Die Before You Die
Your primary motive. Which creates a sense of separation between you and others when there is none. Hence, you overvalue the world of forms and it seems more rigid. But ultimately causes suffering when forms disappear or change. Which they will.
Do you think more content or knowledge or better thinking is going to save the world and liberate you from the dream of form? Isn’t wisdom that humanity needs the most right now?
Wisdom comes with the recognition of yourself as the knower behind content. You will only lose yourself in endless doing and thinking(content).
On a macroscopic level of the universe, even if you consider Big Bang, once it was no space or we can say emptiness. It is life in its undifferentiated state prior to its fragmentation into multiplicity. With the passage of time,[5] different forms like stars, galaxies, planets, nebulas, etc. came into existence and disappeared into the nothingness where they came from. Suddenly space seems to be there.
It’s the ever-present nothingness of space where everything comes and goes, remains unchanged. The same Still depth that holds the infinite number of planets, stars, galaxies, etc. is also in you. As you are not a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between birth and death. Underneath your name and form you are connected to the infinity of God. To get a glimpse of the space of awareness within yourself, read Practice ‘Wheel of Awareness’ Meditation and Inhabit Your Inner Body More Deeply.
“There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene, empty, solitary, unchanging, infinite, eternally present… It is the mother of the universe” Tao Te Ching.
See the common pattern in all forms. It has been hypothesized that if the mass of the universe became greater than the critical density, it will begin to collapse and would become denser and hotter again, ending with a state similar to that in which it started. Since you are a microcosmic reflection of universe, can you see this on the level of your own form’s birth and death?
Consider the miracle of birth; it’s the consciousness or the life that first comes in the womb and then human form begins to develop. The human form grows stronger with time and as we grow old, it becomes weak and dies then turns to dust, then nothing at all. You go back to where you came from, just a few years ago. Does it seem similar to universe and objects in it?
Can you also see the same pattern in breathing? Inhaling (expansion) and exhaling (contraction). All “things” or phenomena intrinsically follow the same pattern, expansion (growth) and contraction (decay), because they are bound to the law of impermanence.
Die before you die. Death is stripping away of who you are not. While in the forest or park, have you noticed broken trees, fallen leafs, dead insects, etc. facilitating the birth of new plants, grass and other organisms? What can you learn from this? Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. Death is the most natural thing there is, as natural as birth. The secret of life is to die before you die. Once you see this truth, you realize there is no death but just a form dissolving. Why do people who have been through near-death experience lose the fear of death? It’s the journey home. Meditate upon this.
1. There’s something in you that remains unchanging despite the transient circumstances in your life. That’s the life that you are.
2. “The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to: no illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body.” Tao Te Ching.
3. Your body and forms (psychological, relationships and objects) you identify with, can dissolve at anytime. This is a deep and humbling realization that leaves little room for the ego. Death will be painful as long as you cling to the illusion or dream of form.
