Contemplating Death

Being in the now – the only thing we have is now.

The only thing we know for sure in life is we will all meet death. How fragile life is.

So why not focus on living each day as a gift? Live with a sense of humbleness, admiration, and gratitude? Why not befriend death? If it is inevitably part of life, it is a rebirth, it is a transition, it is evolution for our souls.

Why not make friends with death? Learn to live each day with meaning and purpose and prepare ourselves to die in a state of love, with full gratitude for life. Thus, enabling us to let it go freely, calmly, without fear, and without clinging to what is temporal and ephemeral. Realizing the uselessness of remaining attached to something we will have to let go of anyway?

In modern western societies we are used to denying death, to not looking at it.

The Vedas teach us that death is the most crucial moment in life. That the faculty of controlling and directing one’s consciousness upon leaving the body is very important. So, we should properly prepare for that “great day”.

To complete this transition easily the ancient sages have recommended that we should be aware now, each day, of how we lead our lives. We should reconsider life itself, giving it a sacred meaning, giving ourselves space to cultivate our spiritual dimension, our spiritual transformation.

Death is not to be thought of as something morbid, instead consider it a great teacher. It shows us the insignificance of the things we cling to and has the power to take them away from us in a second. It shows us inevitability and unpredictability. After all, we are all the same in the face of death, irrespective of our race, sex, nationality or social status.

The question is, are we going to wait until the last moment to allow death to be our teacher?

Life does not end, we are life. What ends is the way of life with which we are familiar, that with which we identify in the material world. The life we identify with has a physical body we use as our vehicle; this too is impermanent. We are not this body, we are not even our thoughts and emotions, we are eternal. We are souls, spirits, loving consciousnesses.

We can choose what we are going to feed that infinite consciousness that we all are. We can choose to focus on that consciousness because it continues to the next stage that we transcend to. This is the true nature of the transmigration of the soul.

Death is our friend; it shows us what is most important in our lives. Only we decide what we are going to focus on every day that we have left to live.

We can choose to live our lives from our deepest core, the deepest part of our beings. Living with our hearts wide open, with compassion, looking for the sacredness inherent in all forms of existence, and looking to be of service. We can choose to live from love and not fear.

Bliss and love are within our core. They are the true nature of our beings.
Gratitude will multiply them. Our intentions, purpose and inspiration amplify them.

Let’s nurture that which is essential and gives us real joy while we are still alive. Let’s not postpone our inner growth, our inner journey back home.

Let’s not waste this precious human birth.

Written by Andrea Navascués (Peru)