Dying To Be Me Read online

  Hay House Titles of Related Interest

  YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE, the movie,

  starring Louise L. Hay & Friends

  (available as a 1-DVD program and an expanded 2-DVD set)

  Watch the trailer at: www.LouiseHayMovie.com

  THE SHIFT, the movie,

  starring Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

  (available as a 1-DVD program and an expanded 2-DVD set)

  Watch the trailer at: www.DyerMovie.com

  THE AMAZING POWER OF DELIBERATE INTENT:

  Living the Art of Allowing, by Esther and Jerry Hicks

  “LIFE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE A STRUGGLE,” by Stuart Wilde

  PEACE FROM BROKEN PIECES: How to Get Through

  What You’re Going Through, by Iyanla Vanzant

  A SURVIVOR’S GUIDE TO KICKING CANCER’S ASS,

  by Dena Mendes

  TRAVELING AT THE SPEED OF LOVE, by Sonia Choquette

  WISHES FULFILLED: Mastering the Art of Manifesting,

  by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

  YOU CAN CREATE AN EXCEPTIONAL LIFE,

  by Louise Hay and Cheryl Richardson

  All of the above are available at your local bookstore,

  or may be ordered by visiting:

  Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com®

  Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au

  Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk

  Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za

  Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Copyright © 2012 by Anita Moorjani

  Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com® • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Cover design: Christy Salinas • Interior design: Pam Homan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Moorjani, Anita.

  Dying to be me : my journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing / Anita Moorjani. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-4019-3751-5 (hardback)

  1. Moorjani, Anita, 1959—-Health. 2. Cancer—Patients—Biography. 3. Cancer—Psychological aspects. I. Title.

  RC262.M664 2012

  362.196’9940092—dc23

  [B]

  2011042365

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-3751-5

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-4019-3752-2

  15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1

  1st edition, March 2012

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Danny, my true love: I’ve always known that our love extends beyond time and space. If not for you, I wouldn’t be here in this physical life today.

  To my dear mother, and my wonderful brother, Anoop: Thank you for being there for me through my life, but most especially though my illness, and caring for me when I needed you most. I wish everyone had a family who cared about them the way you care about me.

  In memory of my dear father, whose biggest dream was to see my wedding, but who left this realm before the big day: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to experience your infinite presence and unconditional love in the other realm, and for assuring me that you’re here, there, and everywhere.

  I believe that the greatest truths of the universe don’t lie outside, in the study of the stars and the planets. They lie deep within us, in the magnificence of our heart, mind, and soul. Until we understand what is within, we can’t understand what is without.

  I share my story here in the hope of touching your heart in some way and reminding you of your own magnificence.

  Contents

  Foreword by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

  Introduction

  PART I: SEEKING THE RIGHT WAY

  PROLOGUE: The Day I “Died”

  CHAPTER 1: Growing Up Different

  CHAPTER 2: Many Religions, Many Paths

  CHAPTER 3: Matchmaking Missteps

  CHAPTER 4: My True Love

  CHAPTER 5: Diagnosis of Fear

  CHAPTER 6: Seeking Salvation

  PART II: MY JOURNEY TO DEATH … AND BACK

  CHAPTER 7: Leaving the World Behind

  CHAPTER 8: Something Infinite and Altogether Fantastic

  CHAPTER 9: Realizing the Miracle

  CHAPTER 10: Proof of Healing

  CHAPTER 11: “Lady, Whichever Way I Look At It, You Should Be Dead!”

  CHAPTER 12: Seeing Life with New Eyes

  CHAPTER 13: Finding My Path

  CHAPTER 14: Healing Is Only the Beginning

  PART III: WHAT I’VE COME TO UNDERSTAND

  CHAPTER 15: Why I Got Sick … and Healed

  CHAPTER 16: Infinite Selves and Universal Energy

  CHAPTER 17: Allowing and Being Yourself

  CHAPTER 18: Questions and Answers

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Foreword

  I have been deeply and profoundly touched by the contents of this book, and even more so by my personal relationship with Anita Moorjani, who came into my life through a series of Divinely orchestrated coincidences. For more than four years, an advancing cancer brought Anita to death’s doorstep and beyond—inside the house of death itself, way beyond the doorway and the entrance hall, if you will. Anita has described it all in great detail in this soul-searching book. I encourage you to read it very carefully and thoughtfully with a mind that’s open to having many of your cherished beliefs challenged, especially about what lies beyond this world, in what’s often called the hereafter.

  Surrounded by loved ones and a medical team anticipating her last breath at any moment, Anita lay in a deep coma. Yet she was given the opportunity to return to her cancer-ravaged body, defying all odds, and experience incredible healing—through the vehicle of unconditional love. More than this, she was allowed to return from the chamber of death and report to all of us what life on the other side of this corporeal world looks like—and of even more significance, feels like.

  This is a love story—a big, unconditional love story that will give you a renewed sense of who you truly are, why you’re here, and how you can transcend any fear and self-rejection that defines your life. Anita speaks with uncommon candor about her cancer, explaining why she believes she had to go down this treacherous road in her life, why she feels she was healed, and why she returned. And make no mistake about it, her life’s mission is in a very big way reflected in the fact that you’re about to read her report of this experience…and that I’m so involved in helping to get this crucial message out to the world.

  What Anita discovered durin
g her 24-hour coma when she passed through the doorway into the other realm is remarkably aligned with all that I’ve been receiving in inspired moments of writing and speaking. It’s clear to both of us that Divine intervention took over and moved the pieces around in such a way that this woman living on the other side of the world, in a culture quite dissimilar from my own, was escorted into my awareness and my physical life.

  I first heard of Anita when I received a copy of her near-death experience (NDE) interview from a woman in New York named Mira Kelley, who later became a friend and did a past-life regression on me (which is published in my book Wishes Fulfilled.) After one reading of Anita’s NDE report, I felt irresistibly called to do all that I could within my limited power to get her compelling message out to the world. I called Reid Tracy, the president of Hay House, and urged him to find Anita Moorjani and ask her to write a book detailing her experience in-depth. I added that I would be pleased—no, honored—to write the Foreword to her book if she was willing to move ahead with it. Through a series of wonderful synchronicities—including Anita calling from Hong Kong into my weekly radio show on hayhouseradio.com, and my interviewing her for the entire planet to hear—we connected on both a professional and a personal level.

  Anita spoke of the sense that we’re all pure love. We’re not only connected to everyone else and to God, but at a deeper level, we all are God. We’ve allowed our fears and ego to edge God out of our lives, which has much to do with all of the disease not only in our bodies, but in our world as well. She spoke of learning to treasure our magnificence and live as beings of light and love, and of the healing properties inherent in such a mind-set.

  Anita described actually experiencing the absence of time and space, and feeling for the first time the wonder of knowing that oneness isn’t an intellectual concept, but that truly everything is happening at once. She recounted being bathed in an aura of pure, blissful love, and how such a feeling has unlimited potential for healing. She learned firsthand the true meaning of the words of Jesus, that “with God all things are possible”—and that leaves nothing out, including healing the past. Anita discovered in person what I’d been writing about so extensively in Wishes Fulfilled: that in the true presence of the God-realized, the laws of the material (including the medical) world do not apply.

  I had to meet this woman. Beginning with our phone conversations, I started to feel directly the spiritual essence of Anita and her message of hope as a replacement for fear. I invited her to not only write this book, but also to appear with me on PBS and tell her story of love, hope, and healing to the entire world.

  I sent Anita’s NDE interview to my mother, who’s 95 years old and resides in an assisted-living center. My mom sees death quite frequently, since many of her new friends of advanced age simply pass away in their sleep and are gone from her experience forever. I’ve had many conversations with her about her thoughts on the great mystery called death that’s the destiny of all living things. All that materializes dematerializes. We know this intellectually, yet what awaits us is still the great mystery.

  After reading Anita’s NDE report, my mother said that a wave of peace overtook her and replaced the fear, anxiety, and stress of what the great unknown brings. In fact, everyone who read of Anita’s near-death experience, including my children, felt that they had a new lease on life and vowed to me to always, above all else, love themselves, to treasure their magnificence, and to banish all potential disease-producing thoughts from their daily lives. While I’d been writing about these ideas, Anita had brought it all home in the world of experience.

  Anita was able to heal her body and told me on many occasions that she felt she came back to teach this simple but powerful lesson, which could not only heal you, but transform our world as well. And this, I know, is why God brought Anita and me together. I’ve always felt that it was my dharma to teach people about their own divinity and know that the highest place within them is God. We are not these bodies; we’re neither our accomplishments nor our possessions—we are all one with the Source of all being, which is God. While I was writing all of this in Wishes Fulfilled, Anita Moorjani came into my life as if to place an exclamation point on all that I was receiving in my automatic writing. She lived it and said it so beautifully—and now you’re blessed to be able to read and apply all that Anita came to know in her furious bout with advanced cancer, and her tranquil journey back through the direct experience of Divine healing.

  I’m honored to play a small role in bringing this hopeful message of love as the ultimate healing. May you take Anita’s words and become an instrument of removing any and all disease from your body, your relationships, your country, and our world. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning once observed poetically: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.” Indeed, healing and heaven on Earth are yours for the loving.

  Enjoy Anita’s wonderful, wonderful book. I love it, and I love her.

  — Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

  Maui, Hawaii

  Introduction

  The main purpose of sharing my story is so that others do not have to go through what I went through.

  It’s not my style to overtly teach people or tell them how to live their lives, nor do I like advising anyone on what changes they need to make, even if they ask. I prefer to lead by example, and create a safe environment for others to get in touch with their own truth.

  I’ve thought about this often since the events of the winter and spring of 2006, when I had a near-death experience (NDE) and was also healed of the cancer I’d had for the previous four years. During my NDE, I was able to see and perceive certain aspects of my future life, and I understood that one of the reasons I chose to come back to earthly life was because my experience and message would touch others.

  In that state, I somehow knew that in some way, I was meant to inspire thousands, maybe tens of thousands. But it wasn’t clear how I was meant to do so—I just knew that in some way, I was going to be helping a lot of people. I specifically got the feeling that I didn’t need to do anything for this to happen; I just had to be myself and enjoy life, and to allow myself to be an instrument for something much greater to take place.

  That has been the case, as I’ve come to speak and write about my experiences in response to queries from the fields of medicine and science, as well as individuals seeking answers about the nature of the world and their experiences. That’s how this book came to be as well (those details are in Chapter 14). I freely explain what I’ve learned as a result of the cancer and my NDE. I enjoy sharing my experience, and my understanding of life that I derived from it, especially when I feel that others can benefit.

  My story begins in Part I, with how I grew up at the intersection of multiple cultures that held distinct and often contradictory beliefs. I’ll explain how this shaped me and fostered the fears that turned out to manifest in disease, taking you with me on my journey into adulthood and my descent into the prison of cancer.

  Part II explores the NDE itself—what I experienced and understood at the time—and what happened next. Being healed of cancer and working to find my new place in the world has been a surprising, challenging, and exhilarating journey!

  In Part III, I’ll describe what I now understand about healing, the way the world is today, and how we can live as a reflection of who we really are, allowing our magnificence to shine through. Then I’ll wrap up with a question-and-answer section, containing some of the most common and most challenging concerns I hear.

  But before I share with you what I’ve learned from my experience, I’d like to clarify that I’m not claiming to know any universal or scientific truths or to be anyone’s spiritual guru. Nor am I trying to start yet another religion or belief system. My only aim is to help, not convince.

  I especially wish to emphasize that you do not need to have an NDE to heal! My intention is to share with you all the emotional and psychological triggers that I believe contributed to my getting cancer, in the
hope that in identifying these factors, you can reduce or possibly even eliminate your chances of getting sick in the first place. At the same time, if you or someone you know has cancer or any other serious illness, please know that there are many paths to healing. I would only suggest that you follow what feels right for you and resonates with you personally.

  If you’re looking for step-by-step instructions or a set of tenets to follow, then I’m the wrong person for you, because I don’t believe in creating any “one size fits all” dogma. It would only limit who you are. Even when I speak of loving myself, my intention isn’t to draw attention to me, but for you to experience that same feeling within yourself. In sharing my experience and my insights, my only purpose is to ignite the spark of magnificence that lies within you. My desire is to awaken the dormant guru within you that guides you to find your own place at the center of the universe.

  It’s my hope that you find joy in each and every day of your journey and come to love life as much as I do these days!

  PART I

  SEEKING THE RIGHT WAY