Conscious Death

Haribhajan Singh Khalsa
Catalyst Yogi

There's no way around it.

Life is a constant flow of beginnings and endings.

We humans have a way of welcoming and celebrating beginnings:

births, getting the job, getting the man, buying the home.

Graduations aside,

we have a much lower opinion of endings:

death, divorce, being fired.

We find something and we feel blessed.

We lose something, we feel cursed.

We try to clear the clutter and find

our new mantra is

"I might need that some day."

We stubbornly cling to people,

things and stories

that no longer serve us.

Begin to think of letting go

and saying good-bye as a spiritual practice.

When you clean a closet and fill boxes for the thrift store -

you are practicing the fine art of conscious dying.

Be aware of your feelings

as you release roles, objects

and relationships that have defined you.

You are becoming fearless and showing the Universe that you trust.

Yogic teaching tells us that all our spiritual practice in life

is to give us one chance at a conscious death.

Gandhi died as he lived.

In the face of his assassin,

with no time whatsoever to think,

uttered Hey Ram as he was being shot.

In doing so, he blessed his killer with forgiveness

and himself with the conscious death

he had prepared for all his life.