I spent a lot of time this summer away from home travelling and meeting people.
En route to a meditation retreat living in a forest in France for a week I was accompanied by this gentleman – Amarpal Singh, a psychologist and philosopher from Argentina.
With seven hours of driving ahead of us, I was inevitably asked the question “so why are you doing this?”
I said I want to learn more about myself. I had many questions in life and I said very passionately that I wanted to know what my purpose in life is.
There was silence for a few minutes as Amarpal stared out of the window. I sat turned uncomfortably in the front passenger seat looking at him. Maybe he didn’t hear me?
Then he said “So you must look forward to dying then?”
I was thinking no not really. I just said I wanted to LIVE my life. To the full.
He said in his rather strong American accent “Well, the thing is….you’re dying everyday”. Smiling as he now stared at me.
So what started off as a very happy conversation now seemed quite grim.
I told him I didn’t understand what he meant. He explained.
In order for me to really live, the old me has to die. This is a way of knowing who you are, what you like and don’t like. Your sub-conscious thoughts may not always match your actions. Imagine if your sub-conscious thoughts always matched your actions. You will be living a life of your true self. An authentic life. One that you are comfortable with, not interrupted by conscious or societal pressures.
So everyday we are dying because everyday we are living a new life.
I then understood what he said but disagreed. I asked but why does it have to be so morbid as death? Why can’t you say I am living everyday and I am learning new things rather than dying?
Amarpal explained if you don’t die, you only move side-ways not upwards. All your old aspects remain and you learn new things but don’t get rid of the old. It’s like carrying baggage.
When you blossom in to a new being you create new possibilities with the new you. Ready to die once again.
That made sense to me completely. So for example, and you may be able to relate to this, I used to worry a lot about what people thought of me. We all do. But I realised one day that you can’t and you never will satisfy everybody. All I can do is be the best person that I can be because the relationship is not between me and other people but between me and God. This created a whole new perspective on life for me. Not least immensely lightening the weight on my shoulders. Now I look back and think how ridiculous I was to live my life worrying like that. It almost feels like that could not have even been me.
So welcome death. Learn more about who you really are. Then start life…
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Its a beautiful post!! Never thought like that before.
Thanks for the enlightenment , I think I would like to give it a go.
Die and Live Again .
It’s your mind that diverges you from being who you really are by introducing thoughts. What will people think, what if it’s too busy, and what if I was to fail!? It’s when you have a realisation that’s when you have just died. You suddenly then say actually no, people will love to hear my thoughts, if it’s too busy I’ll have an opportunity to meet more people I can connect with, I will not fail because I know I can do this and if I do fail, I can’t wait because I would have learnt a valuable lesson. But how do you have that realisation – by listening to yourself. Acknowledge it. Then act on it. When your actions match your thoughts about a particular area, you will look back and think how did I ever think like used to. The new ‘you’ has emerged.
This is a really good post. I never thought of it that way. Everyday we live were closer to dying but also still living and creating a life for ourselves. So we’re technically living and dying at the same until the day we finally go forever.
If I thought I was going to live forever then I would not enjoy my life as much. Things would become ordinary and boring to the point that I would wish I was dying. I am glad I am dying while I am living because it makes me go after things that I want in this short life of mine and enjoy every moment as it was my last. Also knowing that death is on its way no matter what, brings urgency to peoples lives to achieve their goals faster. Some of those goals have affected us all.
Some people will completely disagree stating dying is a physical process. It does not begin until the process of dying starts to take place. Granted the moment we are born we begin counting off the days towards our death, but this is not the same as dying.
Are we even any different from anything alive on this earth? Is a flower living or dying? It’s how you look at it right? Technically yes we’re dying from the moment we’re born but it’s how we spend our time that determines if we lived or simply waited to die. Like i said it’s how you look at it just like a glass that is half empty or half full. Each to there own perspective I guess.
Thank you for your comment Amanee. It is true we are dying every day which does bring urgency. Especially when you think with an average life by the time you start thinking about this you only have about 45-65 summers to enjoy. The perspective I am bringing is to enjoy death. Not of the physical body dying but of the mind. Let it die every day so that a new ‘you’ can emerge. This will allow a more fulfilling life to be had in the time that we have roaming around in our physical bodies and beyond.
This is a great post. I agree and love some of your points.
The re-birth brings us back to a point of spiritual balance. Male and female mental attributes become equally dispersed within us. The only other time this is true of us is when we are a fetus and physically sexless. After the re-birth, we become mentally and emotionally sexless.
In this state our emotional core is reborn in perfect balance. We maintain our ability for logical reasoning (which is a traditionally male attribute) and become equally more aware of our emotions (which is a female attribute). We lose arrogance and aggression, again male attributes, as well as emotional instability, usually a female attribute.
This has nothing to do with male and female sexuality; more to do with the state of being and how our thinking changes to a more balanced, neither predominantly male or predominantly female type of cognition.
Thanks for a great post
Khalkinised thanks so much for enlightening us on the transmigration process. Sometimes, we don’t actually understand what is happening. But we know it has happened. It’s nice to know what change has emerged within our bodies to enable us to rebalance post such a chrysalis.
Such a refreshing perspective…death always seemed the absense of life and if we see life as good, death must be bad. This seems to stop me thinking so linearly on this…the two concepts are constantly intertwining they are the same..here death is proposed as liberating.
thanks for sharing your thoughts..please keep it up.
Ameet, yes I am afraid we have all learnt to think the same way about death. The dichotomy of life and death need not exit. Live life with vigour and death is as spurious as it ever was.