Are you a subscriber, but do not receive the news letter?
Click here for tips to avoid spam filters. Question: As I sat with my friend, a long time meditator and non dual student who was dying of cancer, it occurred to me that all his years on the pillow didn't seem to serve him as he suffered the horrible pain of a deteriorating body.
He screamed, cried, and called out to God to help him, but no help seemed to come. In his final hours, only morphine helped him disconnect from the pain and suffering.
I realize that Consciousness Itself was simply present during that time, as it always is. But pain is so primal, that in those moments all he could seem to do was deal with the waves of intense pain that wracked his body and prepare for the next wave.
What insight do you have about dying a conscious death?
Answer: Thank god for morphine and for dear friends, but nothing can prevent the body?s demise or negate its innate capacity for pain and pleasure. Non duality and meditation are not going to change this. All sentient beings can experience pain, and all that has a beginning has an ending. Water is wet, fire burns and pain hurts. When there is pain, the body might cry out and seek relief, this is the natural functioning; just like there are enjoyable sensations to which the body responds with pleasure.
The only ?good? that non duality has to offer here, is the insight that the body is not what one exclusively is. That what appears as the body ?or as the suffering friend- is the same One appearing as you and as this whole manifestation. This is the Presence-That-Is. IT is you, and you are IT and there is nothing but THIS.
As for a conscious death: Whatever we say about it remains a concept and cannot touch the actuality of the instant of dying. Surely, the moment takes care of itself and requires no effort or insights. The drop merges in its source, whether or not there is the idea of a conscious death.
The Animating Energy that powered -and appeared as- the body of your friend IS; without beginning or end. Bodies appear and disappear in it, like leaves on a tree, like waves in the ocean. The wave that subsides is not truly lost, as it never had a separate existence. Water to water, dust to dust, self to SELF.

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Life is. There is no one living it. It is not' my life'. There is no 'me' that lives. But I am Live. This 'I' is not a personalized 'me'. It is not an assumed separate person. There is no implied separation between the writer and the reader. This 'I' is 'you'. This 'I' is al that is. I am Life itself.
That I am Life itself is known. This knowing goes beyond knowledge and intellect. This knowing is a knowing beyond experience, beyond thought or emotion. Knowing in not knowing. I don't know how I know, except that, I am. There is no doubt. As this knowing of what I am, the character goes on playing the game of being a character in a play. The play is no longer taken seriously, but still everything can and does happen. It is simply known that whatever happens does not happen 'to me'. It simply happens in, and as, what I am.
These words are not pointing to anything new. In fact what is being expressed here is timeless. It has always been known. It is known. It is most familiar and ordinary. It is what I am.

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Fifth Dimension
Oh, how is it that I could come out to here,
And be still floatin',
And never hit bottom but keep falling through,
Just relaxed and paying attention?
All my two-dimensional boundaries were gone,
I had lost to them badly,
I saw that world crumble and thought I was dead,
But I found my senses still working.
And as I continued to drop through the hole,
I found all surrounding,
To show me that joy innocently is,
Just be quiet and feel it around you.
(Bridge)
And I opened my heart to the whole universe,
And I found it was loving,
And I saw the great blunder my teachers had made,
Scientific delirium madness.
I will keep falling as long as I live,
Ah, without ending,
And I will remember the place that is now,
That has ended before the beginning ...

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That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman -- that thou art.

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~ Sankaracharya ~ Fair Use Notice

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Thanks to my friend KP for sending me this cartoon.

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