A Day In My Life

Death: A Reminder

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Doing the spiritual work with A– today, I had an amazing insight and re-lived the original epiphany: that all that we do here, all that is accomplished here, is, at the end, brought to naught.  Death is the great equalizer, whether it is the homeless person or the king, one by one, all shall be gathered and cut down from every lofty pulpit and reduced to the same Earth from whence we all came.  This IS the reality – perhaps a bitter truth to swallow for the ego.  The world, for example, idolizes Steve Jobs and Apple, but his story and all his successes will be erased eventually with the sands of time – perhaps not in the next hundred years, but certainly the next thousand or ten thousand.  The same will happen with every other great achiever in this world.  All is eventually brought to nothing.  But suddenly, upon re-living this realization, the pressure has come off – the pressure that is constantly and subliminally imposed upon us by the society that surrounds us.  Such a society as this, which is convinced of its own self-importance, that its progress pushes the human race forward, we know not whether for the good of all human kind or the destruction of it, that the improvements made herein, actually mean something and serve as the principle impetus for our very existence.  We are surrounded by this neurosis, and there is a tremendous demand for it.  Leaving a legacy, impacting the world – what glorified fancies are these?  As if the person who doesn’t leave an impact is not worthy. Does the sun, which shines warmly upon us all, while expecting nothing in return, have the desire to impact the human race?  Does the rose push its agenda upon us by forcing us to smell its perfumed scent?  Are the trees which shade us, bent upon their aspiration to leave a legacy?  These are nonsensical questions, but that these questions are not even debated may be even more so when applied to supposedly critically thinking and rational functioning human beings.

I vow to myself that I will, from this point onwards, not belong to the nuthouse.  For in this nuthouse live the insane inmates who are always trying to be something, to improve themselves towards a lofty and ever-changing ideal that is defined by society.  The successful inmates seem to have an abundance of money, and yet a tremendous scarcity of time.  The occupation of mindless accumulation, whether money, possessions, or any other artifact or idea, while the reality of death which razes us to zero stares us straight in the face haw-professional, is the very height of lunacy.  The other extreme is perhaps just as nutty.  Having very little money, along with very little time, may perhaps be worse. A more wholesome path lies in the balance of both: having enough money, making a mark to determine the point of “enough”, and henceforth enjoying the ocean of time ahead.  Time is, and has always been, the most valuable resource we possess.  It is far more important than money, and poor indeed are the miserable souls who spend a lifetime accumulating and accomplishing such a dulling and unsatisfying aim.  Death marches onwards, and our meeting with the Figure at the boundary between, draws closer and closer to its culmination.  I pray to God that I, who am financially free, never, EVER, put the god of money and the god of work above me again.  I have paid my dues, attained my financial freedom, and I am better off dead than not utilizing my time living in the pure joy of the present moment.  Even if my company works or doesn’t work, whether my words reach millions or just a handful, or any endeavor is successful or a failure, I am no longer going to hold onto this belief that I am not worthy if I am not more successful.

I have, truly, nothing I have to do and nowhere I have to go.  Anything else or anywhere else is not here and will inevitably cause anxiety in my life once compared to the present moment.  Living in the past or future precludes the present, and I know that I will not be happy as a result.  I must put the present above all else, for the present is really all there is.  Even the past and future can only be experienced as an idea in the mind – it can never be experienced in actuality.  My desire to accumulate knowledge in the future or to work on my company in the future, must come second to the present moment.  From this moment onwards, I will do so.

Remember this always:  I have nowhere I have to go and nothing I have to do.  I am here and the present moment is all I have to enjoy. The Ocean of Time lies ahead!