I really can say that besides my body being very weak and sick, my heart is opening to love. I can feel now that life has a meaning, and this is to give and receive love. I know that life is short. Then the most important thing I´m learning with the cancer is to focus on what I feel in the heart. It is really a challenge to use this precious gift of being alive to do what matters the most, which is to share peace.
Bhakta
Letter written a few weeks before leaving his body at the Summer Retreat of 2005.
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In this 3rd week of the retreat, we open to look at what death does to us. As we go deeper into our truth, we are able to look at it with more distance, more honesty. For many of us, death is very hard to face. But the only thing we know for sure in life, is that we will die.
Now, in the three day process “Never Born, Never Died”, we are given the opportunity to investigate what death means to us, and how this can bring us deeper, closer to our true self.
We slowly realize that death is also here and now. It is not something that happens in a distant future. It is a total part of life, along with birth – all three are inseparable in our lives. We understand that we have to befriend death.
In Satsang, Swaha makes it very clear. Reading Kabir, he helps us understand on a deeper level what all mystics are telling us: Everything, everything, everything will go. We have to meet the fear of death – not only befriend it.
Anything that you’re afraid of, anything unknown, you have to investigate. You have to meet it, face to face. And from the very first time you come, I always teach you that: be courageous. Look at yourself in new ways. Don’t be afraid of the unknown.
Vasant Swaha
In the process, we are challenged, challenged to meet death. Simple exercises help us look at our fears, our life, our ways of living love. We see what really matters. We discover that we can live our lives more beautifully. Now. And that sharing this love makes us go even deeper.
This is the only way; you have to meet it. You have to investigate it. You have to taste it. And when you understand that, when you accept that you will die, then you will get very sensitive, very quiet, very humble. Not arrogant at all, because you know that soon we will go; what’s the big fuss?
If you live in fear you die in fear. If you live in Love you die in Love. It is that simple.
Vasant Swaha
Somehow, somewhere, we understand something: when fear of death goes, surrender to love happens. And then we understand that beyond all somethings, there is a silence that just is.
As this sinks in, fear withers and we find ourselves in a beautiful dance of gratitude.
