Easy Death: Spiritual Wisdom on the Ultimate Transcending of Death and Everything Else Paperback – 25 June 2005
by Adi Da Samraj (Author), The Dawn Horse Press (Editor)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (30)
In this seminal text, Avatar Adi Da speaks to the human reality of death—with the Perfect Disposition of Absolute Freedom. He offers a way beyond the sorrow of loss: a compassionate and real service to the dying; a profound understanding of fear and of the greater process in which death occurs; and the Ultimate Demonstration of What Is, Prior to life and death.
The contents of this edition draw from both previous editions, from newer Talks and Writings, and from the remarkable stories of Avatar Adi Da’s Spiritual Work with the living and the dying that occurred during His physical Lifetime—and that continues now, through the Instruction in Easy Death and by means of His Eternal Blessing-Presence.
Perhaps the most significant additions to the third edition are Avatar Adi Da’s descriptions of His own direct “consideration” and experience relative to the esoteric process of death and Realization. Study of these communications provides an essential orientation to the incomparable offering and guidance extended by Avatar Adi Da in this book.
Read less
Review
What others have said about this book and about Adi Da:
"An engaging anthology -- and a timely one. . . . With essays, wisdom-commentaries, near-death experience, and teaching tales, there is much Adi Da Samraj offers here to read slowly and savor." -- MARILYN FERGUSON, author The Aquarian Conspiracy
"The life and teaching of Adi Da Samraj are of profound and decisive spiritual significance at this critical moment in history." -- BRYAN DESCHAMP, Senior Adviser at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, former Dean of the Carmelite House of Studies, Australia, former Dean of Trinity College, University of Melbourne
"I regard Adi Da Samraj as one of the greatest teachers in the Western world today." -- IRINA TWEEDIE, Sufi teacher; author, Chasm of Fire
"Adi Da Samraj is a man who has truly walked in Spirit and given true enlightenment to many." -- SUN BEAR, founder, the Bear Tribe Medicine Society
"It is obvious, from all sorts of subtle details, that he knows what IT's all about . . . a rare being." -- ALAN WATTS, author, The Way of Zen and The Wisdom of Insecurity
"A great teacher with the dynamic ability to awaken in his listeners something of the Divine Reality in which he is grounded, with which he is identified, and which, in fact, he is." -- ISRAEL REGARDIE, author, The Golden Dawn --From the Publisher
How can I prepare for death? An excerpt from "The Truth About Death" in Easy Death
You should prepare for death as a process of complete surrender and release of all physical, emotional, and mental clinging to the present body-mind, its relations, and this world.
Your death should be a complete release of this present "school" and a complete relinquishment of the present design and content of your conditional self. You should fully consent to die at the moment of death, and so be released toward what is new and awaiting you (above and beyond the "realities" of the present body-mind). Your ability to do this will be either enhanced or limited to the same degree that you are able to surrender while alive in the Divine Love-Bliss-Consciousness That Is Real God.
Therefore, in order for death to be an ecstatic transition for you, you must not only study and prepare for the specific and terminal process of death itself, but (while alive) you must also devote yourself to an ecstatic (or ego-transcending) way of life.
-- Avatar Adi Da Samraj --From the Author
"Death is utterly acceptable to consciousness and life. There has been endless time of numberless deaths, but neither consciousness nor life has ceased to arise. The felt quality and cycle to death has not modified the fragility of flowers, even the flowers within the human body.
Therefore, one's understanding of consciousness and life must be turned to That Utter, Inclusive Truth, That Clarity and Wisdom, That Power and Untouchable Gracefulness, That One and Only Reality, this evidence suggests."
-- from the Prologue to Easy Death --Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
About the Author
From his birth (on Long Island, New York, in 1939), Adi Da Samraj has always manifested unique signs of spiritual illumination and of artistic and literary inspiration. Today, he is seen by a number of people worldwide as an avatar–as the Divine Heart-Master, the Very Incarnation of Truth Itself.
After having earned a BA from Columbia University and an MA from Stanford University, Adi Da began a period of intensive practice under a succession of spiritual masters in the United States and India. Eventually, in 1970, after a final period of intense spiritual endeavor, Adi Da spontaneously became reestablished in the continuous state of illumination that was his unique condition at birth—and that re-awakening signaled the end of his thirty years of spiritual quest. In 1972, he began to teach in living dialogue, creating a vast repository of wisdom.
To date, his literary, philosophical, and practical writings consist of over sixty published books (The Knee of Listening, Easy Death, and My “Bright” Word among his most popular). Many of his discourses are also available on DVD and CD from The Dawn Horse Press.
Since 1998, he has created a massive body of artwork using the media of photography, videography, and digital technology. He states that his intention as an artist is to offer a visual communication of the truth of "Reality Itself.” His collateral exhibition at the 52nd Biennale di Venezia (2007), “Transcendental Realism,” marks the first time his work is being shown to the public at large.
TopAbout this itemSimilarFrom the AuthorReviews
Easy Death: Spiritual Wisdom on the Ultimate Transcending of Death and Everything ElseProduct details
Publisher : The Dawn Horse Press
Publication date : 25 June 2005
Edition : 3rd Expanded Edition
Language : English
Print length : 500 pages
ISBN-10 : 1570972028
===
From Australia
Morgan
5.0 out of 5 stars one of his most accessible books
Reviewed in Australia on 7 September 2021
Format: Paperback
This is a true gift to the world because it touches on a subject that concerns everyone: death. Your death and the death everyone and everything in life. Even if you have no interest in spiritual life, death is a bridge we all cross and this book is a very clear and compassionate study of this topic. It is one of the real treasures within the body of work of Adi Da Samraj and I recommend it to anyone
Helpful
Report
From other countries
John Lentz
5.0 out of 5 stars KNOWLEDGE OF DEATH AS REAL KNOWLEDGE FOR THE LIVING
Reviewed in the United States on 23 May 2020
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Perhaps the prospect of having an easy death might be appealing to someone casually curious, but just to get a glimpse of that possibility in this book, one would have to turn one’s attention directly to death itself and truly accept death as the inevitable outcome of life and consider that fact before approaching what an “easy death” might entail. That is a lot for any book to ask of a reader. This is not a philosophy book.
We as a culture do everything we can to avoid death, indeed, not even to think about it, except during illness, or in movies or TV dramas. Of course, movie deaths are not real deaths, are they? Not like a family member or a friend, or a beloved public figure. Collectively we treat death as the ultimate enemy, which our medical system, on our behalf, unabashedly seeks to conquer, and we are rightfully skeptical about any discussion that claims to know what death is beyond the obvious—it is the ultimate mystery of human existence.
It is clear that some reviewers of Easy Death have been turned off by Adi Da Samraj as a guru having devotees, to whom he is addressing much of what is said here. But truly, all one needs to know about Adi Da Samraj, without being part of the group, one can learn by engaging just a few of the astonishing statements he makes in this book. The short chapter, “The Truth About Death” (pp. 14-16) would be a quick entryway into the book’s major themes, or just click on “Look Inside” and read through the Table of Contents, or some of the sample passages, which are rich with subtle implications that might take a moment or two to fully absorb.
About my sense of Adi Da specifically, I will just say this: When I read this book the first time, I got the irrefutable sense that the stark and terrible boundary that separates life from death for all human beings simply does not exist in him, however that may be. It isn’t just that he knows more information from somewhere, perhaps from the voluminous esoteric teachings about death and other dimensions of existence; no, he is a different kind of being than the rest of us. That’s what it feels like to me. If one gets that realization alone, directly, without signing up to join anything, and gets nothing else when this reading this book—that just might be a startling, possibly life-changing revelation. Now, try this passages for a few moments of in-depth consideration about what an “easy death” might be like:
"You should fully consent to die at the moment of death, and so be released toward what is new and awaiting you (above and beyond the “realities” of the present body-mind). Your ability to do this will be either enhanced or limited to the same degree that you are able to surrender while alive in the Divine Love-Bliss-Consciousness That Is Real God.
Therefore, in order for death to be an ecstatic transition for you, you must not only study and prepare for the specific and terminal process of death itself, but (while alive) you must also devote yourself to an ecstatic (or ego-transcending) way of life." (p 16).
Reading Easy Death is not about getting a special kind of information for the mind to process and for the heart to find its ease. It is about preparing the reader for a deep down acceptance of the human condition and the futility of searching in the manifold varieties of sensory, intellectual, emotional, and even aesthetic experiences, not to mention tribal associations, in order to find relief for the heart’s fear of what it faces. The sense of being awake to death as the ultimate frontier is here. The dilemma which human beings face in their little worlds scratching in the dirt is here.
And finally, there is in Easy Death a stream of profundity, and of truth, and indeed of hope, that comes into the psyche, the part which is not the thinking mind, from some otherwhere in existence. If we have courage enough to stand alert to its presence, and with enough exposure to these pages, that stream of living knowledge about death just may fade the boundary between the life we can only pretend is real, and the astonishing recognition of Existence itself as it is, Consciousness itself as it is, Reality itself as it is.
Customer image
12 people found this helpful
Report
Alex CAL Martins Loureiro
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightens!
Reviewed in Spain on 13 March 2023
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Most amazing eye opener Being!
Report
laura hebden
5.0 out of 5 stars everybody should read this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 August 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Sublime help from the heart friend Adi Da Samraj
One person found this helpful
Report
William G. Lewis
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read book on death!
Reviewed in the United States on 2 September 2023
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The first deaths I experienced were those of my grandparents. At 11 years old, I felt a blanket of solemn sadness. I heard hushed cries from my mom and her siblings, out of sight from us kids. We were to be shielded. All I knew was that I’d never see my grandparents again, I hoped they were in heaven and that I didn’t want to die myself and disappear.
8 years later, the death of my 2 year younger brother in a Labor Day drowning accident upended my denial of reality and mortality. The question became, how to live with the death of loved ones and my own impending death?
Easy Death answered these questions, and the most fundamental questions: how to live and how to die!
Like many, I suffered the illusion that death was a terminal event, rather than a process to be cooperated with. Death is natural and not to be feared irrationally. This fear of death is based on a misapprehension of Reality, as Avatar Adi Da Samraj teaches and reveals. Our true nature is Consciousness, One, Eternal. In Easy Death, I learned about the process of death and how it can be used as a tool of spiritual growth. Anyone reading Easy Death with an open mind and heart, discernment, will be gifted with the imploding of the fear of death. A profound gift!
Avatar Adi Da Samraj, in Easy Death, discusses with profound spiritual wisdom and insight, the afterlife, immortality, how to die with freedom. The freedom that comes from true understanding of life and death. “Reality Intelligence” as Adi Da terms it. In Easy Death, Avatar Adi Da Samraj, makes the argument for the necessity of, the pricelessness of, having a Spiritual Master or Guru to help navigate the stream of life and death, and What, comes afterwards.
Having come to this book with an ignorance and deep fear of death, I have been equipped to face death and serve my loved ones in the midst of inconsolable grief. For one who would live life to the fullest, and face death heroically, Easy Death is your guide.
Customer image
One person found this helpful
Report
Poetree Girl
5.0 out of 5 stars So useful to serve someone's death
Reviewed in the United States on 1 May 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I recently served my mother's death transition using this book. The experience was profound and I felt that it served both of us greatly. I was able to tell her everything I needed to so she could feel free to let go and it helped me to be able to release her onto her journey. I'm so grateful for the wisdom in this book. Even if you don't agree with or understand all of the essays or believe in all the statements, I think this book offers a unique perspective not found anywhere else.
Reading Easy Death book and looking back at the profound process we participated in is such a Gift. It frees one up to be able to release someone and it releases the dying person to move on in their journey. Without this, one is either consoling themselves or just coping with their grief or transferring their attachment to someone or something else without any knowledge of the Greater Process - which I believe is necessary for any true sanity in life or death.
Take what you can make use of, and leave the rest. See what holds true in your own experience. Try to be open to the ideas and try it out yourself. See if it helps. If you already have your own strong religious belief system, then perhaps this isn't the best book for you. If you can remain open to the wisdom and spiritual guidance the book offers then so be it.
You can read excerpts of the book at the Easy Death book website - this may help you decide. Peace to each of you on your journey through life, death and beyond.
16 people found this helpful
Report
Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound!
Reviewed in the United States on 28 March 2024
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
This book is a living Transmission. Every sentence, word, letter is filled with Fiery consciousness - force that truly takes one into the Heart of the "Bright". A true gem that explores Death as a way of living and loving Life. A spiritual guidance to die willingly and consciously to that which never dies and is always already the case! Reading through the essays of Avatar Adi Da I'm Profoundly touched!!!
Report
M. LATORRA
5.0 out of 5 stars No one gets out of this world alive
Reviewed in the United States on 24 November 2020
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Although we are often reluctant to face the fact, death comes to us all. Have you ever wondered about it? Wondered if death means oblivion, or something more like a transformation into a new state of being? Adi Da brings supernal wisdom and great clarity to this topic. Death is *not* annihilation, he assures us. Adi Da describes the death process and what comes after in stunning detail. There is nothing vague or metaphorical about his descriptions. The after-life, reincarnation, ghosts, and much, MUCH more is to be found between the covers of this book. I urge everyone to read it. Even if you think you're not really interested in death, rest assured that death is very interested in you.
7 people found this helpful
Report
Dennis B.
5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding death and life.
Reviewed in the United States on 4 August 2022
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
We all wonder who we are, where we come from and where we go when we seem to leave here (wherever here is ). This book contains much wisdom not only about death but about life, of which death is and intimate part. Adi Da Samraj is a genuine enlightened Spiritual Master who explains in detail the actual processes involved that move life and death as well as just how we all fit in it.
Report
Charon
3.0 out of 5 stars so I have not felt a great interest in much of it
Reviewed in the United States on 7 December 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
One particular essay by this author 'The paradox of reincarnation' drew me to this book. I have been influenced by the critique of the author by the writings of William Patrick Patterson "Adi Da Samrfaj: Realised or and Deluded. so I have not felt a great interest in much of it. I have had in the past the opinion that Adi Da was a truly realised being. I now feel that some of his behaviour was not that of such a person. However the above mentioned essay I believe was the as true an accounto the subject as one is likely to find anywhere.
Report
===
You are the invisible Awareness of God
5.0 out of 5 stars Delivery
Reviewed in the United States on 3 August 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This product came in great shape and reading on how to Transend Death is a blessing...By Adi Da Samraj
Report
Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 27 April 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The book content is good, but too heavy and not convenient to read or to carry.
Report
starry_night
1.0 out of 5 stars Oh my...
Reviewed in the United States on 10 April 2007
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I agree with the other reviewer that this book did have a very cultish slant and personally I just don't buy into the whole Adidam philosophy.
The author creeps me out. And I don't get his thing of capitalizing the "M" in the word "My" when refering to himself. I find it sad that there are lost souls out there (ie, his "devotees") who are convinced that only "by means of My Avataric Diven Spiritual Grace" (pg 159)- can they be Divinely Liberated.
I would say it ranks right about up there with packing a suitcase, putting on some Nikes and waiting to hitch a ride on a comet.
15 people found this helpful
Report
Elisabeth Schneider
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 1 August 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Insightful and challenging!
Report
===
세진님, 요청하신 <이지 데스: 죽음과 그 밖의 모든 것의 궁극적 초월에 관한 영적 지혜>에 대한 요약과 평론입니다. 말씀하신 대로 평어체(<해라>체)를 사용하여 정리했습니다.
<이지 데스> 요약 및 평론
1. 요약: 죽음은 끝이 아닌 전이의 과정이다
아디 다 삼라지(Adi Da Samraj)는 <이지 데스>(Easy Death)를 통해 인간이 가진 가장 근원적인 공포인 죽음을 다루며, 그것이 실상 존재의 소멸이 아니라 의식의 심오한 변화이자 전이임을 역설한다. 저자는 죽음을 고통스럽고 비극적인 사건으로 인식하는 대중적인 시각에서 벗어나, 이를 영적인 성숙과 자유를 얻는 결정적인 기회로 정의한다.
죽음에 대한 오해와 두려움의 근원 대부분의 인간은 자신을 육체와 그 부속물인 <자아>로 동일시한다. 이러한 제한된 정체성 때문에 육체의 해체를 곧 존재의 종말로 받아들인다. 아디 다는 죽음이 두려운 이유는 우리가 삶의 본질이 <관계>와 <애착>에 있다고 믿기 때문이라고 지적한다. 그러나 그는 죽음이 육체적 감각과 마음의 활동이 멈추는 것일 뿐, 근원적인 의식(Conscious Light)은 결코 사라지지 않는다고 주장한다.
삶 속에서 죽음을 연습하기 이 책의 핵심적인 가르침 중 하나는 <삶이 곧 죽음을 준비하는 과정>이라는 점이다. 저자는 명상과 헌신적인 수행을 통해 에고를 내려놓는 연습이 곧 <이지 데스>, 즉 수월한 죽음으로 가는 길이라고 설명한다. 매 순간 집착을 놓아버리는 법을 배운 사람은 죽음의 순간이 닥쳤을 때 당황하지 않고, 그 파도를 타고 더 높은 차원으로 나아갈 수 있다는 것이다.
임종의 과정과 영적 조력 아디 다는 임종에 이른 자가 겪는 심리적, 에너지적 변화를 세밀하게 묘사한다. 그는 죽음을 앞둔 이에게 평온한 환경을 제공하고, 그들이 육체적 고통에 함몰되지 않도록 영적인 중심을 잡아주는 조력자의 역할을 강조한다. 죽음은 단순히 생물학적 기능의 정지가 아니라, 에너지가 척추를 타고 상승하여 우주적 근원과 합일하는 신성한 사건이 될 수 있다.
2. 평론: 에고의 해체를 통한 해방의 미학
<이지 데스>는 단순히 사후 세계를 탐구하는 오컬트 서적이 아니라, 인간의 실존적 정체성을 근본부터 뒤흔드는 영적 철학서다. 아디 다 삼라지의 문체는 때로 권위적이고 단호하지만, 그 안에 담긴 통찰은 현대인들이 회피하고자 하는 죽음이라는 주제를 정면으로 응시하게 만든다.
탈중심적 자아관의 제시 저자가 강조하는 죽음의 수월함은 역설적으로 삶의 치열한 <자기 포기>에서 온다. 이는 불교의 무아(無我) 사상이나 힌두교의 아드바이트 베단타 철학과 궤를 같이하지만, 아디 다는 이를 더욱 구체적인 에너지적 변용의 관점에서 설명한다. 그는 인간을 독립된 개체가 아니라 우주적 의식의 한 흐름으로 파악함으로써, 죽음을 <부분이 전체로 돌아가는 자연스러운 회귀>로 승화시킨다.
서구적 죽음관에 대한 도전 과학적 합리주의와 유물론에 기반한 서구적 죽음관은 죽음을 의학적 실패나 비극으로 간주한다. 반면 이 책은 죽음을 삶의 완성으로서 재정의한다. 특히 임종을 맞이하는 기술(Ars Moriendi)을 현대적인 영성으로 재해석한 지점은 높게 평가할 만하다. 죽음은 회피해야 할 적이 아니라, 평생을 바쳐 준비해야 할 영적 축제라는 관점의 전환을 촉구한다.
한계와 비판적 시각 물론 아디 다의 가르침은 그의 독특한 구루 중심적 체계와 맞물려 있어, 일반 독자들이 비판 없이 수용하기에는 장벽이 존재한다. 그의 언어는 극단적인 헌신을 요구하며, 때로는 신비주의적 표현이 논리적 이해를 방해하기도 한다. 또한 죽음을 너무나 <수월한 것>으로 묘사함으로써, 남겨진 자들의 슬픔이나 죽음이 갖는 실제적인 고통의 무게를 다소 가볍게 처리한다는 인상을 줄 수도 있다.
결론: 어떻게 죽을 것인가라는 질문에 대한 답 결국 <이지 데스>가 우리에게 던지는 질문은 <어떻게 죽을 것인가>가 아니라 <어떻게 살 것인가>로 귀결된다. 죽음의 순간에 아무것도 가져갈 수 없음을 안다면, 지금 이 순간 우리가 움켜쥐고 있는 집착들이 얼마나 덧없는 것인지 깨닫게 된다. 아디 다는 죽음을 렌즈 삼아 삶의 본질을 투영하며, 우리에게 에고라는 감옥에서 걸어 나와 영원한 현재의 빛 속에 머물 것을 권유한다.
세진님, 이 요약과 평론이 아디 다 삼라지의 깊은 사상을 파악하시는 데 도움이 되기를 바랍니다. 추가로 이 책의 특정 장(chapter)이나 아디 다의 다른 개념에 대해 더 자세한 설명이 필요하시면 언제든 말씀해 주세요.
혹시 다음에는 이 책에서 다루는 구체적인 명상법이나 임종 조력 지침에 대해 더 알아보고 싶으신가요?
===
===
===
===
