I have been once again contemplating death more deeply and intimately for the past year. Which is always a wonderful exploration as I realize where my being stands in relation to death. How many of my inner tribe still fear death and how many have embraced it as part of life? And if they have embraced it in which way they perceive and make sense of it.
What once used to be an unspeakable horror I would not even want to entertain for a moment, now has become something I feel curiosity and gratititude for. What I once was conditioned to perceive as a grim thief, now is a misunderstood liberator and midwife for the next stage of the conscious journey to me.
The things that can fill me with apprehension, no longer fear really, are contemplations of less palatable variants of future timelines. But that only lasts for a bit before the Self reminds the parts that regressed in old conditioning that none of the experiences ever felt the way they had been advertised by cultural narratives and conditioning and reality has to be embraced as it is. Which always manages to bring a smile to me.
In this current state of being, I look out at the unfolding of life in the human dimension and feel no desire to partake or invest my energy beyond what is of utmost necessity. Having realized the futility and hollowness of most of human doing and striving, I no longer can uphold the pretenses the social contract and systems that govern our experience of reality ask of us.
The more I witness, and the less I allow for things to remain in my blind spot, the less desirable or palatable the human dimension is.
What keeps me anchored in this life and dimension is nature. Nature expressing through the plant kingdom, our animal kin, in meaningful encounters and relationships with fellow human beings, and Self. Most of what humanity has constructed as systems of belief or governance, which hold all of us in a life-averse chokehold, has revealed its ugly, unnatural, and hateful nature. And yet the majority of humans squabbles, fights, and kills over these as if they were treasures while simultaneously suffering from the toxic effects on their own being. As they cannot detach from identity constructs or misperceptions of self, they remain bound to the infinitely repetitive and destructive sub-maya of human making and breaking.
There is not much to be desired in this time and world, not that there aren’t infinite possibilities of savoring the bounty of Gaia and the joy of communion with all of existence, yet none of the previous comes without the taint, pain, and struggles overlayed by the collective shadow and karma. Unless we choose unconsciousness and denial of reality.
Today, as I contemplate last night’s passing of my best friend’s mother, I am reminded of the grace and mercy that is death to us soul wanderers. I see her liberated from the strictures of existence, being pure awareness in infinite peace and bliss. And us, who are left behind, gifted with a reminder of the thankful impermanence of a lifetime, and the knowing that that liberation’s door is always nigh.
What strange and forgetful beings we are, fearing what gives us life and freedom while loving what oppresses us and creates suffering. Nonetheless it is a strangely beautiful experience to observe the multidimensional complexity of the Earth plane and how Consciousness explores existence here.
For a few years now these words have been deeply resonant with my felt and embodied experience, as I witness my being walking towards the level of desirelessness and timelessness Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj lived and expressed:
I am dead already. Physical death will make no difference in my case. I am timeless being. I am free of desire or fear, because I do not remember the past or imagine the future. Where there are no names and shapes, how can there be desire and fear? With desirelessness comes timelessness. I am safe, because what is not, cannot touch what is. You feel unsafe, because you imagine danger. Of course, your body as such is complex and vulnerable and needs protection. But not you. Once you realize your own unassailable being, you will be at peace.
May we keep meditating on the true nature of our being until realization upon realization anchors it deeply in our embodied experience.
May this supreme knowing liberate us before the great liberator of death comes our way, so we may truly live free, playful, powerful, and at peace in the knowing of our unassailable being.
May we embrace death and honor it in its rightful meaning and nature and go happily when our ‘time’ has come.
