17 contemplating death

It is truly a great cosmic paradox that one of the best teachers in all of life turns out to be death. No person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you. While someone could tell you that you are not your body, death shows you. While someone could remind you of the insignificance of the things that you cling to, death takes them all away in a second. While people can teach you that men and women of all races are equal and that there is no difference between the rich and the poor, death instantly makes us all the same.

The question is, are you going to wait until that last moment to let death be your teacher? The mere possibility of death has the power to teach us at any moment. A wise person realizes that at any moment they may breathe out, and the breath may not come back in. It could happen any time, in any place, and your last breath is gone. You have to learn from this. A wise being completely and totally embraces the reality, the inevitability, and the unpredictability of death.

Any time you’re having trouble with something, think of death. Let’s say you’re the jealous type, and you can’t stand anyone being close to your mate. Think about what will happen when you’re no longer here. Is it really all that romantic that your loved one should live alone with no one to care for them? If you can get past your personal issues, you’ll find that you want the person you love to be happy and to have a full and beautiful life. Since that is what you want for them, why are you bothering them now just for talking to someone?

It shouldn’t take death to challenge you to live at your highest level. Why wait until everything is taken from you before you learn to dig down deep inside yourself to reach your highest potential? A wise person affirms, “If with one breath all of this can change, then I want to live at the highest level while I’m alive. I’m going to stop bothering the people I love. I’m going to live life from the deepest part of my being. ”

This is the consciousness necessary for deep and meaningful relationships. Look how callous we get with our loved ones. We take it for granted that they’re there and that they’ll continue to be there for us. What if they died? What if you died? What if you knew that this evening would be the last time you’d get to see them? Imagine that an angel comes down and tells you, “Straighten up your affairs. You will not awake from your sleep tonight. You’re coming to me. ” Then you’d know that every person you see that day, you’d be seeing for the last time. How would you feel? How would you interact with them? Would you even bother with the little grudges and complaints you’ve been carrying around? How much love could you give the ones you love, knowing it would be the last time you’d get to be with them? Think about what it would be like if you lived like that every moment with everyone. Your life would be really different. You should contemplate this. Death is not a morbid thought. Death is the greatest teacher in all of life.

Take a moment to look at the things you think you need. Look at how much time and energy you put into various activities. Imagine if you knew you were going to die within a week or a month. How would that change things? How would your priorities change? How would your thoughts change? Think honestly about what you would do with your last week. What a wonderful thought to contemplate. Then ponder this question: If that’s really what you would do with your last week, what are you doing with the rest of your time? Wasting it? Throwing it away? Treating it like it’s not something precious? What are you doing with life? That is what death asks you.

Let’s say you’re living life without the thought of death, and the Angel of Death comes to you and says, “Come, it’s time to go. ” You say, “But no. You’re supposed to give me a warning so I can decide what I want to do with my last week. I’m supposed to get one more week. ” Do you know what Death will say to you? He’ll say, “My God! I gave you fifty-two weeks this past year alone. And look at all the other weeks I’ve given you. Why would you need one more? What did you do with all those? ” If asked that, what are you going to say? How will you answer? “I wasn’t paying attention… I didn’t think it mattered. ” That’s a pretty amazing thing to say about your life.

Death is a great teacher. But who lives with that level of awareness? It doesn’t matter what age you are; at any time you could take a breath and there may never be another. It happens all the time—to babies, to teenagers, to people in mid-life—not just to the aged. One breath and they’re gone. No one knows when their time will be. That’s not how it works.

So why not be bold enough to regularly reflect on how you would live that last week? If you were to ask this question of people who are truly awakened, they wouldn’t have any problem answering you. Not a thing would change inside of them. Not a thought would cross their minds. If death were to come in an hour, if death were to come in a week, or if death were to come in a year, they would live exactly the same way as they’re living now. There is not a single thing they carry inside of their hearts that they would rather be doing. In other words, they are living their lives fully and are not making compromises or playing games with themselves.

You have to be willing to look at what it would be like if death was staring you in the face. Then you have to come to peace within yourself so that it doesn’t make any difference whether it is or not. There is a story of a great yogi who said that every moment of his life he felt as though a sword were suspended above his head by a spiderweb. He lived his life with the awareness that he was that close to death. You are that close to death. Every time you get in the car, every time you walk across the street, and every time you eat something, it could be the last thing you do. Do you realize that what you’re doing at any moment is something that someone was doing when they died? “He died eating dinner… He died in a car accident, two miles from his home… She died in a plane wreck on a trip to New York… He went to bed and never woke up…” At some point, this is how it happened to somebody. No matter what you’re doing, you can be sure somebody died that way.

You must not be afraid to discuss death. Don’t get uptight about it. Instead, let this knowledge help you to live every moment of your life fully, because every moment matters. That’s what happens when somebody knows they only have a week left. You can be certain that they would tell you that the most important week they ever had was that last week. Everything is a million times more meaningful in that final week. What if you were to live every week that way?

At this point you should ask yourself why you aren’t living that way. You are going to die. You know that. You just don’t know when. Every single thing will be taken from you. You will leave behind your possessions, your loved ones, and all your hopes and dreams for this life. You’ll be taken right out of where you are. You’ll no longer be able to fill the roles you were so busy playing. Death changes everything in a flash. That’s the reality of the situation. If all these things can be changed in an instant, then maybe they aren’t so real after all. Maybe you’d better check out who you are. Maybe you should look deeper.

The beauty of embracing deep truths is that you don’t have to change your life; you just change how you live your life. It’s not what you’re doing; it’s how much of you is doing it. Let’s take a very simple example. You’ve walked outside thousands of times, but how many times have you really appreciated it? Imagine a person in a hospital bed who has just been told they’ve got a week to live. They look up at the doctor and say, “Can I walk outside? Can I look at the sky just one more time? ” If it were raining outside, they would want to feel the rain just once more. For them, that would be the most precious thing. But you don’t want to feel the rain. You run and cover up.

What is it that won’t let us live our lives? What is inside of us that is so afraid that it keeps us from just enjoying life? This part of us is so busy trying to make sure the next thing goes right that we can’t just be here now and live life. All the while, death is watching our footsteps. Don’t you want to live before death comes? You’re probably not going to get a warning. Very few people are told when they’re going to die. Almost everybody just takes a breath and doesn’t know they didn’t take another.

So start using every day to let go of that scared part of you that won’t let you live life fully. Since you know you’re going to die, be willing to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Be willing to be fully present without being afraid of what will happen in the next moment. That’s how people live when they face death. You get to do that too, because you are facing death every moment.

Learn to live as though you are facing death at all times, and you’ll become bolder and more open. If you live life fully, you won’t have any last wishes. You will have lived them every moment. Only then will you have fully experienced life and released the part of you that is afraid of living. There is no reason to be afraid of life. And the fear will fade once you understand that the only thing there is to get from life is the growth that comes from experiencing it. Life itself is your career, and your interaction with life is your most meaningful relationship. Everything else you’re doing is just focusing on a tiny subset of life in the attempt to give life some meaning. What actually gives life meaning is the willingness to live it. It isn’t any particular event; it’s the willingness to experience life’s events.

What if you knew that the next person you’d see would be the last person you would ever see? You’d be right there soaking it in, experiencing it. It wouldn’t matter what they were saying; you’d just enjoy hearing the words because it would be the last conversation you’d ever have. What if you brought that kind of awareness to every conversation? That’s what happens when you’re told that death is around the corner: you change, life doesn’t change. The true seeker commits to live like that every moment and lets nothing stop them. Why should anything stop you? You’re just going to die anyway.

If you challenge yourself to live as though it were your last week, your mind may come up with all kinds of suppressed desires. It may start talking about all the things that you’ve always wanted to do, and you may think you had better go do them. You will soon see that’s not the answer. You have to understand that it is your attempt to get special experiences from life that makes you miss the actual experience of life. Life is not something you get; it’s something you experience. Life exists with or without you. It has been going on for billions of years. You simply get the honor of seeing a tiny slice of it. If you’re busy trying to get something, you will miss the slice you’re actually experiencing. Every one of life’s experiences is different, and every experience is worth having. Life is not something to waste. It’s truly precious. That’s why death is such a great teacher. It is death that makes life precious. Look how precious life becomes when you imagine you only have a week left to live. How precious would life be if there was no such thing as death? You’d waste every second of it because you’d figure you’d always have it. It is scarcity that makes things precious. It is scarcity that makes a simple rock become a rare gem.

So death actually gives meaning to life. Death is your friend. Death is your liberator. For God’s sake, do not be afraid of death. Try to learn what it’s saying to you. The highest way to learn is to take each moment of your life and realize that what matters is to live it fully. If you live each moment completely, you will have a fuller life and you will not have to fear death.

You fear death because you crave life. You fear death because you think there’s something to get that you haven’t experienced yet. Many people feel that death will take something away from them. The wise person realizes that death is constantly giving them something. Death is giving meaning to your life. You’re the one who throws your life away; you waste every second of it. You get in your car, drive from here to there, and you don’t see anything. You’re not even there. You’re busy thinking about what you’re going to do next. You’re a month ahead of yourself, or even a year. You’re not living life; you’re living mind. So it is you who throws your life away, not death. Death actually helps you get your life back by making you pay attention to the moment. It makes you say, “My God, I’m going to lose this. I’m going to lose my children. This could be the last time I’ll see them. From now on I’m going to pay more attention to them, and to my spouse, and to all my friends and loved ones. I want to get so much more out of life! ”

If you are living every experience fully, then death doesn’t take anything from you. There’s nothing to take because you’re already fulfilled. That’s why the wise being is always ready to die. It doesn’t make any difference when death comes because their experience is already whole and complete. Suppose you loved music more than anything else. You always wanted to hear your favorite classical composition played by your favorite orchestra. That was the dream of your life. Finally, it happens. You’re there and you’re actually hearing it. It completely fills you. The very first notes lift you to where you needed to go. This shows you that it only takes a moment to become absorbed in a transcendental peace. You really don’t need more time before death; what you need is more depth of experience during the time you’re given.

That’s the way to live each moment of your life. You let it fill you completely. You let it touch you to the depths of your being. There is no moment that can’t do that. Even if something terrible happens, view it as just another experience of life. Death has made you a great promise in which you can find deep peace. The promise is that all things are temporal; they are all just passing through time and space. If you have patience, this too will pass.

The wise realize that in the end, life belongs to death. Death is the one who comes in his own time to take life from you. Death is the landlord and you’re just the tenant. People say things like, “He’s living on borrowed time, ” or, “He got a new lease on life. ” From whom did he borrow the time? From death, of course. Death is the one who comes to claim his property because it has always belonged to him. You should have a healthy relationship with death, and it should not be one of fear. Feel grateful to death for giving you another day, another experience, and for creating the scarcity that makes life so precious. If you do this, your life will no longer be yours to waste; it will be yours to appreciate.

Death is an ultimate reality of life. The yogis and saints fully embrace death. St. Paul said, “Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? ” (1 Cor. 15: 55). Great beings don’t mind speaking of death. Yogis have traditionally gone into graveyards and burning ghats to meditate. They sit there to remind themselves of the frailty of the body and the inevitability of death. Buddhists are taught to contemplate the temporal nature of things. It is all temporal, and death says this to you.

So, instead of getting lost in the normal mental chatter, why not contemplate the temporal nature of life? Why not think about something meaningful? Don’t be afraid of death. Let it free you. Let it encourage you to experience life fully. But remember, it’s not your life. You should be experiencing the life that’s happening to you, not the one you wish was happening. Don’t waste a moment of life trying to make other things happen; appreciate the moments you are given. Don’t you understand that every minute you’re a step closer to death? This is how to live your life. You live it as though you were on the verge of death, because you are.

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