Being Ready When Death Calls

You should be experiencing the life that's happening to you, not the one you wish was happening.
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page163

Death Calling

So Death calls you on your cell and says to you, "Hey Bud.  How's it going?  ...I'm just calling to  let you know that I will have to pick you up in a week.   I am just so swamped with pick ups... so I need you to be ready and waiting at the door  when I come, okay?  Thanks man. "

What are you going to do when you hang up? Freak out?  Resist?  Say , "Oh man...a week...how am I going to get everything I need done in a week?  That's not enough time.  I need a few more weeks at least!"  

Don't bother asking the dude with the cape and sickle for more time.  Ain't going to happen. Singer reminds us that if we do ask , Death will probably respond with, "I already gave you 52 weeks this year alone...that should have been plenty of time to get done what you needed to get done."

What did you do, that truly mattered, with the last  fifty-two weeks?

After you calm down a bit and finally accept  your upcoming, timely or untimely demise, what are you going to do?

The Bucket List

Most of us will pull out the old bucket lists we have stuffed away to determine just how many of those things on it we can check off.  You will get busy, I suppose, "doing" and "controlling", "manipulating" events as you try so desperately to squeeze them into your bucket.  You will try to "get" more from Life while you can. You want your bucket/ your life nice and full with "special" things you have done when Death comes knocking.

Is that living?  Is that making the most of the time you have left?  Is that what Death meant when we were told to "Be Ready"?

Is it really important what we put into those buckets, what we check off our lists, or what we do?  Or is the 'getting ready,' Death speaks to... all about  simply connecting to each moment Life gives us. Maybe it is more important to go a little deeper than it is to get a little more. 

Going Deeper

Your moments are numbered now.  Make the most of each one.

To do that, we need to get beyond the fear and limitation that has held us back for so long and say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done.  Then we need to stop striving, stop "doing", stop grasping and pushing. We need to stop resisting each moment and projecting into the next because we now know  that our moments are so limited. There may not be a next. We make the most of each one...settle into each one and fully experience it, appreciate it and enjoy it. We stop seeking something out there to make it all meaningful...and simply accept that it is meaningful just as it is, whatever it is.

Look at the preciousness of Life that is all around you, that was always all around you, that you missed because you were so busy grasping, clinging and resisting. Know that it isn't yours.  Life doesn't belong to any "little me" with its own agenda. Life is a beautiful, mystical thing that flows through all of us.  We just get to experience it as it flows through.  That's the beauty of it.  That simple. The prospect of death and our own temporal reality can make us aware of that.

You Don't Need More Time

You don't need more time and you don't need more things or special events. You do not need to fill your buckets or check off your lists with these things.  

You just need more depth, the kind of depth that comes with sinking into who you really are and experiencing the world from there, absorbing, accepting, appreciating and loving.  It's not what you do with the time you have left.  It is how you do it  and how much of you, you put into  doing it.

Should Live Like We Only Have a Week Left

So even when Death doesn't call in advance...and it won't for most of us :) , we need to be prepared for its inevitability.  We need to be ready. We should live each week like it were our last and  make the most of the precious moments that unfold before us. If we do that, when Death does come...we will be okay with it because we will know we have truly lived.  It can't take that away from us.

All is well.

Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger