Love Does Not Know Death – a conversation with Adam Rizvi, MD • ACIM blog

I was recently introduced to the work of Dr. Adam Rizvi via our mutual friend, and fellow Course student, Jackie Lora Jones. In this video, Adam & I discussed his work with terminally ill patients (and death in general) as a classroom for learning forgiveness and seeing beyond appearances to our true essence.

Ego’s use of death is akin to “I told you so!” There seems to be overwhelming evidence (all provided by our egos) that life is trumped by death. However, we rarely stop to challenge the ideas of what we assume to be life. If life is merely bodily existence (devoid of mind and spirit) and nothing else, then we have every justification for being miserable, angry, depressed, bored, and the victim of any other unpleasant thought or emotion that crosses our path. If we’re actually more than flesh and bones and the ideas that seemed to make them necessary, then the ego’s bluff is called, and we can walk through its holographic prison doors unscathed.

“I knew that truth was love, unconditional love.” – Dr. Adam Rizvi

Death is the ultimate “condition” imposed upon the body. Fortunately, our mind can be restored by retraining ourselves to identify with an eternal, unconditional sanity that is loving, innocent, and all-inclusive Self instead of the finite, ephemeral, and mortal self. The part of our mind that can look at the “micro-endings” that represent the death thought system (ego), without identifying with those thoughts, is the truth of our being.

“Thus, I began engaging with patients differently, and noticed a transformation within I still find difficult to describe. I was becoming kinder. The innocence I saw in my patients, I saw in myself. Growing up with the idea of a judging God had fostered in me a sense of guilt and regret. From this new viewpoint, the years of guilt and regret about past mistakes melted away. I felt like I had entered a new world. All the events around me now clearly mirrored my internal state. The way I perceived others caused direct, tangible effects on how I felt about myself. To put it simply,it felt like the world was coming from me instead of at me. Life itself was emerging from within; it was wild and shocking. I could see how we we’re all connected. Our minds were expressions of one mind. Insights perceived by the mystics in all the books I’d read now became my lived experience.” – Dr. Adam Rizvi

Looking without judgment – not running away from the pain and upset of the ego’s propaganda for death (a.k.a. oblivion or mindlessnes) that cruelly suggests that form is reality and mind is superfluous – is how we learn to dis-identify with insanity, and restore our minds to the sanity that has always been waiting patiently in our minds for our acceptance of the remedy; the corrective therapy we call forgiveness.

“That way (ego) madness lies.” – William Shakespeare, King Lear

Dr. Rizvi’s book opens with this famous and profound Shakespeare quote in Chapter 1 (Becoming Mindful):

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Macbeth, Act V, Scene V — William Shakespeare

That imprisoning way (ego’s insistence on death, duality, and dissociation) madness lies! The liberating way of forgiveness undoes that madness when we look at the many “micro-deaths” of every unpleasant, insane experience without self-condemnation, repression, or projection.

“The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.” (ACIM, T-27.VIII.10:1-6)

The seed of correction to the death-as-reality thought system, which we call the ego, resides in seeing that, in essence, we’re all the same. The form of apparently external abuse, trauma, and upset may be unique for everyone, but when we mindlessly adhere to death’s dirge in our mind (ego), we are slaves of the same erroneous investment in sin, guilt, fear, punishment, and death instead of steadfastly holding the illuminating thoughts of true forgiveness in mind.

“It pays to be kind. … Be kind to yourself.” – Dr. Adam Rizvi

Of course, if our definition of “self” is limited to a specific body personality complex, and doesn’t include everyone and everything (all creation), then it isn’t true kindness. Kindness is only true when it is unchanging; only pure non-duality (a Self that includes All) is changeless and beyond space and time.

The Hippocratic Oath: “First do no harm,” if fully applied with a non-dual context, would mean that any thought that forces (or reinforces) the idea that we are separate from each other (and from our Source) is harmful to our peace of mind. Since minds are joined, we see that polarized, separating thoughts harm all minds. ACIM further reminds us that these harmful thoughts are quarantined to our dreams of separate identities and separate interests: “… not one note in Heaven’s song was missed.” (ACIM, T-26.V.5:4)

Perfect love casts out fear.
If fear exists, then there is not perfect love.
But:
Only perfect love exists.
If there is fear, it produces a state that does not exist.
(ACIM, T-1.VI.5:4-8)

"heart light as a feather" - The weighing of the heart depicted in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, overseen by the jackal-headed Anubis, the god of embalming. Courtesy of the British Museum, via Wikimedia Commons — “Heart as light as a feather.” The weighing of the heart depicted in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, overseen by the jackal-headed Anubis, the god of embalming. Courtesy of the British Museum, via Wikimedia Commons

Adam reminds us that it takes courageous forgiveness to let go. Levity epitomizes the Holy Spirit’s thought system; gravity epitomizes the ego’s thought system. Forgiveness is the letting go of the gravity of unconscious, unfounded guilt to experience the lucid loving levity of mind and heart.

Looking at the two thought systems objectively: the ego is the thought system of the impossible crime of separation, leading to the (mostly unconscious) belief in guilt, which necessitates identification with form. Yet this obsession with form (specifically our bodies and those of others) blinds us to our essence which would lift us out of egregious gravity if we let it.

Here is Dr. Rizvi’s forgiveness protocol and prescription for peace, inspired by Gary Renard:

“Stop: Stop listening to the ego’s voice. Catch yourself when you are going down the ego’s rabbit hole and stop. Become mindful. Recognize that you’ve chosen the wrong teacher whenever you’ve chosen fear over love.
Switch: Switch teachers. Choose Love as your teacher. Listen to that gentle voice within. Listen to your Inner Guide. It will remind you of your innocence and the innocence of those around you. It will remind you that you’ve never left your true home of pure Love.
See: See things through Love’s eyes, otherwise known as vision or spiritual sight. With spiritual sight, you see truly. See yourself and those around you as wholly worthy of love without exception. See everyone as the same without exception. You see all as either expressions of love or calls for love. Now, give everything over to your Inner Guide and let go. Let go and let Love.”

These 3 steps are analogous to the “3 R’s of forgiveness“:

STOP (projecting guilt onto everyone and everything); by realizing we’re fundamentally all the same, we can REVEAL the source of our upset is in our split mind, not outside.
SWITCH teachers: We also need the Holy Spirit for this step, to not only question external guilt, but internal guilt as well. We RELEASE ourselves from the needless suffering of self-inflicted incrimination for the impossible crime of dualistic dreaming.
SEE through the Holy Spirit’s vision, and we allow our guilt to be disintegrated by the innocence we all share. We allow the correction, and the REPLACE process heals our split mind.

(This conversation, facilitated by Bruce Rawles, is part of the ongoing series of dialogues on A Course In Miracles offered by ACIMblog.com. This YouTube video recording was made on Tuesday, January 13, 2026.)

Here is the description of Adam’s book Love Does Not Know Death: Stories of Death, Dying, and the Miracles of True Forgiveness from the Amazon listing:

“A powerful exploration of mortality drawn from the lived experience of an intensive care physician
Blending the stories of patients and families with spiritual insights from A Course in Miracles, this book faces the fears
of death and illness while showing how forgiveness transforms grief and anxiety into peace. Death is not the end but an invitation to awakening, a chance to release the illusion of separation and rediscover the permanence of love.
With clarity and compassion, Dr. Rizvi guides readers through the illusions of suffering and fear, offering practical exercises in forgiveness alongside deep metaphysical insight. Written for those facing illness, caregivers, spiritual seekers, and anyone grieving a loved one, it offers not just comfort but a path to inner freedom. Love Does Not Know Death is a roadmap for turning life’s hardest moments into portals of healing, awakening, and love’s enduring truth.”