Endeavor Academy teachers
were all asked to write short essays about “Death” for the ‘Out of Time’ Journal. These of
Master Glad and Master Hannah are so comprehensively lucid concerning the elementary
necessity for personal rejection of the bondage of human contingencies, that we cannot
resist including both of them.
See how they immediately reveal
the totally unlimited decision-making possibilities available to us through the instant
awareness application of the power of our Eternally Creating Mind.
ALL ABOUT DEATH — WHAT A
RIDICULOUS IDEA!
How
totally absurd your tiny mad idea there is something you call “death!” How
foolish to believe a fully loving, eternal, all–powerful God created a condition in
complete opposition to Himself! How utterly futile is an existence based upon
obliteration!
Your
joyful laughter rings forever throughout the Universe once this single central string is
pulled from the fabric of your world, and time and death simply unravel from your mind.
Consider
for a moment how ridiculous is the death ritual you perform in your separate human
identity. You observe everything around you apparently dying, yet you are virtually unable
to define, experience, or even imagine death because the condition does not
exist! Essentially, you prove your image of yourself “lives” in
time by observing it in contrast with everything seemingly outside yourself growing old,
suffering sickness and pain, and eventually dying — including your own body. You
condemn yourself to the verdict of limitation you lay upon everything in your own world.
And you think this is what life is.
You
can indeed afford to laugh — this world you invented is not what life is. Yet you do
find yourself trapped for a moment within your own virtual reality in a game you call
“existence.” It seems you play it endlessly in your vain defense against the
frightening moment of your own termination. Indeed, you are in an impossible situation in
your own mind even though it lasted only for a moment. Yet you do not escape your world by
dying or by banding together your memories in imagery you project outside yourself to form
associated human obstacles. You do need a miracle from outside of time, a catalytic
correction of your false perception, to finally escape the dead world you imagined. The
miracle occurs once you decide you want to change your mind about it, once you
admit you need help, for power does not oppose itself. If you think you know already, you
will never learn nor change.
Yet
you can see and learn that you are caught for just a moment in the web of your own
imagination, where you mask your attraction to death by habitually associating the two
ideas of death and God in your own memory. And you can become aware of your beliefs that
these ideas are both certain though incomprehensible mysteries of life,
“natural” laws, just as you believe your bodily identity is never to be
questioned. You can understand that you are trapped in blind obedience to the laws you
hold in your cellular memory, that you think you are a “born sinner” justly
deserving punishment and death. So you believe you are guilty, and your own obliteration
is the judgmental decree of an all-powerful, loving God. Yet these are all ideas you
made up! And they stem from but one insane idea, a fixed belief you store
within your mind/body association that you could take on qualities unlike your Source.
Surely
you must recognize that a wholly perfect God cannot even know of imperfection, nor could
He know of choice. What would God choose between, if He is wholly perfect? Death is an
impossible alternative. It is nothing more than a mere whim, a meaningless idea contrived
for a moment to justify fleeting images you projected in your own mind. The world you
invented is not what life is. Of course you can never really die because there
is no death!
And
you do know full well in your heart that this is so. You are really only afraid of the act
of dying itself. And you blame your body for your fear of its painful demise. Fascinated
with both, you make an idol of death by presuming in death you escape from the pain of
your isolation. Your human memories tell you this is how you know God. How ridiculous an
idea! You cannot split your mind up and leave your body behind. It too is only a thought
in your mind and is changed in an instant and included into your true eternal nature. No
one can endure pain indefinitely.
Be
thankful! The war against yourself is almost over! Life creates life, not the opposite of
itself. Death cannot come from life. Just as a father creates a son like unto himself, so
ideas must remain united to their source and extend like themselves. You are the Son of
God. You cannot be unlike your Creator.
Open
up the storehouse of your mind to forgive yourself and your world and release your inner
light. Remember to laugh at the idea of death. Human, you made a bargain you cannot keep!
Your
mind/body/world associations are undergoing a radical reformation from the old,
dark, noncreative self you imagined to your natural state as the beautiful, bright,
eternally extending Light of God. If you find yourself caught in dead, gone thought, out
of communication for just a moment, remember to deny death. Swear not to die, you holy Son
of God! Give it up! It will not work! You know this perfectly well.
In truth you are real and
eternal. You cannot be contained in false and brutal imagery of limitation. You are
created to extend like your Creator. Forgive and forget the self and the world you made
instead. There is no death because what God created shares His Life. And you are as God
created you.
Master Hannah
IT’S TIME AT LAST TO LOOK WITH
OPEN MIND
AT
THE ABSURD IDEA OF DEATH
Death
is a whimsical flight of fancy that exposes the irrationality of the human mind.
It is the impossible idea of limitation imposed by nothing on All–There–Is.
It is the idea that Totality can be contained or exceeded through the mere infliction of a
definition.
It is the ridiculous notion that Life can only be recognized through its opposite.
It is the meaningless attempt to paste time upon Eternity as if form could somehow blot
out Timelessness.
Death
is a senseless exercise undertaken by the human condition to justify its own
egocentricity. Death is nothing.
Death is the last willful act of an arrogant child determined to get its way, no matter
how much pain it inflicts on its self.
Death is the result of the belief in life as physical matter. It is the consequence of
lack in the human mind.
Death is the last layer of definition on that which cannot be defined.
To
the human mind, death is the foundation upon which the human condition has constructed
itself. It is the logical conclusion to the unquestioning identification of the human
being as a body. It is the one apparent fact, in its entire apparent life, that can be
counted on.
It is the one frame of reference that is unwavering in an apparent world that is
constantly changing.
It is the one idea universal to perceptual consciousness and is the basis of comparison
that establishes what life is to the human mind.
Our
dictionaries cannot even define “life” except in terms of “death.”
“Life” is considered (a) “the interval of time between birth and death;” (b) “the period from an occurrence until
death;” or (c) “a
sentence of imprisonment until death.”
Yet,
death is an idea that has no reality. We can never know what the experience of death is.
It always eludes us. It always sits just beyond our awareness, only real in the death of
others. Yet the reality of life, as we think of it, pivots on this ephemeral idea.
What
is this silly idea of death? Why does the human mind cling so frantically to it? Why is
death more powerful to the human mind than life? Why does the effort of human existence
cry for the release of termination? Why does it long for death? Yet, herein lies the
enormity of the joke perpetrated against humanity by itself.
If only this one stone in the foundation of the meaning of human life were questioned, the
entire flimsy structure would fall under its own weight.
If only the human mind would be as selective in its questioning as in its perception, the
wall of false assumption that separates the human consciousness from the totality of its
natural inheritance would, and did, crumble and disintegrate.
Is
it not reasonable that there is no compromise possible in this? Either all things die, or
else they live and cannot die. Is it not reasonable that life cannot be partial? Life is
of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain
you who are Life. The body is merely a symbol of what you think you are and is clearly a
separation device which does not exist. Time, for which death is the witness, is but a
point of view imposed on eternity and serves merely as a justification to maintain your
own will separate from Universal Mind.
Within this
kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And to defend this little speck of dust it bids you
fight against the universe. This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that,
could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest
sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. Think how
alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself
apart against the universe. The sun becomes the sunbeam’s “enemy” that
would devour it, and the ocean terrifies the little ripple and wants to swallow it.
Time
and death are co-conspirators with your belief in your own limitation. Do not accept life
as defined by death. Would you remain within your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a
bitter ruler of all that he surveys, who looks on nothing yet who would still die to
defend it? Meanwhile, like to the sun and ocean your Self continues,
unmindful that this tiny part regards itself as you.
All
around you, and all about you and all in you there is an entirely new world of happy love
and light. It is always and only what you have been seeking. It is your purpose for being
here. And right now, in this Holy Instant, it is excitingly awaiting your simple decision
not to die. So, it’s up to you...
These
are your instructions: This is your wake–up call. Let it be so, and it will always
have been.
M. Glad
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