Anita Moorjani’s two-part interview is now in one Afterlife TV episode! Three years ago I interviewed Anita Moorjani about her near death experience as one of my first guests on Afterlife TV. At that time, I separated this extraordinary interview into two parts. Consequently many people missed part two, which holds extraordinary wisdom that we can all use in our lives. Because this is one of the most popular episodes in Afterlife TV history, I’ve put Part 1 & Part 2 together into this one life-altering interview that is worth watching again even if you saw it years ago. While the video technology has improved since this episode and this was one of my first interviews as a host, the content from Anita is absolutely amazing. And it should be noted that this was also one of Anita’s earliest interviews, even before her book was released and before she was presented to the world by Dr. Wayne Dyer. ~ Bob Olson, Afterlife TV
Anita Moorjani is the upcoming author of Dying To Be Me (Hay House) to be released in March, 2012. Anita Moorjani is the embodiment of the truth that we all have the inner power and wisdom to overcome even life’s most adverse situations, as she is the living proof of this possibility. You can visit her website at AnitaMoorjani.com
If you’d like to watch this video, Anita Moorjani’s Extraordinary Near Death Experience, visit www.afterlifetv.com/?p=2203
Afterlife TV is presented by Afterlife Investigator & Psychic Medium Researcher Bob Olson, who is the author of Answers about the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death.
Check out Bob Olson’s other sites: BestPsychicDirectory.com (a directory of hundreds of psychics & mediums by location with reviews & Instant Readings) & BestPsychicMediums.com (his personal recommended list of tested psychics and mediums) or visit Bob’s Facebook Page. Bob also has a popular workshop for psychics and mediums at PsychicMediumWorkshop.com.
JOIN BOB’S NEWSLETTER: Don’t miss Bob’s latest content about life lessons and life after death on his newsletter called, Bob Olson Connect.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Welcome to www.afterlifetv.com. I’m Bob Olson. You can find us at afterlifetv.com, and today you are not going to want to miss this interview that I’m doing, this conversation, I like to call them. Because I honestly believe that if I did this for 20 or 30 more years, this will be among the top interviews that I ever do. The messages, the lessons that you are going to learn from this are amazing. Our guest is Anita Moorjani. Welcome, Anita. Thank you so much for joining us.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I’m really honored to be here.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: It’s my pleasure. Just so everybody knows, you’re in Hong Kong, correct?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, that’s right. I live in Hong Kong.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I am just a couple hours outside of Boston, so we’ve got a lot of distance here. It’s amazing what technology can allow us nowadays. I love it.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Let’s begin by just talking about your story. I’ll just let people know ahead of time this is the story of someone who has had a near death experience but with this major twist. In comparison, I can almost say this is not just a mere near death experience, as if any near death experience was a mere.
This is something that we not only can learn about the afterlife with, but we can learn about ourselves and really what life is all about from this story. So we’re going to begin by asking you, Anita, if you could just sort of tell us where this story starts. I think it starts with you being sick.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, it starts with me being diagnosed with cancer. I mean to me this story starts much before that. It starts from what I believe caused the cancer, but for all intents and purposes this story starts from me being diagnosed with cancer and it getting progressively worse.
In the beginning I actually refused conventional treatment because I had watched two people close to me die on chemotherapy, so I didn’t have any confidence in chemotherapy. Also, the fact that scientists are still trying to find a cure for cancer, which means basically in medicine there is no cure for cancer. I mean everybody admits that. There’s no cure for cancer. So I didn’t understand why I had to go the medical route if medicine itself admits there’s no cure for cancer. So I decided to try alternatives, but for me it didn’t work. But I gained more understanding about that much later, but my cancer continued to spread. Over a period of four years the cancer had spread throughout my body. I had lymphoma.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Oh my goodness.
Anita Moorjani: It spread, in fact, all the way from the base of my skull all the way down to my abdomen, like through my chest, under my arms. Originally when I was diagnosed it was because I just had a lump over here just where my collarbone is, but over a period of four years it spread until my organs shut down. Then I went into a coma, and that’s when the near death experience started.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: All right. These are tumors that are throughout your body. I understand they’re fairly large. What in comparison, what size were they?
Anita Moorjani: I tend to say lemons because actually that’s what my oncologist said. He said, “The tumors are the size of lemons.” They were swollen glands and tumors throughout like blocking my chest, blocking my lungs so I couldn’t breathe. Plus, whatever capacity that was left in my lungs was filled with fluid, and so I was on a ventilator. I had an oxygen tank.
My muscles had completely wasted, so I was in a wheelchair until I fell into a coma. I was either in a wheelchair or lying on the bed. I had open skin lesions because my body was so filled with cancer and toxins that my skin was actually opening up. Yeah, it was pretty bad. I had a fulltime nurse who was dressing my wounds, the open skin lesions. I had one on my neck and one under my arm. These were weeping and open.
Then on the night of February 2, 2006, I was in a lot of pain, a lot of pain. So the nurse gave me a huge dose of morphine. On the morning of February 3, I didn’t wake up. My husband noticed that I was in a coma, and he called for the doctor right away. Now, until this point I was being treated at home with a fulltime nurse. I’m sorry. It was the morning of February 2 that I didn’t wake up, and my husband rushed me to the hospital.
He called my doctor, and the doctor was there to receive me. They basically told my family that this was it. My organs had shut down, and these were my last hours and to contact anybody that they had to contact who hadn’t seen me. But basically, that was it. They were waiting for my last breath.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: In fact, prior to this you had been told you probably had about six months to live. Now you go into this coma and they tell your family what, at most 36 hours, correct?
Anita Moorjani: That’s right. They said, at most, 36 hours. In fact, the resident oncologist at that hospital, she wasn’t my regular doctor. My regular doctor was waiting there for me, and then spoke to the resident oncologist. The resident oncologist actually said, “We never take in patients in this condition. Basically, she’s just come here to die. If that’s what she’s going to do, basically we don’t see why she can’t do that at home. Why did she have to come here?”
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Such compassion. It’s all business. Well, all right, so now you go into this coma, and there’s so much more to this story. I want people to know they can go to your website at anitamoorjani.com, and the links will be below this video when people see it. There’s a lot more to learn with this story. Because this is Afterlife TV, we’re going to focus more today on the near death experience and what that was all like because there’s so much to learn from that alone.
But certainly I recommend that people learn more about your story on your website. Let’s just mention now while we’ve got people’s attention with this story that you have a book coming out March 2012 called Dying to Be Me, correct?
Anita Moorjani: Correct.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: All right. So we’ll get back to that later. I do want to talk to you about what you think caused or what you know caused your cancer, but did you know it at this time? Did you already know it before you went into the near death experience, or was it something you learned in this experience that you had?
Anita Moorjani: Completely learned it in the experience itself.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Okay, so we’ll wait on that. If we don’t get to it, I’ll ask you at the end because that’s pretty significant as far as I’m concerned, a major lesson for us to learn. So the first thing you recognize you’re in a coma, and yet my understanding is you weren’t even really aware that you were in a coma you were so aware of things. Is that correct?
Anita Moorjani: That’s correct. I didn’t know I was in a coma. I was aware of everything that was happening around me, so I didn’t even realize that I was in a coma. I could hear the doctors. I could hear what they were saying, and I was kind of wondering like why are they saying that? I didn’t feel uncomfortable or anything. In fact, the pain was gone. All the pain I had been feeling the previous night before the nurse injected the morphine, all of that was gone. I was starting to feel really light and free.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So you’re not feeling any pain. Obviously, I mean these are memories that you’re having of this, right? Sort of it’s all in hindsight. You recognize that you had this awareness, but is there actual thinking going on? Are you curious as to why you’re not feeling any pain anymore?
Anita Moorjani: Yes and no. See, this is really hard to explain because I would be hesitant to even use the word that I was “thinking.” I would use the word “awareness.” So I started to become aware. I became aware that hey, I’m feeling free. It’s a very subtle difference between becoming aware and actually thinking because I think awareness is closer to sort of knowing. But it’s more an emotion; it’s not from the mind. It’s more a feeling.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Okay, all right. I’m going to tell people now to really pay attention because having heard Anita’s story, this is going to be the closest we’ll ever get to interviewing a spirit, to find out what it’s like to be in spirit. So pay attention to this because what she’s about to tell us really describes what I would expect in all the evidence that I’ve gained in my investigations in 13 years that has taught me about what it is like to be a spiritual being.
So you’re lying here. You have this awareness. What are some of the first things that you’re aware of other than that you’re not in any pain? Are you aware of what your family members are doing?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, I was aware of what my family members were going through, their anguish, their desperation. I couldn’t understand it. I could hear the doctor telling them that these were my last hours; I had 36 hours at best, if even. Then I was aware that my husband was frantically trying to call my brother, who was in India, to tell him to come here.
Then I was even aware that my brother was already on a plane. He had sensed something was going on, so he’d already left his home. He packed his bags, left his home, and got on a plane to come to Hong Kong. It was as though my awareness was just expanding. It still chokes me up every time I recall it or think about it. So it was like I was expanding, and then I was encompassing everything. So I became my husband, and I became my brother. I was aware that my brother was frantically wanting to get to me before I actually died.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Wow, frantically. So you’re feeling his emotions, in other words. You recognize what he’s feeling. Is he on a plane? Is he driving? What’s he doing?
Anita Moorjani: He’s on a plane.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, that’s what I thought. He was on a plane, and you can feel what he’s feeling.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, I could feel what he’s feeling. I could feel what my husband was feeling. My husband wouldn’t leave my side because he was just sitting riveted watching all the dials above my bed, and he didn’t want to move because he didn’t know when I would take my last breath.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: He wanted to be there when you did. So there’s no thinking going; there’s only an awareness going on. So are you feeling any turmoil in recognizing what they’re going through?
Anita Moorjani: What would happen is that I would feel their feelings and I would feel their emotions. As soon as I started to feel those emotions and get attached to those emotions, it was like simultaneously I would then feel myself actually being pulled away, like a detachment. Then as I would get pulled away I would be overcome by this feeling of just unconditional love, like really unconditional compassion.
Then there was this feeling that no matter what was unfolding before me in the physical world, it didn’t matter; whatever was unfolding, it was still perfect. It was still going to be perfect in the grand tapestry. So it was like I was being pulled away not consciously. I wasn’t consciously trying to pull myself away, but I was being pulled away from the emotions of everything that was happening.
Then my awareness would rest somewhere else, and then it was like I would get drawn in to those emotions. Like it would be my mother, for example, and then I’d get drawn in. Again, I would get pulled away. It was as though I would be enveloped by just this unconditional love and then again like washed over with a feeling that everything is fine, everything’s perfect. In the grand tapestry everything’s still going to unfold perfectly.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Absolutely amazing for you to be able to focus in on one person. You sort of did it one at a time, it sounds like. As soon as your attention focused on that one person is when you could feel everything that they were feeling and even know what they were doing. You were aware of things that were obviously with your brother who was flying there, but you were aware of things that were happening outside of the room, correct?
Anita Moorjani: Correct, yes, of the doctors telling my husband and telling my mother. I was aware of their emotions. In fact, it’s like I became them. It’s like there’s no separation. It’s as though the body keeps us separate, but when we’re not in our body it’s like we’re all one. It’s like I was able to feel every emotion they were feeling. It was really like I became whatever I focused on.
It also felt like it was all happening simultaneously, so it was like in that state the awareness is like 360-degree peripheral vision. Distance is not an issue. It doesn’t matter how far, but even the time is not an issue. It’s as though everything is happening simultaneously. It’s like now when I come back and now I’m back in my body and I’m expressing it, I have to put everything into linear time. I have to explain it all and kind of try to figure out, okay, in what sequence did it happen?
But over there it was like there’s no sequence. It’s like our brain gives it a sequence, but over there there’s no sequence. It’s like it’s all happening, and I’m aware of it all. It’s just wherever my awareness rests, that’s what unfolds for me.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I talk about what it’s like to be a spiritual being. What excites me about it is because people ask questions about their loved ones in spirit, and they want to know if their loved ones in spirit are aware of them. Everything I’ve ever learned or heard through mediums or people who have had near death experiences, what have you, is that yes, all they need to do is focus upon you and they’re aware of everything that’s going on in your life. They’re aware of everything that you’re feeling.
Yet it has been difficult even for me to describe to some people about this idea of time and space. So if you talk to them they will become aware of you, and they’ll know everything that’s going on in your life. But this even goes a little bit into the future. Did you have any sort of recognition of the future as well?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah. Future and past; well, with the future, they had already taken a lot of tests on my body and tests of my organ function and things like that. So although the doctors had said the organs were already appearing to be failing and that’s why I was dying, I reached a point where I had a choice of whether I wanted to come back into my life or go on into death. There’s a lot around there which I’ll get into, but specifically about the future.
I was aware that if I chose to go back into life that my test results, which had already been taken, would show that my organs were starting to function again. If I chose not to go back into life, not to go back into my body, the test results would show that my organs had failed. So basically, the diagnosis would be my death was caused by organ failure due to end-stage cancer.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Whoa, all right. This is very significant. So obviously you’re given this choice. So I guess we’re skipping ahead a little bit because obviously someone must’ve asked you to make this choice. Who was there in this, what would you call this place? Is it the spirit world? Is it some void? What? What is it? What’s your word for it?
Anita Moorjani: Well, I sort of use the other realm.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: The other realm. Okay, I love that, great. So we’re in the other realm. Here you are. Let’s just back up a little bit. At first you’re alone. You’re aware of all these things that are happening. Eventually, some other spiritual being must come into your presence. Who is that? How would you describe this? Tell us about it.
Anita Moorjani: The first spiritual essence that I became aware of was my father because he was deceased 10 years prior to that. He had passed away. So it was really comforting to feel his essence. Then even the communication there is very different. See, people have said to me, “Is it mind to mind?” It’s not even mind to mind. It’s like you become them. It’s like you become one with them, and you just know. It’s instant. It’s instantaneous. It’s not a back and forth communication. So then what I’m doing is I’m now putting words to what it was that was instantly understood.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, impossible to do really, right?
Anita Moorjani: Yes. Basically, the first thing I understood when I was aware of my father’s essence was that it wasn’t my time. He wanted me to know that it wasn’t my time. But even though it wasn’t my time, I still had the choice of whether I wanted to come back into my physical body or go further into the other realm.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So he’s the one who gave you that choice?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, he’s the one who gave me that choice.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: You know, when he first showed up, again, I know it’s all happening at the same time. How would you describe it? I’m going to ask you to try. I mean what is that like? Here you haven’t seen your father in 10 years, and all the sudden, I mean, does he knock at the door? Does he just sneak up behind you? What happens? How do you become aware of his presence, and what is that like?
Anita Moorjani: Well, it was amazing. It seemed like my father, he had really wanted me to get married when he was in physical life, and he didn’t see my wedding. But also when I was growing up we had a lot of cultural differences because he’s very traditional Indian, Hindu. I was more westernized because of my education. Somehow that seemed to cause a little bit of a clash, a little bit of a culture clash. My values were a little bit different.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yes, I think a lot of us can relate to that.
Anita Moorjani: He had wanted me to have an arranged marriage, things like that. But when I encountered him in the other realm, what was incredible, I think the first thing I felt from him, what overwhelmed me, was the unconditional love. It was just overwhelming. It was just all I could feel from him was just pure, unconditional love. It’s not like he comes in from behind or in front. It’s like oh my God, it’s you! It’s dad! Then it’s all emotion. It’s just pure, raw emotion of unconditional love, this feeling that was emanating from him.
Then I understood. I just understood. I just got it without him saying anything that he had always loved me unconditionally. But when we’re in our physical bodies we are limited. We think through our values and our cultures. All these things are part of physical life, part of being and expressing in the physical world. But without our bodies, none of that is there. Just unconditional love is all there is, just pure emotion. That’s all he had for me, and that’s what he wanted me to know.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: You know, I know you’re aware of him, so there’s all this awareness. Is there any visual going on at all with your father? If there is, how do you see him?
Anita Moorjani: It was not really a visual but more just a pure essence, just like a raw emotion, emotional embrace, essence. This is the part that’s really hard to explain because when we’re out of our body or when I was out of my body, I wasn’t contained. There was no beginning and no end. It was like I was infinite. It was like I could be anywhere. I could be anywhere. So that’s why I was able to be aware of my brother on the plane, and I didn’t know that he was coming to see me prior to that. I didn’t know he was already on the plane. So my brother is in this realm. My father was in the other realm. It was like I was everywhere. It’s like another sense kicks in.
If I can use an example, an analogy, if you imagine that you’re blind and you’re born blind and you’re blind from birth, so your whole world is just touch and smell and taste. So your hearing is pretty sharp, and your taste buds and your sense of smell are really sharp. You have no idea what anything actually looks like visually because you’ve never seen.
You’ve never used your vision. So even if you were given two plates that feel identical but are of different colors and somebody tries to explain to you that one is blue and one is green, but you’re touching them and you’re even biting into them, there’s no way that you can tell what’s different about these two plates. The person says that it’s colors. One’s blue, one’s green. You’re like, “Yeah, but what’s color? They’re identical.”
But one day, let’s say, your sight kicks in. Just one day you begin to be able to see. When you can see, then you can see these two plates are different. You can see what way they’re different, so for the first time you understand. Let’s say you become blind again or even if you don’t, how do you then explain to other blind people, what is that difference? This is the exact problem that I have because it was like a new sense kicked in for which we have no vocabulary for because it’s not something that we use.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: That’s right.
Anita Moorjani: That sense, I mean, we say ESP and all, but it’s like the body is not even in the way. It’s like total 100 percent ESP, total 100 percent awareness, actually spilling out of my body and feeling incredibly light and just being able to express and feeling that oneness with everything else; not just with every person, but with everything, with every character, with every plant, with every tree, with every animal. It was that kind of feeling. It was like I was one with everything.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I can’t even imagine what that must be like. I mean it sounds ecstatically overwhelming all at the same time. To have this insight, to be able to focus in different directions, to have this reunion that you had, all of it sounds incredible. It’s the kind of thing that probably most people would love to experience, except they don’t want to have to go through what you went through to have this experience.
So here you are sharing it with us because there are a lot of things that you learned about life in general. At what point did you learn about what caused your cancer? Again, I know it’s all happening at the same time, but let’s just try to put it in linear. Did you learn this from your father? Did you learn it from, again, just another awareness about yourself?
Anita Moorjani: It was another awareness. Actually, it was after. If I had to put it in linear terms, I would put it at being after I was given the choice of whether to come back or not. Because the first thing I felt when I was aware that I had the choice to come back or not, I also felt at the same time that what would be the point of coming back because my body was dying anyway. Because I seriously felt like all I was at that stage was a huge burden to my family, to my loved ones, so I didn’t see any point in coming back just to burden others. So it’s like the decision seemed like a no-brainer.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, right.
Anita Moorjani: Here I was embraced in unconditional love feeling light, free, no pain. But again, it seemed almost instantaneous. I started to become aware like of this great clarity, this understanding of why I got the cancer. I started to understand that I had never been aware of the truth of who I really was. The way it is in that realm, it’s really interesting; it’s so hard to describe, but it’s almost like the answer is so obvious. Why haven’t I seen that before? Why did I not know this? It just felt so obvious and so easy.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah. Did you feel like anybody was facilitating this information for you, maybe your father, maybe some other spirit guide or something that might have helped facilitate this knowing that you’re recognizing about yourself?
Anita Moorjani: I did feel that I was surrounded by spiritual beings or other essences who I didn’t recognize. Also, my best friend who had passed away three years prior from cancer, she had opted for the chemotherapy route. She had passed away. She was also very much there. So it was like they were all there. Their essence was really comforting me and embracing me. I felt very, very comforted by all the presences of like familiar essences.
Then the other beings, I didn’t recognize them as people I knew in this lifetime. Yet I knew that they loved me unconditionally. I knew that they were all there for me to help me through. It feels like even though they are other entities or other essences, yet we’re all connected. We’re so connected. It was like whatever purpose we all have it’s like in a sense we’re all wanting the same thing for everybody and for the whole planet. It’s like we’re all one. I mean you, me, and all of us, we’re all one. We’re all part of the same essence. So if I was being helped, it was by all the essences, all the energy.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, amazing. So you have this whole team of people really who are helping you go through this experience. Your father basically gives you this choice of deciding whether you want to go back into your body and live or stay where you’re at, maybe move on to whatever’s next from that point on. He gives you this choice. Does he recommend that you go back to your body, right? He recommends you go back.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Does he explain why, or does he have to, or you just have this awareness of why? Because I know there are some reasons that you recognized the benefits to going back, obviously not just to pass away, to wither away.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, exactly. So he basically, yes, said to me it’s not your time, but it’s still your choice. But in a way I could sense that there was a certain edging towards wanting me to go back. Then as the clarity started to come and it was this feeling that, how could I have not recognized it before—it’s that kind of feeling—I started to understand that I had never loved myself enough before and I had always lived in fear. I’d always lived in fear of being true to myself, and I’d always grown up trying to do the right thing or to fit into my culture, to fit in with what people expected of me. I was always a people pleaser.
But in addition to not always being true to myself and always putting myself last, I also lived in a lot of fear. I feared life. I feared not being good enough. I feared cancer. I feared illness. I lived a very fearful life.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: What did you learn about this fear? Now, you talked about being able to see into the future, even able to see into the past obviously all at the same time again, right?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Are you able to recognize where you learned this fear, where you picked these fears up? Is that in your awareness as well, maybe from this lifetime or even other lifetimes? Any of that come into play?
Anita Moorjani: It was from this lifetime. I sensed that I picked up all the fears from this lifetime. It’s just conditioning. A lot of it is, I think, just the way the world is. It’s like whether it’s from reading newspapers and everybody being afraid of getting cancer, all the cancer awareness campaigns, but also the other fears of not being good enough, of always being a people pleaser, putting myself last, putting myself down always, the negative self-talk. I got the sense it was all from this life, but it’s probably just conditioning, generally just conditioning from culture, upbringing.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: What did you learn about this fear and almost self-loathing type of mentality? What did you learn about how it affected you physically?
Anita Moorjani: That’s what I learned was actually the cause of my cancer, at least for me. It was in that realization when I realized that actually me and everyone else, we are all absolutely amazing, magnificent beings that have come here to express who we are and to be true to who we are. Why would we want to be anyone else other than who we actually are and who we’re supposed to be? All we have to do and be is to be true to ourselves. That’s all we have to do.
It was the feeling, the sensation, the awareness; it was like, oh my God, how could I not know that? How obvious is that? Why else would I be on this planet expressing myself if I’m supposed to try to be someone else or try to fit someone else’s model of what somebody is supposed to be? I’ve never checked in with myself, like who am I? What do I want to do? What are my feelings? It’s basically about following my own emotions because in that realm what was very real for me were my emotions, just my emotions. They were very, very real.
I realized that I’d never checked in with my emotions during my life. I never asked myself, how do I feel? How do I feel about my life or what I want in life? It was always about giving other people what they felt, and it was always about putting myself last because I thought it was selfish; I always thought it was selfish to love myself and to give myself what I wanted. But I then started to really understand in depth that you can’t love another if you don’t love yourself first because you don’t have anything to give. I realized that only when I love myself can I actually love others, and being selfish actually comes from too little self-love, not too much.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: You recognize all this, and is it this insight that makes you decide to go back into your body?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, the words I would put on the insight would be: Now that you know the truth of who you are, your body will reflect that truth and be healed. Those are the words I would put to that feeling, that sense that I got and that understanding.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So we’re really talking about illness starting at an energetic level and then the physical sort of following suit.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So this awareness eradicates the illness that’s within your energy basically.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So if you go back, you are going to heal from this cancer?
Anita Moorjani: That’s right. I became aware at that point that now if I choose to go back, now that I understood, I understood why I had the cancer. I understood that my only purpose was to be myself and that was all. That’s the only purpose any of us have is just to be true to who we really are. I understood that at our core each and every one of us, our essence is one of awareness. It’s one of love. At our essence, at our core, we are pure love. That essence is just pure love. It’s unconditional love. So if you are being yourself, then you are being love. Who else can you be if you’re in touch with your core because if at your core you are love?
When I understood this and I understood that my body will just reflect this new understanding, my physical body would reflect it, it was at this point that I sensed both my father and my best friend communicating to me: Now that you know the truth of who you really are, go back and live your life fearlessly.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: All right. Because we only have a few minutes left, but you and I have already talked. There’s going to be a part two to this interview that I’m going to post at a later date, which is going to get a little bit even deeper than what we’ve talked about where I really ask a lot more questions about this. Why don’t we bring us to the final part—so you decide to go back. You’re back in your body. Tell us about that.
Anita Moorjani: I started to come out of the coma. As soon as I started to come out of the coma and my eyes started to open, I saw my husband standing over me. Then I saw my brother, and he had his luggage with him. He’d just come straight to the hospital from the plane. They were really surprised that I was waking up and coming out of the coma and very happy. My husband was like really pleased. He was almost like dancing on the spot.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I don’t blame him.
Anita Moorjani: He’s a really great guy. Then the doctor, who I had never met before being admitted to this hospital, being admitted in a coma, he walked in the room to check on me. My family told him excitedly that I was waking up, so he said, “Oh, well that’s good news.” He came over to see me, and he said, “Oh, I’m so glad to see you’re up.” He was really upbeat. So I said to him, “Good evening, Dr. Chan.” He said, “How do you know my name?”
I said, “Aren’t you the doctor that was here that treated me?” I even recalled he had removed fluid from my lung by putting a needle in through my back when I was choking. I said to him, “Aren’t you the doctor that did that?” He said, “But you were in a coma. Your eyes were closed. How do you even know that I did that?” So he was really shocked. That’s when I realized I was in a coma because I actually didn’t realize it. So I said to him, “I was? I was in a coma?”
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: This is your first recognition of it.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, yeah. I had no idea I was in a coma because I was so aware of everything. But it was still very blurred to me. It was like I had one foot on this side, one foot on the other side because it was like everything had just happened and I was still very confused.
Then when he left the room I said to my husband, “Why was he so surprised? Wasn’t he the one that told you that I only have about 36 hours at best?” Then my husband looked shocked, and he said, “He didn’t say that to me in the room. We were like down the hallway about 40 feet outside the door. The door was shut.”
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: My goodness.
Anita Moorjani: I said, “Really?” That’s when we started to realize that something had happened.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Ultimately, you healed from this obviously just as you expected you would. In fact, you said you could see into the future a bit that your tests would come back that your organs were not shutting down now because you made this choice. Otherwise they would have come back that they had shut down. All this comes together exactly as you expected it to be. You healed miraculously quickly, I mean, right?
Anita Moorjani: Very, very quickly. In fact, that was the other thing that I could see. I realized that when I was on the other side, in the other realm, and I realized that my body would reflect this very quickly. I knew that it would not be months. It would be more like days or even just a couple of weeks at the most. I knew that I would be feeling a lot better.
That’s exactly what happened. Within four days the tumors had reduced by about 60 or 70 percent. Within two or three weeks when they were conducting tests, they couldn’t even find the cancer. They did a lymph node biopsy, and the radiologist had to mark a lymph node in my body to biopsy. He couldn’t even find a lymph node that was big enough to even suggest cancer.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: When just days prior they were the size of lemons.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly, and he had those original scans on the light box, and he was using the ultrasound to try and find a lymph node. He was getting really confused because he was saying, “I just can’t find anything.” Here were these scans showing that my body was ridden with tumors.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, it’s a miracle, no question about it. The story is amazing. You’re here. That was February 2, 2006 when you went into the coma. Here you are today, November 2011. You’re going to be telling your story in this book Dying to Be Me March 2012, very exciting. You have a lot more detail in the book, I imagine.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: A lot of detail in the book.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: There’s a lot more detail on your website, anitamoorjani.com. The links are below these videos. There’s a phrase I love when you go to your website, it says: Remembering your magnificence. That’s what it’s all about.
Anita Moorjani: That is what it’s all about, that every single one of us is a magnificent being, absolutely magnificent.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So I’m going to end this interview here, and we’re going to pick up a new one because these can only be so long on the internet. We’re going to pick up a new one. If people want to watch part two of this interview, make sure that they put their email address in so that they get the announcement of it here on the page. They’ll find out when we post part two later on.
Just for now, I just want to say thank you for sharing this story. I’m frustrated. It’s already been 46 minutes, and I feel like I didn’t cover but a fraction of your story. It’s frustrating to me, but we don’t have hours unfortunately. That’s why you wrote the book that you wrote, right?
Anita Moorjani: That’s right.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much for honoring us with your presence and your message. I do think it can change the world. On an individual basis it can change any one of us if we really fully understand the message that you’re trying to give us. I look forward to part two of this, so thank you, Anita.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you. My pleasure.
Part 2:
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Hi everybody. Bob Olson here with Afterlife TV. Again, you can find us at www.afterlifetv.com. This is a continuation of an interview that I did with Anita Moorjani. She’s the author of an upcoming book called Dying to Be Me. This is sure to be a bestselling book without doubt, probably a New York Times bestseller for sure. If you don’t know her name yet, you’re going to know it in the near future.
We have been talking about her experience of really having cancer, dying from the cancer, having an experience where she was dying to the point where she goes into a coma, is brought into the hospital. They tell her family she’s got 36 hours at the most to live because her organs are shutting down. She goes. She has this coma near death experience.
She becomes aware of all these things about herself. She recognizes really what caused her cancer. These are all in part one of this interview. She has a reunion with her father, who gives her a choice whether to live or die, and she recognizes so much about herself and about life in general.
We’re going to continue that conversation now so we can learn more about those things from this fascinating experience. So thank you for letting us continue this, Anita. Really appreciate it. There’s so much to this story, so we’re grateful for you.
Anita Moorjani: It’s my pleasure actually. I love sharing it.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Well, that’s great. Why don’t we just go back? In the break you and I had talked a little bit about some of the things that we didn’t cover that are really significant, I think. One of them is you recognized when you’re in the coma having this near death experience that your lifetime and your husband’s lifetime were connected. Tell us about that.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah. I became aware that my husband’s life and my life purpose were linked. I realized that if chose not to go back into my body, if I chose not to go back to physical life, that he would follow soon after, that he would probably die sometime shortly after I left. Again, though, I didn’t feel sad about it. It still felt that it was perfectly okay whichever way I chose. Whether I chose to come back or whether I chose to stay in the other realm, it was still okay. Even if my husband followed me shortly after, I still got the feeling, the sense, that everything is still perfect. It’s still okay.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Now, this is an interesting perspective that you have because one of the things that you told us about in part one of this interview was that you often did things for other people. You often put yourself second. Here you recognize that your husband’s life purpose is connected to your being alive, and yet it’s not the reason that you decide to come back. You recognize that if you choose to die that everything’s going to be okay. He’ll be fine.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, because I realized that the connection that we have with each other, like the connection I had with my father and with my brother, is beyond time and space. It’s not limited by this physical life. Even if I chose to die it wouldn’t end. My connection with him wouldn’t end. So even if he followed me, even though we were meant to be together at this time, the connection wouldn’t end just because my physical body died.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: But what about his life purpose now. Do you believe in pre-charting our lives ahead of time? Maybe a couple souls get together over a couple beers and they say, hey, I’ll be your husband; you be my wife. Let’s do this. This is my purpose. This is your purpose. We’ll help each other out with that. Do you believe in that sort of thing?
Anita Moorjani: Maybe not to that extent.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: No beer, maybe not the beer.
Anita Moorjani: Well, what I feel now even after coming back into life, I’ve actually had this conversation with my husband. Let me tell you what he said, and maybe that can put it into perspective.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Okay.
Anita Moorjani: After I came back and I healed, my husband had been so fully engaged or involved in helping me through my illness and helping me right to the last days, like caring for me. After I healed and I said to him, “Do you know that in the other realm I understood that our purpose is linked and that if died you would’ve followed soon after?”
He actually said to me, “That sounds right. I probably would have because when I was helping you I felt that that was my purpose, being there by your side, seeing you through the cancer. If you had died, I would have failed in my purpose, and my purpose would’ve been over.” Those are his words.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I don’t know. I don’t know if you’d call it that; I’m just going to use my terminology—as souls, you’re back in the spirit world where soul to soul, do you think that there would’ve been any sense of regret that your husband might have had after he passed and said, you know, I had a lot more things I would’ve liked to do?
Anita Moorjani: I don’t think so because as souls or as spirits I think that we are infinite anyway. This slice of time that we’re expressing in the physical body is just one slice of time out of millions, infinite numbers of slices of time. So I don’t envisage any regret whatsoever. I think that even if I had passed over even knowing that I would come back and be healed, I wouldn’t have expressed any regret because I don’t get the sense that regret is even a feeling or an emotion that exists in that state, in that condition.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I see, yeah.
Anita Moorjani: That’s my sense.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Okay, forgive me for asking this question, but you have insight that most of us have not had; certainly I have not had. When you say that, the question comes up, I think of if someone took their own life. I think about suicide, and people have all sorts of emotions around that for obvious reasons.
Certainly the loved ones who have survived a suicide, they worry about their loved one in the afterlife because of a deep sense of regret or whatever. Some people believe in punishment. I don’t believe in it. But I certainly have always wondered about this deep sense of regret for that. You’re sort of saying otherwise. Even in that case you believe the same?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah. I don’t think the spirit or the essence of the person who committed suicide feels—we become removed. It’s like when I became involved, when I started to get sucked into the drama, the emotions that were unfolding of my family. I was then pulled away simultaneously.
So even for somebody who’s committed suicide, even in that moment I would imagine that they would get sucked in to their family crying, weeping over their body. They would start to get sucked in, but I would assume that the same thing would happen to them as happened to me where they then simultaneously feel themselves being pulled away. Their emotions are just being pulled away, and then they just get surrounded by this unconditional love. Then there’s this feeling that it’s okay. It’s all still going to work out perfectly in the grand scheme of things.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: It’s beautiful, beautifully said, and what a great lesson. I want to talk too about something we talked about on the break was you talked about your brother and some things that you recognized about your relationship with your brother. Tell us about those.
Anita Moorjani: My brother is older than me. But when he was on the plane coming to see me and I became aware that he was on the plane coming to see me, I felt very protective of him. Again, my emotions started to be drawn into what he was feeling because he was fully aware that I was dying so he was already in grief and emotional on the plane. I started to get drawn into his emotions.
Then I became aware of what could be interpreted as previous lives, but it didn’t feel like previous lives because it seemed to be happening simultaneously. So I experienced other lives with my brother where I was protective over him as though I was the older sibling, as though I was caring for him and he as very young. It felt as though I was very protective of him, so that feeling came in where I didn’t want to hurt him now. I didn’t want to die before he arrived.
As soon as I started to get sucked into that feeling, again I started to get pulled away. But the other lives that I was aware of seemed to be happening then and there. They didn’t seem like they were in the past.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So once again, we use the phrase past lives. That’s really because we live on the physical plane. We see everything in linear time. In the other realm, as you say, the word “past” doesn’t really exist. It was other lives. You were aware of these other lives and how they affected you even at that very moment about wanting to protect your brother. That’s amazing.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: It’s very cool, very cool, because I would assume, and do you believe too, from having this experience that these other lives affect us here on earth, on the physical plane, so even the protectiveness that you might feel about your older brother at times would be related to this other lifetime that you had as his older sister?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, it would. Also, I feel that sometimes these feelings, as you say, they come through, and I think sometimes we kind of feel that oh, in a past life I must have been so and so or I must have been like this. I actually no longer think of those as past lives. I am now thinking that okay, beyond this physical body time is not linear, so I am those things that I’m feeling but probably in a life that’s running simultaneously right now in another realm, in another plane.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: That’s very cool. Not trying to stump you here, but how would maybe déjà vu fit into this?
Anita Moorjani: I think because time, again, is very, very different, so déjà vu is almost like us getting a glimpse. So it’s almost like a glimpse outside of our body of something that hasn’t happened. It’s almost like a fold in time, so getting a glimpse of something ahead of time sort of like what happened to me with the test results. I already knew what the results were going to be if I chose to come back.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah. Now, that’s a little bit different, but did that feel like a déjà vu experience when the test results came back?
Anita Moorjani: Absolutely, because when the doctor came in and said, “We have great news. Her organs are functioning. We just got the results in,” my husband and my brother, my mum, they were all really happy. They were like, “Oh, that’s great news!” I actually said, “But didn’t we already know that?” Because again I was still very, very confused and everything was blurry; it was still like within the same day that I’d come out of the coma. I said, “But we already knew that.” Then they looked at me and they said, “No, you couldn’t have known that.” I said, “No, but I did. I knew that.”
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: How long did it take you before you kind of put it all together and figured out what really happened?
Anita Moorjani: It took a number of days of just a little bit each day. Then I think by the fourth or fifth day. The first few days I was euphoric, and I didn’t understand why I was euphoric. I was just really, really happy. I kept telling everybody, “I’m going to be fine. I know I’m going to heal. I just know I’m going to heal.” Nobody could understand why I knew this. I mean least of all the doctors.
They were really skeptical because I had all these tubes in me, the oxygen tube, the food tube. They were really uncomfortable, so I wanted them to start taking the tubes out. They were refusing to take the tubes out. I said, “My appetite’s come back. I’ll eat. Don’t worry. I can breathe now.” I was pulling them off. So they were like really monitoring me, and I had all these things connected to my heart and everything. So they were monitoring me really closely. But I was really euphoric and happy, and I kept saying, “Something’s happened. I can’t explain it, but something’s happened and I know I’m going to be fine.”
Then I asked my husband to bring my iPod because I wanted to listen to music. I wanted to eat different foods, like not hospital food. So when the doctor took out the food tube, which I hated, it was the worst thing of all because it really itches the throat. They took that out. They actually said the best thing for me to eat would be ice cream because it would soothe the throat. I was really thrilled. I said, “Yes, ice cream.”
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I can do that, yeah.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, I can do that. So I was eating ice cream, and I was listening to my music on my iPod. The interesting thing was I couldn’t wear the earphones of my iPod partly because of the wires and partly because I still had bandages around my neck because of the skin lesions. So my husband put them on little speakers on my bedside table.
Now, I was in the ICU and separated from the other rooms by a curtain. So I was talking and eating ice cream and playing my music. I wanted to play upbeat dance music. All the relatives of all the other patients who were really sick all complained to the nurses that this person’s making too much noise. So then they came and they told me that they’d have to move me because the ICU was for people who were dying.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Wow, that’s one way for them to get the message, isn’t it? So they kicked you out of there. They give you your own room after that?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, they gave me my own room. This is like four days in ICU. The doctor actually, when he came in to tell me the other patients were complaining and the tubes were out by then, he had my file, and he actually said, “I don’t know what to make of you. I don’t even know what to write in your file anymore.” He sort of turned his head.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I’m sure the doctors are flabbergasted by this whole thing. I know that against your wishes sort of as a last resort while you were in the coma they actually started the chemotherapy, which you were afraid of before and you didn’t want. While you’re in the coma they give it to you like last resort. Did the doctor or any doctors want to take credit or give the chemo credit for your healing afterwards?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, there was a bit of controversy over that because my own doctor prior to that had actually said, “By this point it’s too late for chemo because the organs are starting to shut down and chemo’s not the right thing.” So the doctor that decided to administer the chemo put it down to the chemo actually working, but yet a third doctor, an oncologist, who later studied my reports, said that it’s impossible that it’s the chemo.
He said, “I’ve gone through everything, and chemo does not react this way.” My cycle was far shorter than what would’ve been called for had I actually taken chemo when I was able to. So for one thing, literally the test results started showing within days, so he said there’s no way that it’s the chemo.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Excuse me, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I know they put you through a lot of tests that you knew were unnecessary, correct?
Anita Moorjani: Correct, yes.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: But the nice thing about it is that now you have all these test results as evidence of really what happened or what didn’t happen as far as what the doctors expected. So you have all these test results, so there’s no question about the fact that this was what some might call a miraculous healing. Is this correct?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, I’m actually relieved that I do have all the tests. I was really against having all the tests, especially the lymph node biopsy, and there was one where they take fluid out of the spine to test the spinal fluid because it was supposed to have spread in there as well; but they could find no trace of cancer there. It was all really painful, so I was protesting against it. But today I’m really glad they did it all because I have that as a testimony now.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: That’s right, exactly. I imagine the spinal test was painful.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, very, and the lymph node biopsy.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Ugh, I’m sure. I’m sure you still have scars as a result.
Anita Moorjani: Yes. I forgot to mention one other thing. The skin lesions, they said that I would need reconstructive surgery because my body didn’t have the nutrients to heal. It was far too weak and the lesions were huge, gaping wounds. So they had scheduled reconstructive surgery for like three weeks later.
So the reconstructive surgeon even came in and looked at it and even said that okay, you’re too weak now and these are not going to heal on their own. So he scheduled it for three weeks after he looked at it. But when he came back to see me, he said, “They’re healing. I don’t need to do anything.” So even though I’ve got scars, they completely healed on their own.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I love this. What a great story, a fascinating, insightful, miraculous story. I want to talk a little bit about the healing. We’ll call this part two here, the random questions to Anita. Let’s talk a little bit about healing because we talked in part one about in your case it was really the energy of the fears and a lot of the beliefs that you had and the way that you thought over the years created the energy that led to the physical cancer in this case, the physical illness. From what you’ve learned in this experience, what can any one of us do either, one, to sort of clear that energy and stay healthy, or if we are suffering with something, some kind of illness, what can we do to try to heal ourselves in this way?
Anita Moorjani: The best thing that anybody can do for themselves no matter what, I feel, is to really get in touch with who they really are. When I say that I mean it’s really to get a sense of your own emotions, like ask yourself what do I like? What do I like doing? What makes me happy? What makes me tick? What brings me joy? What makes me feel alive? I think it’s that that we forget. We forget to get in touch with ourselves. I think when we feel this joy, this passion, that’s when we’re at our healthiest and our happiest. That’s when we do things we’re coming from a state of being rather than a state of doing.
We’re always doing things, but are we doing it out of being or are we doing it out of just doing? When we live in fear, that’s when we are in a state of doing. So when all our emotions and the reason why we do everything is because I’m scared. I’m scared to be left behind. I’m scared I won’t have enough money. That’s why I’ve taken this job. I’m scared I won’t be liked, and that’s why I’m doing this. I’m scared.
So if every decision we make is based on fear, then we’re constantly doing things and we lose touch with who we really are. Basically, that’s what happened with me and my soul or spirit or whatever went through a real identity crisis. To me, that’s what caused the cancer. I feel that cancer is not an illness of the body. That’s why the body just reflected what I was inside. The cancer to me was more, I could say, an illness of the emotions or an illness of the identity, but it’s not an illness of the body.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: So what could we ask ourselves if we were trying to make a choice about something, maybe a new job or what we wanted to do one day, something as simple as that? We would need to ask ourselves some kind of a question. Am I doing this out of fear or a sense of obligation or responsibility, or am I doing this because it’s something that I want to do, something that feels loving to me? Is that sort of the kind of question we would ask?
Anita Moorjani: Yes. Also, if we’re planning to do something is to ask ourselves: How does it make me feel to do this? Is it a heavy, draining feeling, or do I feel uplifted and light and passionate about doing it, whatever it is? Those are the kinds of questions I would ask.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Because it’s the day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, the more we continue to do things that are based out of fear instead of love, this builds up in our energy body. What would you call that?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, it really builds up in our energy. It drains us. It includes even when we choose foods that we’re going to eat. It’s great to eat healthy food, and I advocate eating healthy. But why are we eating healthy? Is it because we’re scared that we’re going to be sick, or is it because we love our bodies and we love the way the healthy food is going to make us feel?
I used to eat healthy food before I had cancer, so many people said, “Oh, but you used to eat so healthy and you watched everything.” Yeah, but that’s because I was scared. I was so scared of cancer that I wouldn’t eat anything that was said to have caused cancer. But today, I mean even if I eat a piece of chocolate I make sure I enjoy it.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, and you’re not telling yourself chocolate causes cancer as you put it into your mouth; I feel so guilty because this is unhealthy for me, right? You’re thinking, I love chocolate. Chocolate tastes good. Is that the idea?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah. It’s like how does it make me feel? It makes me feel amazing. But at the same time, if I feel that I want to lose some weight and so I’ve got to cut out the chocolate and all, that’s fine too. I’m doing it because it’s something I want to do. It’s not like, aw man, I’ve got to. So it’s really about checking in with how you feel.
So if you want to eat healthy foods, what I would do now is when I say I want to eat more healthier options, it’s getting in touch with the feeling of how it would make me feel to be fit and healthy and get in touch with that feeling. That’s why I’m eating it, not because I’m scared of getting sick or scared of cancer.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, yeah. Along the same lines, how do we get in touch with our core essence of love? We go through our day to day lives and there’s a lot of chaos and drama out there. How do we tap into this core essence that we are love? Sometimes if I’m driving through Boston traffic I’m not feeling love. My core essence doesn’t feel love. When I drive up into the countryside, now I can feel love. How do we get in touch with that love when we’re maybe not really feeling it sometimes?
Anita Moorjani: Well, the thing is to first of all stop; stop everything we’re doing. To me, the gateway to that place is my emotions. I think emotions are underrated. They’re not talked about enough. Nobody’s ever taught me that the most important thing is how you feel about yourself. Nobody ever told me that when I was growing up. It was all about what you do and how you present yourself. It’s never about how you feel.
What I’ve learned from my near death experience is that the most important thing is how I feel. So when you’re feeling frustrated and you’re caught up in Boston traffic, okay, you’ve got to keep going. But make sure that there’s a point in your day where you can actually stop, and that’s what I would do now is to really just stop and relax. I just start to envision everything lifting off and all my muscles relaxing.
For me, I try to recreate that NDE space. I call it that. But the gateway is my emotions. It’s really checking in. How am I feeling? How am I feeling about what I’m doing right now? How do I feel about everything that’s happening in my life? What I can I tweak to make me feel better right now? So it’s feelings.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: That’s great advice. Let’s take it a step further because there are a lot of people who don’t feel that great about themselves and you recognize that from the past. How can people find that love for themselves if they’re not feeling it? Is there a way to do that?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, well, I guess the feeling doesn’t come instantly. I think the best thing that I can think of to suggest is to start by doing little things for yourself. Start by doing things for yourself that you’ve always wanted to do but have never done before for whatever reason; because you didn’t think you were worthy or you didn’t think you deserved it or other things seem more like a priority.
Then the first thing I would do is start becoming aware of where I stopped putting any priority on myself. So when I’m thinking that oh, I’m not going to do this for myself because so and so needs a new pair of shoes or whatever, stop and think okay, maybe I do need to do this for myself. Maybe it is more important because so and so, whoever it is, whether it’s the family, the kids, the father, the husband, all these people around you who depend on you, they need you to be 100 percent healthy and happy.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, that’s right. So it’s a trickle-down effect. If you feel better about yourself, like for instance, if you go out and you get yourself a massage or maybe you hire someone to clean the house for you twice a week, whatever it may be, when you start doing these little things that some people feel as though they just don’t deserve, you get over that and recognize that by doing it for yourself, as you said, it’s difficult. We can’t give love to other people if we don’t feel the love within us, if we don’t have love for ourselves. This is a way of being loving to yourself so that it affects all the other people that are around you. Is that also what you’re saying?
Anita Moorjani: That’s correct, yes. So it means stop seeing it as selfish. Yeah, we need to stop seeing doing things for ourselves as being selfish because when we don’t do things for ourselves we become needy and that’s even worse.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: What you’re saying there reminds me we both have a friend, Cheryl Richardson. She’s written a great book called The Art of Extreme Self-Care all about this subject, trying to teach people. It’s interesting because I know some people criticized some of the things that she wrote in that book because it was their interpretation projecting that she was suggesting that people be more selfish. Really, yes, be more selfish if it’s going to make you feel better about yourself as long as it’s not at the expense of others.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly. I think that when somebody is actually happy, fulfilled, self-fulfilled, and all their needs are met, they’re actually the most generous and selfless people you can have. Whereas when somebody is putting themselves last not because they want to but because they feel they should and because they feel it’s a selfless thing to do and they never, ever fulfill their own needs, they actually become needier on other people.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had this experience where you were able to make that choice and come back and your energy was clear basically. Do you believe that any one of us can heal our illnesses by doing some of these things we’ve talked about?
Anita Moorjani: I think it would help. I think that generally if our values were different, if everybody’s values were different and the way we look at illnesses, because this is the other thing that really disturbs me is how much awareness there is about cancer. I don’t agree with it.
I know many people will not agree with me saying this. I know many people will disagree with this, but I think that the more aware we become about cancer the more we are actually causing more cancer. Because I feel that even the way our medical system works is instead of looking at wellness, people are looking for illness. Our diagnostic tools are all designed to look for cancer, and that’s the first thing everybody looks for.
Even TV ads, everybody is just telling you to go get checked out for cancer, and that’s all we’ve all got. It’s like we’re being programmed to look for cancer. That bothers me. I find that very disturbing.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I recognize that. My wife and I had a conversation about this same thing, so I’m excited about it. I didn’t mean to interrupt again. You get me excited because everywhere you go, especially there’s all this breast cancer awareness stuff going on. Everywhere you go you see a pink ribbon. You can have a box of cereal, and there’s something about breast cancer awareness on there. But it’s true. We have license plates up here in Maine where you’re driving down the road and there’s that pink ribbon on the license plate. The whole license plate is covered in pink. So you really can’t go through your day without being reminded about breast cancer.
Now, I get that there’s a positive side to it. They’re trying to raise money for research, but at the same time there’s a negative aspect to it, which is what you’re talking about. It just keeps reminding us about it, and we have fears. Women have fear about it unbelievably, and that just keeps it in your mind every single day, correct?
Anita Moorjani: That’s correct, because I had huge fear about cancer as well, huge fear, because I was surrounded by it. I had people very close to me that had cancer. It was quite a shock to the people around me when I got cancer because it was like it was happening to one person and the next and the next. Because I was reading up a lot about cancer because I wanted to help the people I knew who had cancer, the more I would read on it the more afraid I became of cancer.
Now, even though I’ve written a book and all, but apart from writing and talking, I tend to talk very little about cancer itself. I tend to focus a lot more on the healing and the lessons and the inspiration. But I rarely ever focus on actually cancer and cancer symptoms. I don’t actually advocate that people have to go for early screenings and things like that. I don’t really advocate that. I know I’m saying this and people will probably disagree with me.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: You know what? It’s okay. First of all, I agree with you. My wife Melissa was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. Interestingly, she felt the same way that you felt about chemotherapy and a lot of the traditional ways of healing cancer. She decided to do it alternatively. What she chose to do was she decided to treat herself according to what felt most loving to her body.
Anita Moorjani: That’s great.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: She felt the other alternatives, surgery and chemotherapy, did not feel loving to her and actually created more fear.
Anita Moorjani: Yup.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: I think a lot of people can relate. I don’t think there’s any argument. You can go into the hospital, and that can be a very negative experience. Sometimes nurses and doctors can be very detached. There’s pain involved. That’s what she saw. She said, “I don’t feel like that’s loving to me. I’m going to treat myself more lovingly.” She did it in other ways. So my wife and I agree with everything that you’re saying here, and there are a lot of people out there who do. Yet we recognize that a lot of people don’t believe in these things, and that’s okay too, right?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, exactly.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Well, you’re book Dying to Be Me is coming out March 2012. It’s interesting. At what point did you write this book?
Anita Moorjani: Actually, very shortly after my near death experience I started writing more for cathartic reasons. It’s more because I felt that it was very hard for anybody to understand what had happened to me. I was finding it hard to express it, so I just started writing as a release. Then my brother found this website called Near Death Experience Research Foundation. He showed me the link.
Then when I looked at the website I thought, that’s interesting; there are people that have had something similar, like crossed over and all. So there was a button which you click on. It said, if you’ve had an experience yourself and you’d like to tell us about it, please click here. So I clicked, and then I had to fill in this really long form. So I filled it in, and then I wrote my experience and I submitted it. After I clicked submit on the screen, it said: We will get back to you within about three weeks. But I got a response within hours from the person who ran the site. He said, “I’m really excited to read your story.”
So what happened from there, to cut a long story short, is that I started writing on their forum. That’s when I first started to realize how cathartic it was for me to write and to answer people’s questions. I kept a collection of everything. Then I created the website. The book itself, though, only came about in six months. But I had been writing, and a lot of the things that I wrote previously I sort of wove into the book.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Oh, right, right.
Anita Moorjani: But the book project only started in March of this year.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Oh, okay. So tell us about that. How did that happen? I understand you met someone rather famous in this field, Dr. Wayne Dyer.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, that’s right. That was really amazing. On my birthday, March 16 of this year, I got an email from Hay House that said, Dr. Wayne Dyer has become a fan of yours. That blew me away. I thought, a fan of mine? Because at that point, I mean, not a lot of people knew me except people who read that forum and stuff like that, so I was really surprised. I thought, Wayne Dyer has become a fan of mine? Hay House said that if you’re planning to write a book, we would like to help you and publish it. So I was blown away because that was on my birthday. I thought, what an incredible birthday present.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: No kidding.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah. So of course I responded and said yes, I would love to. Then what happened is that they wrote back and said, Wayne Dyer would love to write the forward for your book, so I was really thrilled.
Then another friend of mine told me she’d been listening to Hay House Radio, Dr. Wayne Dyer’s show, every week. She said, “He talks about you. He talks about your NDE.” I said, “Really?” So I started tuning in. I went to the archives, and I listened to it. There he was talking about my NDE week after week after week. I thought, this is incredible. So then one night I thought, I’ll call in on his show, because he takes callers.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Oh, that’s great.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah. So I called in. Because of the time difference it was 4:00 a.m. Hong Kong time and it’s 1:00 p.m. on your side of the world. So I set the alarm clock and I woke up. Then I dialed and dialed. I woke up half an hour earlier because I thought, I’ll start calling early just to be able to get through. So I got through and the phone was ringing. Somebody actually picked up and told me to hold. I was really thrilled.
So then Wayne, his show started, and he’s talking. Then he says, “Okay, so we’ve got some callers.” Then Diane Ray, the producer, she goes, “There’s a caller all the way from Hong Kong, so let’s take that one.” So there were like maybe eight or 10 callers they’d put on hold, but she just thought she’d take Hong Kong because it was the furthest one away.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Anita Moorjani: She said, “There’s a caller by the name of Anita from Hong Kong.” The moment she said Anita from Hong Kong, Wayne goes, “Oh my God! I know who that is.”
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: That’s great. So that was the first time you got to talk to him?
Anita Moorjani: That was the first time I got to talk to him. Then he told Diane, “Hold all the other calls.” Then he made me share my story on air. Then after the show finished he chatted with me off air. He started telling me that he really wanted me to become part of the Hay House family and to write my book and he would help me promote it. We had this wonderful conversation. He was just really incredible.
So then I signed a contract. I started writing the book, and I was assigned an editor. Then Wayne Dyer contacted me and said, “I would like to fly you over to the US in October,” which was last month, “to appear on my PBS special which we are taping and also to appear on stage with me in Pasadena.” Yeah, it’s been an incredible ride.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: How exciting!
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, really.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Oh my goodness. I mean that’s a big show. Well, let me give you an example. He did that show. He does it every year or every two years. I don’t even know. It seems like it’s every year. He does one every year.
I went to the taping of the show. I was just in the audience in Boston a few years back, and I can’t tell you how many people emailed or called me up and said, “I saw you on Wayne Dyer.” I was in the audience. I think they saw me for two seconds. So this is going to be a lot of great exposure for you, your story, your message, and your book. That’s so exciting. Talk about being in the flow. This is like in the flow for sure.
Anita Moorjani: Oh, it’s been amazing. Wayne Dyer, he’s really a fantastic mentor. He’s an incredible person.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yes.
Anita Moorjani: Very generous.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Yeah, well, I’m very happy for you. You really deserve it. I think more and more people are going to change their lives because of some of the wisdom that you even have shared with us today. I really hope people will integrate these ideas into their life. I’m going to do it. I know my wife’s going to do it, and really start to be more loving; get a bit more in touch with that core essence of ourselves, which as you say is just pure love, and even to start doing more things that I want to do out of love rather than doing things out of a sense of fear or obligation or even responsibility. So thank you for all that you have shared with us.
Anita Moorjani: It’s my pleasure, really it is.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: It is ours too. People can visit your website, anitamoorjani.com. There’s a link to it underneath the video. We look forward to hearing more from you in the future. We’ll watch the PBS special with Wayne Dyer in the coming months. When does that start, in January or is it already out there?
Anita Moorjani: No, I think it’s going to be aired in San Diego in January and then from March it’s going to be everywhere else.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Okay, all right. Well, your world is just going to take over. Nobody’s going to be able to get in touch with you after March, I’m sure. Have fun with the journey.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Thanks so much.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you.
Bob Olson, Afterlife TV: Bye, Anita.
Anita Moorjani: Bye. Bye, Bob.
Afterlife TV is presented by Afterlife Investigator & Psychic Medium Researcher Bob Olson, who is the author of Answers about the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death.
Check out Bob Olson’s other sites: BestPsychicDirectory.com (a directory of hundreds of psychics & mediums by location with reviews & Instant Readings) & BestPsychicMediums.com (his personal recommended list of tested psychics and mediums) or visit Bob’s Facebook Page. Bob also has a popular workshop for psychics and mediums at PsychicMediumWorkshop.com.
JOIN BOB’S NEWSLETTER: Don’t miss Bob’s latest content about life lessons and life after death on his newsletter called, Bob Olson Connect.
Leave a Reply