How to Die Consciously: Secrets From Beyond the Veil

How to Die Consciously by Diane Goble isn’t like other books about dying. It’s the personal, right-here-and-now exercises, ideas, rituals, that set it apart. This wealth of what really works comes from her own experiences when she died and returned a near-death survivor, and from her years since of serving at the deathbed in a ministry of love and forgiveness. There are so many books out now about how to help the dying, but nothing like this. Her Personal Transition Guidebook that she helps the dying to create becomes a precious gift-- a way for individuals to consciously prepare for what’s to come, and to better understand the life in their death, and what happens next. The success of what she has helped the dying to do for themselves has laid the groundwork for Transition Guides trained in her system to aid in a conscious and spiritually supportive transition. Anyone can benefit from this book, so, keep it handy. You may use it more often than you think.

P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., researcher and author, among her books-- Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences, and We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death.

Diane Goble’s book, How to Die Consciously: Secrets from Beyond the Veil, shows us how learning to die consciously not only soothes the transition for the dying but also makes for a better grieving experience for those left behind. There is no easy way to bring up the conversation of death but Goble’s book shows us why this discussion is one of the most important discussions that we can have. Unfortunately, when we arrive at the end of our time in this lifespan, the physician is likely to write us a prescription for hospice and send us off to die. The physician will generally see our death as a failure instead of realizing that death is a necessary part of an ongoing cycle of life. It is a process that still needs their full attention. We can help both doctors and our family and friends by making sure they know what our wishes are. In fact, studies have shown that during the last week of life, the cost of care was over 50 percent higher for those who did not have such discussions or have their Personal Transition Guidebook already prepared.

Josie Varga, Bestselling Author of Visits from Heaven & Visits to Heaven

How to Die Consciously

Secrets from Beyond the Veil

by

Diane Goble

Copyright 2011 Diane Goble

SMASHWORDS EDITION

ISBN 978-0-9638606-6-8

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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Diane Goble's Smashwords Profile

Acknowledgements

I’m eternally grateful to my spirit guides and master teachers for helping me put this information into a coherent whole, and to my friends Kelsey Collins, Linda Depee, Linda Lenton, Melissa Maher, Maggie Saslow, Sue Stafford and my Certified Transition Guides Terri Daniel, Dar Umemoto, Chrystal Wadsworth for their feedback, editing tips and loving support.

Cover Art by Rebecca Bucci

Cover Design by PJ Hunter

Table of Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

Lessons of the Near-Death Experience

NDE Research

CHAPTER TWO

End-of-Life Conversations

Last Wishes and Final Arrangements

Palliative and Hospice Care

Death With Dignity

CHAPTER THREE

The Art of Conscious Dying

Practicing to Die Before We Die

The Process of Transition

The Transfiguration

The Role of a Transition Guide

Communicating with the Dying

Letting Go

Acceptance of Death and Dying

Preparing for Transition

Caring for the Caregiver

Grief & Mourning

CHAPTER FOUR

Elements of the Practice

Breathing Exercise

Relaxation Exercise 1

Relaxation Exercise 2

Body Scan Exercise

Focus Techniques

Chakra Cleansing Exercise

CHAPTER FIVE

Script Writing for Guided Visualizations

Working with the Subconscious Mind

Guided Life Reviews

Creating Your Inner Workspace

CHAPTER SIX

Why Practice the Art of Conscious Dying?

The Journey from Inside Out of Body

Processing Forgiveness and Gratitude

Questions to Ask Your Higher Self

Judgment or Healing

CHAPTER SEVEN

Books of the Dead

Writing Your Personal Transition Guidebook

Practicing Your Personal Transition Guidebook

Reading Your Personal Transition Guidebook

Experiencing the Inner Journey

Personal Transition Guidebook (Sample)

PART 1

PART 2

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX

Life Review Topics

Death With Dignity Laws in the U.S.

Egyptian Book of the Dead (sample)

The Bardo Thodol (sample)

The Blind Men and the Elephant (a poem)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR

Do not stand by my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sun on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

I am the swift, uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand by my grave and cry.

I am not there, I did not die.

~ Mary Elizabeth Frye

PREFACE

We all know we’re going to die. We just don’t want to talk about it or think about it but it’s always there-- a fear lurking in the background, a monster waiting to strike. The Grim Reaper coming to take our loved one or us away.

As a child, I remember having an intense fear of death. I knew several of my great grandparents briefly and then they just didn’t come around anymore. My mother’s grandmother died in her sleep in the bedroom next to mine unbeknownst to me. Someone came and took her body away. Mom’s father dropped dead of a heart attack a few months after he retired. A friend in elementary school was hit and killed by a car speeding through the crosswalk in front of school. It seemed to me people just disappeared and were never seen again.

I began to fear that my parents would suddenly disappear, and my younger sister, Bobbie, and I would be orphaned. When they went out for the evening, I would sit at my window watching for their car, unable to sleep until they were safely home. We had a big oil-burning furnace in the basement. I feared it would explode and burn the house down with all of us inside. I had a great fear of fire. I don’t know what it came from unless it was just that I was born during WWII and my father was in the Navy.

Then a month before my 11th birthday, Bobbie died. Accidentally killed when she was standing too close behind another 8-year old when he swung his golf club hitting her in the temple. She stumbled down the fairway to the 18th green where she collapsed and never regained consciousness. I wasn’t there when it happened. I didn’t really know what happened but was whisked away from the country club o Long Island, NY by a family friend to a waiting room in a hospital where Bobbie and I played as usual, practicing for our next ballet recital, until someone came in and told me she was dead.

Huh?

It was my first funeral. I remember my father lifted me up to kiss her goodbye and her lips were cold as ice. I didn’t understand. Nobody warned me about that. Totally freaked me out. I had nightmares about her lying in her coffin under the ground for years.

Nobody talked about death. In fact, in my family it seemed nobody ever talked about Bobbie again. It was as if she never existed. We moved to another house in another city and didn’t bring anything with us from the past. My parents had two more children. We moved on, but I knew they never got over her death.

In middle school, I began to study various religions and attend various churches looking for answers about the mysteries of life and death. As a teenager, I found some solace in Catholicism. I graduated from high school, went away to college for a couple of years, got married in the Church, and had three children baptized in the Church. Then I left the Church over the birth control issue (doctor said yes, priest said no). I became more of an agnostic, not believing in anything, not going to any church. I didn’t give death a second thought-- until I died on July 18, 1971, two months shy of my 30th birthday.

My husband John was a member of a motion picture crew filming the movie Deliverance on the Chattooga River in northern Georgia. A group of eight of us took rafts out on our own white water adventure on a Sunday. One little mistake was all it took.

I was suddenly stuck between a rock and a hard place (local river men called it a keeper hole) and I knew there was no way out. I was going to die. But instead of feeling terrified, I was very calm, very peaceful. I was thinking quite rationally and logically about which would be the better way to die and chose drowning over being pummeled to death into the rocks.

Someone in the raft was holding onto my arm as I was outside the raft repeatedly being sucked down and pushed up by the raging water. I caught a quick breath and yelled, Let go!

He did.

There was no struggle to reach the surface, no panic to breathe or not breathe. I just inhaled the water, calmly surrendered to the river, and everything went black-- just as I had every reason to believe it would. I had no belief in an after life.

But then something remarkable happened. It was as if I had simply closed my eyes and then opened them again. I found myself floating high above the forest and the river, looking down at the raft and all the people who were gathering around the scene at the river’s edge. I saw John looking around frantically for me, jumping out onto a rock, ready to jump into the river to try to save me, but I knew it was no use because my body was trapped under the raft and I was, well… not in it.

With that thought, I instantly found myself by John’s side, reaching out to stop him, but my hand passed right through his body and he showed no reaction. That was when I realized I must be dead and there was nothing more anyone could do.

I was suddenly pulled away from the river and forest, and the earth environment disappeared. I seemed to be in an endless darkness, moving through something like a tunnel or vortex towards a beautiful, brilliant golden light a zillion miles away. I could see streams of lights rushing past me as I moved forward at the speed of light. Or was the light moving closer to me? I wasn't sure whether I was moving or the lights were moving, or both, or neither. There was no wind or sense of movement. No sound. It seemed to be a timeless state with no apparent motion, yet I seemed to be getting closer to it, expanding, becoming one with the Light. There was nothing uncomfortable or frightening about this.

I sensed the presence of a Being of Light traveling beside me. I don’t know who it was, perhaps my guardian angel. Immediately I realized I had always known this being, and that this being knew everything about me and still loved me unconditionally. There was no moral superiority or judgment. It had no discernable shape, no gender. I was filled with peace and joy… amazing grace.

We communicated telepathically, without sound or words. Each question that came to me was answered immediately, before I could even ask it. It was more like I was remembering things I already knew rather than receiving new information. I laughed to myself for not remembering while I was in my body that this is how it all works. It all made perfect sense in that instant, and I thought how different life would be if, while embodied, we remembered that there is no death It is all just a continuum of life in different forms, in different realities, always changing, always evolving.

Everything suddenly made complete sense. I remembered that we are not human beings with a soul; we are spiritual beings who incarnate in human bodies so we can experience life and relationships in the physical world. I saw the Universe/God as an eternal, living, changing, evolving system of being and becoming.

We do not have souls that lie in wait to then be judged and punished or rewarded for eternity as some religions would have us believe. We are not just insignificant human beings who live short, purposeless lives on planet earth then die and turn to dust as atheists insist. We are eternal Beings of Light who come and go from the spiritual world to physical worlds, from our spiritual essence in and out of physical bodies as the experiential part of our soul’s eternal journey evolves.

Subsequent to each physical lifetime, our soul or consciousness returns to Source to integrate new learning and knowledge into the collective (Soul) consciousness to contribute to the evolution of human consciousness and the raising of our individual vibration to a higher frequency of light.

I know, what the heck does that mean? It made perfect sense to me at the time!

I remembered everything I had forgotten, including that I had done this before-- made this transition many times-- and that I was a Being of Light (soul) having just returned from another human experience. Reincarnation, which I had previously viewed as an amusing concept, suddenly made perfect sense to me.

It’s not about who we were in another life, how much money or things we accumulated, or how powerful we became; it’s about involvement of spirit in the evolution of human consciousness. Our souls incarnate as sentient beings, not to become more powerful as humans but to become more powerful expressions of Unconditional Love in the physical world. Not to become domineering and controlling or accumulate wealth and property, but to practice kindness and compassion toward our fellow humans and all life, including the planet on which we incarnate.

We are learning to balance our humanity with our divinity, to evolve our consciousness by recycling and purifying our energy to learn to express Unconditional Love in the world. Or as Jesus said more succinctly, the meek shall inherit the earth!

The Bible suddenly made complete sense. I had read it before as stories and metaphors, and not understood its deeper meaning, but now I saw clearly that it was just interpreted differently, as are all descriptions of the after life, based on the level of consciousness of the observer. But regardless of who is observing or interpreting, it all comes down to one truth: God is the Love in the Light and we are All That!

As I got closer, the Light grew brighter and more intense, yet