The Ultimate Mirror: Why Death Is the Grandest Game

Now, you see, we have a very peculiar way of defining what is “comfortable.” We spend our lives building little nests of certainty, surrounding ourselves with pillows of belief, all in an attempt to avoid the one thing that is actually, undeniably, and most magnificently true. We think that “truth” ought to be something that makes us feel cozy, like a warm blanket on a rainy night. But a great teacher once pointed out that comfort is absolutely no test of truth. In fact, if you’re really looking for the “Big It,” you have to be prepared to be thoroughly uncomfortable. You have to be willing to let go of the banisters.

Imagine a group of bright-eyed students meeting a wandering philosopher in the late nineteenth century. He asks them a question that sounds like a cosmic riddle: “You’re all studying your European logic and your various sciences, but can you tell me – what is the grandest of all the truths in life?”

Now, how would you answer that? You might talk about the speed of light, or the structure of the DNA molecule, or perhaps some high-flown moral principle. But this philosopher – a man with the strength of a lion and the heart of a child – gave an answer that sounds like a very bad joke. He said: “We shall all die!”

The Borderline of the Absolute

At first, you might think, “Well, thanks for nothing! I knew that already.” We all know we’re going to die, but we spend about ninety-nine percent of our energy pretending we don’t. We treat death as a dark, gloomy, hideous event that stalks us from behind. But why did he call it the “grandest” truth?

You see, in the hierarchy of truths, there is the Absolute Reality – the thing that is independent of time, space, and cause-and-effect. It just is. It’s infinite and conscious. But that Absolute is so far beyond our everyday “chatter” that we can’t even get a grip on it. The certainty of death, however, is a relative truth that sits right on the borderline. It’s the doorway. If you hold onto the fact of your own death long enough, and with enough courage, you eventually come face-to-face with the Infinite.

The Coward vs. The Hero

Most of us “harping on death” are just being cowards. We worry about it, we have “death-phobias,” and we die a thousand little deaths every day through anxiety. That’s not what he meant. He wanted us to face death with a “truth-seeking heart.”

He said that if you bear this truth in mind always – if a small part of your mind is permanently soaked in the reality of your eventual departure – a fascinating thing happens. The “inner spirit” wakes up. Your meanness vanishes. You stop being a “petty little ego” because you realize you don’t have time for it. You become practical in your work, you get a new vigor in your body, and people feel “uplifted” just being near you. Why? Because you’ve stopped playing the game as if you’re going to live forever.

Now, I’ll be honest with you – and he was honest, too – the immediate effect of meditating on your own death is that your heart breaks down. You feel a sense of despondency. You think, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” But if you persist, if you let the months and years pass while holding that thought, a new strength comes. You realize that the “constant thought of death is giving you a new life.”

The Hall of the Great Awakened

Every great figure who has ever “found out what’s what” had to pass through this gate. There was a young boy who was so determined to know the secret of death that he refused every bribe the universe offered him – wealth, long life, beautiful music – until the “King of Death” himself had to give up the secret. There was a prince who rode out of his palace and saw an old man, a sick man, and a corpse. He didn’t just look away and go back to his dancing girls; he stayed with that thought until he became “The Enlightened One.”

There was a young boy in a village who lost his father at age seven. While others were just crying, he was wandering into cremation grounds, looking at the smoke and asking, “Where did he go?” He didn’t stop until he found the Truth that transcends death altogether.

You might say, “But Alan, those are geniuses! I’m just an ordinary person.” But you see, there is no such thing as an “ordinary person.” Every one of us is a “potentially divine” genius. The power is exactly the same in everyone; it’s just a matter of where you point the lens.

The Shedding of the Layers

When you point that lens at death, your life starts to change in very specific ways.

Attachment: You used to be “hooked” on your career, your social status, and your collection of gadgets. But when you realize that your body will eventually be food for worms or a pile of ash, you stop being a “sensible person” who gets attached to shadows. You become free.

• Desire: Your mind used to be a whirlpool of “I want this, I want that.” But dwelling on death convinces

you that pursuing these endless desires is just a way of “hastening death.” You stop saying “yes” to every whim and start saying “yes” to the one thing that matters: the mystery of what lies beyond.

Anger and Fear: You don’t see people on their deathbeds “blowing their top” over a traffic jam. That’s the time to forgive. Well, if you’re always on your “deathbed” in your mind, you stop being angry. And you stop being afraid, because you’ve already faced the “big monster” every morning.

The Death of the Mind

The grandest of all truths eventually leads you to a staggering discovery. You realize that “I will die one day” actually means “I will be separated from my body.” It’s like changing a suit of clothes. You’ve changed this “body-dress” millions of times in the past. It’s a simple matter.

But the real problem-generator is the Mind. The mind is a “dress,” too. As long as you have a “mind-dress” full of selfish desires, you’ll keep looking for a “body-dress” to wear. The ultimate goal is the “death of the mind” – not losing your intelligence, but burning away the “ego-mind” that thinks it’s separate from the universe.

When that “mind-dress” is finally flung away through the grace of the universe, you are left pure and naked, like the original humans in the garden. You realize that you are the Unfettered Self – free, perfect, and immersed in eternal bliss. By loving death, you find that you can never die. You have passed through the doorway of the relative and entered the arms of the Immortal.