Rating: 
Summary: Jargon update for Platonists
Review: Assuming the Platonic narrative is an important aid to those who are dying over an extended gentle period Singh incorporates much of the vocabulary -- from pop-psychology and philosophy -- to build a coherent picture that must certainly soothe us as we die. Here, at the point where Aristotle would challenge us to recognize our soul ends with the body and accept that our soul was past tense -- a narrative sure to depress those who enjoyed life and wish for eternity -- reiterating the Platonic narrative using current idioms is a great service to our dying process. The reassurance that this interpretation of the narrative is persuasive depends on accepting Singh's expereinces which we cannot duplicate. Indeed, those who have had such experience, being present at many deaths, have told me they did not share such experience. But it is a safe argument since we cannot test it. It is beleivable to those who wish to beleive it and that may be enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Grace in Living
Review: I add these words of praise to the ones already written not because I can add anything new to what has been said but because I want to thank and humbly honor the author and her work. Reading the book was like a loving meditation on death, a contemplative journey tht began with fear and ended in friendly surrender to death's reality. It is a book of many levels written by someone who has spent her life with the dying and who is full of learned and intuitive wisdom. It is a book that should be read by all those in the medical profession who have contact with death so that they may be constantly aware of death's dignity. But most of all, it is a book that should be read by those who search for grace in life. This is the author's gift: that in describing the transformative process of dying that ends in grace, she inspires us to attentively and mindfully recreate that process in our lives.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent treasure that will ease our fear of death.
Review: I found "The Grace in Dying" to be an invaluable book that will assist me in my volunteer work with hospice patients--and also in my own life. It is a masterpiece of knowledge and wisdom that can open our awareness to the magnificent potential for growth that lies buried within each of us. It helps us to discover who we really are--we are Spirit. "The Grace in Dying" is so timely, so important, and so needed in our Western world. It will ease our fear of death and help us to integrate death and dying in our daily lives. While never for a second making us believe that dying or living with a terminal illness is easy, it allows us to find the beauty, and some peace, in the process."The Grace in Dying" illuminates the the great transformation that takes place at the time of death--and how we also might find the way, through contemplative and spiritual practices, to this wonderful transformation amidst the living of our lives.
Rating: 
Summary: In The Way Of The Psychologist
Review: I found Kathleen Singh's The Grace in Dying difficult to read. Not because it's a profound book, nor because the writing is difficult, but because it consists of a well-intentioned attempt to merge some genuine and compassionate insights regarding death and dying with an almost incoherent type of pop-psychology. Consider the following: "We will find that the anger of our mental egos, as we confront our own death, is well laced with fear....Anger is a highly emotional phase in the dying process. The mental ego, typically, is still operating at the level of persona: the levels of Belief, Social Contract, and Ego Saint in the Sufi cartography. In these levels of consciousness, the mental ego is still unable to own its shadow parts. It sees the momentum of the process of dying as emanating from other than the self." (p.186). Her typical juggling of constructed categories (interspersed with comforting platitudes) does very little, in my humble opinion, to help us understand the psychological and spiritual dimensions of death. This does not mean that Singh's book isn't valuable; it simply means that she has an agenda and an ideology, and I, for one, would prefer to be free of both, when I die. Yes, people are transformed as they die, and no, Singh has not addressed the open-ended and indeterminate nature of that process. She has instead placed the process of dying into a construction of her own, and that ideology, rather than genuine insight, is what characterizes this book. Those interested in the subject of death might benefit more from Kubler-Ross's Death: The Final Stage of Growth and others, and Stephen Levine's poorly-written but thematically consistent (and brilliant) Who Dies, and other similar books. Any reader familiar with the books Singh considers primary will see how unfortunate it is that Singh did not concentrate on what she has learned from her hands-on work with the dying, rather than on what she clearly doesn't know about psychology and religion.
Rating:
Summary: Informative and inspirational
Review: I have read the marvelous works by Kathleen Singh. I am a healthcare provider as well as an educator. The book is beautifully written and I was impressed with the research that went into its production. The words spoke to me enough to complete a journey of my own. This book should be required reading for nursing students.
Rating:
Summary: A True Insight to dying, with Love
Review: I only read an affirmation of just how I see death. I too love to sit with the dying and my experience's are similar. For the road of death is the same. It is the experience's that are different. It was a joy to read Kathleen's book. I have sent my copy to others in other hospice situations. I hope that she will write another book soon. I would love to hear her lecture. I have tried to find her but with little sucess.For any infomation please E-Mail me at Brbru1@Aol.Com
Rating:
Summary: I REALLY wanted to like this book !!
Review: Kathleen Singh has produced a "must-read" book on death and dying, a subject most of us would rather avoid but will eventually have to deal with. The complex struggle between mind and body as one approaches death is carefully explained and dissected. The question of whether or not we have souls that will move on into new lives is addressed from a unique and convincing point of view I especially recommend this landmark treatise for all medical and nursing students, as well as for the general public. As a famous author said (I believe it was Mark Twain): "None of us will get out of this alive."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, much needed, beautifully written book
Review: This is by far the most exciting, beautifully and sensitively written work on the subject of spiritual transformations that can occur during the dying process and around death (and at other times in our lives if we are ready) that I have come across to date. The information contained herein needs to be disseminated throughout our "spiritually impoverished" culture in an attempt to decimate the illusions under which the majority of mankind continues to needlessly suffer when thinking about death and dying. Singh draws upon, and very nicely (and relevantly) assimilates, the knowledge and wisdom culled from both depth psychology and the "wisdom traditions" of the world, referencing Ken Wilbur, Joseph Campbell, Phillip Kapleau, Abraham Maslow, Steven Levine, Sogyal Rinpoche and multiple other Buddhist masters, creating a splendid literary compilation, brimming with insights and explanations, and delivered with humility and compassion, in an extraordinary choice of words. For those working intimately with the dying, this book is a beacon.
Rating:
Summary: Before You Go...A Must Read....
Review: Unless you believe that when we die, we cease to exist (period, end of life), and whether or not you work with the terminally ill, this book is a must read. This book does not tell us other people's stories, nor is it for those who are dying, or dealing with the immediate death of a loved one. It is for the rest of us. Be advised - this is not an easy read - my copy of the book, which took 5 times longer to read than my usual reading choice - is riddled with scribbled comments, question-marks, exclamation points, and words circled and underlined. Let me also add, this is not my style. I'm a lazy reader. This is a well-written course in the evolution and retrogression of our individual lives, for (deny it though we might), you and I are going to die. The questions that worry us most are most probably "when" and "how." Singh cannot answer the former, but this book will help with parts of the latter. Much of what Singh tells us is based on experiences of those who have worked with those who are terminally ill, in addition to her own observations. Whether we believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, a Higher Power, Nature, Singh maintains that the point of dying is to return us to the place from which we came. She reminds us that we come into the world thinking we are the center of the Universe. Perhaps we were right, for it may be that at birth we are as close to the Creator as we will get, until death takes us back. She describes how we spend our youth and young adult life developing, then defending our sense of self. We live, often most pleasantly, in constant denial of our own mortality, a truth that seems too bleak to accept. In the latter part of life, we may hold tightly to our ego, but our body begins to betray us. If we are slowly dying of cancer, AIDS, or the illnesses of old age, we can grow into acceptance of the insulting truth that our ego is not the true "us." One dying woman described it as having an "ego-ectomy. Singh presents us with additional stages of dying, expanding on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. Kubler-Ross' stages dealt with the affects on the ego, or mind; medical science gives us physical stages. Singh offers the theory that we go through necessary spiritual stages before dying, whether or not we have been looking for spiritual transformation. Dying offers us a crash course, the equivalent of a spiritual shotgun wedding. When we are stripped of everything we thought made us unique, a universal specialness is revealed. Regardless of when it happens - years, months or seconds from our death - we will come to realize the unimportance of what was once important. And despite ourselves we will stumble upon our own unity with that Force we call many things - God, Universe, Light. I feel more convinced than ever that death is not a negative, dark force I must flail against, but the other side of living, a door I must go through. That I'll figure it out at the end doesn't encourage me to stop seeking now - perhaps my exit/entrance will go better if I stop running from my fear of death, and truly live my life. This book is an excellent start in learning now how to make our own living fuller, so we will be closer to home when we die.
Rating:
Summary: Before You Go...A Must Read....
Review: Unless you believe that when we die, we cease to exist (period, end of life), and whether or not you work with the terminally ill, this book is a must read. This book does not tell us other people's stories, nor is it for those who are dying, or dealing with the immediate death of a loved one. It is for the rest of us. Be advised - this is not an easy read - my copy of the book, which took 5 times longer to read than my usual reading choice - is riddled with scribbled comments, question-marks, exclamation points, and words circled and underlined. Let me also add, this is not my style. I'm a lazy reader. This is a well-written course in the evolution and retrogression of our individual lives, for (deny it though we might), you and I are going to die. The questions that worry us most are most probably "when" and "how." Singh cannot answer the former, but this book will help with parts of the latter. Much of what Singh tells us is based on experiences of those who have worked with those who are terminally ill, in addition to her own observations. Whether we believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, a Higher Power, Nature, Singh maintains that the point of dying is to return us to the place from which we came. She reminds us that we come into the world thinking we are the center of the Universe. Perhaps we were right, for it may be that at birth we are as close to the Creator as we will get, until death takes us back. She describes how we spend our youth and young adult life developing, then defending our sense of self. We live, often most pleasantly, in constant denial of our own mortality, a truth that seems too bleak to accept. In the latter part of life, we may hold tightly to our ego, but our body begins to betray us. If we are slowly dying of cancer, AIDS, or the illnesses of old age, we can grow into acceptance of the insulting truth that our ego is not the true "us." One dying woman described it as having an "ego-ectomy. Singh presents us with additional stages of dying, expanding on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. Kubler-Ross' stages dealt with the affects on the ego, or mind; medical science gives us physical stages. Singh offers the theory that we go through necessary spiritual stages before dying, whether or not we have been looking for spiritual transformation. Dying offers us a crash course, the equivalent of a spiritual shotgun wedding. When we are stripped of everything we thought made us unique, a universal specialness is revealed. Regardless of when it happens - years, months or seconds from our death - we will come to realize the unimportance of what was once important. And despite ourselves we will stumble upon our own unity with that Force we call many things - God, Universe, Light. I feel more convinced than ever that death is not a negative, dark force I must flail against, but the other side of living, a door I must go through. That I'll figure it out at the end doesn't encourage me to stop seeking now - perhaps my exit/entrance will go better if I stop running from my fear of death, and truly live my life. This book is an excellent start in learning now how to make our own living fuller, so we will be closer to home when we die.
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