Many of us who consider ourselves spiritual have been at some point preoccupied with the idea of death and dying: where is Heaven, how is Hell, what will happen to me after I die? You might have thought at some point in time that this entire spiritual thing is useless waste of time if there is no God and no afterlife. That “you” are in fact a lump of grey matter and brain cells crammed under a thick skull. Let’s assume for a moment that everything you are is in fact your brain. This would mean than when you brain dies, your mind dies and you also die along with it. End of story. If you are nodding and sooo convinced about this, keep your mind open, as the next paragraphs will challenge that theory. If you are still not sure what to believe, don’t despair, there is hope. Read the following paragraphs and give it some more thought.
First of all, if you asked yourself any of these death and dying questions, you just started reading the sentence from the full stop. Instead of wasting energy wondering about what might be, let’s be practical and worry about the present moment. After all, time itself is a string of NOWs: the past constitutes the “now” that was, the present is the “now” from this moment and future the “now” that will be. Ultimately, the only true moment is “now”. And this is the most fascinating and available to explore, well…right NOW.
Start by observing your thoughts. (Bear with me please - this is not a daydreaming exercise :). Thoughts are creations of your mind and your mind creates continuously during the day. But how can we relax our mind and control these thoughts? Well, in order to do that, you must first understand where the thoughts come from. Are they your own thoughts? What brought them into being? Step back and observe the modifications that take place in your mind.
Become aware of what you are thinking and why. At first, you will have a lot of thoughts to assimilate, similar to strong waves in the sea of your mind. In the beginning of this exercise, you may feel like a boat, rocking from side to side, trying to navigate stormy waters. But below those waves, the sea (or your true self) remains deep, calm, undisturbed. Once you are able to ground yourself firmly in that consciousness, you will no longer identify with your thoughts. Detached, you will start perceiving your own thoughts as images on a screen. You will realize that YOU (the true self, the subject or observer) are not one with your thoughts (the object). You can see them, study them, but are unaffected by them. As soon as you are able to detach yourself from your own thoughts, this should convince you that YOU (your true self) is not your mind but something beyond that. You will understand your mind as a vehicle that helped you learn, acquire knowledge and basically adapt to life on Earth. The mind was keeping your body safe from harm, and provided vital guidance necessary for the body to be able to survive in this world. The good news is…if your brain dies, that higher self still remains undisturbed. And after you die, you should not worry too much about losing your brain. After all there would be no more body to keep alive, so no more need for this amazing mechanism. The higher self exists in other realms of existence, unaffected by the same things that affect our body and our mind.
