What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death…

What is found now is found then. –  Kabir

I woke up this morning half dreaming The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It’s kind of a manual on how not to reincarnate, to be read by a priest next to the bedside of a newly deceased person. The newly released soul is walked through different opportunities to confront what haunts them. But each time they don’t succeed the next try gets more difficult, until they run out of chances and are reborn. It’s actually about facing our fears, because as this book says, we’re plagued by them even after death. But if we can confront what we fear the spell of rebirth is broken. There are even magic words to set us free. By turning to face what is most frightening and saying with absolute conviction, “you’re not real,” the spell is broken and the soul’s released. So that’s my very loose interpretation of the book, but it got me thinking about how we live our lives now, and how this instruction is just as valid in our day to day life. If we look at our lives we can see where we are in the same cycles of fear. What frightens us has us on the run. And we have a choice to make, we can either continue to run, which will guarantee the inevitable meeting with what we fear again, or we can turn to it and say, “you’re not real.” When we know that our greatest fears reside within us rather than on the outside we can break the pattern. Before you get too excited, the precursor to these words, and really believing them, is a lot of hard work.

All the inner work is preparation to be able to see our fears for what they are, a means of distracting us from what nourishes and heals us. They keep us preoccupied with pain and suffering so that we can’t see or appreciate the gifts we really do have in our lives. Instead fear rules what we do and say, holding us captive from living the life we want. Maybe we are afraid of dying alone, being homeless, not having enough love, or money, or worrying if our spouse will have a heart attack, take your pick, the list is endless. Meanwhile life is going on all around us, and we’re missing it. In order to live our lives to the fullest we have to be able to see through the charade of our fears, and choose to live more of what we love rather than be ruled by what frightens us.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a manual for living as much as it is for dying. It tells us about the glory of what could be if we dig out from what holds us prisoner. There may be no actual bolts on the door, or chains around our feet, but our thoughts keep us bound because we can’t see them for what they are. We can’t peek around the corner of our fears to see what else the future might hold, or where an alternate path might lead. The truth is there’s more going on than just what we see. The first fear we face doesn’t have to be a Goliath. In fact there’s a better chance of success if we start with something that’s small, it prepares us for what really stops us in our path. If we turn to our fear, no matter what it might be, and call it out for what it really is, we will have the strength to move past it and into a future that holds more meaning and joy. In the end it’s our own courage that breaks the patterns that keep us stuck. This is an everyday liberation, one small chain at a time.

Here’s to breaking the spell of darkness.

kb