Meditations on death are, perhaps, one of the most important things that you can ever do. No matter where you are on the Spiritual Path, no matter what you believe or what you think is real, it is extremely important to see your own life, your own impermanence, your own unlimited potentiality. If you begin to get real about your own life, you will see clearly that death is an inevitability. Your body will fail. Your life, your self, your limited point of view will be no more.
It is important to get real about this; and, I’m not talking about getting all depressed about how quickly life passes us by, or developing some sort of morbid attitude about it all. I’m talking about simply resting into the realization that your life is amazing, and that it is flying by faster than you think. We have this great opportunity to prepare ourselves for the inevitable, we only need to slow down enough to see just what is happening here.
This is why I wrote Timeless Luminosity first, and why it is the way that it is. I only briefly explained what had happened to me in the death bardo. It is primarily poetry, meant to integrate into your life, to integrate into quiet moments of contemplation. It is meant for you to utilize again and again, going back to that along with meditation, as well as deep contemplation. Even the somewhat humorous poems are meant for your deep consideration, as part of meditations on death. This is very important. I put out the most important book first.
I don’t find extremely detailed intellectual explanations to be terribly important, when it comes to the death bardo. Your own discoveries, right here, right now, are most important. That’s why the poetry was emphasized, giving only a cursory explanation about the death bardo in the form of prose. Most of what had happened to me is completely unexplainable. I’m currently attempting to write about it in novel form; however, it is extremely frustrating to understand something through direct experience that cannot be fathomed by the English language or through cultural means. This amazing transition into our real condition, without going anywhere, without changing anything, defies logic, as well as all philosophies, sciences and religions. How does one write about that?
I suppose my second book had at its core this notion that it’s okay to be weird, to be free, to be wild. Don’t worry if your Spiritual Path seems too bizarre to imagine, and certainly not something others should hear about; just go ahead and have the confidence to trust your own intuition, no matter how strange that may seem. A successful Spiritual Path is one that no one else will ever really understand. It’s filled with bizarre miracles and amazing discoveries. We only need relax, stop letting others control us, open our hearts and mind. You must give yourself permission to be completely free.
This amazing light of Dharmakaya is never about constraint or rules. If we open our heart and mind to that, we discover who we have always been. All this fretting and worrying about everything is simply complete nonsense. Why are we attached to such nonsense?
The Frog: A Spiritual Autobiography, Spanning Many Lifetimes is a book about great turbulence. It is a book about the worst tragedies one can imagine, and then just letting them go, moving on with my own Spiritual Practice, through life, through the dreams, through the death bardo. It is about discovering our own indestructability. This should give you some confidence in facing anything. This is very important; however, it is not as important as your own inward journey. I felt that this book, although far more detailed about this great bardo, should come second. It’s very weird, providing a bit of sensory overload, which means it would be too much to hear, at least without some preparatory contemplations.
My upcoming book, The Délok, is really too much for me; nevertheless, I sit and write, and delete and write again, meditating on my own death experience, over and over again. The idea of changing it to a work of fiction has freed me, taken me out of extreme depression, so that I’m light again. It’s far more enjoyable to write in this way. It’s easier to explain something if I’m not saying that this or that happened to me, even though the work is closely related to what happened to me. Does that make sense?
I’m also currently illustrating and writing a book that will be announced later—just a little teaser. This seems like something that people will enjoy. It is, after all, about attaining enjoyment with our lives as we awaken. It’s not about drudgery or following a strict program of any kind.
As you awaken, and I’m certain that you will, you will find tremendous delight in all that you encounter. Your life will become light. Your dreams will become light. In death, you will become the light, as you have always been.
Blessings of Light,
Bob
Thank you very much for your efforts, Robert.
This excerpt particularly resonated with me:
"A successful Spiritual Path is one that no one else will ever really understand. It’s filled with bizarre miracles and amazing discoveries. We only need relax, stop letting others control us, open our hearts and mind. You must give yourself permission to be completely free.
This amazing light of Dharmakaya is never about constraint or rules. If we open our heart and mind to that, we discover who we have always been. All this fretting and worrying about everything is simply complete nonsense. Why are we attached to such nonsense?"
I've grown up with a great fear of "doing my spiritual path incorrectly" and never really understood how to open my heart despite a deep yearning to do so. This gives me a lot of permission to release that old way of thinking. Thank you.