Death as Love's Servant; Illness as Death's Servant

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This donkey, for years, has accepted on sheer faith, that its suffering from a chronic condition of less-healthy health was somehow "good." But its goodness remained hidden until recently.

For recently, an opportunity to leave this world behind did beckon, at times, rather strongly. Although, of course, there is always much that we seem to "lose" when we leave this world, the overall gain is so much greater to make it obvious that death is the servant of Love, not of the "devil," or fear, Love's conceptual opposite.

But how, exactly, does death serve Love? Squeezed into a tight emotional corner, the donkey was forced to ask this question until his "inner ears" rang, and then, threatened to fall off!:) To answer this question became a passion!

But one evening, the answer finally dawned: Here is how death serves Love: Death is not a "terrible" or even "bad" event. Although we do lose everything of this world, that loss is only temporary. Indeed, when twenty years pass on earth, that is only a few minutes in the afterlife state ("Homeworld").

Death serves Love by totally erasing all mistakes and errors, or by educating us out of them, through karmic consequences. It liberates us all into a brand-new world with the clean slate of a new beginning. Death introduces us to incomprehensible mercy, incredible forgiveness, and the complete awakening of, and to, grace. This is Love in its most "saving" or rescuing form; ultimately, Love liberates us from even this whole world of frustration, disappointment, dream, and nightmare. This makes death the servant of Love. This removes death from the category "bad," and places it in the opposite"-- "Good." In a word, death is a good thing.

But, locked and lost in the world of illusion, it is very, very difficult for us to wrap our minds around this stunning new perspective. What is "stunning" is the idea that death is sunny-- not a curse which throws the mind into a black, bottomless pit. For, instead, it awakens the Mind to a dazzling new identity as an immortal and nonmaterial Soul. We must reverse, within ourselves, the entire idea that death is bad, or that it is "punishment" for sin, created by a vicious and merciless god.

We need to begin to embrace death as a great gift instead. This is how Jesus, the Buddha, and other great mysticsages viewed death. And this is why so many mysticsaints died willingly-- or at a very early age. If the idea of death as "good" sounds a little nutty, it is-- by the standards of society and culture. But this is the very charge made by those ancient champions of logic, the Romans, against the early Christians, who often claimed that they could hardly wait to die!

This is how death serves Love. And disease (genetic or otherwise) serves death. How can this be good?

This is how: Sooner or later, we all need to leave this planet, this tiny life, in order to enter what some mystics call "the real life," the gigantic life as a supernatural and superhuman being, a nonphysical Soul that is already millennia old, and that lives always in perfect tranquility and utter bliss.

If we happen to be "blessed" with a deadly (lethal) condition, then, the problem of our leaving the earth is greatly simplified. For if it is the case that our bodies are trying to signal us that our time on earth is over, all that we have to do is nothing. For if we do nothing, then, nature takes over, and we leave this world.

A comedian once quipped, "I love nature, but I think she is trying to kill me!" Yes, nature is "trying to kill" everyone; and, ultimately, she does indeed bring us to the point of biodeath (which is not "psychodeath" or "pneumodeath.")

If we of Tao, when our time comes, simply relax into our bioprocesses, with fullest trust (faith) in the great and invisible Tao-Mind that controls all things, then, we can leave the planet in peace by simply allowing nature to "take her own course."

The Taoist is no fanatic. She does not drop all health-giving vitamins, minerals, herbs, or drugs, for they can make her life much richer; and if she is not willing to leave the planet-- if, for example, she thinks that her personal Tao is wanting her to stay on earth for a few more years-- then she continues to "resist nature," or act decisively out of selflove: She continues with the vitamins, medicines, etc. For taking her meds is a form of Love (selflove).

But things are very different when she hears the call of the Infinite, deep within the Mind, telling her that it is indeed her time to "go Home." When she hears this, and only when she hears it with crystal-clarity, then, she is free to stop taking the drugs, vitamins, or other supplements that "interfere healthily with nature" to keep her alive through chemical or "artificial" means.

She does not have even to face the terribly complex problems that face arguments for euthanasia, selfsuicide, doctor-assisted suicide, and related areas of enormous complexity. For, when she knows without doubt that she is being called to the Life far beyond this one, all that she has to do is nothing. For doing nothing, if she has a serious illness, is the easiest, the most effortless, solution in the entire cosmos. This is how weakness, or disease, can be the real gift of a loving God. If
she does nothing, in the most perfect Taoist sense, she will leave the earth. This is the great, and usually secret, immense blessing hidden within disease.

Btw, "disease" is so much more than mere "dis-ease." When you are battling disease, it is not reducible to saying, "I am uncomfortable." Much greater, often enormous, pain can result from disease (which is why some metaphysicists are so terrified of it). Some rather foolish people have tried to so reduce it, but it has many and complex roots, in both this life and previous ones.

When our time to leave does come, let us all hope that we are grown-up enough to approach the inevitable free of fear, and even saying "okay" to death itself. Silently praying, a million times, "Thy will be done," we can enter even the deathexperience without terror and horror. If we are very lucky-- or blessed-- God will provide a Way for us to leave by doing nothing!

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