Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is a true story of a remarkable woman who had a Near Death Experience (NDE) that not only cured her stage four cancer but also gave her a new purpose in life. Her NDE story is fascinating to say the least. Skeptics may question the “reality” of her NDE story but the important thing is that she is transformed by that experience, whether it is real or imaginary. Part-1 of the book describes her life before the NDE. It is a story of a simple Indian origin woman in Hong Kong who found a soulmate in her husband and started living a happy married life until cancer played spoilsport. Part-2 describes her NDE in detail and her life after it. Because of her NDE, she realizes that she needs to accept and love herself first. With fear of death gone, she decides to live fearlessly preaching how connected we all are in actuality. This message is not new (at least to me) but putting it in the context of death and her NDE makes a different kind of impact than just hearing those things causally. I think that’s why this book struck a chord with millions of people. The author is indeed fortunate to have played a role in creating happiness and world peace in her own little way. Part-3 describes her philosophy in more detail. I did not find this part very interesting but it is a good articulation nevertheless.
After I read this book, I did bit of research on NDEs and studied a bit more about the author (check out her Ted talk, which is pretty good). It is all very interesting and inspiring even though I am somewhat agnostic in my views on NDEs. But really you do not need to believe in God, after-life or NDEs to read this book. The key message is to embrace the life you have right now with all love and kindness and fearlessly offer the same to the world. For that alone, this book is definitely worth a read!
Pleasure of books! 