R Fleischman - The Healing Spirit
 
For every disease cured by doctors they cause a dozen others, by injecting patients with the most virulent agent of all: the idea that one is ill.
                                                                          Marcel Proust
 
There once was an old sage who was close to dying.  His followers could see this, and reverently gathered round him to hear his dying words.  The most senior of his followers approached the old man and said, "Now you are close to death, Master, can you tell me the secret of the path to enlightenment?"  The old man raised his arm weakly, and called his successor close to him to whisper in his ear so no one else could hear.  At first his successor looked perplexed, then he smiled and began to laugh until both of them were roaring with laughter.
  Soon after this the old man died and the one who had received the secret took his place.  All could see how his wisdom deepened and his followers wondered what the secret could be.
  Now many years passed and he in turn was old and nearing the end of his life.  By tradition he called up his successor to pass on the secret of the path to enlightenment.  The same scene followed.  He whispered in the ear of his successor.  The successor was clearly astonished.  Both roared with laughter.
  The story of this lineage spread and many came to learn from them.  The leader, after being told the secret, visibly grew spiritually, so that all who came into contact with him wondered what this secret could be and why it was so funny.
  I know you are now all wondering what the secret might be.  Well, I can tell you, because I overheard the old sage when he was close to dying and whispering to our present leader.  It was this: "If I were to tell you 'the secret of the path to enlightenment', it would spoil all the fun of finding out for yourself, so I am not going to tell you!"
                                                                              Story from the Garden Deva
 

You may quote from or reproduce these editorial clips if you include the following credits and email contact:
Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 1992 Reprinted with permission of the author P.O. Box 76 Bellmawr, NJ 08099
www.WholisticHealingResearch.com   DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com 

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