The Christian prayer book is sadly lacking in prayers and rituals that would serve at the bedside of a person who is dying, for those who would find this helpful or comforting. In the hope of inspiring readers to send in suitable items, new or old, that could fit in a revised missal, here is The Natural Death Centre's ecumenicised adaptation of extracts from The Tibetan Book of Dead (adapted from The Psychedelic Experience edited by Leary, Metzner and Alpert, published by Citadel Press, 120 Enterprise Avenue, Secaucus. NJ 07094, USA, 1990, ISBN 0 8065 0552 4).
It is not necessary to be imminently physically dying to benefit from such meditations, as the Lama Anagarika Govinda makes clear in the introduction: 'It is one of the oldest and most universal practices for the initiate to go through the experience of death before he can be spiritually reborn. Symbolically he must die to his past and to his old ego, before he can take his place in the new spiritual life into which he has been initiated. The earnest practitioner of these teachings should regard every moment of his or her life as if it were the last.'
O nobly born
The time may soon come for you to seek new levels of reality.
You may soon be set face to face with the Clear Light.
You may soon experience it in its reality.
The state in which all things are like the void and the cloudless sky,
And the naked spotless intellect is like a transparent vacuum;
At this moment, know yourself and abide in that state.
Concentrate on the unity of all living beings.
Hold onto the Clear Light.
Use it to attain understanding and love.
Remember the unity of all living things.
Remember the bliss of the Clear Light.
O nobly born
Try to reach and keep the experience of the Clear Light.
Your own awareness, not formed into anything possessing form or colour, is naturally void.
The Final Reality.
The All Good.
The All Peaceful.
The Light.
The Radiance.
The movement is the fire of life from which we all come.
Join it.
It is part of you.
Beyond the light of life is the peaceful silence of the void.
The quiet bliss beyond all transformations.
The Void is not nothingness.
The Void is beginning and end itself.
Unobstructed; shining, thrilling, blissful.
Diamond consciousness.
Your own consciousness, not formed into anything,
No thought, no vision, no colour, is void.
This is the state of perfect enlightenment.
Your own consciousness, shining, void and inseparable from the great body of radiance, has no birth, nor death.
It is the immutable light.
O nobly born, remember:
When the body and mind separate, you experience a glimpse of the pure truth -
Subtle, sparkling, bright,
Dazzling, glorious and radiantly awesome,
In appearance like a mirage moving across a landscape in springtime.
Neither be daunted nor terrified.
That is the radiance of your own true nature.
Recognise it.
From the midst of that radiance
Comes the natural sound of reality,
Reverberating like a thousand thunders sounding at once.
That is the natural sound of your own life process.
Be neither daunted nor terrified.
O nobly born
These realms are not come from somewhere outside your self,
They come from within and shine upon you.
Know them to be of that nature.
The key to enlightenment and serenity during the period of the thousand visions is simply this:
Relax.
Merge yourself with them.
Become neither attached nor afraid,
Neither be attracted nor repulsed.
They exist only within you.
O nobly born
The Radiant Energy of the Seed
From which come all living forms,
Shoots forth and strikes against you
With a light so brilliant that you will scarcely be able to look at it.
Do not be frightened.
This is the Source Energy which has been radiating for billions of years,
Ever manifesting itself in different forms.
Accept it.
Merge with it.
Let it flow through you.
Lose yourself in it.
Fuse in the Halo of Rainbow Light
In the core of the energy dance.
O nobly born
You are flowing outward into the fluid unity of life.
The ecstasy of organic fire glows in every cell.
The hard, dry, brittle husks of your selfhead are washing out,
Washing out to the endless sea of creation.
Flow with it.
Feel the pulse of the sun's heart.
Do not fear the ecstasy.
Do not resist the flow.
Remember, all the exultant power comes from within.
Release your attachment.
Recognise the wisdom of your own blood.
Trust the tide-force pulling you into unity with all living forms.
Let your heart burst in love for all life.
Do not try to hold on to your old bodily fears.
Let your body merge with the warm flux.
Float in the Rainbow Sea.
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
Book Orders: The Before and After book in which this piece appears is out of print. To order any of the other books that make up the Global Ideas Bank.
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