The following is inspired by some writings about Death posted on Steve Roggenbuck's FB Page.
Sometimes the personality has a very quick death, like with Ramana Maharishi, his personal identity died and he Birthed into Awakening at a very young age. Or sometimes and for many (see A Personal Odyssey Wayne Austin) the process is gradual and there is a life with much trials and tribulations. What once was a Curse, at another time, will be seen as a Gift.
Yearning, anger, depression, frustrations are all calls from yourSelf to know yourSelf. When things are good, often the call isn’t Heard. However, when things are considered not good; then often one begins to listen, and once one begins to listen, what was at one time considered “not good” becomes the “Great Gift.”
As the personality dies and the Truth of Who You Are is Born, the one thing that lightens the load in Life and Death, is that you begin to realize that you don’t care. All remnants of personal “will” (which wasn’t anyway) are dissolved as the Truth grows that you didn’t have a personal “will” anyway. All is God’s Will isn’t just words. All IS GOD’S Will. If all is God’s will (which it is), then you don’t have any. You have only “thought” you had a will outside of God. But “thinking” does not make it so. How you begin to see this, is to watch your life … life happens in spite of what you want or don’t want. Sometimes it matches what you “think” you want and sometimes it doesn’t … this begins to reveal to you … that your “will” isn’t but a Greater Will is.
How will you know when this begins to happen, you SMILE more and frown less. The attention has now been shifted to what doesn’t move … what doesn’t change; what is constant before time, during time and after time.
This does not mean that life will become easier, though it might. It may become harder, the difference is you just won’t care (SMILE) because you are “watching” how life is and not “telling” it how it “should” be. It also doesn’t mean that the body will not still react; it will do what it does, yet you, the one that you “thought” you are … won’t care. It is a simple shift from thinking one is the “doer” to Realizing one as the Witness.
If you are lucky, like this one, there was not ever too much love of the personality, which eventually came as quite a surprising Gift. Had the personality been loved and admired (which it can be once it is seen for what it is), it may not have been moved past through (dissolved). It has still been a very gradual process. Depression, anxiety, mood swings, instability, yearning and longing, all came as a tremendous Gift (though that does not mean it is easy). All of it was/is used to push one back into itSelf.
Once your attention is on That (That which you are IN), life still happens, all the same things that have always happened to you, may still occur, but now you face these situations, from where you have always been.
You discover you are already dead. You know where everyone is going, because everyone is already there, whether they know it or not. All the things that you once thought were obstacles are now seen as the pointers to the Truth of You. You see through “Child’s Eyes” and it is all a mystery, the attention gets placed on That. You are no longer seeking safety in the world, because your safety is no longer in the world, it is in/on THAT which the world appears in. So…
FOREVER FREE
You may find yourSelf in a great mansion or homeless on the street. You may find yourSelf rich or penniless, with not very much to eat. You may find family and friends all around you, or that you don’t have a single one; You may find that you accomplish so much or that you get nothing done.
You may find that you are genius or that you cannot do simple math. You may find yourSelf in a great depression or on a chosen path.
You may find success or failure; You may find marriage or divorce... You may find yourSelf driving fast cars or riding on a horse.
You may find the birth of a child or the death of one you hold dear; You may find yourSelf while laughing or while shedding pain-filled tears.
You may find yourSelf in struggle, you may find yourSelf in war, you may find yourSelf travelling upon a distant shore.
You may find yourSelf a homemaker; you may find yourSelf behind a desk. You may find yourSelf in the city, or the country, or forest.
But you will no longer care where you are, where you are going or what you will be, because you have found yourSelf and in THAT you are Forever FREE.