To Live, You Must Learn How To Die
Posted on Saturday, 3 November 2012 and filed under Genevieve Tan Shu Thung , Spirituality and Mental Science , . You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry from your site
Today, we are going to talk about living. If we want to live, we will first need to learn how to die. That is the Truth. A lot of people who live their life think that life is eternal. Of course, life is really eternal in the spiritual sense, but in terms of one’s physical existence, everything will still one day come to an end. There is nothing eternal except what we call God or the Great White Spirit. Before you can understand and appreciate this privilege given to you called Life, you must first learn how to die. Know that nothing lasts forever. So, you will have to appreciate every single moment that you have been given in life.
Let me explain why I say that we must learn to die. Interpret my words fourth-dimensionally. In this world of duality, it is one state or the other – alive or dead. For example, when you give life to an ideal, its counterpart is sentenced to death. Let’s say the ideal is to be wealthy. When you have imbued your subconscious mind with the ideal of being wealthy, then the ideal of poverty simply cannot be part of your attention too.
So, if you want to experience the ideal of being wealthy on this third-dimensional plane, you must sentence to death the idea of poverty in your mind. Similarly, if you want to tread on the path of spirituality to realise the God within you, all desires for worldly material pursuit will also eventually die down. This does not mean that you will have to give up the needs to sustain the physical body. Of course it will be necessary to satisfy the basic necessities such as shelter, food, water and clothes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But do not cast yourself in misery and suffer for running after material pursuits that are not even going to go with you into the grave when you are buried 6-feet underground (The Master’s joke: That is if you do get buried. If the body is cremated, the ashes will be spread all over the place, isn’t it? Not a trace of you can be seen by the naked eye.)
So, what is this thing called material or worldly desires that people will even resort to murder to satisfy them? Do they last? They don’t! Do they offer you happiness? They don’t! Many people have this misconception thinking that when they get something, only then they will be very happy. Do you notice how many of you would say: “Oh dear Lord (or God or even Santa Clause – whatever you wish to call), please give me this or that. If you give this or that to me, I will be very happy!” Happiness should not be subjective! It should be a state that you live at all times. Why put a clause that only when you get a particular object, you will be happy? In other words, you are postponing happiness! Why postpone happiness when you can be happy now? Happiness is in the NOW; it is living in the present moment and not postponing it to a later date. When you do that, happiness will never come and you will never ever be happy because desires are never-ending. They continuously build up. There is no ceiling of desires. So, if you continue saying that you will only be happy when you get this or that, you will never ever be happy in your whole lifetime because for every single desire, you are already repeating to yourself: “If I get this, I WILL be very happy” In other words, you are not going to be happy until you have it! And this is not only for one desire – it is for all desires.
Man is very strange. Instead of taking the power to be responsible for his life and say that he is going to be happy now, he always chooses to reaffirm in his mind that he will only be happy at a later time. That is the reason for rebirths. People reincarnate again because there are so many unfulfilled desires. When you plant the seed in the divine garden of your mind (thoughts), inevitably the seed must grow. It is just a matter of time.
We talk about karma all the time. It is especially popular in the Asian culture. But, what is karma really? The general idea is that karma is when you have done something bad to another that you will eventually reap the negative fruit after that. To most people, karma is generally something negative. But the Truth is, karma can also be positive. Karma is not only limited to what you do unto others or yourself physically, but also mentally. You are in fact, committing karma at all times. To think of something is karma. When you think about hitting a mosquito, even that is karma! When you think about being poor, that is karma. You are exercising karma at all times. In fact, karma simply means “action”. It can be physical actions, or even mental actions. When you think good or bad about people, situations or even yourself, it is exercising karma. What you sow is what you will reap. You cannot possibly plant a mango seed and expect a papaya tree to grow out of it. Many people do not play their parts well in life but expect heaven to rain on them. They expect to be showered with diamonds but they do not work for them. How do you expect to have a good life when you keep dwelling on the bad? You cannot expect to have all your needs fulfilled when you keep focusing on lack. You cannot expect to have wonderful friends to surround you when you keep focusing on your enemies. What you pay attention to in your life is what comes into your experience! That is why I said earlier, to live, you must first learn how to die! There is no other way than this.
If you want to fly a plane but you have fear for flying, so what must die? Your fear for flying must die. It must be removed before you can actually find courage to step into the plane to fly it. Remember this: where is there room for fear when you are the infinite Being that pervades the entire Universe? Why be afraid? Nothing is impossible unto you so long you believe in it. People are afraid of height because their physical senses perceive the gap between where they are and the plane. They think that they are separated by space between the sky and the ground. But a wise one knows that there is only One infinite energy that pervades the entire Universe. Therefore, the energy that is present in the form of a plane is also present in you and also any space perceived by the five senses. There is only ONE Source, an energy differentiated into many forms, which includes space visible to the naked eye. Therefore, it is only illusion that creates fear.
Life is so precious. Man is born to realise the ultimate goal, the reality of the Self. There is nothing more important than knowing the Self because man’s misery is due to ignorance. All conflicts, unrest, jealousy, hatred and anger are due to people seeing differences between each other. Man even fights with himself when he says that he is not good enough for this or that, what more with his brothers and sisters who are seemingly separate from him? How could you be not good enough for anything when you are all there is – all knowledge and wisdom lie within You? The Bible states that man is made in the image of God. How can man be useless then when God is deemed the Almighty? Isn’t it hypocrisy then to claim that God is Almighty while man is nothing?
Only when you have finally learned to accept that life is merely momentary and you must make the most out of it, you will do what is necessary. You will not do the things that you think will bring you pleasure but those that you believe will serve the purpose of giving the feeling of fulfilment Ask yourself what you will do if you know that you will leave the physical frame tomorrow and live every day to its fullest. Man often takes things for granted. He always thinks there is still time, especially when he is young.
“I am young, so there is still plenty of time. I’ll do this tomorrow.” – That’s what all procrastinators think! But you know what? When tomorrow comes, you will still think that you have time, and put the task off for another ‘tomorrow’. Work then starts to pile up and in the end, nothing gets done! We find very few dynamic individuals these days. Majority of the people are complacent because they take time for granted.
Sure, from the spiritual perspective, there is no such thing as time because time is not linear. Nevertheless, man is entrapped in a physical body and exists as a physical identity on this objective plane. One is therefore still governed by this thing called ‘time’! So why waste time? Time is precious. Do not ever take things for granted. All that you are supposed to do today should be completed today, and not to be put off till tomorrow. Imagine if you have 10 tasks to do today, completing only one of them will give you an additional 9 tasks for tomorrow. This totals up to 19 tasks for tomorrow. Why the unnecessary headache?
Man also often finds himself facing dilemma when it comes to making decisions because he has so many options. These options include unimportant things. So ask yourself, if you had only limited time left to live (which we all do), what will you do? Your decision will be based on what you deem to be important, and not that which will grant you temporary happiness. If you had only one more day to live in this body, I doubt that taking a walk down to the ice cream stall to satisfy your senses will be deemed an important task. Because you know that time is limited, you begin to start living. So start living because our physical timeframe for each life is limited. Make full use out of it out of the remaining time that you have left to live. Only those who take life for granted will complain about how terrible life is for them, ignorant that there are many who wish to live a little longer but do not have the chance.
So, fill the day with things that are meaningful. Do the things that make you feel good and fulfilled. Life is not about merely making yourself happy, but making other people’s lives happy too. When you leave the body, you would not want to leave with regrets. Do you think you are going to turn back and say you have lived a fulfilled life when you have only lived for yourself? What pride is there? People will remember you by the name you leave behind based on the service that you have rendered to them.
Excerpts of discourse delivered by Master Genevieve Tan Shu Thung in Andhra Pradesh, INDIA (November 02, 2012)
Transcribed by Sister Urmila
Source: Sandhya Maarga Organisation
Copyright © 2012 Sandhya Maarga Holistic Living Resources
Holistic Living Annex (November 2012)
Transcribed by Sister Urmila
Source: Sandhya Maarga Organisation
Copyright © 2012 Sandhya Maarga Holistic Living Resources
Holistic Living Annex (November 2012)
3 Responses for “ To Live, You Must Learn How To Die”
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Inspirational Gallery
Master is right. We're always taking things for granted all the time. We will never learn our lesson until we are hit by something big normally. It's a sad truth. Oh well, we just need to wake up I guess.
She said to me before that tomorrow after tomorrow will only bring sorrow. We have to fully utilise our "now".
I love the Master's discourse. It's been awhile since HLA published them. The clock is ticking guys. Let us move it! Live like there is no tomorrow.