The image of ourself, the "I"-thought, does not want to die. It wants to stay around and enjoy its own drama. If the "I-thought" smells its death, it lights up with fear. That fear, that anxiety, is the primary experience of the separate self. We think we are terrified of not existing. But when we don't exist there is no terror. This is not philosophy or speculation. We have all seen this, and we all know this. All of our "peak" experiences, as the intensity of love, occurs in our absence. In this resolution of duality, the disappearance of "me" and "other," there is a lucidity of experience, not belonging to anyone, that is more compelling than anything "we" could ever create on our own. We spend so much time trying to appease our apparent separation from life by collecting new experiences. Has anyone noticed that we do not exist at the end of the rainbow of ecstatic joy? We must die in order for rapture to be present. In this way, dying is good.

As the ideas and images and fears and memories of the separate self are washed out into the sea of pure awareness, a new person is born. That person has no name and no birth place. There is a soft light shining in the eyes, an encompassing heart, a forgiving mind. The hands are open, not grasping, not pushing. Without doing, things are done. When help is needed, help is offered.

There is no point in preserving the very thing that obstructs the experience of the Self. We are happy to die, to drown in the ocean of infinite being, consciousness, and bliss. We only become afraid when we think about it. When we see that what we want requires the death of our smallness, the "I"-thought smells death and becomes afraid. It won't easily die. We have to make it into a game. Tell it that dying is fun, and that after it dies, it can go shopping.