DHO End of Life

Murshid Samuel L. Lewis
Photo by Saul Barodofsky

DHO End of Life / Doorway Into Light

Dervish Healing Order End of Life

Angela Amundsen, RN, BSN

Towards the One. This is our goal through all the stages of our lives. This is what we seek. The end of life is no different than any other stage. The Dervish Healing Order is beginning the dialogue on how we as healers can assist at the end of life, through practice, prayer, support, and comfort measures.

On June 28, 2002, at the behest of Saul Barodofsky, the leader of the DHO, a number of Sufis met to discuss the issues of the end of life. The discussion led us to exploring how we deal with death. We each had a recent personal experience of death or have family or friends that our getting older or are ill, and we are aware of the immediacy of their death and their physical absence from our lives. Some of us are medical professionals, and deal with death frequently and assist patients, family, and friends through this process. None of had talked about our experiences as a group. We found that there wa s much to be shared, and we! had many questions.

Care and comfort of the dying starts with us, the healer. To begin a practice of assisting the dying, we need to be aware of our own experiences of death, and our own perceptions. Are we comfortable with the process of death, do we see it as a part of life? Do we see death as someone else’s experience? How do others experience the process of death? Are we willing to ask others about their thoughts on death and dying? What are some of the cultural practices around death in your local area? Do these seem strange to us or can we appreciate these practices? Are we willing to look deeply inside ourselves and examine our own fears and beliefs about death and dying in order to be able to support another through this process?

As some of us are healers in the medical profession, a discussion took place about the need to begin to guide the humans for whom we are caring from disease directed therapy to comfort directed therapy. What are some of the ethical issues we need to examine in order to feel comfortable assisting people through this decision process? How can we support family and friends in the dying process? What are the prejudices, beliefs, and practices at which we need to look? How do we attend and care for ourselves while we support those in the process?

As healers in the medical profession, some of us need to become aware as to how we can support the human who is dying in the medical environment. Aslan Sattler, MD and Rey Patterson, MD have provided examples of orders and guidelines to consider. As healers working outside the medical community, you can read the examples and learn more about medical support.

We look at all the aspects of care to assist with this process—physical, emotional, spiritual.

Some of the tasks we can all do are practical and good human practice as well as spiritual practice. We can make a Living Will, which designates the medical care that we receive if we begin to die, and Durable Medical Power of Attorney, which legally designates the person who will be making medical decisions for us should we be unable to make them, and who will ensure our wishes be carried out. We can support a natural death, a natural process.

In the Dervish Healing Order, we can perform the Healing Service to aid and comfort both the living and the deceased. According to Murshid Samuel Lewis, the Healing Service will ease the soul in the transition in transferring to higher planes of existence. In all cases meditation, is effective to create a healing environment.

As the dialogue continues, we will update this site and provide further insights into how we can best serve at the end of life.

Doorway Into Light

Aloha and blessings to all,

We are writing today to share with you a very exciting and wonderfully inspirational vision from DOORWAY INTO LIGHT, a non-profit, spiritually based educational organization founded by Bodhi Be, Leilah Be and Ram Dass.

They have long been educating the greater community on bringing death and dying fully into the realm of sacred work, both for the dying person and for those caring for the dying person.

Who we truly are does not die.

Approaching the death of our bodies is a powerful time for spiritual work for people of all walks of life and spiritual beliefs. It has been recognized by cultures for thousands of years as a time for healing, reconciliation and forgiveness, as well as a time for deep inner work with the potential for great awakening and realization.

The intention of DOORWAY INTO LIGHT is to support and encourage this work through trainings and community outreach, and by creating a safe and sacred space for those in the dying process to come for their end of life journey.

All religions and traditions will be honored in the recognition that paths are many, truth is one.

Following this intention, the DOORWAY INTO LIGHT Death and Dying Center is being created, so Bodhi, Leilah and Ram Dass, are asking you to join them on their path to manifest this vision. With your donations to DOORWAY INTO LIGHT, you will join others to help build this wonderful facility for the world community, allowing people from all walks of life access to a sacred place for their journey through the “doorway into the light”.

Our progress to date:

We have taken the funds we generated at our recent workshops to hire some savvy consultants, who understand what we’re about, and to have them help get us up and running. We have put together an Executive Summary and Business Plan outline, which we will present to you on request.

Currently we are in the process of acquiring federal non-profit status.

We have also put together an Advisory Board of doctors, lawyers, the chairman of the Maui Sierra Club, the executive director of the Green Burial Council, the Clinical Director of Hospice Maui, and others who support this vision.

The immediate needs, in this request for donations, is to continue this work, as well as hire grant writers to create a grant funding plan, research and write grants, and help with the allocation of funds from the grants. The further needs of building this center are clarified in the business outline.

This center will include the following:

A residential monastery for people approaching their death to focus on their inner work and be supported by a professional hospice staff, nurses, doctors and a trained volunteer staff helping to hold safe and sacred space.

A “green” cemetery, where groves of trees will be planted over graves; and a crematorium, will provide families and friends the opportunity to honor their loved ones who have died through participating in these memorial rituals, if they choose. This will take place in an environmentally clean and sustainable way. The cemetery will model the joining of cemeteries with land restoration, reforestation, greenways and open space.

A Ceremony Hall will provide a space for families and friends to create unique and sacred ceremony together.

A School for those who wish to prepare for their eventual death, and for those who wish to enrich their path in service to the dying. Leaders in the field of spiritual care for the dying from around the world and from many of the world’s religious traditions will be on the teaching staff at this school. Students of the school will assist in the monastery as well as in the crematorium, the cemetery and the ceremony hall.

Pools and gardens will grace the grounds, which will be designed for walking, meditation, relaxation and reflection.

In summary, our intention is to help change our culture’s attitudes towards death and dying by becoming a living example and educational presence.

We know this change is possible, because, as shown in a recent survey in AARP Magazine, a popular publication for seniors, readers were polled and asked what method of burial they would prefer. 89% chose cremation or “green burial.”

We need to also look at America’s massive, graying Baby Boomer generation, which will start to change the trends in death. The number of Americans born between 1946 and 1965 totals 78 million, and represents 29.4% of the total U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).

Based on the expected increased population and death rate within the Hawaiian Islands alone, coupled with the overall increasing awareness of the need/desire for organic, natural and green products and facilities, we feel this is the time for the DOORWAY INTO LIGHT Death and Dying Center to become a reality. It is exactly what is needed, and the perfect time to offer it. People from around the world will utilize this center and its services.

By providing a place for the dying and their families to come to for this transition, we give back to them the control over this final step in life, in a beautiful, respectful, serene setting, recognizing people as spiritual beings with physical bodies engaged in the journey of leaving this life and this body behind.

Just as birth is a celebration of a new life entering this world, the end of our physical life can also be a celebration of the spirit moving on to the next level of being. At the same time, we have deep understanding for how difficult that may be for some people, immediately following someone’s death, and so too, we hold safe and sacred space for deep grieving and letting go.

We feel privileged that our individual journeys in life, so far, have given us the opportunity to touch many, many lives, and to make a difference in those lives. The vision of the DOORWAY INTO LIGHT Death and Dying Center is the next step on our journeys in service to awakening human consciousness.

Sufis Hawaii, a 501c3 non-profit, of which Leilah and Bodhi are directors and officers, has agreed to accept donations on DOORWAY INTO LIGHT’s behalf.

Please send donations to:
Sufis Hawaii, PO Box 1268, Haiku, HI, 96708
and specify that it be for DOORWAY INTO LIGHT.

You can direct any questions to bodhi@ipuka.org.

We welcome your well wishes and prayers, visioning, and financial support.
Please join us in this important “spiritual undertaking”.

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