How To Be at Peace with Dying

Death is something that people from the beginning of time have feared, mostly because of the possibility of hell that might be in their future. Christ’s death on the cross was his message to us that there is no death; in fact, there is eternal life. There is no hell; God in His Love for His Child could never permit such a horrible place to exist.

1. There is no hell; God’s Son has eternal life. Christ tells us in "A Course in Miracles" that he did not experience the cross in the way that we imagine that we would experience it. He felt no pain because he was filled with such Love – Love for those who knew not what they were doing to him and Love for all humankind created in the image and likeness of God. This is not to say that we look like God, but that we share the Presence of God within us, for our Father is nearer than hands and feet.
2. The more we resist death, the more painful it will be. If we worry over death and hell, we will resist the experience rather than welcome it; resistance always brings pain. If we are at peace with the idea of death, at one with the love of our Father and aware of Christ’s and the Holy Spirit’s presence within us, we will gladly surrender our body that has weighed us down for so many years. We will know that we will be safe in the loving arms of God after death as we are in life, though many of us don’t realize it while we are alive.
3. Nobody really knows what happens after death. There have been many conjectures from different directions, but that is all that they are. However, if you die believing that there is a hell full of burning fires and terrible pain, you might just create that experience – who knows? You might hear harps and meet your loved ones on the other side – who knows? There might be reincarnation – who knows? We can only trust that God loves us and would not have us be in terror of any kind. In His house are many mansions and none of them are torture chambers, that I can guarantee!
4. We have eternal life; though someone may injure or even kill your body, nothing can harm your Spirit. As you dedicate your life more and more to love, peace, joy, harmony and happiness, no one would be drawn to
   attack you, anyway.
5. We can experience hell here on earth. Many people crucify themselves day after day after day. We can experience Heaven here on earth if we know deep within us that God’s love surrounds us and protects us throughout
   our day.
6. When the time comes, just relax and turn yourself over to Spirit, at peace with the Love of God and Christ. Release everything in this world. Your cares will be left behind; you will be united with that presence beyond the tragic events of this insane world.

From "A Course in Miracles":

This is what death should be: a quiet choice, made joyfully and with a sense of peace, because the body has been kindly used to help the
Son of God along the way he goes to God. We thank the body, then, for all the service it has given us. But we are thankful too, the need is done to walk the world of limits, and to reach the Christ in hidden forms and clearly seen at most in lovely flashes. Now we can behold Him without blinders, in the light that we have earned to look upon again. We call it death, but it is liberty. It does not come in forms that seem to be thrust down in pain upon unwilling flesh, but as a gentle welcome to release. If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go in peace to freer air and gentler climate, where it is not hard to see the gifts we gave were saved for us. For Christ is clearer now; His Vision more sustained in us; His Voice, the Word of God, more certainly our own.

Song of Prayer 16/ S–3.II.2 (a supplement to the Course)