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CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Thoughts about death comprise the final major category of ideas that come up into consciousness during the Rebirth.
For me, perhaps the greatest benefit of Rebirthing is that it allowed me to stop being constantly afraid of dying. Specialists in Learning Psychology insist we cannot be afraid of something we haven't experienced, at least in part. Yet throughout all those previous forms of therapy, I wasn't ever able to remember or even imagine anytime in my life when death seemed imminent, when I had been so sick or injured that my life was at stake. But I also couldn't remember a time in my life when I hadn't been afraid of dying. I worked hard at trying to connect all sorts of events in my life with dying. I ran around the mental mulberry bush of agreeing with my analyst that I was afraid of death because I was afraid to surrender to sexuality. But, however attractive that symbology might be, the fact was that for years I had always had at least one vaginal orgasm during intercourse, and I didn't think I was unwilling to surrender to sexuality, even if I wasn't being a "properly submissive wife" in other regards.
Yet I was still chronically afraid of dying. Until 1978.
Apparently, as I had let go my old birth-related fears, I lost what I had regarded as my fear of death. Suddenly, it made sense: fear of death is actually old fear that was part of our birth. The imperative at the time was very simple:
We may well have taken that first breath in an atmosphere of intense anxiety. We then, mistakenly, associated breathing with fear and, mistakenly, concluded that breathing was dangerous. Until we have let go our old thought that breathing can kill us, how can we dare to keep on breathing? But how can we breathe enough to let go the old birth fears if we're still running the thought that breathing is connected with dying?
That's when thinking about the concept of Physical Immortality pays off. After all, Thought Creates. If we think we won't die, we're willing to breathe in the face of our fear that breathing will kill us. It also helps to acknowledge that since we survived our births, we can survive remembering them.
We also constantly experience our physical continuity-my hands are mine, still at the ends of my arms, even though they have become worn and wrinkled while I wasn't watching. The more we embrace the concept of creating our destiny with our thought, the more we can accept the concept of immortality, even of physical immortality.
Theoretically, I can even rejuvenate my body as I let go limiting beliefs about death being mandatory.
When I have a Rebirthee who cuts down his breath, who doesn't dare breathe, I remind him that whatever happened to him at birth, he survived. Birth didn't kill him. He may have thought that it almost killed him. He may have been told time and time again that he was born dead and had to be revived, or that he almost died and it was just because of the doctor's heroic actions that he was able to be rescued. But whatever the circumstances were (and remember they were always of his own contrivance, they were always manifestations of his thought), whatever they were, he did survive. As mentioned earlier, logically, for most of us, our basic concept of death comes from that brief period of time in between the time when we were still fully supported by the placental system and the next instant when the right side of the heart starts to pump blood through the lungs, when breathing starts, when we became capable of independently supporting our life functions of circulation and respiration. For most infants, this in-between time is, of course, only a brief instant-a matter of less than a few seconds. Also, there is an abundance of intrinsic physical support, too, as I mentioned before. First of all, he has a huge superabundance of red blood cells, still oxygenated from the umbilical circulation. Secondly, in the first six to eight hours of labor, he has made plenty of corticosteroids that have now had an opportunity to line the alveoli of his lungs, so that they will open fully during the inhale and then stay partially inflated during the exhale phase of breathing, ready to function now that the wall between the left and right sides of the heart has closed, and circulation now goes through the lungs instead of through the umbilicus to and from the placental membranes. So the child is physiologically well equipped to handle this brief instant of suspended animation (or animated suspension, however we want to think of it). Whatever it is, it's the closest to death most of us ever experience. And to go back into a breathless state is, in the unconscious mind, viewed with apprehension because this is flirting with death. Now, for almost everyone during the Rebirth session, there comes a time when, having breathed continually for about fifty minutes in a connected fashion, with big, broad, satisfying inhales and effortless exhales, with no pause in between, he "forgets" to breathe and goes into a state that seems to be like the prenatal states. For some people I've Rebirthed, this period of breathlessness lasts for several minutes, usually much longer than most people can consciously hold their breath. During that time the countenance of the Rebirth client sometimes undergoes remarkable transformations. Generally, the face relaxes and I find my focus becoming decentralized. I find it easy to "see" different faces, one after another after another, replacing, flashing across the face and head of the person lying in front of me, sometimes accompanied by flame-like radiance or a general shimmering veil of color around the person.
Please note I'm not a person who ordinarily claims to see or feel auras. It's only in the Rebirthing situation that I've ever had this experience. I've experimented with the lighting and background to see if I still notice these visual manifestations when, for example, the person is up against darker walls or lighter carpet. None of it seems to make much difference. At some point toward the end of the Rebirth session, I usually have difficulty focusing on that face which I know is the face of the client in front of me. Instead, what I see is a rapid alteration of countenance. Let me remind you of how Stanislav Grof has spoken of these pre-natal states of being. The first state, present for the first six months of pregnancy, is one of oceanic bliss, the child feels limitless, feels everything is coming its way, is happy, is blissful. The second state is one of tension, of increasing confinement, of increasing lack, the not-enough-room, not-enough-food, not-rapid-enough removal-of-waste- products. This period of increasing discomfort during the last three months culminates in the chaos of birth, then ends with the instant when the child takes his breath for the first time and comes into his post-natal life.
So, for Rebirthing to take consciousness back to the first pre-natal state where nothing was wanting, where the mind was free to dip into the ocean of its thought and feeling and regard them with a peaceful reaction, the Rebirthee must go through that tense second state where he fears death.
I suggest Rebirthing always be aimed at letting go old fear of death and at letting go all the old negatives connected with it, rather than focusing on eliminating death itself. People who Rebirth with the idea of promoting their physical immortality may be operating out of an old negative: fear of death.
We use the concept of physical immortality as a tool enabling you better to Rebirth away old negatives so your current life becomes fulfilling. My aim is to have a good life, not to have life forever, although I always am willing to keep that option open. One concerned a funeral I witnessed in Bali. The Balinese custom is to bring a person's body back for cremation to the place where he was born, so his soul will be with those of his ancestors. The Vice-President of Bali had died shortly before we arrived in Bali, and, as custom dictated, his body was brought back to be cremated in his home town-the place we had just arrived at for a few days' vacation. The ceremony was to take place the next day. It turned out that the cremation area was immediately next door to the place where we were staying, so we heard the gamelins playing until late that night and watched all sorts of booths being set up. Very early the next morning, the gamelins started playing again as the entire funeral procession moved from far down the road, passing right by the porch to the cottage we were lodged in and then on into the grounds where the funeral pyre had been built. So all day, we were able to sit on our porch in relative comfort, watching the hundreds of groups of Balinese walking by, each group dressed differently in matching sarongs and lungies, carrying beautiful arrangements of fruit and flowers. Late in the day, the immense black bull made of papier-maché which was to be the container for the body during the cremation was brought by, and then the body itself, wrapped in white cloths, was also brought by. A smaller black bull came next, as well as some platforms on which there were many other white cloth-covered bundles.
As the end of the procession moved past us, we hurried into the back yard so we could witness the cremation itself from the relative ease of the enclosed yard, rather than out in the cremation area just beyond the fence where hundreds of people were jostling each other to get better views. Several of the other Westerners lodging in our collection of cottages watched with us. Eventually we started to talk with each other as we watched the body being placed in the belly of the black bull and then observed the widow and other relatives and dignitaries climbing up the 20-foot ladder to a platform around the top of the bull, where they placed beautiful scarves and other valuable gifts over the body.
So we dutifully stood next to the fence until a loud explosion happened that was greeted by an immense amount of sound from the gamelins and cheers from the crowd. We stood solemnly for a while, talking quietly about death, and then we started to leave. That evening, I learned what caused all these extra explosions. The Balinese custom is to bury a body temporarily in the home village if the relatives don't have enough money to pay for the expenses of cremation, with its attendant lavish ceremonies and celebrations.
But when, eventually, someone from that village who had been wealthy enough to provide for the cremation celebration dies, all the temporarily buried bodies are exhumed, to be placed into the fire under the container in which the big shot is being burned. For years afterwards, whenever I heard a car backfiring or some other kind of explosive sound, I giggled and reminded myself that it was probably the sound of another soul leaving to go get itself another body. Another story I find funny is about a person we met our first visit to Nepal. Louis and I were eating supper in the hotel restaurant when we noticed a Westerner moving around from table to table with a bottle in his hand from which he drank often. I was truly hoping that he wouldn't notice us, but he did. He came over and pulled out a chair and sat down, introduced himself as Martin, from Rotterdam, then asked us why we were there. Louis replied that we had come up to Kathmandu for just a few days before returning to India to go see Herakhan Baba, and asked, in turn, why Martin was there. He told us that he had been in India with his guru for three years, witnessing the rituals his Master performed. He asked us if we knew of the Nectar of Life, and I recalled something about a Yogic practice that involved stimulating the back of the hard palate with the tip of the tongue rolled over itself. That was supposed to get the hypothalamus and the anterior hypophysis to secrete more hormones which, in turn, improved health and longevity. Some Yogic Masters believe this practice confers immortality. He said his guru had spent many years perfecting a different technique for stimulating the palate. Instead of folding His tongue on itself to try to get the tip back in His throat, He worked at pulling His tongue out forward from His mouth, stretching it and eventually pulling it almost entirely around His head. All that was so He could be able to put it back into His mouth without bending it, so the top of the tip would be tickling the palate instead of the bottom of the tip.
I started laughing when Martin said it was very difficult to understand what his guru was saying because His tongue always hung out of His mouth, having been stretched so much. I couldn't stop laughing. So much for that way to promote immortality. Death continued to dominate our time with Martin. When we finally parted that night, Martin invited us to go with him early the next morning to a place about ninety miles north of Kathmandu he called Kalikuchi. Martin said blood sacrifices were still carried on there, but since Westerners like us were going to be present, sacrifices would probably be limited to just small animals, no people. I assumed he was joking. I rose in time to see the sun rising over the distant mountains. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. Then we had a marvelous ride for many hours over the terraced rice and barley fields. As we drew near to our destination, we saw straggling small groups of people dressed in maroon robes, looking like Buddhist priests, hurrying along the road with cages and bundles. I puzzled over why people dedicated to harm no sentient beasts would engage in animal sacrifice. Then I remembered that the Buddhist priest I knew in Bangkok, like other Thai priests, ate meat if that was what was put into his begging bowl, and I had also been told that the Tantra lamas in Tibet ate meat in the cold weather. So the rules about killing and about eating flesh are apparently somewhat flexible for certain Buddhists and Hindus.
It was extremely hot on the hilltop where we got out of the car to walk down to the temple where the sacrifices were taking place. The sun was blazing and there were hundreds of people rushing to go down the steps to witness the ceremonies. There were files buzzing around constantly and the whole place smelled of blood and excrement. It smelled so very bad that I covered my nose and mouth with a handkerchief, wishing that I hadn't come. In only the time it took for that sunyatzen to finish climbing the steps, only a few minutes, the rain stopped! I took my last picture of the Shiva sunyatzen, and we continued on down to the temple. A little boy about ten years old, speaking English, attached himself to me, offering to be what he called my "guide." When we got down to the top of the wall around the temple, he told me I had to stay up there with the other women. So I gave my camera to Louis to take pictures with and he left with Martin to go down to where the men were and the sacrifices were taking place. I found that I could look down into the inner sanctum and I could see them both down there when I finally summoned my courage to look. The walls of the inner sanctum were completely covered with bright red blood, splashed higher than could be reached by a man standing on tiptoes. The priests were cutting a calf's throat when I first looked, and I didn't really want to look anymore. I was very shaken by the entire scene. How strange to think that the Giver of Life is impressed by sacrifice of His living creatures.
People were rushing back and forth, offering living animals or holding bleeding, dying ones. I didn't want to stay, so I walked away to go climb to a shrine I saw high up a neighboring hill. My guide was disappointed that I wanted to leave, but dutifully, he accompanied me to the shrine in which was a murti of Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity who is the remover of obstacles. I saw that it, too, was splashed with blood. I felt repelled by all the commotion and excitement that I interpreted as pure blood lust. When we finally returned to Kathmandu late that night, Martin once again went back into his mourning for his guru, and asked me, since I was a well-educated teacher, to explain why I thought his Master had died. Almost without thinking, I answered, "To bring you to this moment, right Here, right Now." Martin thought about it for a while and then said he'd like to Rebirth with me, so we arranged it for the next morning, early enough for Louis and me to make our plane later that day back to India. Many months later, I received a letter from Martin who had returned to his home in Rotterdam and was living an ordinary life. We corresponded for a year, then I didn't receive a reply to my letter telling him we were soon going to be in the Netherlands, inviting him to attend one of my workshops. I wasn't able to locate a phone number for him when I visited his home town, and we never heard from him again. But I have always remembered the magical quality of that sunrise I saw only because of him and the blessed rain that came just exactly when I most wanted it, and I often marvel over the feeling of certainty I felt when I answered his question. To be Here. Now. That's what it's all about. If this is the only real moment of time, since the past is already dead and the future hasn't yet appeared, the only way to be truly alive is to be here now. Living completely in this only real time is, itself, immortality. Don't you agree? Often, I have been asked if people who have Rebirthed and who believe in Physical Immortality have ever died. My answer is, "Yes." I know several people who have died, including several people who were very, very dedicated, very earnest Rebirthers who Rebirthed frequently, and who had been Rebirthing over a long period of years.
One of the Rebirthers who died was an Englishman who had a strange lymphatic condition that caused him a great deal of pain, especially in his legs. Despite his earnest use of the breath and of affirmations, his condition was getting so bad that it was going to make his occupation as a long-distance lorry driver no longer possible. Doctors regarded his condition as incurable.
Why did that happen? Was it really an "accident?" The people watching were sure he didn't throw himself in front of the truck.
Another person I know who was also a Rebirther and who is now dead was a woman who had fairly advanced cancer when she participated in a week-long intensive Rebirth training that I organized with Leonard as the leader. Following her individual Rebirth with Leonard in the middle of that week, she came to me and said that she wanted to say goodbye, that she was totally at peace, and that she wasn't going to be attending the remainder of the workshop because she'd gotten what she came for. Then she hugged me and left. Shortly afterwards, Leonard came down into the living room where I was and said, "You know, that woman just wants to die. No matter what I did, I couldn't get her to believe in physical immortality." Her close friends said that following that workshop she told her children that she didn't want them to struggle, she didn't want them to be in pain, that she had recognized that it was her time to leave the body, and that she was quite open to that, that she'd made her peace with God, and she wanted them to forgive her, but that she had no desire to struggle against her disease any longer.
I learned that she died very soon thereafter and that her death had been peaceful and essentially painless and swift. Did Rebirthing at least enable her to die in peace? I hope so.
One day in late summer of 1994, at a yard sale to raise money to send to the ashram in Crestone, he was bitten by a spider. His immune system collapsed and he never recovered.
I was glad to hear that he told his folks he was totally reconciled, however, by the time of his death. Another Rebirther who has died was my very dear friend, Rhaghava, who left England to go live in Spain on the Costa Sol, where she would be warmer and more comfortable than in England. She was looking forward to continuing to teach Yoga, something she'd been doing for twenty to thirty years. When I first went to England to lead Rebirth workshops, she was one of the three people that I Rebirthed there who were the best breathers I had ever Rebirthed! They breathed deeply and fully, they kept the breathing connected, they kept their consciousness on their breath, they didn't trance out. It was a great pleasure for me to Rebirth each and every one of them. I felt especially close to Rhaghava and I really enjoyed being with her. Whenever I went to England to do workshops, two or three times a year, I had the pleasure of staying in her marvelous, big home on the north side of London, eating good vegetarian food, watching her lovingly care for her huge Bouvier dog, Bach, and then, after his death, for a young parrot she said would at least outlive her, since parrots live 100 years. This marvelously strong woman who practiced her Hatha Yoga exercises every single day, who taught Yoga for hours each day, who was in such great condition, slipped on the floor in her new home in Spain, broke her hip, developed pneumonia, and died! I'm still almost surprised and still greatly saddened to remember she's gone. Why would her Thought have created such an end? Hadn't she let go her death urges? Years ago, when I first started Rebirthing, I Rebirthed one of my dearest Los Angeles friends, Bill Silman. I Rebirthed him just once, shortly after his mother's death. He was extremely depressed, not only because of her death, but because he wasn't working and his love relationship was very tense, filled with negatives. We talked a lot about his promise to his mother to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, twice daily for the next year. He had jokingly promised her as she was dying that he wouldn't kill himself until he had completed the year of mourning, but he now felt so bad he didn't think he could last that long. I reminded him how proud of himself he could be because he had taken such good care of her through the many months she had been ill. And he agreed to breathe and let go his depression so he could keep his promise to carry out the Kaddish ritual for her-and for his own self- respect. Over the next few weeks, he didn't return several phone calls left on his message machine. I worried he was angry about that Rebirth, but other friends said he was working very long hours at a new job and would call when he could see me. I was away from Los Angeles for most of the next half year, so it was almost one full year later before I finally heard from him. I asked him if I had offended him in any way, and he remonstrated that, to the contrary, he had been so busy going to prayers twice a day plus becoming successful at the new job he unexpectedly took the very day after that Rebirth that he hadn't had much time for socializing, and that, anyway, I had been away from Los Angeles every time he had tried to reach me. He said his one Rebirth had led to his being really happy all year and he felt his life had been perfect-until three days earlier when his cat had died. He said he felt as empty and in pain as he had the year before, right after his mother died. I offered to Rebirth him over the weekend, but he said it would have to wait until the next week. As we closed the conversation, he reported again that he wanted to thank me for the Rebirth that changed his life. He said he listened to my affirmation tape often and he loved to hear my voice. In fact, he was so warm in telling me how much he had treasured our friendship over so many years, that I laughed and joked that he sounded as if he were delivering a goodbye speech. Indeed he was. Driving home two days later, following a marvelous dinner of foods he totally loved, he died of a sudden heart attack. Thoughtful to the end, he managed to pull out of traffic on the freeway in that instant so he didn't cause an accident. He was dead before his car hit a wall. He didn't kill himself. He didn't die of drugs. He died a good son, a successful businessman, full of pork chops and halvah. Did he figure his life was complete? Is that the message he was really sending me when we last talked together? Didn't that one Rebirth really matter? It would be wonderful to believe that even just one Rebirth could help a person profoundly. Occasionally, I hear from people I Rebirthed only once, many, many years ago. Their comments always include the phrase, "That one Rebirth absolutely changed my life." But still the question remains: Does Rebirthing eliminate the death urge?
Leonard Orr says that since physical immortality is achievable, all deaths are suicides. That was definitely true of another person who, with his wife, attended a weekend workshop that I led in Scotland. He reported that he had always been continually preoccupied with thoughts of death. His mother had died giving birth to him. He had led a dour life as a motherless child growing up in the very North Country of Scotland, with no neighbors, almost no schooling, with nothing to relieve the gloom and depression and grayness and coldness of life up there. Self-taught as a radio repairman, eventually he left his father and took a job in Edinburgh, where he met the American woman who became his wife. They had had a few happy months, but were lately having problems because she wanted to have a child, but they couldn't afford to have her leave her better-paying job. He cried with tears of joy, saying that that had been the happiest day of his life, and that he had never known he could be so happy. He also reported that while he had been Rebirthing in the group Rebirth that evening, he had realized that he and his wife could work out their financial arrangements if he did more of his work at home while watching over the baby: then she would only have to take time off to give birth. With the announcement that they could finally start the family that she had been wanting to have for so long, everyone in the workshop, especially his wife, was overwhelmed with joy. The next day I left Scotland and went down to England to lead another workshop. On the second day of the workshop, I received a long distance call from his wife telling me that she had returned from work that day to find that her husband had hung himself from the chandelier in their sitting room! She wanted me to know that she didn't blame me or Rebirthing in any way. In fact, she wanted to thank me again because he had been so remarkably happy as they had made plans for her becoming pregnant. She said Rebirthing had at least allowed him to have one marvelously happy day before he ended his life. I still feed bad that Rebirthing didn't stop his depression. Ultimately, the issue about death seems to revolve around the matter of choice. I want to live as long as I want to live. I don't want to die until I've lived as much as I want to. A nun in Belfast summed the matter up perfectly. In Belfast a few years ago, I led a workshop at a Catholic retreat during Holy Week. It was attended by several Catholic nuns, who all said they hoped to die so they could be with their Lord Jesus. We had a very long, very intense discussion about it, with none of them changing their minds. The argument ended only when the nuns left to put on clean habits to attend the Passion Play that evening of Good Friday. After they dressed, they came back to the group to say goodbye. As we said goodbye, the youngest nun embraced me and said in her Irish brogue what I say to you in closing, "May the Good Lord let you live forever if that's what you truly want."
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