PRIME POST! Overcoming Death

The title of this post sets me up to try and fill a rather tall order, but I remain unbowed. My original idea was slightly different and so was the title: “Overcoming the Fear of Death.” As I sat down and began writing that post, however, I thought about precisely how it was that we overcome the fear of death. I’ve helped lots and lots of people do it. 

Upon review, I realized that what was actually being achieved was our consciously overcoming not just the fear of our demise, but the fact of our demise. This is just one facet of the amazing power inherent in the recognition and acceptance of our True Nature.

You don’t die. Ever. Promise.

Now, you can be excused for thinking that offering the opportunity to overcome death would be about the biggest deal there is. A few years ago I thought that too. I was wrong. I have, in fact, found out that for most of the world this feat is a real yawner at best. In general, they don’t even want it.

Oh, some few of us want it, of course. In the past few years I’ve met with several hundred people who’ve at least initially accepted the gift, and a great many of them have actually kept it. That requires a lot of conscious attention, but they’ve done it.

I really don’t know how many I’ve helped take the gift, but I do know that whatever the number of takers is—in this teaching and others whose aim is the same—it remains microscopic when you compare it to the 7.2 billion of us who haven’t taken it.

If you’re wondering why that is, wonder no more. I will tell you why. It turns out that human beings have a fear that is far, far deeper than the fear of death. In fact this fear is not even in the same league with death; it’s in a whole league of its own. And just what is this greatest, deepest, most primal and horrifying fear? I’ll tell you that, too.

It is the fear that perhaps we, as separate, free-wheeling, self-willed, gonna-be-okay-pretty-soon individuals don’t really exist to begin with. This primal fear is the Ultimate Terror. It rules our days and prowls our nights. We avoid it like the plague.

The fear that we might not actually be, and thus not be able to enter the mode of eternal becoming, with its attendant promise of future improvement and ultimate self-acceptance, stalks us like a panther. We know the truth. All of us know. Yet we steadfastly turn our heads away from it and hold to onto any shred of hopeful denial. As a general rule we won’t acknowledge that such a thing as our not being a given human being is even possible.

In one-on-one Awakening Sessions, for instance, I help people strip away their lies and assumptions one layer at a time until there’s no onion left, and we are hung facing the open space of our no-thingness. We can find all of Mr. Potato head’s features, such as noses, eyes, ears, sensations, perceptions, feelings, memories and thoughts—but we never find the potato! Mr. Potato Head is found to be headless!

The way the track is arranged, with one thing building on the next, the truth of no-potato simply cannot be missed. Except for when it is, of course, but that’s a whole different post.

Our True Nature is not a secret nature! Truth is what’s left standing once we’ve pulled away all the lies. Once seen, it is seen that it was always glaringly obvious and we wonder how we missed. It’s the elephant in every room, but we can’t see what we won’t see.

So why then won’t we see it? We’re too busy dealing with the devil we know—our existence. “I may be miserable, but at least I exist.” We are unwilling to trade what we have, (our self-concept) which is nothing, for No-thing, which it turns out is everything! We are unwilling to trade misidentification for no identification, which we falsely believe is what’s being asked of us.

It’s not what’s being asked of us. It’s not like that at all. Yes, yes, we have to die before we die, but we don’t know what that means. Listen to me carefully.

Right now you know that you’re alive. You can say, “I am.” You can report that you are, even if you cannot report what you are. We can all, always, without exception, report about ourselves, “I am.” Not a single one of us can report, “I am not,” because there’d have to be something there declaring that it isn’t.

You are. You exist. No one can take that away from You. You have heard a rumor that You are going to die, which is patently ridiculous. I don’t know why You made up such a rumor, I don’t know why You’re passing it around to Yourself, and I surely don’t know why You believe it!

But You do. You do until You don’t. And when You believe it You experience suffering. But You’re not suffering from some objective fact, You’re suffering from Your own subjective fiction.

Listen, You make stuff up. You do. And then You believe it. And then You suffer from it. And then You call Yourself-in-the-Fred-unit to try and help You overcome it. Craziest thing ever, is it not? Well don’t blame me—it was Your idea. All ideas are Your ideas. They can’t not be, because there’s nothing here but You. This is what we mean by Oneness.

Let me ask you a question. What is Your own experience with death? Zero. People talk about it all the time, but no one who talks about it has done it. Can You remember being dead before you were born? No. Can You really project what death would be like? No. You know nothing of death. It simply doesn’t apply to You.

You say, “Look around, everybody dies!” That’s true: every body dies. Do You actually know that you are a body? Be careful here, because time and again I (which is You) have had people swear to me that they are a certain body and ninety minutes later had them laugh uproariously about that very same idea. You are not limited to that body, or any other. Promise.

The body that’s reading this post is actually a dream-oriented sensing device for Oneness to take in and play-act in this dream of multiplicity that’s occurring within the truth of Unity. These devices come and they go. They rise and they fall. They appear to live and they appear to die. And all the while, You watch the whole show from behind the curtain as it simply happens. It unfolds as it unfolds, but You are Unborn; You are neither of this dream, nor in this dream. Nothing that happens here affects You.

As the ancient Hindus said, You cannot be “cut with a knife, burned by fire, or drowned by water.” No one can make You disappear; no one can take away Your existence, because there’s nothing here but You. You are both eternal and infinite. Why am I so sure of this? Because “we” are the very same thing. There’s only one thing going on and You’re it. You cannot not be. That’s what we mean by the word “Oneness.”

You cannot die, because You are Life itself suffering from a bizarre case of mistaken identity. You are Life and You have no opposite. Birth and death are opposites, yes, but You experience neither of those, because they both occur, or appear to occur, inside of You or, more accurately, upon You.

You watch. You witness. That’s You’re whole job. You couldn’t have it easier.

You’re using that body to watch things from that particular little-you-view, do you see that? You’re also using this body to watch things from this little-you-view. There are only you-views, because there’s nothing but You. There are zillions of little-you-views, but there is only one of You.

People, mice, zebras, puppies, and plankton. Chairs and trees, rocks and lilies: it’s all You. Looking, feeling, experiencing. You are experiencing everything simultaneously. Notice how the mind can’t grab that. Notice how it simply can’t wrap itself around that idea. It makes your brain ache, does it not? Stretch-stretch-stretch…oh to hell with it! The idea collapses in on itself.

You cannot see reality from afar. You can only be it. I’m completely confident that it all happens inside of You, or upon You because there is no outside of You. Again, this is what we mean by “Oneness.”

We are afraid that if we tell ourselves the truth about the truth we’re going to disappear. Where could You go? There’s only You! 

Your deepest suspicions have turned out to be valid: You really don’t exist as separate, free-wheeling, self-willed, gonna-be-okay-pretty-soon individuals. There’s just one You and This is It. Look around. What do You think of Yourself? Nothing you can see is other than You. Yet everything You see does not equal You. You’re bigger than big—you’re even bigger than biggest—because there’s ONLY YOU.

Now, I’m not foolish enough to think this is the first time You’ve ever heard this. If You’ve been hanging around nondual circles very long, You haven’t heard much of anything else. You hear it so much that You’ve overcome the meaning and import of it. You make it easy to lie to Yourself.

But when You’re appearing as Fredness, You make it easy to tell Yourself the truth. That’s what Fredness is for. Why not listen to him/You? 

Look, You told Yourself a foolish story and You believed it. You’ve suffered because of it. And You can still suffer as long as You want! All of that’s up to You. I’m just here to help if You want help.

But either way, no complaining! Given that there’s only You, You have no one to blame for any of this but Yourself! And only You can pull You out of that story.

Ready yet?