The grace in dying : how we are transformed spiritually as we die

by Kathleen Dowling Singh

Paperback, 2000

Publication

Imprint: New York : HarperCollins, 2000, c1998. Responsibility: Kathleen Dowling Singh. OCLC Number: 44001622. Physical: Text : 1 volume : xi, 332 pages ; 22 cm. Features: Includes appendixes, bibliography, glossary, index, notes.

Call number

Death / Singh

Barcode

BK-08284

ISBN

9780062515650

Original publication date

1998

CSS Library Notes

Description: Describes the transformation that comes with dying, including letting go, radiance, focusing inward, silence, and a merging with Spirit.

While the prevailing Western medical tradition has seen death as an enemy to be fought and overcome, Singh offers a richer and more rewarding path of understanding. Combining extensive training and education in developmental psychology with profound spiritual insight, she balances expert analysis with moving accounts drawn from her experiences working with hundreds of dying patients at a large hospice.

Singh moves beyond the five stages of dying revealed in Kübler-Ross's classic On Death and Dying, and finds in the "nearing death experience" even more significant and forming stages of surrender and transcendence. These stages involve the qualities of grace: letting go, radiance, focusing inward, silence, a sense of the sacred, wisdom, intensity, and, in the end, a merging with Spirit. Through this intense process, we come to experience at last the reality of our true self, which transcends our finite ego and bodily existence, and our merging with the source of being from which we originated. Dying is safe.

In clear, nontechnical language, Singh reveals the transformations that come with dying, using the vocabulary of growing Western, as well as Eastern, wisdom.

Written for those aware that their life is coming to an end, those who care for the dying, and, ultimately, for all of us who inevitably face our own death and the deaths of the people we love, The Grace in Dying reveals that dying is the most transforming, powerful, and spiritually rich of life's experiences. -- from publisher

Table of Contents:
Living, dying, and transformation --
The journey to ego --
The consciousness of the ego : halfway home --
The path of return --
From tragedy to grace --
The "special conditions" of transformation --
The psychospiritual stages of dying --
The nearing death experience --
Entering the mystery --
At the edge of life --
Appendices: The Sufi cartography of levels of consciousness ;
Karnofsky Performance Status Scale ;
Comparison of cartographies.

FY2020 /

Physical description

xi, 332 p.; 22 cm

Description

In this brilliantly conceived and beautifully written book, Kathleen Dowling Singh illuminates the profound psychological and spiritual transformations experiences by the dying as the natural process of death reconnects them with the source of their being. Examining the end of life in the light of current psychological understanding, religious wisdom, and compassionate medical science, The Grace of Dying offers a fresh, deeply comforting message of hope and courage as we contemplate the meaning of our mortality. While the prevailing Western medical tradition has seen death as an enemy to be fought and overcome, Singh offers a richer and more rewarding path of understanding. Combining extensive training and education in developmental psychology with profound spiritual insight, she balances expert analysis with moving accounts drawn from her experiences working with hundreds of dying patients at a large hospice. Singh moves beyond the five stages of dying revealed in K#65533;bler-Ross's classic On Death and Dying, and finds in the "nearing death experience" even more significant and forming stages of surrender and transcendence. These stages involve the qualities of grace: letting go, radiance, focusing inward, silence, a sense of the sacred, wisdom, intensity, and, in the end, a merging with Spirit. Through this intense process, we come to experience at last the reality of our true self, which transcends our finite ego and bodily existence, and our merging with the source of being from which we originated. Dying is safe. In clear, nontechnical language, Singh reveals the transformations that come with dying, using the vocabulary of growing Western, as well as Eastern, wisdom. Written for those aware that their life is coming to an end, those who care for the dying, and, ultimately, for all of us who inevitably face our owndeath and the deaths of the people we love, The Grace in Dying reveals that dying is the most transforming, powerful, and spiritually rich of life's experiences.… (more)

Language

Original language

English

Rating

½ (9 ratings; 3.7)
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