At my sickest, when I was sure that death was imminent, I stopped resisting everything about the experience and surrendered. In that moment I became fully present to the ‘now’, and I experienced the essence of Self. And in that moment, I felt completely fulfilled and I made peace with death, having no regrets for my failures and no need for acknowledgment of my successes, for there was no distinction between the two.
And so tonight, lying in bed unable to fall asleep, listening in a meditative state to contemplations on passages of transition, my mind slowed down and the incessant thoughts ceased. Sitting up into a spontaneous meditation, I felt myself realign, and then all that was, was awareness, that experience of love for all my physical manifestations of it, and the sometimes excruciating expansions of it.
It is like being on the threshold of death, when there is that clear retrospection that has the struggles of life fall into perspective and reveal their purposes, and that moment when finally, everything falls into the truth that love is, and all around there is simply an expression of it or a cry for it.
I have more and more, embraced meditating on death, not as an ending, but as a transition out of a time/space reality and into that which is. It is not a sad or morbid meditation. It feels more like a remembrance. It helps me connect more deeply to my essence and it opens my heart. And often, there is an overflowing of love that releases in tears…and frequently in an urge to write, and yet words are inadequate.
And so I surrender, again.
Fred Spronk
March 26, 2014 at 4:05 amI congratulate you and I envy you ;this is what i’m searching for but have been unable to find.I’m stuck in my past failures and expectancy of even worse to come ;wanting to die,yet wanting to live;not wanting to abandon my cat;wanting to punish everyone who doesn’t understand or support me or has abandoned me yet wanting to give and receive forgiveness too.Spend hours and hours on that but resentments keep crawling back in.Sick and tired of a cupboard full of herbs and orthomolecular supplements and clinging to them at the same time;this is no life,this is solitary confinement in disease and identification with it.I’ve always wanted to be a healer but I freakin can’t find love and death is breathing in my neck.I want to sleep for ten years.
Lymethriving
March 26, 2014 at 2:47 pmFrank, that is such an authentic expression of what you are dealing with….the push and pull that so many people feel as they struggle with being chronically ill, searching for peace and searching for ways to get well, and just wanting it all to end. Everything you are searching for is already who you are, and is already present. There is just going underneath the thoughts and outward experiences into essence of who you are. There is a wonderful YouTube video that I would recommend you watch. It’s about 10 mins and is worth watching ALL the way through. Rupert Spira is the ‘teacher’ in the video, answering a question by a Lyme patient who had been contemplating ending her life. I hope it will help you in some way. If you would like to talk with me, I am happy to offer my support in whatever way I can. Just send me an email to jenny@lymethriving.com and we’ll schedule some time. The video link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPlLrxJtIzE&list=FLLKfDNyg0mmp1KIBcZuMM9g&feature=share
Much love,
Jenny
Fred
March 27, 2014 at 2:02 pmThank you ,Jenny,for your trying to point me to this.I’ve visited countless hours of satsang with Advaita teachers in the past and at that time I sometimes was under the delusion that I had found myself; but you know what Lyme has taught me?That to me the witnessing consciousness isn’t worth a thing.It’s the soul that matters,love,quality of feeling.Now most non-dualist teachers would say that the soul is only a concept.But when you’ve lost it(already before the full Lyme explosion,due to sexual depletion)you know you’ve lost the most precious thing in the world even though Awareness is still there.Mr.Spira seems a genuine man,as are so many contemporary teachers.But I don’t see the esoteric knowledge there that talks about the possibility of the death of the soul,as do Blavatsky,Heindel,Gurdjieff,Weor etc.
Lymethriving
March 29, 2014 at 7:15 pmHmmmm….I don’t think of the soul as separate from awareness. My direct experience of Self is awareness, consciousness, soul, God, Universal Energy…..are all one in the same. There is no language that can adequately describe it, and certainly our minds can’t be wrapped around it. So when I contemplate your comment that the soul can be lost or die, it doesn’t resonate with me. I am not suggesting that you are incorrect though. Awareness is like the space in a room, it does not resist anything, has no opinion about anything, no judgement. It is simply awareness. “Being” the awareness that we are is peaceful and loving and does not resist anything. It is the recognition of no separation which is the most profound experience of love. It has no beginning and no ending, it does not live and it does not die, it simply is. No teacher is necessary to realize Self (although it is sometimes helpful to be supported), nothing needs to be known or believed. It is simply the being of awareness, and from that space of awareness we are aware of all that arises in it as that awareness is expressed into the time/space reality. Everything arises in awareness, all thoughts, feelings, perceptions. And in this time/space reality our thoughts arise assigning meaning and value to life. I don’t know you or what you have experienced in your life, but it seems that experiences have left you feeling at a terrible loss, and you appear to believe that your soul has died, perhaps based on how you feel and the thoughts/interpretations you have about those feelings. I am also not familiar with the teachers you mentioned that you say talk about the death of the soul, so can’t comment on them.