Death and Dying Through the Eyes of Substance – Karen

◄ by Karen Knox – North Kansas City, MO ►

Opening words from “Death and Dying Through the Eyes of Substance” IAAP International Teleconference Call on September 29, 2013.

In 1998 I was living in an ashram in New York State when I received word that my mother died unexpectedly in a car accident. Although I would not describe my relationship with my mother as a close one, I was aware of the intense energy surrounding the event of her death. Returning to the ashram after her funeral, the enormous energy continued to build until I felt like nothing was stable, nothing was normal within me. I was grateful that at least I could act normal on the outside because I thought if people could see how out of control I felt inside, they would be alarmed.

One day I was at a large gathering with my meditation teacher. The question “What’s it all about, really?” became overpowering and all encompassing. As I looked out over the crowd I knew that everything I thought I was … Karen Knox, from Kansas City, teacher, so on … was not what it was all about. And then I looked out over the crowd and knew that everything each individual thought they were and what their life was about, was also void, empty. Then I thought of everything I could imagine in my future but recognized that was not what it is all about, and likewise what each person in the crowd could imagine in their future was not it either. That wiped the board clean if everything I had known or could know in the future was not what this life is really about. So I asked, “What is this all about?” I then watched as my meditation teacher made her way to the front of the packed hall. Slowly as she walked through this sea of people, as she did so, inwardly I saw this solid beam of Cosmic Love following her. She had so completely surrendered to Love that her outer form appeared like a shell. I saw the translucent quality of life like a celluloid film. I recognized at that moment that transcendent Cosmic Love is what life truly is all about and I resolved, “That Love is what I will follow.” This Love is what we experience with Attunement.

On two separate occasions I had the opportunity to sit with the person as they transitioned from life to death. As my friend and work colleague took her last breath I heard the words repeat within me, “ You go from love to love. From love to love.” As I sat with my brother during his final hours I consciously invoked all the greatest forms of Love. It is clear to me that death is a practice. It is like a final exam. I cannot cram for it. I have to practice it everyday by experiencing that transcendent Love, Attunement. “How do I experience Attunement/Love everyday? What does that look like? How can I facilitate Attunement/Love each day?”

Muktananda said, “Let your love for God grow everyday and let that love be without motive… love is the herb of immortality.”