Charles Garfield's Blog
April 23, 2018
Life's Last Gift
Life's Last Gift: Giving and Receiving Peace When A Loved One is Dying by Dr. Charles Garfield
I wrote about a beautiful depiction of trusting the dying process from Laura Huxley’s book “This Timeless Moment.” Huxley, the second wife of the noted twentieth century author Aldous Huxley, shares a moving account of how her husband guided his first wife, Maria, through the final stages of dying.
The Huxleys were interested in hypnosis and hypnotic suggestion, and as Maria neared her end, Aldous sat with her, speaking into her ear, “addressing the deep mind which never sleeps.” Maria had loved the Mojave Desert, where they lived, and Aldous asked her to remember the changing light of the desert sky and the surrounding mountains, and see that light as an “expression of the divine nature; an expression of Pure Being, an expression of the peace that passeth all understanding.” Then he encouraged her to move toward the light, and open herself to love and joy and peace, to become one with them.
“I kept on repeating this,” he said, “urging her to go deeper and deeper into the light,” and telling her he would always be with her. Her regrets and fears were barriers to entering that light, he said, so he urged her to forget them.
At the very end, “I went on with my suggestions and reminders, reducing them to their simplest form and repeating them close to the ear. ‘Let go, let go…Go forward into the light….No memories, no regrets, no apprehensive thoughts about your own or anyone else’s future. Only light. Only pure being, this love, this joy. Above all this peace.”
Maria died without struggle, enveloped in love and peace
I wrote about a beautiful depiction of trusting the dying process from Laura Huxley’s book “This Timeless Moment.” Huxley, the second wife of the noted twentieth century author Aldous Huxley, shares a moving account of how her husband guided his first wife, Maria, through the final stages of dying.
The Huxleys were interested in hypnosis and hypnotic suggestion, and as Maria neared her end, Aldous sat with her, speaking into her ear, “addressing the deep mind which never sleeps.” Maria had loved the Mojave Desert, where they lived, and Aldous asked her to remember the changing light of the desert sky and the surrounding mountains, and see that light as an “expression of the divine nature; an expression of Pure Being, an expression of the peace that passeth all understanding.” Then he encouraged her to move toward the light, and open herself to love and joy and peace, to become one with them.
“I kept on repeating this,” he said, “urging her to go deeper and deeper into the light,” and telling her he would always be with her. Her regrets and fears were barriers to entering that light, he said, so he urged her to forget them.
At the very end, “I went on with my suggestions and reminders, reducing them to their simplest form and repeating them close to the ear. ‘Let go, let go…Go forward into the light….No memories, no regrets, no apprehensive thoughts about your own or anyone else’s future. Only light. Only pure being, this love, this joy. Above all this peace.”
Maria died without struggle, enveloped in love and peace
