Moorjani's 'Dying To Be Me' is a best-selling personal revelation

I do believe it's a series of synchronicities that led me to chancing upon the bestseller at an airport bookstore, and it's a word Anita likes to use often.

In the course of leading our hectic lives, often without pausing to stop for breath, and even if you do, only to be wracked by anxiety over all our modern-day problems and existential angst, we often hear that little voice in our head asking, "what's the purpose of all this?" And most of us go through life waiting for a sign or something to happen to show us what that is.
Anita Moorjani's book, Dying To Be Me, though by no means new, could very well be that sign. I do believe it's a series of synchronicities that led me to chancing upon the bestseller at an airport bookstore, and it's a word Anita likes to use often.
You might have come across Anita's videos and talks and accounts about her near death experience online, but to read her firsthand account is a whole new experience that rekindles your sense of wonder at our complex lives, minds, and the universe, however much a sceptic you are. Her story is simple. Anita is a Hong Kong-raised Indian who grew up in that cultural melting pot of a city, thriving yet conflicted her whole life by all the contradictory social, religious, cultural, race-and-gender based experiences she had growing up.
But, as a young woman, she seems to forge her own path while sticking to her ideals, settling into a flourishing career and an exceedingly happy marriage. However, her fears soon play up and come true when cancer strikes her brutally, after taking two who were close to her already.
Four years into her fight with cancer, Anita slips into a late-stage induced coma, and has a defining near death experience, at the heart of which comes the realisation that it's the way we accept ourselves and face life - and mainly, loving ourselves - is all there is to a life well lived.
Among the myriad messages in her story that you'll want to take the neon highlighter to are a few that stood out, and stand at the core of her message, which she repeats time and again: ".but when you're going through a really low period, it's difficult to do - or even know where to begin. However, I think the answer is simpler than it seems, and it's one of the best-kept secrets of our time: the importance of self-love. You may frown or cringe at the thought, but I can's stress enough how important it is to cultivate a deep love affair with yourself. When I was in the NDE state, it all became so clear to me because I understood that to be me is to be love.
This is the lesson that saved my life."Anita goes on to explain her views on many philo-sophical, religious, societal and personal beliefs that we hold as absolutes, from the insights she gained during her NDE, and how the experience itself led to her astoundingly complete recovery from terminal-stage cancer.
Whether or not you agree with Anita's experiences, or even her truly life-altering takeaway from it, the fact is that it's indeed a remarkable turn of events by any account. We go through life with almost blind faith and hope in many things and possible outcomes, so why not keep an open mind and reflect on her message? Even if you don't, it's an exceptionally heartwarming read for her own per-sonal journey, her fight with cancer and subsequent recovery, and the road she takes from an anxiety and self doubt-ridden life to one full of self love.
marypaulose@khaleejtimes.com