Is Understanding Death the Key to Unconditional Love?
Questioner: Why do people “see the light” right at the end of their life or when they know they will die?
GC: What happens to me when I die? Is this something you want to go into to? Especially when the so-called “wise” in the world are trying so hard to prolong our lives, to live to 200 years old, or perhaps become immortal one day? Or are we so afraid of death we would rather put it off for as long as possible? When you ask, “what happens to me when I die….”, what is the me? Can we go into this, first?
Is the me, your name? Your appearance? Your job? The way I dress? My family traditions? My religious traditions? Is it my superstitions? What else is the me? Have a close look at your day and what you do. Isn’t it also ambition? Greed? How about your ideals? And your beliefs? It’s also habits, right? All of this makes up the “me”. If you observe, you will see this is present in your consciousness. This consciousness is common to all humans. It’s not just your own consciousness because the things we said the me was, exists in humans all across the world - you don’t have to personally meet everyone to know they are also greedy, ambitous, have beliefs, want to succeed, be rich, etc. Everyone is reflecting your own consciousness. This is a fact. You are connected to everyone in this way.
There are some whom are awake to this and can see it. If you can accept that your problems, generated by the “me” is the same problem for humans across the entire planet, then we can go to the next step. Many see this but don’t do anything about it. Or, if I may say, you go on acting as individuals. That is, your definition of individual is full of self interests as the “me” convinces you to stay in your own world and think about your own solutions, and yet, as we said, , your problems are no different all around the world - no matter what the culture or country.
So what is it that dies? We said, my own consciousness is the consciousness of all humans. If this is so, and it is, then what happens when I die? Something happens to our bodies - we may be buried, or burned, what happens after this? The consciousness of all humans continues. Have you ever thought about this? You may physically die, but the consciousness of humankind goes on. Is this making sense? If you have understood this truth, then death itself has very little significance. Fear of physical death occurs, but as far as human consciousness is concerned, it doesn’t exist for as long as there are humans.
How about what you call unconditional love? Does it have anything to do with death? What is the relationship of love and compassion with death? Are we all part-time lovers in this world? A place we “choose” whom we want to love and when? In other words, you behave a certain “nice” way with certain people, and you ignore the others. Is that it? This sounds very conditional doesn’t it? So can it be love?
Questioner: No.
GC: So then what is love without conditions? If you understood the totality of your consciousness which is the consciousness of all humanity, then this “conditional” choice of love is obscured. Why have we obscured it? In our consciousness, we have greed, selfishness, ambition, division, conflict, violence, wars, racism and the occasional part-time moments of joy and happiness perhaps. The person, or the “me” that is trying to understand love and compassion will never understand it because all of these things we just mentioned are clouded. If you put all of these in a bucket and observe them as the whole world in that bucket, you won’t find love. Love cannot exist in that bucket. So what is one to do?
Is it a question of “how am I going to learn how to love?” How can I learn how to be compassionate? Let me find a coach, or read books, or follow a guru, or read this blog? That’s the usual way, we go about understanding things which is none other than action taken by a source - the bucket, which is the me, right? Your search for financial wellbeing takes you to copy what other people have done to become “rich” and at the same time do you not see how you are contributing to the world’s problems by being part of this little game? You small bit in a population of 8 billion people for which most people are going about doing the exact same thing? Then how are we to build a world, a consciousness which is full of light and love if we carry on this way?
Is there a way to die to all of the bucket - not just each thing in the bucket, by the entire bucket? Can you observe for a moment that bucket, that me, is you, with all of its content? If you go into it yourself, deeply, and find out what it means when I say that love can never die… there will be no words, nor will there be any logic, nor will there be any system of belief that can describe it or reach it.
Have you ever ended something? Because death itself, means ending. Finished. Have you ever felt angry? Of course you have. Have you ever ended your anger, or frustration, or stress? Ending it for good! Or does it come back, repeatedly? How did you try and end it? Was it meditation? Drinking? A night out to forget it all? A new boyfriend or girlfriend? We often detach ourselves from anger because after we have supposedly calmed down, we might choose to apologize or view it from an “I was angry", or “I was experiencing anger”. So apparently, the “me” separates itself from the actuality of anger and views it from a distance. Instead, when ager happens, have you ended it by accepting that you are angry? To say accepting means you are anger itself at the moment anger is happening. Not separate it from a distance and to see it as someone else is angry. You see the “me” watching something believing you are a separate entity from what is happening. You are anger. You are frustration. You are stress. Not you are experiencing stress. I’m not sure if this is making sense? Can you observe that anger as anger itself? Then it ends! There is no continuing.
So it is, with ever condition in that bucket, the me, along its journey in your life, has create a reason, a cause and effect, attached belief, and chased desires, and most of all, look for what it calls security. Please carefully look at each of these and you will realize the me has created a false illusion in your life - convincing you its protecting you but all the time, in its protection, has blinded the truth of love and compassion.
Love and light,
GC