"And what if she dies?" Zac asked.
"Then she'll return home, to love and peace and serenity. She'll no longer be in pain. Remember, Zac — death is an illusion. The child's soul cannot not exist. As God says, 'Life is eternal. You are immortal. You never do die. You simply change form.' He even talks about this death process here…"
Excuse me, but I have to interrupt you again here. What about the person who is sick, but has the faith that will move mountains —and so thinks, says, and believes he’s going to get better… only to die six weeks later. How does that square with all this positive thinking, affirmative action stuff?
That’s good. You’re asking the tough questions. That’s good. You’re not simply taking My word for any of this. There is a place, on down the line, when you’ll have to take My word for this — because eventually you’ll find that we can discuss this thing forever, you and I — until there’s nothing left to do but to “try it or deny it.” But we’re not at that place yet. So let’s keep the dialogue going; let’s keep talking — The person who has the “faith to move mountains,” and dies six weeks later, has moved mountains for six weeks. That may have been enough for him. He may have decided, on the last hour of the last day, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I’m ready to go on now to another adventure.” You may not have known of that decision, because he may not have told you. The truth is, he may have made that decision quite a bit earlier — days, weeks earlier — and not have told you; not have told anyone.
You have created a society in which it is very not okay to want to die — very not okay to be very okay with death. Because you don’t want to die, you can’t imagine anyone wanting to die — no matter what their circumstances or condition.
But there are many situations in which death is preferable to life — which I know you can imagine if you think about it for even a little bit. Yet, these truths don’t occur to you — they are not that self-evident — when you are looking in the face of someone else who is choosing to die. And the dying person knows this. She can feel the level of acceptance in the room regarding her decision.
Have you ever noticed how many people wait until the room is empty before they die? Some even have to tell their loved ones—“No, really, go. Get a bite to eat.” Or “Go, get some sleep. I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.” And then, when the loyal guard leaves, so does the soul from the body of the guarded.
If they told their assembled relatives and friends, “I just want to die,” they would really hear it. “Oh, you don’t mean that,” or “Now, don’t talk that way,” or “Hang in there,” or “Please don’t leave me.”
The entire medical profession is trained to keep people alive, rather than keeping people comfortable so that they can die with dignity. You see, to a doctor or a nurse, death is failure. To a friend or relative, death is disaster. Only to the soul is death a relief — a release. The greatest gift you can give the dying is to let them die in peace — not thinking that they must “hang on,” or continue to suffer, or worry about you at this most crucial passage in their life.
So this is very often what has happened in the case of the man who says he’s going to live, believes he’s going to live, even prays to live: that at the soul level, he has “changed his mind.” It is time now to drop the body to free the soul for other pursuits. When the soul makes this decision, nothing the body does can change it. Nothing the mind thinks can alter it. It is at the moment of death that we learn who, in the body-mind-soul triumvirate, is running things.
All your life you think you are your body. Some of the time you think you are your mind. It is at the time of your death that you find out Who You Really Are.
Now there are also times when the body and the mind are just not listening to the soul. This, too, creates the scenario you describe. The most difficult thing for people to do is hear their own soul. (Notice that so few do.)
Now it happens often that the soul makes a decision that it is time to leave the body. The body and the mind — ever servants of the soul — hear this, and the process of extrication begins. Yet the mind (ego) doesn’t want to accept. After all, this is the end of its existence. So it instructs the body to resist death. This the body does gladly, since it too does not want to die. The body and the mind (ego) receive great encouragement, great praise for this from the outside world — the world of its creation. So the strategy is confirmed.
Now at this point everything depends on how badly the soul wants to leave. If there is no great urgency here, the soul may say, “Alright, you win. I’ll stick around with you a little longer.” But if the soul is very clear that staying does not serve its higher agenda — that there is no further way it can evolve through this body — the soul is going to leave, and nothing will stop it — nor should anything try to.
The soul is very clear that its purpose is evolution. That is its sole purpose — and its soul purpose. It is not concerned with the achievements of the body or the development of the mind. These are all meaningless to the soul.
The soul is also clear that there is no great tragedy involved in leaving the body. In many ways, the tragedy is being in the body. So you have to understand, the soul sees this whole death thing differently. It, of course, sees the whole “life thing” differently, too — and that is the source of much of the frustration and anxiety one feels in one’s life. The frustration and anxiety comes from not listening to one’s soul.
Neale Donald Walsch
