Letting go of the belief in death provides more relief than 100 farts all at once and frees our energy to focus on the beautiful life here and now. Releasing the fear of death anxiety is one of the most powerful transformation experiences I remember experiencing because it opened the door immediately RIGHT THIS MOMENT to eternal life. With practical matters at hand, we might say "Wait this sounds like religion?" or "I don't have time for this crap" or "I am not afraid of dying" or "That's great but how do I enjoy my life today?" as I frequently said in the face of information like this for most of my life. While I am grateful you might be one of those that have asked or wondered how I have so much energy and passion for what I do each day, the HOW of that is that I no longer am committing a huge amount of my energy in anxiety related to the fear of death. Will you read, watch, or listen to the whole story in this post to learn how to unlock or remember this experience for yourself today?
Listen to the audio version (Day 80) of this blog post on my "Happier People Podcast."
Thank you very much to @gmichelbkk for converting the transcription of the YouTube video from GoTranscript into this beautiful post for Steemit, which is much faster to read than the video and has illustrations!
There is something different about you
I was talking to a lady the other day, she was looking at me and she said, "You know, there's something different about you when I look at you." What I often think people mean is that they see I'm not scared, that there's not that fear of death that's behind it, that I feel truly liberated and free.
Now, this is the same thing you see when you look at a child.
What I will do with you in this post is share with you my experience, both believing in death, and then letting that go. I hope this will be really helpful for you because I want to give you, pass on what has already been given to me. I want you to have a life filed with abundance today. A life that is magical and full of joy. This is the best I've come up with to help with that today.
Let's talk about death and show how powerful this is in life, and then I'll show you exactly what worked for me to get released from death based on simply following suggestions by others.
Learning about death as a child
At about 10 years old, when I was in third grade, my grandfather passed away. I loved my grandfather. When I was a baby, he used to throw me up in the air and I'd stay up late and wait for him to come home, and I loved Grandpa. He was awesome.
Then, grandpa died and I remember the moment, I was sitting laying down on a couch reading a book. I remember the moment I started believing in death. I realized, "Oh my God, Grandpa died therefore, I must be able to die."
Then I started getting scared, "Oh my God, I can die?"
Life suddenly seemed that it had this horribleness to it. I remember the utter terror and fear I felt sitting there on the couch in third grade reading a book and realizing that I could die.
I remember a lot of times in my adult life just screaming in bed at night by myself and being horribly afraid of dying. I remember having all these twisted fantasies when I was a police officer of dying on the job. Just the kind of things you see on TV, I would do a traffic stop, a guy comes out and shoots me. My life used to have death twisted all up in everything.
Fear of death
When you see someone who's truly happy and free, in my experience, it's usually a person who is not afraid of dying. This even goes right till the end of life. You see people who have dignity and graces, and they're going to pass away.
I had a friend who was in his 70s, he had cancer and he just died last year. He had dignity and grace. At the end of his life, he wasn't sitting there mad and frustrated, "How dare life do this to me!" He had some dignity and grace. He made the most of the days he had left and passed on gracefully.
That comes when you don't have a fear of death. When you don't have a fear of death, it’s hard to fear anything else.
Why fear the mortgage payment not going through?
Why fear running out on money?
You're an immortal being who has forever. Without the fear of death, life is pretty easy to face. It's the fear of death that makes everything difficult.
I often got so to the point of being afraid of death, that I simply wanted to get it over with. Let's just experience this whole death thing. Let's just die and let me just get into it. I often went around with this huge fear of death, and yet I had this huge desire to actually experience and go through death.
I remember that I used to jump in the pool and as soon as my head went under water, there'd be this thought there, "This is what it's going to be like when you die."
Then the terror would come up, and then so I just got to the point I didn't like jumping and going under the water in the pool anymore because I didn't want to think about what it was going to be like when you die. At one point, then I was literally killing myself with all the horrible things I was putting in my body, just gallons of vodka and rum, and all the foods I was eating.
In my mind, I had that one night where I saw ghosts. I saw my dead grandfather and my father, and his father.
I've heard from other people that as you get closer to death, you start actually getting visited by the dead. It's almost like a little welcoming committee, like, "Hey, you're going to back and join us. Here's a little preview."
"Wow, I really am going to die. I'm going to get to actually experience death."
I was so afraid of dying that it actually motivated me, "Well, I better get my life together. I better stop drinking. I better do whatever it takes to stop drinking. I better start eating better."
Finally, I got so close to death that my fear of death kicked in and actually saved my life, but then it came back to the same problem. Once my life was better, I wasn't poisoning and killing myself on a daily basis, that fear of death started to become right in my face.
I don't have time to die!
For a lot of us as adults, our fear of death operates in the background.
The person in traffic goes, just tenses, "Get out of my way!"
"People at work and the boss are giving me a hard time."
A lot of us just work with this fear of death in the background.
It's not like right up in your face like, "Oh my God, I'm going to die."
It's this background tension like, "I'm going to stay really busy all day. I'm going to just work. I'm going to work all day and stay busy, and then I won't have time to think about death. I'm not going to have time to think about death because I'm going to be working and doing so much that death is not even going to have time for me today."
I have a family member who got this nearly fatal cancer, and they were telling us, "I don't have time to die, I got stuff to do. I don't have time to die."
This is a ridiculous thing when you think about it, "Time to die" doesn't even make sense.
What started happening with me as I began living a healthier life, was this fear of death coming right in my face. As I started the process of confession and healing, my fear of death started to look at me right in the face.
I'd be walking around thinking, "Well, what am I going to do if my wife dies? Well, what am I going to do if my mom dies?"
After months of not poisoning myself with alcohol anymore, and months of reading self-help books, practicing healing, instead of all these background problems like finances and all these things that normally occupy our minds, my fear of death came out of the background and it stepped right into the foreground almost like, "Here I am, you better respect me or else."
A meditation on death
I was reading this book called, "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh who is a Buddhist monk, and he was writing this letter to all the Buddhist monks back in Vietnam where he lived. I think this was during the war era. He wrote this letter to them talking about how to be a good Buddhist monk. I got recommended to read that book and it says in it, “Buddhist monks do a meditation on death.”
I listened to the whole audiobook and learned how you do the mediation on death. One day when I went to step into the shower, here comes the death thing, "What if your wife dies?"
Like the Grim Reaper coming up trying to tell me what to do leading with, "What if your wife dies?"
Now, normally what I would do is just run from that thought, "Oh no, oh no, my wife is not going to die. She's taking good care of herself and I'm working really hard. My wife's not going to die."
Normally, I just run away from that and start thinking. This time I got in the shower and I said, "Let's go. Let's go. What if my wife dies? What then?"
Then, it comes around like the Grim Reaper is like, "Well, that didn't work. What if you die? What about you dying?"
That to me was the real fear, "Whoa, what about me? Well, not me. No, not me!"
I'd tried to face it a lot of times as an adult, but if you are sick and your life is a disaster, it doesn't even almost help. You have to get a little bit better and get some help, love and support before you can really face it lots of times.
This time, I stood my ground and I said, "Yes, what if I die? Let's look at that. What is it going to look like when I die? What is it going to look like?"
Instead of turning around and fleeing in terror, I stopped and I said, "Yes, let's picture this. I'm going to use this mind I've got. We're going to run the picture of Jerry dead simulation. Yes, we're going to go through it in painful detail just like Thich Nhat Hanh recommended his monks do for a Buddhist meditation."
I said, "All right, well, let's start. Where's the corpse? Let's picture a heart attack, I'm dead.”
All right, let's picture the body.
The body is laid out. There's my dead body and maybe it looks like it does today, maybe it's a lot older, but there's my dead body, completely dead.
That's it, done!
Everything else is finished.
Here comes the wife, or the family, or the kids, "Oh my God, Jerry is dead. Jerry is dead, oh, no."
Then I pictured everyone crying and the body getting carried out and stuck in a funeral home for viewing.
"Oh look, there's Jerry's dead body."
I pictured it, at the funeral home where everyone was viewing, "Oh no, Jerry's dead."
Then we're going to move that in from the funeral home. I set my will up to be cremated. So let's roll the body on over, shovel it into the oven there. Now, let's start the flames up, there it goes, the whole body up in flames. It's burning.
Oh, the smell of it! Think of the smell, that burning flesh inside the incinerator, the hair, everything to teeth, the bones even going up, the fire is so hot.
I don't want to die!
By this point, in the shower, I was thinking about this and I was just sobbing, "No, it's not fair. I don't want to die."
I'm making this funny now because it's two years later, but this was really hard. I was screaming, "I don't want to die."
I was all by myself at home and my wife was at work, I was scared, "I don't want to die."
I continued thinking about him like, "Let's see what it looks like for this body to die."
That wasn't enough and the Grim Reaper came back, "Well, that didn't work. How about throwing your wife and your mother in there?"
Then, I remembered my father who has already died and who went through this process, except that there was no viewing at the funeral home. He just got straight stuffed in the incinerator.
Now, Mom's got his ashes at home. I thought of all that.
Think about your dad and your wife burning. Then just everyone you love, let's throw them all in the incinerator, burn them all up.
By this point, I just cried and cried, "Stop!"
I just cried and I had to sit down in the shower, because I was bent over and I was crying so hard. I finally just sat down for safety. I didn't want to slip and break a leg, and then actually die in the shower right then and there. I sat down and just cried, "No!"
A miracle happened
All of a sudden my mind couldn't take it anymore.
I just talked to a family member last night and they said, "You know, from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, my mind is just thinking one thing after another, after another, after another."
Well, you give the mind enough to think about and eventually, it's liable to stop.
This stopped my mind. It eventually got to the point it couldn't take it anymore.
The wife and all the family, then the friends getting rolled into the cremator and burned up, it couldn’t continue, it stopped. It just said, "Enough, enough."
It shut up in my mind, and I stopped thinking.
I was sitting there in the shower, the water was all over me, I was bare butt right on the tile, and I was just sitting there crying. I was not thinking about anything. I had no thoughts at all just sitting there.
Then it was like being reborn. Here I just experienced what it was like to die. It almost seemed ridiculous, "Here I am taking a shower."
I just went through all the worst fears and things, and I was taking a shower.
"I'm sitting in here, the water is falling down on me. I'm taking a shower."
"I am alive, I'm not dead, I am actually alive."
I just looked around and it felt like being reborn.
A lot of what I hear in spiritual transformations is that it is like a laughing revelation or a laughing fit. Sometimes there will be workshops. I've never been to one but there'll be someone speaking and someone in the background will just suddenly have revelation or enlightenment, or just get it, and they will just go off laughing.
I remember one of Eckhart Tolle's things I was listening to, there was this lady that you could hear laughing in the background for like 30 minutes.
She was just laughing, but she was far enough away from the microphone and you could just hear her laughing in the background when Eckhart Tolle stopped speaking.
That's what I had. It suddenly seemed so ridiculous that I was alive after facing all these grim images. I was sitting there thinking, "This is just absurd. I'm taking a shower right now. There's water inside this building, how cool is that?"
If you've seen Bad Boys II, it was like when Martin Lawrence gets that ecstasy pill and he's rubbing Will Smith's couch, "You ever just rub your leather? Oh, this couch, Mike."
What a lot of us look for is simply that state of no thinking. Out of that state of no thinking comes all the love and joy in the universe.
My fear of death just left
I suddenly sat there in the shower and my fear of death just left.
After having faced it, after having lived through it, what was left there to be afraid of? I know exactly what it looks like.
Roll me into the cremator, turn the flame on and what you can see is that I'm not actually dead, that I've separated from the body, that my soul bonded and created this body, and when it's done with it, it will leave.
Then you've got a whole different reality. You're no longer a body stuck in this world, victim of your parents messing around, you're an immortal soul who purposefully bonded with this body, who chose to come in here and who can't die.
Then you get this sense when you go through and experience the fear of death, you return to that childlike wonder.
I used to wonder, "Why do people like babies so much?"
You see in the babies' eyes that they are not afraid of dying, which obviously causes some problems. My daughter doesn't have a sense that she could fall off the edge of something and whack her head, and that'd be it. She's fearless, she's starting to respect her limitations, but you can see that she's not afraid of death. She has a clear, angelic, pure look in her eyes.
You can tell when a kid has started to become afraid of death, there's this change that happens to them.
Most of the adults, the people that inspire us, that you love, I would guess that we, they, us, have in common is facing that fear of death and moving through it. Once you've done that, you have complete freedom from the world.
So what?
All these other problems seem in their place truly trivial.
What if the bills don't get paid this month?
We'll figure it out!
It's not to say that you don't go plan. In fact, I've taken better care and planning of my bills than ever since this happened.
It doesn't have the heaviness now. It doesn't have that death fear to it like, "Well, if I don't get the bills paid, I'm just going to die."
Revelation
Life has this light-hearted approach. The word used for this in religious transformations often is called "revelation."
When you face your fear of death, you see that really it's an illusion. I started believing in death in third grade, what did I believe in before that?
All I knew before that was eternal life. Up until 10 years old, all I knew was eternal life. I did not have a belief that things die. I understood life changes. I understood that you might move from one house to another, that Mom or Dad might act different from day to day, but I didn't have any belief in dying.
It seems today that the whole death idea is ridiculous. You can't spot it, it's like a criminal that goes around and you find the bodies, but you never spot death itself. That's because it doesn't exist. There is no death, there's simply change.
If you look into the phenomenon of near-death experiences, you'll find a lot more into this. If you look into your religion, if there's a religion you are familiar with, it likely will have something in the context of revelation or nirvana.
Once you see that you don't die, this goes into a state where you don't want anything. Because when you believe in death you need things to fill you up, you need to be made better. You essentially need salvation from death. Well, once you face your experience, once you’ve faced death, then you no longer need salvation. You've been given it. If you want salvation, all you need to do is face your fear of death.
I share this with you today so I don't forget it. When so much of the rest of the world believes in death, if I don't remember the gifts I've been given, if I don't share them with you, I could take on the belief in death again.
Sure, in the big picture, it's no big deal because I'll be relieved of that at some point.
Again, this makes life beautiful because all there is in life is love and joy. All the pain, misery and cruelty that you see, they all fade away and are forgotten.
You get a sense once you face your fear of death how much cruelty and pain, and suffering, and misery you've forgotten. I've forgotten an eternity of that already and all I have right now is the love, peace, and joy of living.
Now, one of the coolest things is that I actually made a video right after this happened to me. It has been pretty well received.
The video on YouTube is called "How I Found Happiness in Life by seeing beyond and into Death."
My exercise today is a part of "Happier People Podcast," and it is to remember what I've learned because I learned to believe in death. If I don't remember that I unlearned that, I'm vulnerable, essentially to learn it again, to take on again a new belief in death.
That's why I share this with you.
I want to remember what I've already learned and in remembering it, this should give you the same chance that Han and Eckhart Tolle, and all the people who helped me, gave me to experience this.
I want to be a part of helping you experience this as well because when you get into seeing beyond death, the whole time thing gets broken down.
I could live everyone's life everywhere. I have all of eternity. Once you really comprehend that, there is no time.
I have time to live your life, live mine again and live everyone's.
I'm free.
I’m immortal.
I can do anything and everything in all the universe, which gives me a lot of motivation. I want to share and help you have the best life because I might have to live your life next. So I want you to have a really good life. I want you to have an awesome life so that when I live your life next, it'll be really good.
At some deep level almost with these things, it's like you remember having created this.
I've realized that someday, I may read this and not remember creating it. Rather it's in this body or another.
There's some really cool things that happen after transcending the fear of death.
My exercise, remember this today, as I go about my day handling the normal daily things: paying bills, doing work and seeing my family. Remember this in the context of my day.
Thank you very much for reading this blog post version of Day 80 of Happier People Podcast.
How I Found Happiness in Life by seeing beyond and into Death.
Now this is the written version of the video that I published on January 14, 2015. This is right after the transformation that happened. This video got well received with 27 likes and one dislike, and 5,000 views.
I just had an amazing experience that I will share with you that might be really helpful if you're struggling with something, like an addiction, compulsive thinking, frustration, fear, or just plain pissed off, angry or annoyed.
What I'm going to share with you is the way I found out of it. It's a way that anyone can find out of it. You can use this whenever you are ready, including right now. I wouldn't use it while you're driving or doing something else, it is pretty crazy.
Here's exactly what just happened to me.
The last few days, I've been struggling with compulsive thinking. Getting into negative thoughts and fear, and worrying like, “Oh, what's happening? What's going to happen? What if this happens? What if that happens?”
I've been noticing that I've been struggling to appreciate the moment.
I've been doing things like sitting with my wife in the morning and noticing, “Hey, why am I not appreciating this? Right, this is a great moment. This is a beautiful thing having time with my wife.”
I've noticed several times these last few days:
Why am I not appreciating?
Why am I not here?
Why am I stuck in my head with all these crazy thoughts?
Why can't I appreciate what I have right now?
These things come out in all kinds of ways.
They've come out for me before in addictions, in bad behavior, in acting out, being mean to people, being a bad employee, being a bad friend, being a bad son and husband. All these things come out in the same way and it's all the same basic frustration.
Here's what just happened to me today.
If you can let this happen to you or find your own way of doing it, it provides absolute, complete, total relief. It requires confrontation of the most thing you might be afraid of and that's death.
Here's what happened
I went to the gym. I've been going along my day with this anxiety, frustration and fear, hanging over me a little bit.
I've been listening to an Eckhart Tolle retreat series. Eckhart Tolle has been really inspirational and helpful for me in my spiritual journey.
I was listening to his book and I was eating a sandwich. He talked about appreciating and noticing the forms now it takes.
I was looking at the sandwich.
I was looking at the half sandwich.
I'd already eaten the other half and I looked at it.
I thought how cool this is right here. I just made this. I normally just make a sandwich and eat it, and don't even hardly think about it.
I looked at them like how cool is this?
It's right here. It's right now.
It's about to be gone.
I'm about to eat this and then it's gone.
Sure I can go make another one, but this one sandwich in this exact form I've made, it is here and it's going to be gone. I ate the sandwich, and then I walked into the shower.
Then I got this moment of clarity.
I went into something my mom said has really helped me.
My dad passed away last year and it's been really hard on my mom. They were married 30 years. This thought of what Mom said came to me, “I'd give anything to have another day with you Dad even a bad one.”
I thought about that and I remembered what my wife said this morning.
She said, “This time with you, when we sit on the couch quietly for 10 or 20 minutes now each morning, is one of my favorite parts of the day.”
I really felt that compliment right when she said it, but I had my armor up. I was still in that frustration, that anxiety, and annoyed. I saw it was a beautiful thing she'd said. It couldn't quite sink in.
That compliment, what my mom said about my dad, and the sandwich, all collided.
Let me explain exactly how that can happen in the mind.
I looked at it and realized, and I looked at everything around me. I went into not being here. The certainty that this form, this body, this face, everything I do, everything, whatever is here in my life that I call my life, including my wife, my mom, my family, everyone will die for sure.
At some point, none of us were here to start with.
I went deeper into that and thought exactly the place of nothing, where that is.
A place where this form is gone, where my wife is gone.
A place where everything I care about, my dogs, my brothers and sisters, my cousins, my niece and nephews, everyone's all gone and dead.
No one even remembers.
There's no trace left.
Absolute nothing.
I went deep and deep into that.
At first, it was awful.
It was awful to think from an eagle point of view or to think and to see everything just disappear.
But I've kept going into it and I focused on what Mom said, and the compliment my wife gave me, and the sandwich.
I'm just like the sandwich
I've been put together.
My mom was very generous to raise me, and my dad to have me and raise me for so many years.
I've been put together just like I put together that sandwich.
At some point, life is just going to eat me.
And that's it!
This form is gone forever and that's okay.
I went deep into that thought and understanding, and knowledge of death. Understanding that beyond the nothing, beyond all of these forms is eternal life. That eternal life that Jesus talked about. That idea of Nirvana, that is all right here right now.
That's the awareness and noticing everything.
It’s tough to explain this so I'll just tell you what happened.
I went deep into that and when I pictured my wife being gone, when I looked from a place where everyone was dead, at first it was awful. My wife was already gone and burned up, and cremated, which is easier for me to see now that my dad's gone.
I immediately started crying and the tears came.
Then I saw that for myself too, this body was gone, deteriorated, burned, and not even remembered.
When I went to that place, all of the spinning thoughts in my head stopped. All of the thinking about what if, everything was just shattered.
All of these compulsive thoughts that I've had for almost all of my life were shattered, “What do I need to do next. What time is it, what am I doing? Who's doing this, what's happening to me? How do I feel? What do I want?"
All these compulsive thoughts were shattered because in the place of death there is nothing, there are no worries, no concerns, nothing to care about, and nothing to be afraid of.
When I went to that place, and then came down to look at my body again. By this point I was in the shower just sobbing, picturing my wife being gone. When I came back to that place, something ridiculous happened.
Going to a place of death and non-existence
Then I could see the miracle of being here right now.
Going to a place of death and non-existence, and then coming back into this moment. I was here and it was as if I had been dead and dropped back into my body again.
I was blown away.
I went from crying to laughing hysterically.
I don't know how long I was in there, but I just started laughing and it was so ridiculous. I looked down at my hands like I had never seen them before.
The way you would feel if you died and got stuck back in a body again. You'd feel like it was a miracle. You would look down at everything for the first time like, "Wow!"
The same way you see a little baby looking at the world.
That sense of wonder, that unconstrained, undefined looking where you just watch and see the world, and look around at it like, “What is going on here?”
I was in the shower and I had been crying, going into the thought of death and losing my wife, and the whole stream of thoughts and consciousness shattered. There was peace and quiet. The peace of death, the peace of God, the stillness where everything is okay.
Once I came back into that, I looked around and I realized that my body was here, this was so cool. As if I just got issued a new one, not regarding what I just did or what I might do, but it was here right in that moment. It was so cool!
I started laughing hysterically and just wiping the mist of the shower, and looking up the water like I had just came back from death and got stuck in my body again.
How cool is that?
The miracle is to see from death. See this life from a place of nothing and it's so cool. Everything is so cool from a point of view of nothing.
It's cool, it's here.
I was in the shower like I’d never showered before. I was standing out of the water and I turned it up hotter to experience it like, “Oooh.” I turned it down real cold and felt like, "Wow, that's cold." Then I turned it back to where it was nice and pleasant.
Just a childlike fresh look on life.
This has never happened to me before. This was weird and it was so cool at the same time.
I've been on a spiritual journey, I've struggled with a lot of problems in my life: addictions and a lot of acting out, negative behavior, rudeness, selfishness, a lot of things like that. I have discovered that not taking this form so seriously, but looking from a place of nothing, looking from a place of death, helps me appreciate everything.
I feel alive, I am alive
I am, I am here right now.
It's so cool and nothing else matters. Not what happened yesterday, not what's going to happen tomorrow, not what's going to happen in 10 minutes or what you're going to think of this post. It doesn't matter.
I did feel compelled to share this with you because of how much I've struggled in my life and I would love for you to experience the same thing because ultimately, I believe you and me are not any different. We're all part of the same one life.
I want you to have access to this infinite spiritual power that I and millions more people on the planet are starting to wake up to. One way to go into it is by seeing through death.
When your eyes see through someone who's dead, look as if you are dead, look as if the people you care about are dead, the things you care about are dead and gone, there's infinite power and peace from that point of view. You can come back into being aware of the body as if you just got issued a new one.
Now, I understand that this might not make any sense at all, but I'm doing my best to put into words something that was just incredibly powerful, and is still powerful. This helps me to be free from addictions, from compulsive thinking, from a nasty, rude and selfish behavior that plagued me my whole life. I can go, I am always in that place of stillness.
I am, that is where I am.
That is my soul, if you want to call it that, God. That is where ultimate reality is in.
This form is something cool. It's something to have fun with and to be played around with. It’s something that's here now and gone soon enough.
I hope that sharing this with you has given you the ability to know that you can go into this place anytime you want to, that fundamentally you are not your body or your thoughts, or what you've done, or what you're going to do. You are simply that which is aware of all of this, that's here to experience life.
You are that little kid who just is looking around at their body like, “What is this?”
That's you!
You are sitting on everything you ever need.
I saw this homeless lady today out begging on the corner. I usually would avert my eyes from her because I don't want to see what’s unpleasant. Today I looked at her. The thought that came was that she doesn't even realize she's out there all day trying to get things given to her, and she already has everything she needs.
She looked utterly miserable and she eventually couldn't look at me as I just stared at her like, “Wow.”
She's out here and she's just like me. The only difference might be that she doesn't know, she has everything inside, she's hoping people will give her. She doesn't need to ask for money. She already has all of the wealth, power and beauty in her life that she wants. You do too and I do, and we all do. There's nothing you can get that will satisfy you forever.
All of life is now
You have everything right now right at this moment that can satisfy you forever. There is no "then" and there is no "was." All of life is now. There is nothing else all of eternity. Eternal life is simply realizing now. The past and the future are constructions of the mind, they're helpful for practical things like paying bills. They're helpful for things like realizing I should make a video and a post, and that maybe it will be useful for you.
But ultimately, there is only now. Now is all that's real. The past and the future are imaginations. That always plagued me reading history books. Like why is the past seem so muddy and the future so unclear?
This is because it's imaginary, it's not real. Now is all that is real. Now will take many different forms, including one where this body is not part of it anymore. That's okay.
When I looked from a place of death, I can see life. When I'm stuck in the everyday rush, and hurrying with anxiety, like “Oh, I got to get this done,” when I'm stuck in that utter misery and suffering, the liberation I found is that I can leave that any time I want to.
The first step is to notice that I'm in that, even if you just realize, “Man, I'm really anxious today or I'm really having a hard time with this today,” you're never upset for the reason you think you are. The only reason there ever is to be upset is that you're not connected with reality, with now.
A practical tool for me is to try to look from death. If my wife's giving me a hard time, I look from what Mom said about Dad, “I would give anything to have another day with him.” I've got today with my wife. I'm grateful for it. I've got today with this body. I'm grateful for that.
If you want to get out of all your pain and suffering, that's all you have to do. Go to a place of death, and hopefully you don't have to take your form, your body there, to death, but go mentally there where your mind's afraid to go.
I am amazed because I don't remember that I've ever had a laughing fit quite like this before, it was as if I was crazy and yet, it was all ultimate, complete, utter joy, complete relief from all of pain and suffering. Utter beauty and peace, the peace that you would think of when you would leave your body and come back into it.
Beautiful, you have that. You have everything you need right now. You can do this right now. Even just hearing this when now is right, you'll know it. I'm grateful you spent this time with me. I hope this has been useful for you. You are all I care about because you are me, we are all one life.
I've made this because it felt like the right thing to do and that's how I live my life. I do what feels right and the easiest way to see what's right is to look from a place of death because in there, when there's nothing, it seems to be very clear what there is, and holding on and appreciating to what I have now, that's the right thing to do.
I share that with you with the hope that I've communicated to you what I've felt, I thank you for reading this, thank you for sharing this time with me.
If this has been helpful for you, please let me know that I should keep making these posts. This is something new, please let me know to keep doing this, whether it's a comment or an upvote, or however this appears for you.
If you want to do something good and you felt positive, share this with someone who needs it, share this with your friend or your parent, or your sister, your wife, your son, share it with someone who maybe can use it.
Thank you.
Watching my own video live 2 years later
I just watched my own video live for the first time and that was really cool. It’s weird to look at that, it's almost like someone else made it. That was two years ago. My face was bigger because I had about 50 pounds or 20 plus kilograms. My whole body is lighter now.
That was awesome. I'm really glad I made that. I got quite emotional just watching the video again and that's so cool.
I'm very grateful that so many people helped me to experience that because I wouldn't have experienced that on my own. A lot of people showed me and explained to me exactly how that happened for them. The cool thing was I did what they suggested and it worked for me too.
Now two years later, my life has continued to snowball on all the positive effects of that since then. I'm very grateful for everyone. That was one of the first videos I made like that. That was one of the first spiritual or self-help videos I made and I've made three or four hundred more since then.
I'm grateful for all the love and feedback, and I'm honored to be here with you today. I'm really excited to be alive and to share this with you.
Now, I noticed some comments that what my mind did a lot, I tried to become a better person a lot of my life, I tried to experience things like this, but my mind would divert me. I would start working towards something like this and my mind would divert me. It'd say, “Oh, forget about all this BS, just be who you are and do what you need to do today.”
My mind would say all kinds of things like that or would say things like, “Oh, you don't have time to make one of those spiritual videos, you need to be making money. No one cares about that crap anyway.”
My mind would do whatever it took to divert me from looking at these things I just shared. I'm grateful, it takes a big leap of faith to see that getting grounded and getting connected with all those deep questions brings immense power into doing all the things I do every day, like making my videos and my business online. What I shared in that original video has brought unbelievable power into my business.
Now if I'd simply tried to be myself, which implies no change, an idea of myself implies that things were and always have been a certain way. This brings tremendous power out into life. There's nothing more worth doing than remembering these things every day. Now, the kind of work I do with all these creative things, if I don't have these spiritual connected things in mind, the work I produce is just terrible.
It's helpful because in a lot of other situations I could get away with just pushing through and let me go in and get hurry up in the car.
I used to hurry up straight to work, I’d jump straight out of bed, get my clothes on and go straight to work. I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't take any time. Today, I get down and pray every morning. I read books as soon as I can in the morning.
I like this quote I saw the other day. "If you're in a hurry, it's hard to get anything done because you're in such a hurry to go somewhere, you're always messing more things up."
I noticed that when I carefully and peacefully work one step at a time, I tend to not make as many mistakes. In the contrary, when I'm in a hurry and running around, I make mistakes and those mistakes slow me down so much that I literally could have just walked there slowly and got there faster.
Thank you for experiencing it with me. I hope this has been helpful for you. If this has been useful to you, would you please share this with someone because that will help you. I'm sharing this with you out of my own self-interest because I want to feel good today. The best way I could think of is to share something that's helped me so much in my life so that you may have it if you choose to have it in your life today.
Then, hey, I feel good out of giving you something with the hope that it helps you feel good.
Thank you, hope you have a wonderful day today !
If you found this post helpful on Steemit, would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed? If you would like me to follow you, would you please read this post next?
Love,
Jerry Banfield
What a post! A lot of time went into this. This is amazing Jerry! Keep up the great work! It's indeed helping the community grow. <3
Jerry again- you rock. So glad im part of this amazing growing comunity ✌️
Yes he does, Jerry is also so positive. He is an awesome human being!
Smart comment strategy I like it!
Glad that someone like it :)
Kinda new in this all ✌️
@freddyfish love your comment and thank you for encouraging me to keep doing more posts like this because my mind says "no one will like these inspirational posts" when I feel these are some of the greatest I can contribute!
No problem Jerry! It's indeed something different from what you normally post, but that does not mean it's bad. I like this a lot, it's really good reading material before I go to bed. With that being said, I would like to see more of these "inspirational posts" in the future.
"Letting go of the belief in death provides more relief than 100 farts all at once and frees our energy to focus on the beautiful life here and now." -@jerrybanfield
My favorite line of all time on Steemit 😂
Hahaha how would 100 farts all at once feel though? Doesn't seem like relief to me. 😂😂😂
@parkermorris thank you I figured this was a bit of a gamble to use in the beginning and I figured with such a serious topic it might work to make people laugh and be accurate!
Haha I enjoyed it! I think it definitely added some comic relief!
Can you upvote my latest post if you find it helpful? I tag you and my goal is to help the Steemit community learn how to earn $20/day by posting quality content! :) https://steemit.com/steemit/@parkermorris/how-to-make-usd20-day-on-steemit-with-no-money
"I just talked to a family member last night and they said, "You know, from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, my mind is just thinking one thing after another, after another, after another.""
This sounds like something we deal with in psychology diagnosis called pressured thoughts. Not that I'm implying anything, just reminded me of it!
Looking forward to working through the rest of the transcript.
Man you are the Legend of all this.
Big respect from me and my friends :)
oh thanks i ame new i need to learn more
Please follow me back ,and follow tomy blog ,there is artical- experement. You all could help me, thanks 😇
Haven't finished reading but just wanted to say that this completely changes my perception of you. Up until now i saw you as this Crypto enthousiast and expert. The depth of character you show with this article is just great and makes me even gladder that i followed you!
@rymlen love your feedback here because it helps me to hear the depth of what I hope to contribute most is coming through the balance of making practical tutorials and then sharing an inspirational message!
nice man very good article.
I am thinking a lot about that recently, i found a video is pretty interesting.
Someone pls invite frank yang to get into this platform :)
What is that?
that would be awesome.
Good one
WOW I have never seen this video before this is amazing watching it now!
Wow that video was heavy made it about halfway through to the doorslamming on fingers maybe I need to watch the rest?
yea, and definitely you should check out Frank yang, he creates lot of mind fuck obscure contends
Haven't read yet Jerry but this topic interests me a lot as the more you look and get more comfortable with death then the more we can live more. Long article and I will comment again when I have finished it.
This was a fantastic read Jerry thank you! you got my upvote keep it coming!
Thanks for blasting out the secret behind my username.
That was great I smiled seeing that comment plus your name lol!
@jerrybanfield meditation, kundalini yoga and cannabis in moderation. Create your own reality!
Really deep, powerful and inspiring post Jerry. I went through a similar transformation in my life too. Thanks for sharing.
WOW, this is some seriously intense post / video, well thought out and thorough. While not quite getting over the "fear of death", I recently managed to get over my "fear of jury duty"! lol
Link: Adventures in... How NOT to GET OUT of JURY DUTY!
But, it's definitely very true and something I've also noticed in those who've survived, for example, horrible car crashes or other similar "near death" experiences. After that, they seem more focused on just living their "second chance at life" to the fullest and don't often sweat "the little things".
also resteemed
Dude, You never fail to surprise me!
It was really interesting article . Thanks Jerry .
Some of the best content on steemit is produced by you
Man your are awesome, i cant stop reading your stuff and your posts.
Thank for every thing.
Great like always Jerry, You are awesome.
inspiring!
Haha ..awesome post
we know we are going to die someday but we can make our life most beautifull with happiness thanks jerry
jerry, you are great.
pretty emotional and touchy topic by the way. cheers!!............... :)
leave the past behind but learn from it.
enjoy and embrace the present moment.
don't worry about the future and just plan for it.
@jerrybanfield this amazing stuff Jerry cant spot following your articles minute by minute
Its so hard for new members with no following to get noticed here.
Lets get that money team
I love your viedos man thank you for everything
no problem
please tell me how you record such video, I want to do the same, to show myself and screen at the same time, please what program can I use to do that ?
Amazing good work brother keep steeming on voted
You reminded me of some memory of my own grandpa. He too died when I was around 8 years old and he was my only grandpa. From today perspective I have probably unconsciously made belief "fear of death" and forget about it and now you reminded me, so thank you!
In last few years I have worked a lot on my fears; from approaching girls, jumping from high cliffs, holding snakes (that was soooo hard) and so on. I decided that by the time I am old, I will do as much things that I fear as I can!
Also thank you for your post, it is really informative and entertaining haha
ha ha ha!!!
Before continuing to read your ponstingan, had laughed before, you slipped the fart language as a parable, it is very good for the opening sentence.
Thank you very much for the informative article @jerrybanfield, I don't want to think and fear death because most motivational gurus, they say you become what you think. So I don't want death though occupy my mind because you get what you focus on, focus on death you will get death.
Maybe a little long :) but great words again..
I found your videos today, Great work.
I don't do live video myself but have been thinking about getting into it. Any tips? I may get a green screen.
Jerry! Your AWESOME! 👏 I got some SUPERIOR COIN!
Can anyone tell me when the pre sale ends? I NEED MORE!
I was binge watching your videos and ran across it on one of your videos but I don't know which one! Guess I'll have to watch them again!
deserve resteem and upvote....
interesting post
Mr. Jerry I'm new here. I saw your trending posts and read them. You appeared to be an undeniable asset to anyone who just walked through the steemit door, looking for a brighter horizon.
I can relate to everything you said in your post and video here. I was never a cop, but even that, didn't deter or alienate me emotionally from your message.
A wise person once told me, that our shadow follows us. We will continue to learn from it. You can't know it all. Life wouldn't be any fun, if you could.
Thank you for instilling your presence, your persona, your past, your heart mind and soul into my beginning here. You're a hell of a guy. I believe in you, and that's why I follow you.
You'll always have an ear to bend, while I'm around. That makes me the lucky one.
Can I get your thoughts on Burstcoin.
This is so good it's amazing. Thanks.
I have lots of anxiety in general so this might be really useful. Thanks for sharing! ~Upvoted!
Lol, I really enjoyed this article. Good work Jerry. Take it easy.
"How I Found Happiness in Life by seeing beyond and into Death."
GREAT LINES~!!...
P.S Your work is great but its just too long and time consuming!~!
Interesting post. I have feared death at times too, but I then realize that true death isn't so much leaving the body. Death is leaving the presence of G-d.
Earth is like a veil between life and death. As I seek G-d's presence, the fear of death recedes.
we are more alike than you know J.
Hello @jerrybanfield
I never knew that you were on Steemit, I watched your Video about Dash Masternode owners Voting to Burn Dash instead of using it to Finance Projects Marketing Dash.
Your Passion was evident and I knew that you were capable of making a difference.
I run interviews here on Steemit, and I hope we might be able to have a chat sometime.
Followed You.
@ogochukwu
I just love fear of death!! Way better than fear of life!