This morning I woke up thinking about death (a rarity for me these days) and it occurred to me that death is only experienced as a problem if you think about it. What do we really know about death, other than the second-hand ideas we've picked up from one source or another? When I was younger, there was a time when I was obsessed with dying so I read as much about near-death experiences as I could since I figured that they are the closest that we have to firsthand accounts of what it's like to die. I tried to wrap my head around these accounts and come up with a viable explanation for them but really, the more I read the less I could explain them. Now I find it more pleasing or at least, less dis-easing, to not have any preconceptions--I'll find out what death is when I get there (or not).
Looking back on my little stint as a non-duality enthusiast, I can see that often our ideas about being eternal awareness or any such concepts may simply be a coping mechanism for the underlying fear of death. Afraid of non-existence and the relentless river of change that is life, we imagine and cling to the belief in an absolute, unchanging "Self" (with a capitol "S," of course!) that is untouched by anything that happens to us. I can't say with any certainty whether there is such a thing or not but it smacks to me of denial--it denies the unceasing transformation that we experience life as.
The hungry ghost of the conceptual self wants a meal (intellectual Truth) but an imaginary self could only eat an imaginary meal. Truth isn't known, only lived. Learning about ourselves and life is a never-ending journey. It is a constant revelation. Any concepts we cling to only mask what is actually taking place in this moment. It takes a very open mind and heart to be with life without armor and boundaries, then there is only life and no "me" that is believed to be apart from it. This state of openness isn't achieved but is found to be effortlessly present when we quit mistaking thoughts for reality.
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