Helping the dead

Science is aware that sound can reach us some time into clinical death.
What we don’t know scientifically speaking is how long time.

What science of course is not yet ready to acknowledge, is that we have a physical body, we are not the body, and that the core of us is eternal -and that this eternal part of can relate to us, even if we still are physical.

Even scientists are starting to acknowledge that it makes sense to talk to a newly dead: It is well known to anaesthesiologists that hearing is last sense to be anaesthetized prior to surgery and the first sense to return in the recovery room. Because of this, medical personnel have learned to be careful not to say any socially regrettable remarks about a patient while they are recovering from the effects of a general anaesthetic. The auditory nerve (VIII) leaves the brain at the lower level of the pons. This is a much lower level than the cerebral cortex or oculomotor nerve (III) and is therefore functional when these higher brain areas are not. During a NDE, even though the person is not conscious or able to see, this lower level of the brain is still functional and able to hear as well as form memories of what is heard. Several experiments have shown that anaesthetised patients who were told (falsely) that there was a surgical crisis were later able to recall either exactly or close to what was said even though they were not conscious.

(Wettach 2000).

Edited from http://dubinserver.colorado.edu/prj/tpa/p03.htm

 

Helping the dead via concentration
and vibrations

To send your thoughts to loved ones who have passed on, sit quietly in your room and meditate on God. When you feel His peace within you, concentrate deeply at the Christ centre, the centre of will at the point between the two eyebrows, [the 3’ eye], and broadcast your love to those dear ones who are gone. Visualize at the Christ centre the person you wish to contact. Send to that soul your vibrations of love, and of strength and courage. If you do this continuously and if you don’t loose the intensity of your interest in that loved one, that soul will definitely receive your vibrations. Such thoughts give your loved ones a sense of well-being, a sense of being loved. They have not forgotten you any more than you have forgotten them.

Paramahansa Yogananda Where there is Light P. 156

 

How can a person who is dead hear the Tibetan Book of the Dead?

This also explains how working with pictures of the stages
between death and a new birth may help

The simple reply is that the consciousness of the dead person, when it is invoked by the power of prayer, is able to read our minds and can feel exactly whatever we may be thinking or meditating on. That is why there is no obstacle to the dead persons understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead or practices done on their behalf, even though they may be recited in Tibetan. For the dead person, language is no barrier at all, for the essential meaning of the text can be understood fully and directly by his or her mind.
This makes it all the more vital that the practitioner should be as focused and attentive as possible when doing the practice, and not merely performing it by rite. Also, as the dead person is living the actual experiences, he or she may have a greater capacity to understand the truth of the Tibetan Book of the Dead than we do!

Sogyal Rinpoche The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying p. 305

 

Your own spiritual formula

And we may ad: Your own favourite music, exercises,

pictures to contemplate etc.

Sometimes you may be tempted to preach to the dying, or to give them your own spiritual formula. Avoid this temptation absolutely, especially when you suspect that it is not what the dying person wants! No one wishes to be rescued with someone else’s beliefs. Remember your task is not to convert anyone to anything, but to help the person in front of you get in touch with his or her own strength, confidence, faith, and spirituality, whatever that might be. Of course, if the person is really open to spiritual matters, and really wants to know what you think about them, don’t hold back either.

Sogyal Rinpoche: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying p. 173 ff

 

Music as a tool in working with the dying and the dead

The primary purpose of using any tool including music in working with the dying, must be to help the patient having less physical and emotional pain, and more ability to surrender to the highest principle they trust.

Music is a language

Music operates within a certain range of frequencies a certain level of consciousness; it has a message.
A piece of music will, by the law of resonance, bring us to its level of consciousness.
If the level the music operates on is above where we are, the music will tend to lift us.
If the music is on the same level as where we are, it will tend to lock us there.
If the music is below where we are, it will tend to drag us down
Using music to help and uplift a dying, we must take into consideration a much more vulnerable and ultimate situation than what is the norm in therapeutic contexts.
Basic understanding of where the patient is at with him or herself is very important.
Our task as caregivers is to have as much sensitively and respect for the volatile emotional state the patient is at, including that the patient may hope you can work miracles, and the deep pain of the patient may make you hope you can too.
An often forgotten but important thing when you work with music: Abruptly switching off music, often with a loud click from the tape recorder can give an amazingly painful jolt in the listeners.
Do not just turn it off, if it is time to finish the music, gradually lower the volume, or wait until the track finishes.

 

Wrong use of music
Right use of music

Time enough?
If there is time enough music can be an excellent aid in reconnecting with the lived life, and at least another attempt at reconciling, forgiving, letting go
Music is often a worthwhile aid in attempts to prevent the mind from wandering too much away from a task, but music is external, so readiness to go deep within, beyond the mind, is strongly impaired by most music, ultimately by all music.
Wrong use of music - or use of the wrong music can be compared to a power game - the energy in the music creates a conflicting, motive to what apparently is going on.

 

Right use of music in the context of death and dying
can have many different purposes:

Soothe and stabilize
Transform
As an expression and celebration of the Divine
As a preparation for true silence

Music to soothe and stabilize
The difference between soothing and stabilizing could be described this way:
Soothing brings you away from the hot issue
Stabilizing makes you better capable to face the hot issue

Examples:
The Ocean
Tambura
Tibetan Bells
Bach’s Cello concertos


Before death
Somebody that maybe is dying is not dead, thus they must have total control, and determine what they want from us; Don’t therefore forget that they are in charge, Music and other suggestions are suggestions! Don’t forget that very sick people usually are very sensitive too, even if they may not be able to express it

Will you see or sleep?

Both in the lead up to death and during death

The helper must ask him or herself a basic question - this dying person, will he or she prefer to let go of all concerns, all responsibility, just let go into a relaxed sleep? Or will he or she within the limits of what the factual situation allows and what the individual is capable of, utilize the spiritual opportunity a death-process is.

The answer must be gauged, probably not directly asked. This is difficult, probably sometimes impossible, but the answer determines the choice of music, so all care must be taken to be as close as possible to what the dying wish.

If the answer is sleep
The purpose of the music is to convey an all is fine- message. To help to reconcile, to heal, to release, to let go

Examples of relevant music:
That of the person’s favourite music that is relaxing
Popular music from important times in the dying person’s life
Mozart’s clarinet concerto rather than Stravinsky, for example
Music like that from Teresa Schroeder
Gauss
Anugama

 

If the answer is ‘see’

Depending how close to the actual death we are,
this invites a whole array of music, relating to the process

If there is some time left
It may be worthwhile with a sort of life-revue, music and suggestive instructions to the music , allowing the patient to revisit, forgive, mentally complete, etc aspects of the lived life.

Popular music from important times in the dying person’s life. After a bit of interviewing you can give an instruction like - listen to the music, let the feelings the music arises surface. If what you remember is a happy event, enjoy it a second time and then let it go. If what you remember is a sad event, look at it, see if you have more to learn from it, and then let it go.

Other relevant music
Gounod Sanctus from Mass of St Cecile
Gregorian masses
Music from his or her own religion



The music suggested above can either simply be left for the dying to listen to, and just relax into, letting the music do its own work, or, off course you can enter into chats about it.

We do not recommend that you engage in therapeutic work based on knowledge from this course alone! Have the attitude of a ‘willing compassionate ear’

 

The spiritual preparation Working with higher symbols

Working with music and keywords of Dharma

Examples:
Truthfulness: (Take care, this is a powerful exercise!)

Instruction:
Centre yourself, feel your heart.
Every time you hear the gongs imagine the sound says ‘truthfulness’, listen to the answer!
Music: for example Jens Zygar Klangraume

Working with the cosmic pictures For example the zodiac: Look at the zodiac and at the same time imagine the whole zodiac inside your heart.

Music:
Johannes Ockeghem Deo Gratias
Arvo Paart The Beatitudes
Handel’s alleluja
Henryk Gorecki Amen

Obviously the contemplations in Our Cosmic Home - A Manual for the Dying would also be an idea in this phase, but we do not recommend music directly as a part of these exercises. If music is used in conjunction with the contemplations, it should be to create the right atmosphere, and as such the music choice depends on what the patient needs, given the background noise in the hospital or in the patients mind.

 

The spiritual preparation
Higher music reflects aspects of the Divine

Many people hear inner music when they are in higher states of consciousness. This is because music, or more precise, harmonious vibration, is at the core of Divine manifestation

In the highest states of consciousness,
anything external, including music, is a disturbance

Playing higher music at a deathbed can be a very good aid even a little into the actual death; the patient needs do nothing, no visualisation no thinking nothing other than letting the music carry him or her upwards.

Music from the person’s spiritual denomination
Gregorian chants
Hildegard of Bingen
Allegri
Palestrina
Arvo Paart Te Deum
Bachs organ fugues, especially Art of the Fugue
The great chants , like Gurumayis Om Namah Shivaya


 

Choose the enlightened as the artist, unless the dying specifically wants another version, there is many more subtle levels of support in for example Gurumayi singing Om Namah Shivaya, than for example Gauss, regardless of the beauty of the latter.

AUM
Om Namah Shivaya sung by an enlightened being
Guru Gita
Gayatri Mantra
Om Mani Padme Hung

Don’t forget that in the highest states of consciousness, anything external, including music, is a disturbance, if you feel that these levels of consciousness are present, do not start new music, but let the music that are playing finish itself.

Immersion in the enlightened level

The purpose behind working with exercises to prepare for death is to aid the dead in travelling through the highest spiritual feeling or highest spiritual ideal and into death.

Music and music exercises can be used in conjunction with this prayer, to enhance the immersion in Christ, Buddha, or whomever of the enlightened ones the dying person is open to.
Instruction: To this music, let the love and beauty take over, do nothing, just bathe in the music, let yourself totally immerse in the tones, in the blessings, in the light.

Music:
Johannes Ockeghem Deo Gratias
Arvo Paart Te Deum
Handel’s Halleluja
Palestrina Ave Maria
Tallis Spem in Alium?
Brummel Missa et Ecce terra


The Eastern Christian church has this beautiful prayer with the same idea, and at least one Buddhist sect use the very same prayer, only using Buddha instead of Christ.

Christ be in front of me Christ be behind me
Christ be on my left Christ be on my right
Christ be below me Christ be above me
Christ be in me

Edited and translated from Jes Bertelsen
Doeden og doedsprocessen p 41ff

 

During and after death

It is important that the deceased is surrounded by complete peace, that nothing is done the first minute, or to be on the safe side, the first 5 - 10 minutes after the moment of death.
If you hold hands, or has a hand on the heart, leave your hand there, if the deceased is sitting up, let him or her sit. If you start touching the body, you create a focus that will attract energy. The energy must not be disturbed, the situation at the moment of death should be maintained, total stillness maintained.
In this way the deceased has the best chances to recognise and create an orientation in the glimpses that will come. It is way too confusing if for example the body is turned around, is given injections etc.
After the initial silence, the purpose now is to guide the deceased.

This can happen via reading of spiritual texts from the tradition the deceased believed in, or by contemplating the 9 pictures of the stages between death and a new birth (see later), or by establishing a vigil, where people quietly gather and create a meditative atmosphere around the body.

Examples of relevant texts:

Bardo Thodol
The Dalai Lama Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life
The Bible
The Tora
Koran
Patanjali
Bhagavad Gita

Meditative music to support the living people
that are doing a wake or vigil

Gregorian chants
Hildegard of Bingen
Allegri
Palestrina
Arvo Paart Te Deum
Bachs organ fuges, especially Art of the Fuge

The great chants , like Gurumayis Om Namah Shivaya

Choose the enlightened as the artist, unless the dying specifically wants another version, there is many more subtle levels of support in for example Gurumayi singing Om Namah Shivaya, than for example Gauss, regardless of the beauty of the latter.

AUM
Om Namah Shivaya sung by an enlightened
Gayatri Mantra
Om Mani Padme Hung

 

Normally do not use music for the sake of the dead.

Most music will not aid the period after death.

An exception seems to be:
Bach’s organ Fugues, especially Art of the Fugue

 

After death:Traditional Roman Catholic Christian
The Requiem Mass - the doctrine of Purgatory

The mass is the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper, and is the chief act of Roman Catholic worship. Generally it is performed daily by every priest, as a sacrifice commemorating and perpetually repeating Christ’s sacrificial death.
The Mass, the rites for which are set forth in the Missal, has for many centuries been said or sung in Latin (except in eastern churches where Greek, Old Slavonic, Syriac or other Oriental languages are used), […]
The Requiem Mass, as such, was not a reality much before the end of the 10th Century, and the special day for the commemoration of the dead, November 2nd (All Soul’s Day), was instituted by St Odo, the Abbot of Cluny in 998 AD. This commemoration was observed everywhere by the 13th century, when the doctrine of Purgatory taught by St.Thomas Aquinas and other theologians, and foreshadowed since the 3rd Century, [more on that in weekend 4] was universally accepted and Masses for the dead became a general feature of parish life. […]
Requiem Mass Offered for the dead in Purgatory. The Requiem Mass is celebrated in memory of the faithful departed on All Soul’s Day, 2nd November […] It may be sung also on the day of burial and on succeeding anniversaries as well as on the third, seventh and 30th days following the death.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Requiem/whatis.htm

Gregorian Mass for the Dead
Mozart Requiem
Faure Requiem (Beautiful, but is not totally in accordance with Catholic tradition)