The Plowboy Interview: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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More and more people today are having experiences similar to what I've had and describe. In fact, I believe this is going to develop exactly as did my early work in death and dying. Twenty years from now, everybody will know these things ... everybody.

PLOWBOY: You're saying that, in just two decades, everyone will see the importance of getting rid of his or her negativity and of practicing unconditional love ... and will agree with your views concerning an afterlife?

KÜBLER-ROSS: Oh yes. I can see the changes taking place—and at a rapid rate—right now. Everywhere I go, I'm seeing more and more people who care, who have compassion, who are able to face their own negativity honestly and do something about it. Also, many organizations in which people try to help each other rather than simply make profits are beginning to spring up.

This doesn't mean that the road ahead is going to be easy, though. But the tide has turned since the war-torn days of Vietnam and Kent State. Indeed, I hope I live to about the year 2004. I think by then .the big changes will have occurred, and I'll be able to retire.

PLOWBOY: What sort of changes do you foresee?

KOBLER-ROSS: Primarily, I see growth in human awareness ... including our finally learning who we really are, and I also see us beginning to put our energy into constructive projects—growing vegetables, trees, and flowers, say—instead of creating military machines. I think we're approaching a time when the world is going to be much, much more fair. I truly believe that, within four or five generations, we'll ultimately outgrow war and hate and weapons.

PLOWBOY: What do you see as your part, your mission, in bringing that change about?

KÜBLER-ROSS: I see myself as a translator and a catalyst. I can help trigger reactions, but then the reactions develop by themselves. I'm here to help people get rid of fear and guilt, so they can live fully and not be afraid of living or dying ... to help people to know what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself ... and to convey to people that death, as an end to things, does not exist.

PLOWBOY: And what is the main piece of advice you have for others?

KÜBLER-ROSS: The only way to fight negativity is not to curse the darkness or the Hitlers—because that is, itself, negativity—but to look at the Hitler inside of you. The only way to heal this world is to heal yourself. So with every choice you make, try to take the highest choice, the one that helps the most people.

Let me put it this way: Just ask yourself, each day, "If everybody would live as I have today, would the world be a better place?"

EDITOR'S NOTE: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's books are available from Shanti Nilaya, Dept. TMEN, P. O Box 2396, Escondido, California 92025. Some of the best are On Death and Dying ($2.95), her first ... To Live Until We Say Goodbye ($5.95), a series of portraits of Elisabeth's work with dying patients ... The Dougy Book ($2.95), a hand-colored letter to a child with cancer ... and Working it Through ($15.95), a volume about KüblerRoss's "Life, Death, and Transition" workshops. Shanti Nilaya sells several other related materials, including tapes and videotapes of Elisabeth ... and Quest ($3.95), Derek Gill's biography of Kübler-Ross's early years. Please include $1.00 shipping and handling for one book, and 500 for each additional volume.

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