Living and Dying
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. John Lennon
Planning for the future: When most people are young adults, they put a lot of their effort into preparing for their future. The problem is, the future never really comes. After middle age, they may or may not have money, but they no longer have youth and the illusion of a dream future. People start to realize that their dreams are not going to come true, at least not like they dreamed them, or people did what they set out to do, and it was not what they thought and hoped it would be; it did not satisfy them for very long. They start reminiscing about the good old days that really were not that good. People go from fantasizing about the future to fantasizing about the past. They miss the present altogether. People live their whole life without really living at all. Their friends start to die and their health starts to go. They start to see that they are heading for sickness, old age and death. It starts to dawn on them that their life has passed them by, and they are heading for the abyss without a clue. Then they tell their kids to do the same thing they were taught, because they do not know what else to tell them. So it goes, passed down from one generation to the next, the sins of the father passed down, the blind leading the blind as the Bible says. It is tragic and no longer necessary. Prime of life: We may live an average of about eighty years, but our prime of life is considerably shorter. For most men it is about ten years, for most women it is only about five years, because youth and physical beauty matter so much. All this effort is to prepare for a future that is sandwiched between youth and old age. Those few years are not that great, even for the people that are lucky enough to succeed in their plans; even the one in a million that realizes their childhood dreams is disappointed. What is the point? Even for those few that their big dream comes true, that become famous in sports or show business, it only lasts a few years. People need to see the big picture, immortal life. A spiritual being is in the prime of life all the time.
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I am not saying that people should not prepare for the future. You have to do something with your life, and getting an education that will help others and help yourself is the thing to do. Working to help others and yourself is also the right way to spend your time. I am saying you can do those things and take care of yourself spiritually at the same time. Success and money will come and go, no matter what you do, but life is always with you, so it is what matters the most.
If you take care of the present (live in the present), the future will take care of itself, as the saying goes. Always give the present priority over the future or the past, and you will be on the right path. Living in the present does not mean you do not know the past and the future. You have to know the true past and true future in order to know the truth and live in the present.
Live every moment, like it is your last dance on earth. Carlos Castaneda Even though people are always thinking about the past and the future, they do not see it truly. The mind is preventing people from seeing the present, and it is also preventing people from seeing the true past and future.
No one really looks past a hundred years. What happens then? Many people do not think past the next fifty or sixty years or past death, because they think it is a long way off or that there is no hope; dead means dead, or they believe in a myth. They could not be more wrong.
When you know you are going to die and life is short, shouldn’t you prepare for it? You need a long-term plan that goes past this life and death.
Someone once said that “people live in quiet desperation.” The truth is, they live in ignorance. People are so busy playing mind games that they never see or even imagine that there is really another way, a way to a place that is better than any dream you ever had.
Short sighted: We needed to be semi short sighted in the past to get civilization to where it is, but we now have the luxury of looking at the big picture. People need to see that everything they are doing to make their life better ends at their death. You cannot take material things with you. People are blind when they don't see that they have to do something that can go with them when they die. The truth and life are the only things that will exist everywhere, so they will exist after death. Also, there has to be a larger mind than just the one that gets destroyed with your brain in death. You can keep what you learn and know on a spiritual, eternal level. Therefore, the truth and the life are the only things that make sense to develop, evolve and grow, because everything else is lost for certain.
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If the collective unconscious mind did not exist, you could not take anything with you when you die. I am saying if in this life you learn the truth of life and live in it, by helping to spread it with a hundred percent commitment, you become it. You become the truth and life. Thus, when you die, your spirit joins with other spirits like you that embody the truth of the life. The new realm you are born into is based on truth and life because it is a paradise, a heaven.
Ignorance is not bliss. It is the cause of all misery.
We have to know the truth in order to walk the path. The truth is the path. You have to be able to see the path, all of it, before you can go where you really want to go. Almost everyone is lost. Most people just do not know it, which makes them even more lost.
The definition of being lost is not knowing where you are and not knowing where you are going. That makes just about everyone lost. Only the truth and the life can show you the way, because it is the way.
The saddest thing is someone dying without ever living.
Lie and die: People live their lives living a lie, and they then die in a lie.
It is interesting that “lie” and “die” are so close to the same thing.
Anyone that says they are ok with death is lying. No one can be ok with it, but that does not make people feel good, so no one can be honest about it.
The problem is, it tells people it is ok to be dishonest even when you are about to die, which it is not. Just before you die is the time to be most honest. Otherwise, you send the wrong message to people you care about.
The reason it is the saddest thing to see someone dying without learning the truth is because it is now unnecessary. The truth can be known, and people know it subconsciously. It is right there, but they just cannot connect with it.
If you do not know the truth, the worst thing to do is deceive yourself and others, because it removes any chance of you learning the truth.
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Even when you know the truth, there is not much to feel good about. You can feel good that you are one of the first people on earth to die knowing the truth, and you can look forward to being reborn in a better place, but that is about it.
If you are in great pain and have a hopeless, degenerative terminal disease, you may welcome death, but that only means that your disease is worse than death. It does not make death ok; death still sucks on many levels.
Death sucks: Your death forces you to have to leave everything you have ever known. You are leaving everyone you love, and that is never okay.
Even if you think death is not that bad, it makes your loved ones sad when you die; there is nothing ok about that. No matter how you look at it, it is bad. Anyone who says they are ok with it has not really thought about it, is stupid, or is lying to themselves and everyone else. Death sucks, and that is the bottom line.
If you learn the truth and the life, you can die knowing you did the best that was possible for a human being. Having learned the truth and the life, you will be reborn in a new world where death will never be as bad as it is in this realm. It is a lot better than dying in ignorance or living a lie. You will know that death is necessary and what is going to happen next, but death will always be tragic in many ways, and it is never okay.
Physical life is short: If people realized just how fast their physical life is going to pass, they would be much more concerned with learning the ultimate truth while they have the chance. The truth is, we are all dying.
Just ask any old person if life is short or long, ask if their life went by too fast.
We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call, no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it. Tennessee Williams
While we are postponing, life speeds by. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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End of the world: People are always talking and worrying about the world ending. We are destroying the environment, going to use weapons of mass destruction, etc. There are plagues and pandemics, asteroids from space, religious prophecy, etc. We are so busy worrying about the world that we are missing the fact that the world is going to end soon for us no matter what happens or what we do.
The certain prospect of death should sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity. Friedrich Nietzsche
Birth is like being thrown out of an airplane without a parachute. It is just a matter of time before you hit the ground and lose everything.
Just remember, death cannot be avoided for very long, even if you are careful. You have to be as ready as you can be to die, because it can happen anytime. Realize how unprepared you are; realize the reality of dying and what you will have to face, and it will be the start of a glorious quest for the truth and life.
Death is not a pleasant subject. It is the worst thing that there is, and no one wants to talk about it or think about it, but it is going to happen to you and everyone else. It is true, and facing the truth of it is the only way to overcome it.
Actually, you never die from your own perspective. The opposite happens. Everyone else dies/disappears.
I hope I scared you. Be afraid; be very afraid. I hope you are as scared as much as you should be. You need to be scared enough to do something about it.
Do not take this world for granted; it could disappear anytime, you can disappear anytime.
Heart failure, strokes, blood clots, and accidents happen to young people, so do not think it cannot happen to you. Every time you eat, you could choke. Every time you get in a car, another driver can kill you, so do not be surprised when death comes to you. You could die today; about 150,000 people will.
Death is the most certain thing in life, and most people are not ready for it.
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