Friday, November 16, 2012

"Dying to Be Me" Book Review


I appreciated Anita Moorjani's account of her NDE, but otherwise I wasn't crazy about this book, and I find some of its teachings at best factually incorrect, and at worst, dangerous.

Anita Moorjani is a lovely human being. In her videos on youtube and in the glancing interactions I've witnessed on the web, she is unfailingly giving, open, generous of herself and her time, and eager to be of service to humanity. Some gurus have an air of smarm about them, boosting their own egos at their followers' expense. Some seem too quick to make a buck. Some are harsh and humiliate those who follow them. Anita Moorjani is a genuine and enthusiastic lady who is helping others because that is her path.

"Dying to Be Me" has provided profound hope, liberation, and possibly even healing to hundreds, if not thousands of readers. Many of those readers have taken the inspiration they received from this book and used it to spread love and support to others.

Anita Moorjani is of Hindu, Indian descent. She was born in Singapore and raised in Hong Kong. She was diagnosed with cancer and came within hours of what her doctors assumed would be an inevitable death.

At that point, Anita had what she has referred to as a Near Death Experience, but what could more accurately be referred to as an out-of-body experience. Unlike others who have NDEs, Anita did not actually die. She entered a coma.

Anita encountered her deceased father and her friend Soni, who had died of cancer. She also experienced ESP, spontaneously accessing the thoughts and conversations of widely dispersed friends, family, and physicians. After her OBE, Anita experienced a spontaneous remission of her cancer.

What didn't work for me in Anita's book was the insistence that several postulates are true, postulates that I don't see any evidence to support.

Anita reports that we are all God, and if you don't like the word "God" you can say Source or Allah or Brahma or any other word. We all create the universe. We attract into our lives the events we desire. We exercise control over illnesses like cancer. There is no difference between good and bad. There is no punishment in the afterlife. Duality is a bad thing. Religion is a bad thing because its prominent influence is to cause people to kill each other. We should do what makes us happy. Service should not be done out of duty, only if it makes us feel good.

Too, Anita takes a few subtle swipes at Christianity and Western civilization. The nuns who taught her are subtly put down, as is Mother Teresa. English, as a language, is said to be so lacking that her NDE can't be communicated; cancer is a Western disease.

Anita makes no attempt to foist these ideas on anyone. Unfortunately some have adopted these ideas as dogma, and insist that they are the only truth. By what authority? Anita has been to heaven, these folks insist; therefore, she must be correct.

As it happens, though, many people have had NDEs at this point, and not everyone agrees with Anita. People do come back from the dead and report the punishment and judgment that Anita and her followers insist never occurs. Some have had NDEs of Hell, and insist on this emphatically. Others encounter Jesus, and return to human life with a greater conviction than ever that Jesus is savior.

Some of these ideas, when carried to extremes – and people do carry them to extremes – are spiritually toxic. No, I am NOT God, and neither are you. Admitting that we are not God is one of the first steps in psychological maturity, and spiritual growth. Religion is not just about killing; that false belief is a tool for atheist propaganda. As a feminist and a woman I am mindful of, and grateful for, the elevation in the position of women brought about by Christianity. Before Christianity, as historian Rodney Stark has described, female infanticide was a constant of the Classical Greco-Roman world. Not killing female babies, and allowing women some choice and autonomy, was one of the reasons Christianity grew as fast as it did. I'm grateful for agriculture, universities, science, art, and the abolition of slavery, all of which are intertwined with the spread and growth of Christianity.

No, we do not give ourselves cancer, and, no, if we just enjoy life and "follow our bliss" what we want will not fall into our laps. This idea is not a reflection of heaven, but, rather, of Anita's rather sheltered life and upper socio-economic class. It is an idea that will be attractive to other sheltered, economically comfortable people, eliminating, as it does, the need for compassion for the less fortunate.

No, it does not contribute to spiritual growth to avoid service work or to do it only when it feels good to do so, and no, Mother Teresa did not deserve Anita's subtle put down. In my own life I have discovered firsthand that "bring the body and the heart will follow" is a key tenet of service to others. When I was tender with my dying patients even when I was not in the mood to be tender, my patients' appreciation lifted *me* up.

No, goodness and badness are not the exact same thing and indistinguishable from each other. Discernment is one of the universally acclaimed features of spiritual maturity. Being able to differentiate between lies and truth, stealing and giving, hurting and healing, is essential. Hitler really was a very bad guy and the difference between him and – oh, say Mother Teresa – is profound. To equate the two is a spiritual step back.

Anita decries duality, while practicing it. Religion is bad, service out of a sense of duty is bad, etc. You can't make pronouncements like this without relying on the concept of duality.

11 comments:

  1. Just a few thoughts to start with.

    Couldn't agree with you more about goodness and badness not being the same thing. And the reassuring Scripture that spring to mind is this from the Book of James.

    (James 1:16-17) "Do not be misled, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, for it comes down from the Father of the [celestial] lights, and with him there is not a variation of the turning of the shadow."

    With Jehovah there is not a variation of the turning of the shadow. He is love. He is wholly good.

    Interesting that it starts off "Do not be misled..."

    And i have a real problem with this kind of idea: "We all create the universe. We attract into our lives the events we desire."

    The problem, as I see it, is this. If you extrapolate from that, don't you end up saying that those who died in Hitler's camps and Stalin's gulags brought it on themselves - they attracted into their lives the events they desired?

    I disagree. Totally. As I am one hundred per cent sure you do.

    Hopefully Anita Moorjani is not intending to say that, but...

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    1. The problem, as I see it, is this. If you extrapolate from that, don't you end up saying that those who died in Hitler's camps and Stalin's gulags brought it on themselves - they attracted into their lives the events they desired?

      Yes, that is exactly the problem. Thanks, Sue.

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  2. The q& a session of the book is an open motivation to suisidal incline & justifiable for henious crime & terrorism

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  3. I don't know. You don't have any more proof of your arguments than Moorjani does. How do you know we aren't God? How do you know we don't give ourselves cancer?

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  4. If you check out the Advaita philosophy(Ramana Maharishi, Nisargadatta maharaj), you'll see Anita's ideas resonating a lot with those. Its interesting that she has experienced that first hand. Must've been quite an experience

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  5. Thank you for your thoughts on the book. I had a similar reaction.

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  6. I've had a NDE and I can say she only had an OBE.
    her sensational arrival on the best seller list is due to the quick cancer healing.
    She lacks an enormous amount on the NDE itself.
    There is definitely karmic consequences for negative actions. Karma is a highly complex subject as discharge and acruement (both pos and neg) happen simultaneously.
    2 year old babies don't die horrific deaths due to a "loving God".
    In her "NDE" she didn't go all the way to the light. It's at this point a life review takes place. We don't review ourselves, that's for sure. The whole reason for a review is a karmic one.
    Our karma is reviewed and back we come to purify further or unfold further contract.

    She's wrong on karma 100%. Maybe because of her Indian background she negates karma altogether, not too sure.
    Not a judgement, but as I said, having had the NDE I would never harm another being ever.

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    1. I would very much appreciate you sharing more about your personal NDE if you are comfortable doing that. ☮️

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  7. Very good and objective review, well done. As you pointed out even though she is a very warm and well intentioned woman, she may be unintentionally misleading others into dangerous paths. I believe she has good intentions and I'm ready to believe her NDE experience and healing. But I disagree with many of her interpretations and teachings. There is so much danger in rejecting duality. As you very well pointed out what we're dealing with here is a demonstration of her sheltered upper class life... She means well, but she lacks the intellectual capacity and life experience to understand the issues of the world and to teach.

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    1. Thank you. I hope you are not the Peter Lorre M.

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  8. Interesting thought to consider that when having an NDE or OBE the experience of each individual could be the result of the cultural belief system the individual lives in - and that these beliefs continue to shape the experience of an individual even when no longer ‘in their body’. In this way a person’s experience of ‘reality’ continues to be influenced by their own deeply held beliefs and the resulting perspectives of their experiences. For example: Ask many witnesses of an event to describe what happened and not everyone will describe the same details - It is possible for several people to see the same event occur but extrapolate it very differently.

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