Highlights
We review the tenor of our work together.
What happens to us at death? Where do we go?
The Double Curve of Existence is introduced.
We explore the grief that lies just beneath the surface at this time of year.
Rumi shares his deep insights on death and dying into love.
Guided Reflection
If possible, use headphones.
Cited Quotations
Thanks to the process of death, the soul is given access to a more essential proximity to matter. If we now endeavor to determine more closely the manner of this proximity, we find in the first place that in death the soul, far from becoming “a-cosmic,” enters upon a meta-empirical relationship with materiality and becomes in a sense… “pan-cosmic.”
Ladislaus Boros
Yeshua says...
Come into being as you pass away.
Logion 42, Gospel of Thomas
Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? “God is One.”
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don’t call all these lights “the Light of God”;
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.
Rumi
When I die,
when my coffin
is being taken out,
you must never think
I am missing this world.don’t shed any tears,
don’t lament, or
feel sorry.
i’m not falling
into a monster’s abyss.when you see
my corpse is being carried,
don’t cry for my leaving.
I’m not leaving;
I’m arriving at eternal love.when you leave me
in the grave,
don’t say goodbye;
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind.you’ll only see me
descending into a grave;
now watch me rise.
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down.it looks like the end;
it seems like a sunset,
but in reality, it is a dawn!
when the grave locks you up,
that is when your soul is freed.have you ever seen
a seed fallen to earth
not rise with a new life?
why should you doubt the rise
of a seed named human?have you ever seen
a bucket lowered into a well
coming back empty?
why lament for a soul
when it can come back,
like Joseph from the well?when for the last time
you close your mouth,
your words and soul
will belong to the world of
no place, no time.
Rumi
I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul,
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.
Rumi
Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.
Rumi
This is how I would die into the love I have for you: as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight
Rumi
Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
Reflection Questions
Can you apprehend the sense of this “double curve of life” in your body as much as in your mind?
Have you continued to “play” with this sense of Second Body?
What do you suppose is the “fragrance” of your gathered conscious presence…? What might you want it to be…?
Do you sense the grief of “the roads not taken” in your life…?
Can you sense within yourself the consent and willingness to claim and carry the pain of others…? Where do you carry this in your body…?
When were you ever made less by dying…?