by Jules Martin

Created on: March 03, 2010

‘The secret of life is to ‘die before you die’ – and find that there is no death.’ Eckhart Tolle

I recently spoke to someone who is suffering from a terminal illness. She had asked why should she bother to study or save money or work towards building a better future for herself, in fact why should she do anything when she was not going to be here much longer?

I asked her ‘Why would anybody bother?’

Life is not about death. We will all pass – it is inevitable. Not knowing how long we have to experience this life is what keeps us going. There is a quiet sense of immortality that resides in us, although our focus on it is in different places. Life is found in living, not in the expectation of inevitable death. If we all focussed on the fact that we would die at a certain age, how would it change our perspective on life and the way we live it?

When Tolle is speaking about death in the above quote he is initially speaking about the death of the ego. The ego distracts us from our true self and the present moment. When we are able to disidentify with the ego we are left with our true self – our eternal nature – and we come to realise that in truth there is no death of what is real – there cannot be, and anything that is not of our true self is not real.

This idea brings with it questions about perception, illusions and most significantly the illusion of separation. Past and future will maintain the illusion of separation from our true self which is why it is beneficial to consider the power that can be found in the present moment.

Whatever is eternal cannot die. So with the death of the illusion of death, and in this instance time, all that remains is the realisation that there is no death. Our true and real self is eternal in nature. Our essence is eternal in nature. Our source is eternal in nature. We are not real in the past, we are not yet in the future the only time we are our true self is in the powerful present moment which is eternal in nature also. It is always the present moment.

So when you think about Tolle’s quote above, the easiest way to understand his idea is to live for today – truly live for today, squeeze as much out of it as possible... and even more powerfully, remember to live for the Now!

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