The Time of Your Life!

Our Swamiji often said: No one came to earth with a one way ticket; each of us comes
with a guaranteed round-trip ticket. For me and you, friends, even though we know the
dates we arrived and began living here, the date of the return ticket is still open.

At birth each of us embarks on a journey in time. The interval between arrival and
departure is the lifetime spent here on earth. Before these molecules were associated
into the body I have at this moment they already existed somewhere else as solid, liquid,
air and energy they werent suddenly and specially created only for me. And after
leaving this structure of mine they will go back to the earth, to the water, to the sky, and
later most certainly spend time as part of someone else. Earth is a vast recycling plant for
atoms and molecules to be used over and over in different combinations.

The Sufi Poet Rumi stated: Let the One that brought me here come and take me home.
How beautifully put: he proclaims the truth of Nature that One has brought him here,
and acknowledges that same One will take him back home. Our Swamiji put us in the
understanding of Space as the body of Nature that vast, immense Space that is
everywhere, permeating everything, in every bit of the room where I sit and everywhere
all around and beyond it that Space made us and put us here and is the One to
reabsorb us in time. Truly that Space is Home and we are visiting while in this earthly
life.

Can you seriously say the structure where you presently reside is your real home? You
live in some flat or house acquired by payment either recently or long ago; you didnt
build it or design it. That goes for your body too. Residing in the body is just like going
on vacation and staying in a hotel we didnt build or design, paying for the privilege of
using it. Each of us now stays in a body on long lease and until the lease is up we pay for
it by keeping it fit or will suffer when it begins to fall apart and deteriorate.

Even though none knows when the time will come to wind up this visit on earth and start
on the return journey, it might be a good thing if we at least keep it in mind. We often
tend to think that if we live a good life then death will come softly and peacefully and we
leave it at that. But where is the guarantee of peace at the moment of death? As Swamiji
used to say, no one has come back to tell us about their experience. So anything said
about death and its aftermath is a story made up by someone living, that cannot possibly
be based on evidence. Out of a sense of fear and dread we dont prepare our minds at all
for the inevitable event; actually, we rather tend to ignore it as much as possible. But
why? If there is a journey coming up in your life, even though its months in advance and
youre not sure youll enjoy it, dont you think of it once in a while? It is there in your
mind now and then and you keep track of the time as it nears and make preparations as it
comes close.

We know the usual attitude of individuality, the basic egoic view that feels I am
differentiated from everything else around. But by meditation we also have discovered
the Space we can be in without the feeling of differentiation, where all is perceived as
one whole comprising substance, power and consciousness. If we can be in this mood of
wholeness at death, will it not make it easier? If I feel myself as an individual that exists
separated from everything else, wont it be terrifying and horrible to feel all alone at
death? No matter who else is there to care for me, if I feel I am going on the journey all
alone, leaving all I have known for so many years, it will be utterly frightening.

But if I can keep to the attitude, the feeling, of oneness with everything, the feeling of all
existence as one continuum, its only an absorption and adjustment from one situation
into another, all within the One. In truth, not the substance, nor the power, nor the
consciousness that I am can be affected by my death; only time will stop running for me
personally, as an integrated system. Human beings are basically distinguished from all
other life-forms by a vastly extended time sense that creates our identity: moment to
moment we carry a long history and a map of the assumed future. We should not get
misled into believing that this timeline is the self it is only the stage where a drama of
sequential changes is played out.

Let each of us daily remember this: only my personal sense of time will cease one day
when the function of the physical organs stops; what I am -- substance, power and
consciousness are not affected by birth or death. Let us identify with that supreme
undivided, indivisible One wherein nothing is lost, ever the One that brought me here
and takes me back.