I just read an article by Charles Tart (the author of many books and considered the founder of Transpersonal Psychology) in which he admits that he is afraid of death (at least some of the time, he says, from his “ordinary conscious self.”) For myself, dying isn’t my greatest fear. My greatest fear is dying too soon, before I’ve contributed whatever it is I have to contribute to this world, before I’ve realized who I am and the vision that keeps urging me forward. When I was 26, I did almost die–in a head-on collision on the highway. When I was 30, my beloved father died unexpectedly. Those two incidents combined to give me a profound appreciation for the fragility of life. I want every living thing to realize its fullest potential. I feel OK clipping dead flowers from my flower bed, but when my clippers accidentally cut off a new bud, I feel pain. “I’m sorry,” I whisper under my breath.
The vision that keeps nudging me forward is of an awakened world, a world where every living thing is fully self-expressed, bursting with beauty. Every living thing sharing its gift.