Life, "Mine" or Thine?

The human ego enjoys interpreting everything in an egocentric manner, a manner that is centered on “me”, a manner that interprets every situation according to how it affects “me”. The ego is a useful tool for protecting and maintaining the human body, but it can become a great source of confusion when it is allowed to influence one’s understanding of the spiritual realms. That is, the ego is a useful tool, but all too easily we can become totally mesmerized, or preoccupied, by the egocentric view of “my” existence and thus become unable to clearly understand what is really happening, and who we really are. One’s excessive attachment to the sense of “me” is often the greatest impediment to spiritual understanding.

A confusing, and often troubling, situation arises when the human ego decides that it is the possessor, the owner, of life. Great difficulties arise when the ego imagines that life is “mine”, and that “my” life is sacred. We often imagine that life is “ours”, when in fact it is the other way around.

Life is not something that is created for use by the human being, but rather the human being is something that is created for use by Life.

When we view life as something that is “mine”, we place great limitations on the idea of Life and may become quite confused by what appear to us as life and death. What appears to the ego as “my” life and “my” death is simply the ever-changing nature of Life. Life does not die. Life lives!

The mistake is that man wishes to live through the mortal part of his being; that is what brings disappointment. For he knows only that part of his being which is mortal, and he identifies himself with his mortal being. Hardly one among thousands realizes that life lives and death dies. That which lives cannot die, what dies will not live. … This body was only a covering of life; now, that life has left. But the living being is not dead; it is that mortal cover which was covering that life that is dead.