Death - The Ultimate Councillor
Only one event is inevitable in our lives – all else is subject to review and change. That one inevitable event is our imminent death. I say imminent because death is an essential and constant aspect of life. It is not possible to have either one without the other. If we are wise we will see death as our constant companion on the journey of life.
We are constantly dying and being reborn – from the cells in our bodies to the thoughts in our minds. All aspects of our ‘little selves’ are in a constant state of flux and reflux. Such is the flow of what we call life –even for the stars and galaxies, the only difference being the time spans involved.
But this is not a morbid or sad affair; rather it’s a source of strength and stability. We none of us know when our life’s journey will come to an end. It doesn’t matter if we are young or old, strong or weak, or if we have great plans or a whole string of accomplishments to our credit. The stark fact is that we don’t know from one moment to the next how much time we have left to us on this awesome world.
This uncertainty can be a crippling thing, causing us to fear living, because in a strange way fear of death constricts our openness to life. If we fear death we will tend to chose limited lives, seeking mostly what is perceived to be the ‘safe option’ in most things. But this need not be the case; we can choose a much better view of death and live our life to the full by the benefit of its wise council.
How then do the truly wise among us use death as the ultimate councillor?
To begin with it is necessary to acknowledge your death as a constant companion, to understand that it is always there by your side (literally about an arm’s length to your left). It witnesses everything that you do, never sleeping, never leaving your side.
It is well understood these days that everyone has a guardian (or guiding) angel, and that this angel is always with us. If we can accept that idea we should just as easily accept the idea that we may perhaps have other angels walking with us. But to be real about this we must also recognise the fact that life has dark as well as light energies in equal measure.
When a light is lit it creates shadows. We are lights – we are spiritual presences, beings of light in a physical world. When we are born, and our light shines forth in this dark world, we immediately cast shadows. One of those shadows is our death. When we enter this life angels are present at the birth. One of those angels is an angel of death – a shadow cast in such a way that it can never be separated from us, until the day we die.
All living things are tied to their death because what we call living is in fact the participation in a mutual coming together of separate and individual energies to a common purpose. You and I are an arrangement of billions of individual lives. The sum total of these lives in the physical world is what we call our body. But this arrangement can not be permanent because each of these tiny lives has their own evolution to see to. They come together only for as long as that arrangement is mutually beneficent, then they go their own way. The angel of death knows exactly when that time has arrived. It has the interests of the billions of lives in its care. What you want in this matter is of no importance, the benefit to every one of those lives is paramount.
When life is hard, when things are getting you down, when you feel like everything is going wrong, when you think that you are about to be destroyed turn to your death and seek its council – your death will tell you that you are wrong; that nothing really matters other than its touch. Your death will tell you “I haven’t touched you yet!”
How easy it is for us to become petty, to sink into negative moods, and to indulge in self concerns. The wise among us take heed of their death at such times and just as easily shake such negativity off like so much water. Death says “You don’t have the time to waste on such pettiness. I can reach out and touch you at any time”. Such wise council is priceless, and the truly wise live their lives prepared to die at any moment. Lived in this way – knowing that death is imminent – life is precious. It is of immense importance, and it is not something that we can afford to waste a single moment of.
I died...... last spring. But it wasn’t the real thing; it wasn’t the gentle tap on the shoulder of the angel of my imminent death, it was a rehearsal, a warning. My death whispered in my ear and five seconds later I was dead. A powerful vibration swept up the back of my neck, an energy that made everything blaze with dazzling light. It passed over the top of my head and ran down my face like ice water...... and then blackness. It happened in just about the length of time it is taking you to read this sentence.
I was in hospital at the time, in intensive care, and I was wired to a heart monitor and other assorted tubes. My wife was at my side and saw the monitor display the flat line – registering no output from the heart. The medical team was only a few feet away when the warning alarm sounded on my monitor. Because I was already wired up they only had to press a button to shock my heart back into beating, and I came back.
It can be that simple. Just a few seconds and it's over. No time to indulge in regrets or put right some wrong that burns your conscience. There is a realisation that you haven’t done so many things that you always thought you would someday – when you had the time. The instant recognition that it’s too soon – that you want to enjoy the experience of living more. That life is so very precious, so very necessary, and that there is so much more that you wanted to learn, to be, and to feel.
Human evolution at this time (Aquarius), for those of us who are concerned with spiritual growth, is really all about awakening. It is our task to become as fully conscious and spiritually aware as possible and to help and encourage each other in that task is our spiritual work for this age. An awakened soul, whose awareness has expanded to take into focus the higher or inner worlds, radiates powerful light into this otherwise dark world. This spiritual light benefits the whole of humanity and all life on earth. But such awakening can only be achieved while we are here, in the physical classroom of life. There is much to learn, to realise, and to put into practice. Once we have left this place we must join the queue to return again in order to continue our development towards a complete awakening.
Death is the ultimate councillor. It won’t indulge you. It won’t pander to your vanity. It won’t tell you what you want to hear so that you can pretend to yourself. All we need to benefit from its wise council is simply to be aware of its presence, our constant companion on the roadway of our life.
Eric McGough