The Bookshelf and The Eternal Skye: I was fascinated to learn than many old Chinese Ch'an masters (Zen came from Chinese Ch'an) would just turn out their own light (no dis-ease necessary). Often whilst standing up leaning on their staff in a field surrounded by their students or sitting in meditation in their final hours. And their body's would not decompose for many weeks! Judi: Oh joy!! :-) Bruce: Hallelujah -- somebody has learned the lesson of "happy horseshit!" Not everything bound between covers and found on a shelf labeled "Self Improvement" or "New Age" comprises eternal truth -- on the same shelf holding L. Ron Hubbard and Edgar Cayce one may find ACIM and Krishnamurti. Separating chaff from wheat is a matter of walking a narrow way: always open-minded receptive) and never empty-headed (gullible). Terminal dis-ease is simply the final agent of the intrinsic impermanence of the physical body. Finding some kind of awe or virtue in a dead body that resists decomposition simply underlines our persistent attachment to incarnation and personality. That which was eternal in Sri Nisargadatta, Krishnamurti, Sri Ramana, and the Ch'an masters lives on in and as us, it comprises the only significant longevity and the very essence of health.