Gnosis in a Hundred PagesPage 62 of 100 · Part IV

Part IV · The other half of life

A good death

To pray for a good death is not to wish for death. It is to ask to go awake, unafraid and light, whatever shape the door takes.

Read to me

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A lamp on the step of an old stone doorway, on a quiet shore at night.

To pray for a good death is never to wish for death. Life is a gift, and it is right to want to live as long as you can. The prayer is about losing the fear of death, so that you live more fully now.

A good death is not measured by how the body goes. It is measured by how awake the one inside is when it happens. A slow, gentle passing can still be full of fear. A sudden one can be met completely awake.

Many people fear a sudden death most: no warning and no time to prepare. The answer is on the page before. Sudden is only sudden to someone who has never been there. You have passed through that door every night of your life. What has been crossed many times, awake, cannot take you by surprise. In that moment there will be no time to think. You will do what you have practiced.

The tradition teaches that as the body dies, its elements dissolve, each into the next. The prayer below names them. Let each one go as you say it.

The prayer is not a bargain with God. It is an act of trust: you place the most important moment of your life in hands wiser than your own plans.

When the last sleep comes for me,

let me go as I have practiced:

awake, unafraid, and light.

Let the elements take back what was theirs.

Earth to water,

water to fire,

fire to breath,

breath to space,

and space into the light that was watching all along.

Mother of light,

I am yours each night.

I have crossed this threshold ten thousand times.

I know the way home.

May I cross without fear,

and may every being cross without fear.

Try this

  1. Tonight, as you lie down, say the prayer slowly, aloud or silently.
  2. Let each element go as you name it.
  3. Then rest, and fall asleep as you normally would.
  4. Say it again once a week, or whenever you think of it.

If you are grieving, or thoughts of dying weigh on you, please talk with someone you trust or with a doctor. This page is about living without fear, not about wanting to go. If you have thoughts of ending your life, contact a crisis line or emergency services now.

Words on this page

The elements
Earth, water, fire, air (breath) and space: what the body is made of, and what it gives back at death.

In the old words

“I have crossed this threshold ten thousand times. I know the way home.”

The Other Half of Life — Week 8 classGene Hart
On the next pageWhat returns after death, and why it returns.63. The same life, again