Great spiritual traditions affirm one dies to live, and this death is before death. One, truly, is not prepared to die until he or she has died. Neither the death into Life nor the death of the body, however, is merely a discontinuance, each is a continuance, for each participates in a timelessness devoid of succession. No sweeter death in this life than to die before one dies. This death is to wake up, to see. And, though often spoken as a point in time, a final act, we best see this as a process. The "Yes" to death happens, the "Yes" to life happens. This death before death, which is a life before death, is partnered with our consent. Each day one might benefit to say verbally "Yes". More important than a conscious "Yes" is the "Yes" arising from within, the yes of soul to Spirit, unceasing, arising from the Heart silently. Then, as it were, we see, and we see more as we die more, even as we are move alive, living more, as we die more. Do not the flowers die to live? Day turn to night to turn to day? Seasons die into another season soon to be reborn again? An exhale dies into an inhale and that to die into another exhale? Is not life like this? How much more the Life outside time, holding time within Itself? Then, we see, Beauty before beauty. And, what is this death? From Love into Love. A loving death, to live inside Love, so that you no longer see yourself as having love but becoming Love before all love. In fact, you see yourself as not having anything, and you feel no need to have anything. You do not even have a 'God,' for there is nothing and no one to have. Then, in this dispossession, you see, and Love moves mysteriously, freely, in wonderment and awe. Praise no longer has to be voiced, and oft cannot, as one now silently is moving inside and with the Grace he or she once sought, but no longer.

Lotus of the Heart is an interspiritual offering of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, who lives in Florida USA. Feel free to submit a query to Lotus of the Heart...