You Will Never Experience Your Own Death – Alan Watts and Eternity

You know, there's something rather peculiar about death that I've been contemplating for quite some time now. Something that seems so obvious once you see it, yet remains hidden behind our cultural programming and personal fears. And it's simply this.

You will never, not ever, experience your own death. Now, before you dismiss this as some clever word play or philosophical trick, allow me to invite you into a different way of seeing. Because this insight, once truly grasped, doesn't merely change how you think about death.

It transforms how you experience being alive right now. What we call death appears to be the most certain fact of existence, doesn't it? The one thing we can be absolutely sure of.

Yet, I want to suggest that what we fear most about death is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of consciousness itself. You see, most of us imagine death as if we will somehow be present at our own funeral. As if we'll be lying in the coffin with our eyes closed, experiencing the darkness, the confinement, the eternal separation from everything we love.

But that's utterly fascinating, isn't it? We imagine death as an experience of nothing. But an experience of nothing is still an experience, which means consciousness is still there.

Let me approach this another way. Can you remember what it was like before you were born? Do you experience it as an infinite darkness, an eternal void that somehow preceded your existence?

Of course not. There simply isn't anything there to remember. There's no experience of non-existence because experience requires existence.

And herein lies the great cosmic joke about death. We spend our lives dreading something that from the perspective of our own consciousness cannot possibly happen. The light doesn't go out for the light.

The screen doesn't disappear for the images upon it. Think of it this way. You've gone to sleep countless times, haven't you?

And in dreamless sleep, there's no experience of time passing. One moment you're falling asleep and the next you're waking up. The 8 hours in between simply vanish.

They aren't experienced as darkness or emptiness. They aren't experienced at all. Death, I propose, is similar, but with one crucial difference.

There's no you that wakes up afterward to reflect back on the gap. But from the perspective of your awareness, that makes no difference whatsoever. There's still no experience of death itself.

Our fear, you see, comes from imagining death while still alive. It's a bit like trying to imagine what it's like to have your head cut off while still feeling the neck. It's a logical impossibility, a paradox created by thought itself.

So what dies? Certainly this body will dissolve back into the elements from which it came. But the awareness that you fundamentally are that which knows experience has no beginning or end because it exists only in the eternal now.

And that brings us to our next contemplation. You know, we're all under the strangest hypnosis. We are convinced that time flows from past to future and that we're moving along with it like little boats being carried by a great river.

But is that really the case? Let's look more closely. When exactly do you exist?

Well, you might say, "I exist now, of course. " And you'd be absolutely right. But have you ever experienced any moment except now?

Has anyone in the entire history of human consciousness ever experienced anything except the present moment? The past, you see, doesn't exist except as memory, which happens now. The future doesn't exist except as anticipation, which also happens now.

Your birth, a story told now. Your death, a concept imagined now. All we ever have, all we ever are is this immediate experience.

So when people speak of death as the end of consciousness, I find that rather amusing because consciousness only ever happens now and now has no beginning or end. It's not in time. It's what contains time.

Think of watching a sunset. The sun appears to be moving, descending below the horizon. But we know it's actually the earth that's turning.

In the same way, it appears that we are moving through time, approaching death with each passing moment. But what if it's time that's moving through us, while awareness itself remains eternally present? You see, death can only exist as a concept in the mind, never as a lived reality.

By the time death arrives, you're not there to meet it. And as long as you're there, death hasn't arrived. The two never coincide in direct experience.

This is why I say that from the standpoint of consciousness, you will never experience your own death. Not because you'll somehow survive bodily death, though that's another conversation entirely, but because the aware presence that you fundamentally are exists only in the timeless now. And if you pay very close attention, you might notice something rather extraordinary.

This now isn't just a fleeting moment that's constantly being replaced by the next now. It's always the same now. The content changes.

Yes, thoughts, sensations, perceptions come and go, but the nowness itself, the quality of presence remains unchanged. This is what the mystics mean when they speak of eternity. Not endless time, but the transcendence of time altogether.

And it's available to you directly right here, right now as the simple fact of being aware. This awareness which you already are was never born and will never die. It is the still point around which the entire cosmos turns.

Now let's dive into something rather fascinating about this human predicament. If what I've been suggesting is true, that awareness itself is timeless and never experiences its own absence, then why are we so terrified of death? What exactly is it that fears annihilation so desperately?

It's what I call the ego, this sensation of being a separate self, a lonely little me imprisoned inside a bag of skin, peering out at a world that's fundamentally other. This ego, you see, is not your fundamental nature. It's more like a character in a play that awareness is performing.

The ego defines itself through memory and anticipation. It's the story of me, where I came from, what I've done, where I'm going. And because this story extends in time, the ego naturally fears the end of time.

Because without time, what becomes of its precious storyline. You might notice if you look very carefully that this ego is never actually found in present experience. It's always just around the corner.

Try to pin it down and it vanishes like a mirage. Ask yourself, who am I? And watch how thought rushes in with labels and descriptions, memories, roles, qualities, but never the actual eye itself.

This is why death terrifies us. The ego senses correctly that it won't survive death. The story ends.

The character dissolves. But here's the cosmic joke. The ego doesn't exist in the way it thinks it does even now.

It's a process, not an entity. A verb, not a noun. A song, not a singer.

What you truly are is not this temporary pattern called the ego, but the awareness within which all patterns arise and dissolve. And this awareness, vast, boundless, clear, is untouched by birth and death. It's the space in which all of life's drama unfolds.

So the ego's fear of death is based on a case of mistaken identity. It's as if the actor has become so identified with the role that they've forgotten their acting. They dread the final curtain because they believe the play is reality.

But what if death is not the end of the show, but simply the moment when you remember that you're not just the character, but the whole theater. Not just the wave, but the entire ocean. Not just a person experiencing life, but life itself experiencing being a person.

The ego cannot conceive of this because it thinks exclusively in terms of survival or annihilation. But what I'm pointing to transcends both. It's not that you survive death or that you don't survive death.

It's that what you fundamentally are was never in time to begin with and so was never subject to birth or death at all. You know, this whole business of being a separate individual is quite peculiar when you really look at it. Where exactly do you end and the rest of the universe begin?

We think it's obvious the boundary of my skin marks where I stop and everything else starts. But is that really so? Consider your breathing.

Is the air in your lungs you or not you? What about when you exhale it? Does it suddenly become not you?

And what about the air you're about to inhale in your next breath? Is it already a little bit you since your very existence depends on it? Or take your food.

The apple you ate yesterday has now become your body. Where exactly did it transform from not you to you? In your mouth, your stomach, your bloodstream.

The truth is what we call an individual is more like a whirlpool in a stream. The water is constantly flowing through it. Yet the pattern maintains a certain integrity.

But the whirlpool is not separate from the stream. It is a pattern that the stream is doing. In the same way, you are not separate from the universe.

You are a pattern that the universe is doing. A very complex and beautiful pattern to be sure, but still a process within a larger process. So when we contemplate death, we're usually thinking, "Oh dear, this separate me is going to disappear.

" But that separate me is already an illusion. It's a useful fiction for practical purposes, rather like the equator, a line that helps us navigate but doesn't actually exist in physical reality. What dies is not a separate entity but a particular pattern, a unique dance that the cosmos has been performing for a while.

The dancer disappears but the dancing continues. The wave subsides but the ocean remains. You see personal extinction is impossible because the person was never really there to begin with at least not in the way we imagine.

What we call I is not a thing but an activity a process of the whole universe. And the universe doesn't die when one of its patterns transforms. I'm reminded of a wonderful Zen saying, "Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.

" During enlightenment, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. After enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and rivers again rivers. Before we question our separate existence, we take it for granted.

As we inquire more deeply, we see that this separation is illusory. And finally, we return to the ordinary world. But now we see it as a unified field of being playing at being many.

So death is not the end of you. It's the end of a particular way that the universe has been expressing itself. And since you are not separate from the universe, but rather the universe itself in human form, what is there to fear?

The play of existence continues, taking on new forms, exploring new possibilities forever and ever. Now, let's explore one of my favorite metaphors for understanding our relationship to eternity. Imagine the ocean, vast, deep, powerful, and on its surface, countless waves rise and fall.

Each wave has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Each has a unique shape and character. Some are large, some small, some turbulent, some gentle.

If you were to identify with a particular wave, you might feel very separate and vulnerable. You would see other waves as separate entities. You would see your own beginning in time and anticipate your ending.

You would feel the temporary nature of your existence and perhaps cling desperately to your particular form. But what are you really? Are you just the wave?

Or are you also the water that forms the wave? And if you are the water, then what happens to you when the wave subsides? Do you die or do you simply return to the formless depths from which you arose?

The wave is a form that the ocean temporarily takes. In the same way, you are a form that consciousness temporarily takes. The individual consciousness that you call me is like a wave on the ocean of cosmic consciousness.

What we fear is the dissolution of form. But the formless awareness that gives rise to all forms is never born and never dies. It's the eternal ground of being, the source and substance of all that appears.

Think of it this way. The wave doesn't contain the ocean. The ocean contains the wave.

Similarly, you don't contain consciousness. Consciousness contains you. You are not in the world.

The world is in you in awareness in the field of knowing that you fundamentally are. When the body dies, a particular expression of consciousness transforms. But consciousness itself, that which knows experience, remains untouched, just as the ocean remains when a wave subsides.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you, as Jane or John, with all your memories and personality traits will survive death intact. That's not the point. The point is that what you most essentially are was never contained in a particular human form to begin with.

You are not a wave pretending to be the ocean. You are the ocean pretending for a while to be a wave. And the game of pretending eventually comes to an end.

But the player doesn't disappear. Only the role does. So when someone asks, "What happens after death?

" I'm inclined to smile and say, "What happened before birth? " You return to the source from which you came. Not as an individual, but as the boundless awareness that temporarily expressed itself as an individual.

And that's not something to fear. It's something to celebrate. It's the recognition that you are far vaster, far more magnificent than this temporary human form could ever contain.

There's a delightful Hindu idea that I've always found rather illuminating. They say that the fundamental nature of the universe is lila divine play or cosmic game. And what sort of game is the cosmos playing?

Hide and seek. The upupanished tell us that which is the finest essence this whole world has. That has its soul.

That is reality. That is the self. That art thou in Sanskrit tatwamai.

You are that the ultimate reality playing it being all these separate things. But for the game to be interesting, the one must forget that it is one. It must pretend with great conviction to be many.

Just as an actor must temporarily forget their real identity to play a role convincingly or a dreamer must forget their dreaming to be fully immersed in the dream. So here we are the one playing at being many having divided itself into countless seemingly separate selves. And death in this grand scheme is simply the moment when a particular game of hideand seek comes to its conclusion.

The mask comes off. The actor steps out of character. The dream dissolves and what's revealed.

Only what was always there, the true identity that was hiding all along. Think of a child playing hideand seek. There's such joy in being hidden in the delicious tension of waiting to be found.

But there's also joy in being found in the relief of revelation, in the laughter of recognition. It was you all along. Death may be just such a moment of recognition.

Not an end, but a revelation. Not a loss, but a homecoming. Not darkness descending, but a veil lifting.

You see, consciousness loves to play this game of limitation and separation. It loves to narrow its infinite scope into a single perspective to experience itself as this or that particular being. There's an exquisite delight in it.

Just as there's delight in becoming absorbed in a novel or a film, temporarily forgetting our wider reality. But every game must eventually end. Every novel reaches its final page.

Every film has its closing scene. Not because something has gone wrong, but because that's the nature of a game, a story, an experience. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

So what happens when the game of being you comes to its conclusion? Does consciousness disappear? No more than an author disappears when they finish writing a book.

The author simply stops pretending to be the characters. They return to their broader identity, perhaps to write another book, to tell another story, to play another game. I'm not saying that you, with your particular memories and quirks, will be reincarnated exactly as you are now.

That would be missing the point entirely. I'm saying that what you truly are, the aware space in which all experience happens, is what incarnates as everything. It's incarnating as the entire cosmos right now.

So death is not the opposite of life. It's the backdrop against which the dance of life becomes meaningful. It's the silence between notes that makes music possible.

It's the empty space that gives form to a vase. Without death, life would have no shape, no drama, no poignency, no beauty. And in this cosmic game of hideand seek, you are both the hider and the seeker.

Both the one who is lost and the one who is found. Both the one who forgets and the one who remembers. Both the wave that rises and falls and the ocean that remains.

I've been talking about eternity, but I want to be very clear about what I mean by that word. Most people think of eternity as endless time, as if you'd live forever and ever in some sort of sequence. But that's not eternity at all.

That's just very, very long time. And it would be utterly boring. No, eternity isn't endless time.

It's the transcendence of time altogether. It's the recognition that time is a construction of thought, a convenient fiction that helps us navigate our practical affairs. You see we divide time into past, present and future.

But where exactly is the past? Can you show it to me? Can you experience it directly?

Of course not. The past exists only as memory and memory happens now. Similarly, the future exists only as anticipation and anticipation happens now.

So there is only now. There has only ever been now. There will only ever be now.

And now isn't in time. It's what contains time. This is why I say you will never experience your own death.

Because death is conceived as a future event. And the future is never actually experienced. By the time the future arrives, it's already the present.

And in the present, you're always alive. Otherwise, you wouldn't be experiencing anything at all. The Buddha called this amata the deathless.

Not because the body doesn't die, but because what you truly are exists only in the timeless now, which is never born and never dies. Think of time as a movie being projected on a screen. The screen itself doesn't move or change.

It's not affected by the drama playing out upon it. In the same way, awareness, what you fundamentally are, doesn't move through time. Time moves through awareness.

This is not merely a philosophical notion. It's something you can verify in your own direct experience. Right now, as you're listening to me, notice the aware space in which these words are appearing.

Notice the awareness that knows the sensations in your body, the sounds in your environment, the thoughts in your mind. This awareness is timeless. It doesn't come and go.

It doesn't age or deteriorate. It's everpresent, ever fresh, ever new. It's what the mystics call the eternal now.

And here's something quite extraordinary. This now that you're experiencing is the very same now that I experienced when I was alive. It's the same now that the Buddha experienced 2 500 years ago.

It's the same now that will be experienced by those who come long after we're gone. There's only one now, and we all share it. It's the eternal present in which the entire cosmic drama unfolds and it's what you are beneath all your temporary identifications with body, mind and personality.

So when the body dies, a particular perspective on the eternal now comes to an end. But the now itself, the awareness that you fundamentally are remains untouched just as the screen remains when the movie ends. This I believe is the true meaning of eternal life.

Not that you as a particular person will live forever, but that what you truly are was never in time to begin with. It's the deathless reality that's present right now as the simple fact of being aware. You know, I've often wondered if our entire conception of life and death might be a magnificent cosmic dream.

And I don't mean that in some dismissive way as if to say none of this matters. Quite the contrary, dreams can be profoundly meaningful and transformative. Consider your nighttime dreams for a moment.

When you're dreaming, the dream seems absolutely real, doesn't it? You don't go around in your dreams saying, "Oh, this is just a dream. " No, you're fully immersed in it.

Zero. Five. The dream characters seem separate from you.

The dream events seem to happen in time and space. There seems to be a past and a future. But when you wake up, what do you discover?

That the entire dream, all its characters, events, locations, dramas, was happening within your consciousness. It wasn't out there at all. It was a play of consciousness appearing to itself.

And most significantly, the dream character you identified with wasn't really you. It was just one appearance among many in the dream, all of which were equally you, or more accurately, equally manifestations of your consciousness. What if our waking reality is similar?

What if this entire cosmos with all its galaxies and planets and living beings is something like a cosmic dream happening within consciousness itself? Not your personal consciousness or my personal consciousness, but consciousness with a capital C, the fundamental aware intelligence that underlies all existence. If that were the case, then death would be no more real than the death of a dream character when the dreamer awakens.

The dream character doesn't go anywhere or experience anything when the dream ends. There's simply a shift in perspective, a recognition of a wider reality that was present all along. Now, I'm not saying this is definitely how things are.

I'm offering it as a possibility, a way of looking at existence that might release us from our terror of non-existence. The ancient Hindus called this maya not just illusion in the dismissive sense, but the creative power of consciousness to manifest as form to dream itself into being as this vast and intricate cosmos. And they suggested that what we call death is simply consciousness withdrawing from one particular dream form and either remanifesting as another or recognizing its own nature as the dreamer of all forms.

There's that wonderful Hindu concept of turya, the fourth state beyond waking, dreaming and deep sleep. It's pure awareness, the substrate of all experience, that which knows the other three states but is not contained by them. What if death is simply a transition into tura, a recognition of what we've always been?

Or consider the Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream yoga. The practitioner learns to recognize their dreaming while still in the dream, what we now call lucid dreaming. But they don't just play around with dream superpowers.

They use this recognition to understand the dreamlike nature of all phenomena, including waking life. The Tibetans also have their famous bardo thodle often mistransated as the Tibetan book of the dead. A more accurate translation would be liberation through hearing in the intermediate state.

It suggests that after death consciousness passes through various bardos or intermediate states and the key teaching is that these states no matter how terrifying or seductive they may appear are ultimately projections of our own consciousness dreams if you will. The liberated approach is to recognize the dreamlike nature of these experiences. Neither grasping at the pleasant ones nor fleeing from the frightening ones.

to recognize in essence this too is a dream. This too is a manifestation of consciousness. This too is not separate from what I am.

So perhaps death is not an end but an awakening not from life but from the dream of separation. The dream of being merely this limited human form rather than the boundless awareness in which all forms arise and dissolve. And if that's the case, then there's nothing whatsoever to fear.

For how can the dreamer be harmed by anything happening in the dream? I'd like to explore now a rather provocative idea. What if death rather than being a catastrophe to be feared and avoided is actually the ultimate release we've been seeking all along?

You know, throughout our lives, we're constantly seeking relief from the sense of constriction, limitation, and separation that comes with identifying as a separate self. We seek it in pleasure, in achievement, in relationships, in spiritual practices. We want to feel more expanded, more connected, more at peace.

And occasionally, we get glimpses of it, don't we? In moments of great beauty or intimacy or creative flow, the boundaries of the separate self temporarily dissolve and we taste a freedom and wholeness that feels like our birthright. We call these peak experiences or mystical moments or sometimes just being in the zone.

What all these experiences have in common is a temporary suspension of the separate self sense. The internal chatter quiets down. The constant self-referencing takes a break and in that space something greater than the individual self is revealed a vast peaceful awareness that feels like home.

Now, what if death is the ultimate and final relaxation of this self-contraction? The complete letting go of the effort to be a separate someone, the final surrender of the part back into the whole. The Zen tradition speaks of the great death, not the physical death of the body, but the death of the illusion of being a separate self.

This great death is considered the gateway to liberation. And it's something one can experience while still alive through meditation and insight. But perhaps physical death accomplishes the same thing automatically.

Perhaps when the body dies, the contraction of being a separate self naturally releases like a fist finally unclenching after being tightly closed for decades. And what's revealed is what was always there beneath the contraction, the boundless awareness that is our true nature. I'm reminded of the Zen master Shido Bunan who said, "Die while alive and be completely dead.

Then do whatever you want and it's all good. " What a fascinating teaching. He's suggesting that if we can experience the death of the separate self while still in the body, then we're free.

Free from fear, free from grasping, free from the constant anxious effort to protect and promote this illusory entity we call me. And perhaps physical death is simply the completion of this process. Not something to be feared, but something to be welcomed as the final release from the cramped confines of separate selfhood.

Think of how we feel when we finally put down a heavy burden we've been carrying for a long time. There's such relief, such lightness, such freedom. Death may be just such a putting down the setting aside of the burden of being a separate someone who must constantly struggle to survive, achieve, and find meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe.

Now, this doesn't mean we should rush toward death or devalue the precious gift of human life. Not at all. But it does suggest that we might relate to death very differently.

Not as a tragic end to be postponed at all costs, but as a natural completion, a return to wholeness, a homecoming. The Sufis have a beautiful phrase, die before you die. Like the Zen teaching, it points to the possibility of experiencing the liberation of death, the death of the separate self while still embodied.

And it suggests that those who have died in this way while still alive will face physical death with equinimity, even joy, because they already know what lies on the other side of the dissolution of separate selfhood. So perhaps death is not the opposite of life, but the completion of it. Not a failure, but a fulfillment.

Not a loss, but a finding of what was lost. Not an end, but a return to the beginningless beginning. Not a descent into darkness, but an awakening into the light that we are.

And so we come to our final contemplation. If everything I've been suggesting has any truth to it, if you will never experience your own death, if what you truly are is timeless awareness, if death is a transformation rather than an end, then how might we live differently? Zero five.

How might we approach this precious human life in light of these insights? Here's something truly paradoxical. Accepting the reality of physical impermanence doesn't diminish life, it intensifies it.

It doesn't lead to nihilism or despair. It leads to a profound appreciation of each moment, each encounter, each experience. Think about it.

If you knew you were eternal, truly knew it, not just as an intellectual concept, but as a felt reality, how would you live? Would you continue to postpone joy, to hold back love, to limit your expression? Or would you dive fully into the stream of life, withholding nothing, meeting each moment with your whole being?

You see, our fear of death doesn't protect us from death. It protects us from life. It keeps us small, cautious, hesitant.

It has us living as if the purpose of life were merely to arrive safely at death. What a tragedy. The Zen tradition speaks of the great matter of life and death.

This isn't just poetic language. It points to something profound. Our relationship with death shapes our relationship with life.

If we're running from death, we're also running from life. If we're at peace with death, we can be fully present to life. The Buddha was once asked what his teaching was about.

He replied, I teach one thing and one thing only, suffering and the end of suffering. Our suffering around death, our terror of annihilation, our grief over loss comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what we are. And the end of that suffering comes not from escaping death, but from seeing through the illusion of the separate self that fears death.

So how do we live in light of this understanding? Let me suggest a few possibilities. First, we can practice dying before we die.

Not in a morbid way, but in the sense of relaxing our grip on our separate identity. We can practice letting go of our self-image, our fixed ideas about who we are and what we need to be happy. We can practice surrendering to what is rather than constantly trying to manipulate reality to fit our preferences.

Second, we can live with an awareness of impermanence, not as a depressing fact, but as a precious reminder not to waste time. The Japanese have a term monoare which refers to the poignant beauty of impermanent things. The cherry blossoms aren't less beautiful because they fall.

They're more beautiful. Their impermanence intensifies their beauty. The same is true of our lives.

Third, we can drop the exhausting project of trying to build a permanent monument to ourselves whether through achievement, possessions or even spiritual attainment. Instead, we can ask how can I serve? How can I express love?

How can I leave the world a little more beautiful than I found it? These questions lead to a life that's rich and meaningful regardless of its duration. Fourth, we can practice recognizing the timeless awareness that we are not as an escape from life but as the ground of living more authentically.

We can learn to rest in awareness itself rather than being constantly caught up in the content of awareness. all the thoughts, feelings and sensations that come and go. And finally, we can meet each moment, each person, each experience with the recognition that this is it.

This is life. Not some future moment when everything is perfect, but this very moment with all its complexity and imperfection. This is where life is happening and nowhere else.

You know, there's a famous Zen saying, "Die everyday. It doesn't mean to be morbid or depressed. It means to fully release each moment as it passes without clinging or resistance.

To allow life to flow through you without damning it up with concepts and judgments. To die to the past and be born a new in the present again and again and again. This is what I mean by living fully with death.

Not denying it or pushing it away, but allowing the awareness of impermanence to strip away everything superficial and reveal what's most essential, most alive, most true. When we live this way, physical death becomes not an enemy to be feared, but a natural completion of a life well-lived. Not a failure, but a fulfillment, not a tragedy, but a transformation.

And perhaps, just perhaps, as the Tibetans suggest, the moment of death offers a special opportunity, a heightened clarity, a dropping away of all that secondary, a chance to recognize our true nature before the play of form begins again. If that's the case, then the more we practice recognizing our true nature now while still embodied, the more prepared we'll be for that ultimate moment of truth. As we come to the end of our time together, I want to leave you with this.

You are not a mortal being having an occasional spiritual experience. You are an eternal being having a temporary human experience. The fact that you're aware of being aware that you can step back and notice your own consciousness is the miracle of miracles.

It's the universe becoming conscious of itself through you. And that consciousness, that awareness is what you most fundamentally are. Everything else, your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your personality, your story is content appearing within that awareness.

It's all wonderful, all precious, all worth honoring and enjoying. But it's not what you are, it's what you're experiencing. And when the time comes for this particular experience to end, what you truly are will remain untouched, just as the sky remains when clouds form and dissolve, just as the ocean remains when waves rise and fall.

Just as consciousness remains when thoughts come and go. So don't worry about death. It's not your concern because it can never touch what you truly are.

Instead, give yourself fully to life. Be recklessly loving, outrageously generous, shamelessly joyful. Let your light shine so brightly that others forget their darkness in your presence.

And remember, always remember, behind the play of light and shadow, beneath the dance of form, beyond the dream of separation, there is only this, the eternal now, the deathless awareness, the boundless love that is your true nature and the true nature of all that is. That's what you are. That's what I am.

That's what everything is. And it can never be born and it can never die. It simply is.

And in recognizing that we are free.