“Dying to Be Me” by Anita Moorjani

I imagine most cancer survivors don’t feel as though their disease was meant to be, or that they deserved it. Not Anita Moorjani. As she explains in her book, Dying to Be Me, cancer was part of her destiny to becoming her true self and gaining a better understanding of the universe. For a society heavily focused on battling diseases like cancer, these ideas were difficult for her to initially grasp and then communicate after coming so close to death.

Moorjani begins by explaining that her near-death experience was unlike anything she’d ever read about or experienced. It also wouldn’t serve as an event in her life that she’d always remember but a transition into a completely different lifestyle. “First, it’s important to understand that my NDE wasn’t like any other event I’ve experienced,” she writes, “It didn’t have a clear beginning and end. It was more like a door that once opened, never closes. It initiated ongoing, progressive, deeper understanding and new possibilities that never end” (141).

After coming so close to death and recognizing the moment her life nearly ended, Moorjani walked away with a dramatically different understanding of the world around her. Moorjani realized that she had more control in her situation than anyone could have ever imagined, but only when she embraced the experience and learned to let go.

“The reason why humans are so vulnerable and fearful around this subject is because we create our ideas of the afterlife and our gods in human terms. We assign to these concepts the same physical properties and fallible values that we possess and are vulnerable to.”

She describes the out-of-body experience she passed through while in her coma — on the brink of death — saying that it felt as if she could float from room to room. In that moment, she had a choice to make.

“I made my decision to return,” she writes, “when I realized that life here was the most desirable state for me at this time. We don’t have to wait until we die to experience nirvana. Our true magnificence exists right now!” (144). She comes to the understanding that bliss can be found in every moment of life on Earth as long as we are open to it. She explains, “The reason why humans are so vulnerable and fearful around this subject is because we create our ideas of the afterlife and our gods in human terms. We assign to these concepts the same physical properties and fallible values that we possess and are vulnerable to—values such as fear, retribution, judgment and punishment…We don’t have to live in anxiety about what comes next.

Anita Moorjani. Photo credit: Tracey Van Geest

We can recognize the energy that we’re already a part of and we can be love in every aspect of our lives” (144). This information has tremendous value and opportunity to change the way we think about life and death. Instead of fearing death and viewing life as a linear progression toward it, we can accept death as a natural, equally transformational phase of a cyclical process.

What she’s learned and had the courage to share—to let go of our fears, to reach for our wildest dreams—is undoubtedly inspiring. It took a near-death-experience for Moorjani to truly realize the sacredness already existing within her. As readers, we can take her realizations and apply them to our own lives in order to live more fully.

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