Being Prepared

The original boy scouts motto (according to its founder, Robert Baden-Powell) was to ‘be prepared in a state of readiness in mind and body’. In the spiritual sense, to be prepared is to be in a state of readiness for death, which often comes when least expected. The fundamental process of self-discovery is towards the realisation of our immortal reality. Unless someone continually dies to existence while alive, death will always be feared and create the underlying ripples of doubt and uncertainty underneath the surface sheen of the personality projected into the world.

The great emphasis in living the spiritual life on being conscious in the senses and staying present in the moment is to gain an appreciation of the deathless state. This means being in a state of detachment from the external activity while still functioning through the physical actions of the body. The practice of being conscious of the workings of the inner realm sharpens the perception, which then becomes accustomed to the subtle harmonics of the psychic vibration of life. This in turn accentuates the immediacy of reality which brings about the knowledge of life before it externalises in sense as the divisive world of objects and forms. To begin to connect with this immortal aspect of our existence is the most wonderful benediction of all and puts to rest to the greatest fear of human beings – death as the cessation of life.

Existence is a totality of being, expressed through a mighty system of intelligence. The spectrum ranges from exalted states of beings, such as occupy the spiritual and planetary levels of cosmic mind, to the densest life forms struggling to gain a foothold on the surface level of the sensory world. Life has no particular agenda, other than to bring to life the matter it enters so as to flourish as an expression of its own source of inspiration. As being is omniscient (demonstrable in everyone’s experience since it’s impossible to recall a time when I in each body was not being), so life as the impulse to live is also always here. In becoming identified with the formal aspect of life as the outer projection of our inner nature, human beings have severed the conscious connection with the vital world of our immortal origins. As a consequence, the after-death process functions primarily to provide a reflection of the evolving intelligence to gain a deeper understanding of the purpose of existence.

Physical death changes nothing except the domain, which is but a finer rendition of what came before. The release of the burden of past accelerates the perception of intelligence in a way that opens up a new world that hitherto was imperceptible to the mind; this is the immortal realm which supports and sustains the external world of the senses. But the purpose of life as a human being is to be prepared to live with one ‘foot’ in the physically orientated external world, and the other in the formless side of existence. In this way the individual is prepared for any eventuality – even the demise of the body. Then, when it’s time to withdraw for good, there is no fear or apprehension, only the joy of returning to love undivided as a being of the earth in all its boundless reality.