What to Do If You’re Dying?

What should you do if you’re dying, and the doctor tells you that you only have a certain amount of time to live? You can’t do anything about death itself, because everybody is dying, and nobody is beyond death. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. No matter how much you want to live, the question of life or death is not in your hands.

When you were born, you didn’t choose to live, and when you will die, you won’t choose death either. You can only choose one thing, and that is: how you respond to the greatest challenge in life. And remember: it’s not that you weren’t dying until now, it’s just that you became conscious of it now. Really, you shouldn’t be surprised about the news, because the fact that you’re approaching death is nothing new.

You are among the chosen few who can be certain about death, and even about its approximate time; everybody else can only have guesses. Being aware of death is the most important thing in life, and while I have to keep on preaching to everybody else about it, to you, I don’t even have to say a word. The doctor does a far better job at this than I could ever do.

Others are not as easy to persuade, I have a hard time motivating people to think about death. Everybody else is in denial, they want to disbelieve, they want to forget. They want to think that death is just a possibility somewhere far in the future, when it’s the only certain thing in life. If the news was shocking to you, it’s a sign that you had the same attitude.

But now, the situation is much different. For you, death is a certainty, something to be dealt with right here and now. And it’s good, because it has to be dealt with and you still have time. Others just postpone this question forever, and then they die a sudden death, without truly living even just one single moment. Because without being aware of death, it’s impossible to feel truly alive.

You’re unlucky in the sense that you probably don’t have too much time left. If the doctor can tell you an approximate time, it could mean days, weeks, months, but at the most, a couple of years. Nobody can predict your death decades into the future.

But at the same time, you’re lucky that you gained an acute and imminent sense of your own mortality. Death awareness has so many benefits that I can’t even start to list them here. In your remaining days, you should live as much as you can, because it’s not the quantity of life that counts, but the quality.

Death awareness, especially in your case, can lead to a spiritual awakening. Ordinarily, people are asleep even though they seem to be awake. But they’re unconscious, they’re unaware, they’re sleepwalkers. So, you shouldn’t feel excluded from the world of healthy people, and you shouldn’t feel envy for their happiness. While they’re living in a fool’s paradise, unburdened from the thought of death, you are beyond their level of consciousness, awakened to reality. But this doesn’t mean that your reality should turn into a personal hell.

Walking in the valley of death, you’ll realize that nothing quenches your thirst as much as love. But not the love that others give you, because the whole world can love you, and you can still feel empty. What matters is the love that you hold in your heart, that you have for yourself, for others and for the whole world.

Walking alone on this path, you may also feel helpless, but you shouldn’t escape this feeling. This helplessness shows you the futility of your ego, and may be a door to your true self. Surrender to this helplessness, because if you resist it, you’ll only suffer. You always thought that you were in control of your life, but now this illusion is shattered, the impotence of your ego is revealed.

Your terminal illness is your wake-up call, your alarm clock signalling that soon, it’s time to leave your dreams behind. Your eyes are still closed, you’re still on the verge of waking and sleeping, the alarm is still just a faraway echo, but you can hear it nonetheless. While others around you are fast asleep, you already know deep down that the dream will soon be finished.

And this world is nothing more than a dream, and if you treat it as such, it will become your direct experience. If you can realize the dreamlike nature of reality, it releases its grip on you, and you can attain spiritual enlightenment. Instead of trying to hold on to something you know will end, I encourage you to wake up right now, before your physical death.

Just like you can wake up inside a dream, you can also wake up inside reality, and realize that that too was a dream. Let your ego die before your body dies, and you will have nothing to worry about, because only the ego is afraid of death. That’s what my whole teaching is about: to die before you die to truly live.

Let me help you on this journey, let my material provide some guidance for you! Please listen to my guided meditation titled “Defeat Death”, to try on your own skin what I’m speaking about. I guarantee you that it will be an unforgettable experience.

If you want to know more about death from a spiritual but down to earth perspective, you should read my book: The Power of Death. Click on the link below, and get it now! I’m deadly serious.

Memento Mori!