Bringing Power to Resolutions
Summary: In our three January posts on new year’s resolutions, we have seen that we must resolve to evolve. At any point in our lives we must know what wants to emerge in our development—the one critical thing we must learn if we are to grow into our next level of potential. Then we will marshal abundant energy around our personal change agenda by engaging learning partners for mutual benefit.
Swinging in and out of consciousness
We were fully awake when we resolved to make a change. We knew what was keeping us in an eddy, going round and round but going nowhere. We had identified what we must learn in order to make a breakthrough. We made a resolution to move into the potential we know awaits our attention. We may even have enlisted a learning partner or partners to add energy to the change process and to build some accountability.
And then we went back to sleep.
There is nothing that cannot be put off in the ordinary life, even urgent action that we have committed to pursuing. Thinking we have time, we hesitate, we allow distractions, and we defer action until later, a later that never seems to arrive. Believing that we have plenty of time, we delude ourselves, diluting the urgency we felt originally. We are failing in our endeavor to learn, to change, and to realize our potential.
But our potential keeps calling to us. Now we remember our resolution and renew our commitment and effort, but with less confidence than we brought to our resolve originally. We stay awake for a while. We try.
And then we go back to sleep.
The ultimate advisor can keep us awake
The warrior’s supreme achievement is to understand the energetic fact that we are all going to die. The ordinary person knows that we will die, of course, but only in a vague way: death is not a close presence but far away, not a threat right now. There is plenty of time, so this moment is not so important. There will be more moments, we assume.
The key to a warrior’s success with resolutions is the knowledge that we may not have any more moments. Using death as the backdrop for every day of our life is not a morbid preoccupation, but a great advantage. Using death as my always-reliable advisor, I stay awake.
Do I have any time to waste today, I ask death? The answer is always no. With the power of death’s advice, the warrior is vibrantly alive, and every resolution will create an exciting adventure of learning and change. Advised by death, the warrior makes and pursues commitments with clarity and power.
Paradoxically, living with the energetic fact of death is the only way we can stay fully awake.
How to gain death as your ally
If we aren’t currently enlisting death as our advisor, we can invite it closer so that we can become more consistently awake, more impeccable with our commitments to ourselves, more agile in our learning, and more powerful in our actions.
The warriors of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage have a metaphor that might be helpful to you. They picture death sitting on a mat just behind your left shoulder. Death will reach out and touch you at some point, and your awareness will be taken away from you. The only question is when?
Knowledge of my impending death brings me into a state of heightened awareness. This moment, perhaps my last, is now everything. Knowing that this precious moment may be my last, I am poised. I am fully present, connected, grateful, creative, light-hearted.
Knowledge of death illuminates a larger life
Without a knowledge of death, the ordinary life can be careless, unfocused, a life of vicissitudes, a life of slow learning. The ordinary life lacks power.
But our life expands exponentionally when we understand the energetic fact that we will die. Now we are impeccable. Now we are focused, shaping the life that calls us. With death as our advisor, we learn efficiently and quickly.
Our resolutions open the door to an infinitely expanding life in an infinitely expanding universe.
I had two stents put into my left coronary artery in September of 2010 to correct a 90% blockage. The process has actually aided me in being a happier person. I see the beauty in the world which I did not often notice before. The sunset, clouds, flowers, birds, a pretty girl and the lovely face of my wife Molly. I appreciate every day and I do not often complain about what I do not have. I am not afraid of death at all, but I do know I do not have much time left on this earth. Having heart surgery is like death for an hour or so and then you wake up. I felt or thought of nothing during the procedure. No pain and no thought, so I was dead for awhile but was reborn when I woke up. It really was a life changing event and actually therapeutic. I have connected with people from my past and thanked them for being my friend and for things they had done for me. I am thankful for the good life that I have lived, but I know the end will eventually come. I am not a perfect person by any means, but I have lived a good life. I have helped many people and I have evolved into a better person than I was thirty years ago. I can be better and I will keep on trying always attempting to stay in poise. Thanks for your book Gary.
Scott, Thanks for your story and your example of dying and then being reborn.
I think that is exactly what happens when we come into full recognition of our impending death. Many wise ones have said that our egos must die before we can transform. The ego doesn’t want to give up its throne, supposing that its rule will live on and on. Fully awake to the energetic fact of death, our egos have collapsed into the background, making way for a new life.
Gary
We are all fearful of the unknown that death signifies, the loss of a physical connection to the world we know, the loss of self awareness has to frighten anyone who sees clearly that death is final, the pulling out from the socket of thge plug of life. I suspect that the only way to ease that fear, which is with us always, is to lead a life of denying regrets and embracing conscious living. It’s a hard task, and one that most of us don’t seem to be up for taking on. This has to be the biggest challenge any of face as we go through life knowing that death is a constant companion that one day will lead us to a place we know nothing about.
Eric, Let’s not be afraid of death. It’s an energetic fact. So, how to use it to our advantage? It is not my friend, I believe: we’re not cozy roommates. Death is completely impersonal and will take me at a certain moment. like a speeding light headed straight toward me in the night. When it hits me, as far as I know, my awareness will be shattered into a billion pieces, never to be reassembled into this form again. Death, in this sense, is my enemy.
Keeping death in close, however, central to my consciousness all of the time, makes it possible for me to see that every moment is precious. No matter what challenges I face, I am alive! Death never lies: I have no time for complaining, self-pity, neuroses, or any other form of rejecting life. I am alive!
Death will take me whether I’m a timid, careful man or a bold, joyful warrior who is at every turn in the road looking, looking breathlessly. Let’s choose to be warriors!
Hello Gary,
Sometimes I think about this topic too, but still I cannot fully grasp this philosophy. You see, from one hand I realize it, but from the other hand I feel rather stressed when thinking about it. I’m quite young – in my mid-twenties, but I would really like to find an approach to this concept that death is an ally which I could accept with peacefulness.
Alex, We are not talking about a philosophy here, but rather acknowledgng an energetic fact of our lives: we are all going to die.
If we were eternal creatures who will never die, nothing could ever become urgent, and we would drift into infinity indifferently, having plenty of time for everything.
As it is, death frames our short lives. Our lives will end, so every moment counts, resonating with significance,
But death isn’t an ally in the sense that death wants to help us. Death can only help me by reminding me that I have no time. I prefer to think of death as a perfect advisor, but my enemy, nevertheless. Gary
Thanks for the explanation, Gary! Now I understand this point of view better.