THE almost REAL: DEATH AND IMAGINATION
We cannot know anything, unless and until, we know our self. And when self-knowing occurs, there is no self that’s knowing. No particular self remains. Nobody with a limited identity founded on an idea about reality, a creation of minds’ imagination. A fiction founded on words and beliefs that have defined almost all our entire life experience.
There’s an old song with lyrics like this: “Didn’t we almost make it this time?”
Ah, that “almost” caveat! We go about almost all of our lives pretending we’re someone or something other than and seperate from, what we are – pure spirit. We can say “almost” all our life has gone by like a dream – alternating in ways deemed well or poorly, rightly or wrongly. And that seeing of our mind-bound condition is freeing. Indeed, we may see the great value of almost succeeding, almost being perfect, almost being happy, almost being free, almost being… we can see that it is in the almost where all possibility to see reality resides.
It’s in the almost that the light gets in a crack; where imagination is not almost revealed, but completely revealed. That is, seen for what it is.
The death of imagination happens when we recognize, or even glimpse, the nature of all imagination – that it is what it is, all imagination.
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From time to time it seems I’m drawn to share some perspective evoked on NDL by an encounter on the streets of Berkeley, or in this case, a lovely lady letter writer who sent me an email with words about death and dying. Words that are almost never used except by those directly dealing with death and dying. With respect to her, I’d like to share only my reply…
Thankyou my dear T, for your beautiful letter- I’m deeply moved and tenderly touched beyond expression by the compassion, the heart and the being with suffering you convey with mere words so well and truly. In truth, your words take my very breath with their indications of mortality and immortality; of our shared human fragility and divine nature. They reveal real, direct understanding of that peace which surpasses all understanding. An indwelling spirit that can only be hinted at and whispered about…subtle realms of existence, of love, of being. I am blessed by your life and your love, which I know is way beyond all vagueness and gestures…
It’s clear that you have moved beyond that sense of self as limited by body and mind. That limitless being is all we know of real love – a bright and shining reality that words and all forms of “knowing” fail to express. There’s knowing in your being, and while the mind and senses give us a constant and often noisy flow in consciousness, we actually abide in the unchanging and unknown – being/awareness. We know love, we are love, and your bright being touches here and everywhere with the same power of infinite compassion as the Buddha.
As you say, one of the things we know is that we are all One – more than “connected” eternally – we are of the same substance – infinite spirit. One of the blessings that awareness brings is that certain knowing about death; that what we are and this is, is pure undying love. And our life is, and has always been, the incarnated form of the timeless embodied in time. All love, in source and action. And all one miracle.
One of the things Adyashanti said about waking up, is that we no longer fear death; I have found that to be true, and I’m often passing this insight on to friends…that’s what led to the writing of FADING IN THE LIGHT…I wanted to celebrate our infinite nature, and to tell the good news that what we are is in fact, undying…
Love and Be well, my dear friend.
Loving,
James
