Imagination of Birth, Life and Death
Before you were born you expected to live according to a plan which you yourself had laid down. Your own will was the backbone of your destiny.
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[When one dies] according to his belief it happens. As life before death is but imagination, so is life after. The dream continues.
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You can't help surviving! The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death. And the body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long. A full life is better than a long life.
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For me the moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear. I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing. What change do you expect [at the moment of death]? When the film projection ends all remains the same as when it started. The state before you were born was also the state after death if you remember. It is only a question of tuning-in the mind.
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Birth, life, death — they are one. Find out what caused them. Before you were born you were already drugged. What kind of drug was it? You may cure yourself of all diseases, but if you are still under the influence of the primordial drug, of what use are the superficial cures?
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[Dying] may be beautiful and peaceful. Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment. Human beings die every second, the fear and the agony of dying hangs over the world like a cloud. No wonder you too are afraid. But once you know that the body alone dies and not the continuity of memory and the sense of "I am" reflected in it, you are afraid no longer.
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The desire for harmony and peace is ineradicable. But once it is fulfilled, the concern ceases and physical life becomes effortless and below the level of attention. Then, even in the body you are not born. To be embodied or bodiless is the same to you. You reach a point when nothing can happen to you. Without the body you cannot be killed; without possessions you cannot be robbed; without mind you cannot be deceived. There is no point where a desire or fear can hook on.
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Were you not present at your birth? Will you not be present at your death? Find him who is always present. Find him who was present at your birth and will witness your death.
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Your mistake lies in your belief that you are born. You were never born nor will you ever die, but you believe that you were born at a certain date and place and that a particular body is your own.
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Just as a sleeping man forgets all and wakes up for another day, or he dies and emerges into another life, so do the worlds of desire and fear dissolve and disappear. But the universal witness, the Supreme Self never sleeps and never dies. Eternally the Great Heart beats and at each beat a new universe comes into being.
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By all means pray for the dead. It pleases them very much. They are flattered.
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I am dead already. Physical death will make no difference in my case. I am timeless being. I am free of desire and fear because I do not remember the past, or imagine the future. Where there are no names and shapes, how can there be desire and fear? With desirelessness comes timelessness. I am safe, because what is not cannot touch what is. You feel unsafe because you imagine danger. Of course your body as such is complex and vulnerable and needs protection, but not you. Once you realize your own unassailable being, you will be at peace.
Nisargadatta Maharaj - I AM THAT
