The Wrong Thing To Die, The Right Thing To Die
So tonight, or is it today, you are thinking of killing yourself? Of ending it all?
I would like to tell you today, or tonight, my friend, that it is a good day for something to die. But that something is not you. That something is the part inside of you that is making you want to kill yourself. Let that part die, my friend, not you.
I will explain what I mean. In days gone by, in cultures of old, there were the shamans - holy people, visionary people - who cured the sick, and were said to be able to contact the Divine, seeking guidance and support for all their people. In some places shamans still exist. Often times, it should be noted, the shaman began his life as an ordinary person, living day to day in the same way as everyone else, seeing nothing especially different, learning nothing especially different, until one day, unexpectedly, something happened to him: a sickness or a vision, in which his body grew suddenly silent, and unmoving. Deeply asleep; or, sometimes as it appeared to those around him, dead. And then, after a while, as worried faces appeared around him, his eyes would open strangely, like a bewildered pilgrim’s back from some holy land, and he would tell of some vision or some dream, some inner journey which had utterly transformed him, changing his view of himself, changing his view of life, and giving him new power.
This experience, today, is sometimes referred to as "the shamanic death." But, of course, what died was the part of the man that kept him from being a shaman.
So I say to you, my friend, that today, or tonight, it is time for a part of you to die. But it is not the part of you that you think. It is not the life and hope and secret beauty not yet found, not the potential of your life, and the greatness that already exists but is not appreciated, or detected. It is the part of you that has led you to ignore the preciousness of who you are, and to contemplate destroying it.
And I will tell you, my friend, just what it is that should die today, or tonight:
The part of you that has gotten tangled up in their opinions of you; caught, like clothing, in the gears of their hate, their cruelty, their rejection, their indifference, their ignorance. It is time for all of that to die, and for you to be left with the truth of your soul’s beauty, a creation of God.
The part of you that thinks you are not good enough; that you have let them down or will let them down; that you will disappoint them, make them ashamed, fail to live up to their expectations. It is time for that to die, so that you may be left with who you really are, which was good enough for God, who made you as you, not as them.
The part of you that thinks life is not worth living, because your dream is gone, your goal is not reached, because you have tasted defeat, not victory. It is time for that to die, for one part of life is but a game, and one part is real, and it is sometimes in the shattered pieces of lost games that what is real is found. Lead what is beautiful and indestructible out of the ruins. Give life to that, tonight. Let it be a night of birth, not death.
The part of you that thinks all is lost, because love has left, or not yet been found. Let that die tonight, for you are loved, by God Himself, who sees more and feels more than anyone of those who passed you by, or left you to die. Do not let the limited vision of others, or the incomplete hearts of others, become your death sentence. And do not die for impatience; or from expecting one magnet to attract everything in the Universe. For each heart is a magnet to its own kind; and solitude and rejection are not blows against us, only signals that we have not yet found our kind. My friend, set your heart free, its beauty will call out to others - to the right ones - in a voice they will know. Geese do not flock behind the calls of seagulls, or the cawing of crows, but they appear out of the sky when the honking of their own kind lifts them up into flight. Cease longing to be with seagulls and crows, my friend, if you are a goose: do not underestimate the world of the geese! For there is treasure in every heart kind, and love in every pair that is a pair.
The part of you that thinks you are trapped, that there is no way out, no exit from the maze, no way to be free, to get back to yourself and what you need and want; the part that thinks you are tied up in a place of unhappiness, let that part die. There is no such thing as being trapped. Being trapped is a state of mind. It is a result of not knowing your heart, or being true enough to it; a result of clinging to things that are non-essential, which do not permit you to move on to what is essential; a result of not spending enough time with the puzzle, and the pieces that are unkind to quick glances; a result of looking at things over and over again in the same way, without allowing your mind to look at them from another level, for the view of the man lost on the ground is not the same as that of a pilot in the sky. Sometimes, it is a result of not squeezing the sponge of the life you already have, to find all the water of life hidden inside.
I say, do not give up your life to escape the trap, give up something of less value than your life: an illusion, an expectation, someone else’s judgment; a weight that is not for you to carry; a need that is not really a need, or else you would not be ready to leave it by dying. I say, leave it in another way.
My friend, do you begin to see? Today - or is it tonight? - you are in a sacred place. A sacred place where the road of death crosses the road of life. Here, in this holy place, make a sacred choice. Choose to live, and to let that which would steal your life, die. Let everything that has brought you to this terrible edge, wither in your heart, so that you may go on. Keep life, and let go of what is dragging you away from it. Now, my friend, is the moment for you to experience your very own "shamanic death", to let all the things that are killing you from within, die, so that you may be born into a new life: the new life that has always been waiting for you, hidden behind the false life - waiting for pain to show it to you in a vision. Let this sacred day, which began as your last, be the day that gives you back to life; and step back from the edge of death, to behold the sunrise of yourself.