How is it to grow old when you have awakened?
How is it to grow old when you have awakened?
Nukunu:
The less we are identified with the body, the more we will be in the timeless space that is our true nature. This space – the Source – is beyond time and space. It is not even eternal, because then it would still exist in time. That which we truly are is the forth dimension, and to realise this is unconditional freedom. Here we are neither young nor old. We simply are – but not as a body or mind.
If we live identified with the body, we don’t live fully because we are unconscious of who we are. We live in uncertainty because we can be sick and die any moment. But if you know who you are you will also know that “you” don’t get sick or die because you have realised that you are not the body.
When death happens, it just means that the body experience stops appearing in consciousness. It is like a film that stops, and suddenly there is only the screen upon which different movies has passed: a movie of being born, of being a teenager, of becoming an adult and so on. In the moment of death there is no longer any movie; just the empty screen and the screen is not a movie! When we realise the screen while the movies are still playing, it is called enlightenment. In Sanskrit the words “Jivan Mukti” are used about a person with this realisation. But it is difficult to find a good translation for this term. We have no proper words for it in English, because in our Western culture we know very little about true life.
This space we realise upon dying is there all the time – it was there before the body was created and it will be there when the body is no more.
If we have realised ourselves fully, we have also realised that there is really no world or body – everything is impermanent. Then we will not reincarnate because there is no world to incarnate into. But this also means that all our desires have been seen through before we die. Otherwise these desires will lead to the creation of a new body.