Death surrounds us. It’s featured daily in the national news – 30 dead in a terrorist attack; 6 die in fire; reported 1200 dead in early figures following earthquake; 17 gunned down in a movie theater; a famous actress dies at 97. We see, hear, and read about death so often that it’s easy to tune it out. Death is a part of life, but in many cases we don’t want to dwell on it. It’s not a pleasant subject, after all. It’s just too final. But when someone close to us dies it tends to bring our own mortality into sharper focus.

Death surrounds us. But do we actually die? Aren’t the seeds of birth and death contained in our essential being, the ever-present Awareness from which all manifestations arise, linger, and disappear?

We all appear to die. Eventually our minds give out, our bodies give out, and everything ceases to function. The body-mind ‘dies’, but does Awareness, that which know the body-mind, die with it?

Awareness, the sense of being that has been with us as far back as we can remember, exists prior to, during, and after any experience of the body-mind has come and gone, be it a thought, image, feeling, sensation, or perception of the world through our five senses.

If Awareness is our essential nature, we, in the absolute sense, do not die. Death is just a concept within the vast ever-presence of infinite and eternal Awareness.

Were you a witness to your own birth?

It might seem obvious that you couldn’t witness your own birth, as you, a separate self, were not conscious enough to know anything. But the reality is that you would have to be present and aware to answer ‘No’.

Could you ever witness your own disappearance or death?

Conceptually, it makes sense that you couldn’t witness your own death because you are the one that appears to be dying. But, again, you would have to be present and aware to answer ‘No’.

Stick to the facts of your own experience and live your ‘life’ as your essential Self: ever-present Awareness. Not as a temporary, and thus illusionary, separate self we call a body-mind that appears to be born, live, and die.

When you do this, life turns into timeless, wondrous moments of endless discovery. Actually, you don’t have to ‘do’ anything because this is your original nature. No doing, no effort involved in being who you already are.