The Illusion of Life and Death – Mind, Consciousness and Eternal Being

This powerfully affirmative and liberating book encourages readers to embrace both life and death. It is informed principally by Buddhism, but also by the author’s own life experience and the death of her soulmate Brent and by many other sages and inspiring sources such as Aurobindo, Steiner, Seneca and even Seth through Jane Roberts. This extract from p. 149 conveys the essential message of the book: ‘People are human. We all have karma, and we are all subject to birth, disease, ageing, and death. It’s all part of life! Embracing all our life’s experiences as the path and accepting death as a part of the path that we are each called into walk is key to having not only a good death but a good life as well.’ The book is divided into four parts: What is life? Illness, old age, and death; looking deeper into death; and what happens after death. Richard Smoley’s informative foreword discusses the concept of the good death, arguing that it is the Self or Spirit – the witness - that is immortal, and that our task is the integration of our smaller identity into a larger one.

To embrace life is to embrace change and recognise impermanence. In this respect, Brent provides an inspirational model of a good death – ‘dying quietly, peacefully, without fear, and free from attachments either to the body or to others.’ (p. xxix) This involves understanding the reality of life, death and consciousness, especially for physicians and health care providers who allow themselves to be pressured by the family into prolonging the misery and suffering of their loved one (p. 170). In this respect, Clare points out that hope in the form of pills, surgery, chemotherapy and other man-made cures can be an opiate in the face of a terminal illness. Brent’s encounter with the oncologist is instructive – faced with the prospect of imminent death, he is told that chemotherapy must start immediately, followed by radiotherapy, surgery and more chemotherapy. He responds that he knows he will die soon and is not afraid, so he refuses treatment: ‘I’m going to die anyway, but I want to live the best life I can until then.’ (p. 12) Shortly before his death, he goes out driving and exceeds the speed limit by some margin. When Clare says that he is likely to be brought to court, he remarks that he will have died before the ticket arrives!

To die is to learn to let go and surrender, to recognise impermanence, and not to resist change. It is easy to become identified with one’s body and personality, but these are our vehicles for experience in the present. Life is about quality rather than quantity, and is fundamentally experienced by the mind – all is consciousness experiencing. Clare writes that ‘dying with grace and dignity means dying knowing that we have lived a life of meaning and purpose, and can accept our death with peace, having lived a life of intention.’ (p. 175) She draws some important lessons from the NDE of Howard Storm, that it is easy to be trapped in illusions that separate us from God, that we reap what we sow, and that love and compassion are universal principles. All in all, the book is a timely reminder of perennial truths about the nature of life and death – highly recommended.