VBT – Meditation 78.5
Don’t Accumulate
It’s the attachment to our life in all its dimensions – our image of who we are, our health, material wealth, friends, experiences and so on – that can cause so much anguish in death.
DON’T ACCUMULATE anything whatever: power, money, prestige, virtue, knowledge or even the so-called spiritual experiences. Don’t accumulate. If you don’t accumulate you are ready to die any moment, because you have nothing to lose.
Possessiveness is the problem, not life itself. The more you possess, the more you are afraid to lose. If you don’t possess anything, if your purity, if your spirit is uncontaminated by anything and if you are simply there alone, you can disappear any moment. Whenever death knocks on the door it will find you ready. You are not losing anything. By going with death you are not a loser. You may be moving into a new experience.
When I say don’t accumulate, I mean it as an absolute imperative. I’m not saying don’t accumulate things of this world but go on accumulating virtue, knowledge, and so-called spiritual experiences and visions – no. I am talking in absolute terms: don’t accumulate. …If you accumulate, with that accumulation comes fear. Each accumulation brings fear in the same proportion…then you are afraid. Don’t accumulate and fear disappears. If you don’t want to possess anything, you become fearless. Then even death is a beautiful experience to pass through.
A man who is really spiritual has tremendous experiences but he never accumulates them. Once they have happened he forgets about them. He never remembers them and he never projects them into the future. He never says that they should be repeated or that they should happen again to him. He never prays for them. Once they have happened they have happened. Finished! He is finished with them and he moves away from them. He is always available for the new and he never carries the old.
The living and dying in every breath, in each moment
Use your breath as an awareness of life and death, simultaneously. When the breath goes out, it is associated with death. When the breath comes in, it is associated with life. With every outgoing breath you die, and with every incoming breath you are reborn. Life and death are not two things; separate, divided. They are one. And each moment, both are present.
So remember this: when your breath is going out, feel as if you are dying. Don’t be afraid if you are afraid, the breath will be disturbed. Accept it: the outgoing breath is death. And death is beautiful; it is relaxing.
Whenever you are relaxed you say AHH and the breath goes out. Feel a deep relaxation with the outgoing breath. And when the breath comes in, feel, ‘Ah! Life is coming in’ – you are reborn. Make it a circle: life and death. Move into it and be aware of it. It is a deep cleansing. With every outbreath die, and with every new breath be reborn.
The out moving breath is death. Die; feel as if you are dying. The incoming breath is life. Feel as if you are being reborn. The whole day, for twenty-four hours – whenever you are aware, remember this. It will change the quality of your mind totally.
If the outgoing breath becomes death, and each moment you die, what is happening? Your death means you are dying to your past; the old man is no more. And if you have to die every moment, there is no future. The next moment is death so you cannot project yourself into the future. Only this very moment, this lonely, atomic moment, remains with you. Even in this very moment you will have to die and be reborn.
Think of the concept of reincarnation not in terms of life but in terms of breath. Every moment you will be renewed, reoriented, fresh. A child again, with no burden of the past and with no anxiety for the future. The present moment is anxiety less. Anxiety is created only by the past or by the future. So remember this. And not only remember it, practice it.
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