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A painting is never finished—it simply stops in interesting places.251
—Paul Gardner
This book is much like life in that the ideas, thoughts, message, and essence will continue on even after you turn the last page. The essence of the book, as in all books, music, art, and paintings, is eternal. It doesn’t die. Your true essence and consciousness are much like the beauty of the painting, the music from your stereo, the essence of the book.
To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are. 252
—Don Miguel Ruiz
In my reading and studying, I have found that authors, sages, prophets, and gurus throughout the ages have delivered the same universal message: you were never born and you never die. You are not just your body. The essence and consciousness of who you are is timeless and eternal, with no beginning and no end. Let me repeat that: you were never born and you never die.
It is only a fool that entertains a feeling “This I am” in relation to that temporary appearance known as the body. 253
—Vasistha
It’s a difficult concept to grasp. If you have not been exposed to these teachings, you may resist or reject this concept, saying things like, “What do you mean I am not my body? That I wasn’t born and don’t die? I have spent a lifetime dealing with this thing I call my body, along with its mind and ego. Do you have any idea how much suffering it has caused me? The ten thousand pounds that I have shed and put back on, the countless visits to the gym, the running, the sit-ups, the push-ups, trainers, diets, the pimples and zits as a teenager, the days I felt like hell and yet still had to deal with all the aches, pains, and heartaches… No, you are not going to tell me that I am not my body. Can you begin to understand how much mental suffering I have gone through the past fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years? The trips to therapy, the prescription drugs, the visits to the doctors, dentists, hospitals? I have way too much time and money invested in this body/ego/personality. How dare you say that I am not my body? I have spent a lifetime cultivating and polishing this person, this personality named [your name here]. Who would I be without all of this?”
Imagining that this newcomer, the body, is oneself, one thinks that one is born and that one dies. The moment this delusion goes, one’s own true immortality is gained. 254
—Ramana Maharishi
I won’t go into great detail on this concept, as it is beyond the scope of this book, but do think about this: Are you your body, your mind, your personality? Is that who you are? If so, which body, mind, personality do you choose? The one when you were four? When you were twenty? Fifty? Seventy? The body and mind I had at four, twenty, forty, I no longer recognize. I look at pictures from adolescence, teen years, early adulthood, and ten years ago, and that body and mind no longer exist. Virtually every cell in my body has died and been replaced. My essence lives on, but the body and mind of those times is nowhere to be found.
We fancy ourselves as concrete things, something with boundaries, unchanging, and when we have occasion to refer to ourselves or examine ourselves introspectively, we believe we know what we refer to and are adamant in our avowal of self. The truth is we neither know ourselves nor are we the same from one moment in our lives to the next. It is nearly impossible even for families to recognize a loved one after thirty years of absence, so greatly has the self altered.
And a little refection upon the changing quality of consciousness is sure to give us some insight into the numberless selves our surface minds and ego have become since first appearing in the world.
Shakespeare perceived the many masks donned by the Secret Self in its journey through life: First the infant, mewling and puking, then the schoolboy with his shining morning face, then the lover, sighing like a furnace, then the soldier, full of strange oaths, then the justice, in fair round belly, then the lean and slippered pantaloons, then second childishness, then sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” 255
—U. S. Andersen
Let’s create a hypothetical scenario in which, as soon as you were born, you were taken away from your parents and had to exist on your own without any other human interaction for your entire life. Somehow you were kept alive. Even though it’s ridiculous and could never happen, hear me out. You would not have parents, so you would not have a name. You would not have any interactions with other humans, so the concept of age, old age, sickness, and death would not enter your mind. You would be existing much like an animal in the wild, with your natural instincts for survival, but all the baggage that you have accumulated over time from society, friends, parents, teachers, and doctors would be nonexistent. The personality that you have now would not exist, as it is a collection of all your influences and interactions from the past. The “you” that you think you are would not be.
If I asked you right now to describe to me who you are but you could not use your name, job title, family, education, or anything that has happened to you in the past, what would you say? Try it right now. Write on a piece of paper or say aloud who you are without using your name or anything from the past. Who are you? Not as easy as you may think, but in actuality, it is easy. It is similar to the story in the Bible of Moses speaking to God in the burning bush when Moses asked God who he should tell the Israelites sent him. And God replied, “Tell them ‘I Am’ sent you” (Exodus 3:13-14). Like God, you too are “I Am.” The only difference is that you may not know it.
So what is meant by “I Am?” Obviously no one knows for certain, but God didn’t tell Moses to tell the Israelites that “God” sent him. He didn’t use a name. And what is implied is that God is everything. Not a name. Not a person. Just “I Am.” I Am the tree. I Am the sky. I Am the rock. I Am you. I Am that. I Am consciousness.
I AM is the self-definition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests.
I AM is the self-definition of God.
I AM hath sent me unto you.
I AM THAT I AM.
Be still and know that I AM God.
You are God. You are the “I AM that I AM.” You are consciousness. You are the creator. This is the mystery, this is the great secret known by the seers, prophets, and mystics throughout the ages. This is the truth that you can never know intellectually.
Who is this you? That it is you, John Jones or Mary Smith, is absurd. It is your greater self, your deeper self, your infinite being. Call it what you will. The important thing is that it is within you, it is you, it is your world. 256
—Neville Goddard
The person who lives in my make-believe scenario above would also describe himself or herself as “I Am.” The person would exist as consciousness in a human body without ever realizing he or she is human. There would not be all the drama that we have created in our lives, our personalities, our past and future worries. This person would be living in the moment, trying to survive, but not dwelling on death because it would have no meaning. This whole concept of who we are, our personality, our ego, is everything we have accumulated in the past from interactions with other people. People have told us who we are, and most of us believe it!
It’s my experience that we’re much more afraid that there might be a God than we are that there might not be. 257
—Julia Cameron
Have you ever had a moment when you suddenly stopped what you were doing and said, “Who am I?” Out of the blue, you look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Who am I?” You had this strange sensation for a fleeting moment that you were not this personality named [your name]. For a brief moment, you felt like you were no one. That there was no “[your name].” It’s an odd feeling and rarely happens, but when it does, I think this is when you are experiencing your true self, who you really are. At that moment, you realize that you are everything, not just a body and personality. At that moment, you are existing as Consciousness; you are experiencing the infinite. At that moment, you understand there is no death, because who is there to die? You too are I Am, and you are on the road to freedom.
Ultimately each of us is a distinct consciousness in a human body, a unique part of a universal consciousness. We are like snowflakes of consciousness—each a little different but part of the Whole. That is our true identity. That is our true beauty.
When all the layers of false identity have been stripped off, there is no longer any version of that old self. What is left behind is pure consciousness. That is our original being. That is our true identity. Our true nature is indestructible. No matter whether we are sick or healthy, poor or wealthy, it always remains divine and perfect as it is. When we realize our true nature, our life is transformed in a way we could not have imagined before. We realize the very meaning of our life and it puts an end to all searching right there. 258
—Anam Thubten
The body is much like this book with its cover, pages, and ink. It is the canvas of the painting or the paint. It is the components of the stereo, the CD. It is the hardware for the computer. All of these can be destroyed, damaged, burned to ashes, just like the human body. But it’s not the physical components that make any of these things meaningful. You don’t love the cover of the book or CD. You might like it, but it’s not the reason you purchased it. You wouldn’t buy a book with no writing or message, a CD with no music, or a blank canvas—unless of course you were going to paint or write. You buy them for the music, the art, the message, all of which are eternal.
One of your family members loses an arm or a leg, but you still love him or her the same. That hasn’t changed. Your loved one could be lying in a coma with most of his or her body missing, and you would still have the same love you have always had for that person, if not more. The body parts might be gone, but it would have no effect on your love. It wasn’t the arm or leg you were in love with. Your love is eternal for that family member regardless of what happens to the body or mind.
To unify with Life, to get in tune with the Infinite, is every man’s search, whether or not he is conscious of the fact…
You could not think a thought if it were not for the intelligence of Life. You could not exist without It because It is you. Since this is so, you will never cease to exist—you will always be more and never less yourself. 259
—Ernest Holmes
Most of us live entirely by our five senses. Our realty is our sense world—that which we can see, touch, smell, taste, and hear. There is nothing wrong with this; at times, it can be quite practical and useful. But it also limits us and imprisons us. We only see a very narrow part of the wide electromagnetic spectrum. We only hear at limited frequencies. And yet we base our entire world and life on this limited perception. We believe in our senses.
It is an established fact that our five senses perceive but the tiniest portion of the almost infinite spectrum of vibrations that prevails in the universe, that a million times more remains untold about each thing than can possibly be perceived by sensual means.
In short, the materialist who prides himself on accepting nothing but the evidence of the senses is accepting the sketchiest of evidence; he actually prides himself on his blindness, accepting things as facts on the basis of knowing a mere one billionth of their total qualities.
He would not dream of entering a business deal with such meager knowledge, but accepts the world and others and himself on such evidence and rears like a reluctant stallion when it is suggested to him that he lives among phantoms. 260
—U. S. Andersen
I will give you one more make-believe scenario in which you have the capability to see not only the smallest particles that we are aware of (atoms, subatomic particles) but also countless others that we don’t have names for yet or have not yet discovered. If you had this ability, when you looked at another human, a tree, a table, a car, everything would look the same. It might be similar to looking at the sky. That’s why we are considered to be 99.99 percent space. With our newfound ability to see, our new perception, we would see only space. So where would this character we call “[your name]” start and end? Or the tree? Or the car? If you were looking at me, there would be no beginning to Tim. No boundaries to Tim. No ending to Tim.
I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. 261
—Max Planck, Nobel Prize winner for physics
We are part of one universal whole, one universal consciousness, one universal intelligence, one universal God, one universal whatever-you-want-to-call-it, one universal life. We are immersed in it.
We are not separate little entities existing in our own little worlds, although many people live their entire lives this way and thus the cause for all the suffering and the concept of birth and death. That’s the suffering the Buddha was talking about. He wasn’t talking about times being tough. Not physical suffering. It was mental suffering caused by this identification with a separate person, personality, ego.
The real you will always be. The real you was never born and will never die. You are immersed in this universal consciousness, universal intelligence, universal mind, universal perfection, God—and it is immersed in you. You just can’t see it. Fortunately, there were and are enlightened beings who could and can see it, who could perceive this intelligence—great masters like Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and many other saints, prophets, and sages throughout the ages. They have told us about it, and when we understand this truth, that is our awakening, our freedom, our immortality.
You are immortal; not your body, not your Conscious Mind, but the real you, the part of you which exists forever in the Universal Subconscious Mind. You always have been: you always will be. You are inseparably one with everything that is, each human being in this world, all life, all form, all objects. 262
—U. S. Andersen
Have you ever felt like you have not been here? Have not been a part of life? I personally haven’t. I feel that I have always been. You look at rocks, trees, the ocean, all of nature, and you have this feeling that you have always been a part of it. Everyone is consumed by what happens after we die, but no one talks about that awful time before our birth, that infinite period of time before we were supposedly born. If there were an infinite period of time before we were born, how could we be born? It would be impossible. Time would never reach our birthdate. That’s why the sages and prophets have all said this moment is eternity. Eternity is not someplace in the sky, in the future. It is this moment.
I believe in Life before Death.
—Bumper Sticker
The kingdom of God is in us now, not at a time in the future. The kingdom of heaven is here now for all of us, not just for a chosen few who happen to be lucky enough to have been born into the right religion, or to have picked the right religion. It is available to all of us, this moment. Jesus, one of the greatest spiritual philosophers and metaphysicians the world has ever known, also said that we are immortal—that God “is not a God of the dead but the living” (Mark 12:27).
The universe is infinite and so are we. You are in the universe, and the universe is in you, continually expanding, growing, and renewing. That’s what we do every day. Cells are dying every day, only to be replaced and renewed. Are the cells that are dying “you”? You are on a never-ending journey of renewal. Every day, you are renewing yourself—infinite renewal. That is the real you.
Ye who fear death, remember April with its swords of Jade on a thousand hills.
—John Richard Moreland
As much as I believe in the teachings expressed here, I don’t have an answer for the sadness, pain, and suffering caused when a close family member passes on or is physically no longer with us. The love I have for my family and my children could never be duplicated. I know that our physical bodies can’t last forever, as the earth could not physically accommodate that many bodies. It would be impossible. The world, our life, our universe is perfect the way it is now. It could not be more perfect.
The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson affirmed that for him the feeling of being totally free of boundaries was “not a confused state but the clearest of the clear, the surest of the sure, utterly beyond words—where death was an almost laughable impossibility.” This certainty was a tribute to the clarity of his experiences. In keeping with many others who have transcended the waking state, Tennyson concluded that those rare instances when individuality “seemed to dissolve and melt away into boundless being” had shown him “the only true self.” 263
—Deepak Chopra
You wouldn’t want this physical body to last forever. That would be like a football game that never ends, a tennis match that goes on for infinity, a soccer game played for eternity. It would be hell, because it would be so boring. And if it were possible for your body to be around for eternity, which physical body/mind would you choose? The child, the teenager, the thirty-year-old, the fifty-year-old? For me, I want my children younger, my parents older, and my grandparents older than my parents. I don’t want to be the same age as all of my family for eternity.
The universe, God, intelligence, life could never be designed more perfectly. The greatest scientists in the history of the world could never come up with anything remotely as magnificent. An acorn into an oak tree? There is not a scientist in the world who could conjure up something like that in a lab. What is the cause behind all of this? Where does this intelligence come from? That’s the great mystery.
Despite the perfection and intelligence, what can make up for the loss of a loved one not physically being with us now? The physical loss of a child? And will we be together again? I don’t know, but if we trust in the universe and its perfection as we know it, trust in its universal intelligence, we should never have to worry. For myself, an artist, engineer, designer, painter, beautician, or scientist could not in a billion years come up with a more perfect design for my children. If I personally tried to design or create the perfect children for me, I could not have come close to what I have been blessed with. Not in my wildest imagination. How could I be so lucky? How could I be randomly chosen to have the perfect children for me and my wife? For my life, for my personality, for me, they were and are perfect.
But it wasn’t just me. I wasn’t handpicked. I’m not the chosen one. We all are. It’s true for all of us. That’s the magic, the perfection, the universal intelligence, life, God at work. The acorn to an oak tree. How could it be more perfect?
We have to trust this perfection, believe in this perfection of the universe, the source, God, life. It’s simple and beautiful and could never be duplicated in a better way. Know this and you will never worry about “death” again. That is immortal life.
As Lao-tzu promises: “If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.” Your Tao essence has to be infinite because it came from a world of infinite possibilities. 264
—Dr. Wayne Dyer
Even though I believe in these teachings with great passion, I tell you that you need to find out for yourself. You need to read the authors quoted in this book, and there are countless other books and writings that you can find on these topics. It has nothing to do with your religious beliefs, and I am in no way trying to persuade you to change the beliefs you may have. Any religious or spiritual beliefs should be enhanced by what is discussed in this book, not diminished.
But I will tell you that I believe passionately in the messages conveyed in this book. And even though I can’t prove anything as being true, it is true for me. As Jesus said, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32). It has set me free. You will need to find out for yourself if it is true for you.
When you return to your Self, this is called awakening, liberation, freedom. Having known your Self, you know everything. In this awakening the whole universe is discovered to be within yourself. All universes are within you, and you are the universe. This is ultimate understanding. Knowing this, you know everything. If you don’t know this, you know nothing, regardless of how much information you collect. Without this knowledge, you are ignorant. Having known the absolute, you are everything—without beginning, middle, end, without birth or death. Here, all fears end. 265
—Papaji
There is no beginning and no end. And I too will be back again and again and again and again and again. Maybe next time with, Are You Still Drifting?
The essential self
cannot be described
It is eternal
It is infinite
It is God 266
—Jacob Liberman