Still Here

So Im almost done reading a book entitled "Still Here" by Ram dass and I think it is great. It's his latest book that he's writin and the only one since he had his stroke. The book is geared more toward older people but it still has some good lessons in it. I mean we're all gunna be old one day anyway and are gunna have to face the same things. He mostly talks about the ultimate fear that everyone has in life and that is of course dying. He talks about how here in the west dying is a sort of thing to be scared of and shunned, to be "out of site, out of mind" in a way. Were as in more eastern culture death is something that is embraced and cherrished. I highly recommend reading this book or any book he has writin for that matter. I think the next one Im going to read is either "Be Here Now" or "The Psychedelic Experience". But anyway, reading this book has really brought the reality home to me, reality being that I'm going to die. We all are going to die, it's going to happen. No matter how much we try and not think about it or push it off, it's going to happen. I don't believe that death is something to be feared, something that we have to run away from. I think being mindful of our impending death day to day can make us feel more alive and in the moment and enjoy everyday we are givin. It really puts your ego drama into perspective.

The body dies, the ego structure dies, but we don't. It's the ego that is the one that is holding on and is afriad of dying. As Ram Dass says if you only think of yourself as this body and as your ego self then you are gunna be afraid to die. But that is not all that you are, those are only relatively real. We exist much deeper then what we percev as "real". We exist in those higher planes of conciousness, we exist as the one. Life is a round trip, we come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing. I want to think of death and not be depressed about it. I want to think of death as something that should be celebrated, as they do in other parts of the world. Not that it's not sad that someone or you just died, but in reality they're not gone.