Dying To Be Me is a wonderful book that will leave you feeling inspired and with a renewed zest for life. Anita Moorjani's story is astounding: from a life threatening bout with cancer, through a near death experience (NDE) and onto a miraculous recovery, the vividness and immediacy of this tale will grab the reader. This may be one of the finest, most detailed NDE books to date.
The author recounts growing up in Hong Kong amidst varied cultures and languages, and her efforts both to fit in with her peers and still please her traditional Hindu parents. While there were great benefits to this multicultural background (the author is fluent in English, Cantonese, French and Sindh - a dialect of Hindi), there was some confusion and tension as well. As the book goes on, we learn that the fear of not pleasing others and putting others first laid the groundwork for the cancer that set in later.
Shortly after watching two loved ones die of cancer, Moorjani herself gets diagnosed with lymphoma, and is ordered to begin chemotherapy and radiation. Still reeling from seeing the ravaging effects of these treatments on her best friend and her husband's relative, the author rejects conventional treatment and seeks out alternative therapies. Things seem to go well at first, but soon the author is gravely ill, riddled with tumors, and dying.
Here's where the story gets fascinating: Moorjani is rushed to the
hospital, where she falls into a coma, and is all but dead for 30 hours. The doctors tell her family that she is in complete organ failure, too ill to even withstand most of their treatment options. Her brother boards a plane in India, ready to fly to Hong Kong to be with her.
It turns out that Moorjani, in her coma, hears and sees all of this as she enters a field of expanded consciousness. She tries to speak to her relatives, to comfort them, but soon becomes aware of the state of bliss she is in -- no bodily pain for the first time in years, but more importantly, a sense of unconditional love and acceptance. The author's description of this encounter with pure love, timelessness, and "oneness" are beautiful and deeply moving. Soon, Moorjani realizes that she must make a decision, whether to "die" or come back. The author returns, and confounds the doctors with her amazing recovery. Her relatives and hospital staff are mystified when she recounts conversations and procedures that happened while she was comatose, and how she "saw" her brother in India. Within a few brief weeks, and after multiple scans and biopsies are clear, Moorjani is pronounced cancer free and allowed to leave the hospital.
However, these seem like parlor tricks compared to the real lessons that she brings back from the other side: how to be yourself, to "allow" things to happen, and to live life fearlessly and with passion. Moorjani learns to build a new life that doesn't revolve around being ill, and gradually begins to tell others of her life altering experience. (We find the theme of "allowing" takes an interesting turn with all of the synchronicities involved in publishing this book.) It's Moorjani's main message, to live life fearlessly, that is the real inspiration here and Dying To Be Me is just what the world needs right
now.
Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani on Amazon.com
For more information, please visit www.anitamoorjani.com
More from MerlianNews:
Anita Moorjani: She Crossed Over and Came Back to Share What She Learned
AfterLifeTV with Bob Olson: Searching For Evidence of Life After Death
