{"id":5527,"date":"2017-09-27T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T16:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=5527"},"modified":"2017-09-19T11:02:59","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:02:59","slug":"death-not-end-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/09\/death-not-end-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Death is Not the End of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We live in a stream of a living light that never stops pouring down upon us, even as it ceaselessly wells up from within us. The first part of this opening comment is obvious: sunlight streams down moment to moment upon our earth, vitalizing and nourishing all that it touches. And while this order of light allows us to see all the marvelous forms and colors that our physical eyes behold, there is another kind of light that is of a higher order.<\/p>\n<p>In much the same way as sunlight reveals the world around us, this interior light illuminates the worlds within us and more. It is through the revelations that it alone makes possible\u2014as it discloses whatever may be concealed within us\u2014that we find and are nourished by an ever-expansive understanding of who and what we really are. We begin to realize our possibilities in life are as endless as this light that reveals them. Slowly it dawns upon us that standing in this light is the same as realizing the promise of an always new and self-liberating revelation.<\/p>\n<p>For example, when we look out a window, our physical eyes may behold a field of green with a solitary tree that winter claimed three seasons past, now lying prone on the ground. Many small creatures have already moved into its hollows, claiming this place as their own. With a little grace, we may be touched by the beauty of this place and be bathed in the light of its meaning. But something far more beautiful than this simple pastoral scene is playing itself out before our eyes; there a deeper, higher meaning hidden in this moment, trying to teach us something about the truth of ourselves, about our immortal Self, if we will be present to its revelation.<\/p>\n<p>That tree, even as it decays, bleeding its former strength and substance into the ground, isn\u2019t the end of the tree. It\u2019s the end of the form that tree once took. Everything that once constituted its character now becomes part of the grass; everything that\u2019s part of the grass, in turn, becomes part of the soil, and this enriched soil becomes a part of the next tree. The meaning of this revelation is one with its fear-ending fact: death is not the end of life.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, for us, it seems as if our life comes to an untimely end over and over again. We all know that dreaded feeling of oh no\u2009\u2026\u2009my life is over! Truth be told, this kind of experience is so old and worn out that it is what should have died long ago!<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve all died a thousand deaths and yet we\u2019re still here, hoping for life but fearing what we believe to be its partner: the appearance of some unwanted moment attended to by an inevitable sense of loss. This is the great illusion.<\/p>\n<p>Real life serves the living without end. And, without end, it must constantly change itself to do this. But what do we serve when our heart and mind are as barren as a winter\u2019s tree, and all we know to do in those moments is turn on ourselves with a vengeance for not being what we imagine we should be?<\/p>\n<p>For that matter, what do we serve when any relationship that defines us seems to betray us, leaving us alone with a suffering that, to be endured, must be blamed on another?<\/p>\n<p>In these moments we serve a lower level of self that believes its very existence depends upon something outside of itself\u2009\u2026\u2009so that we are indentured to a level of self that believes it ends when whatever it has identified with changes, as must all things.<\/p>\n<p>No change in life marks the end of the immortal Self that, once again transformed, assumes a new form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We live in a stream of a living light that never stops pouring down upon us, even as it ceaselessly wells up from within us. The first part of this opening comment is obvious: sunlight streams down moment to moment upon our earth, vitalizing and nourishing all that it touches. And while this order of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[672,146],"tags":[1836,2782,1937,44,2873,1080,21],"class_list":["post-5527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-changetransformation","category-death-dying","tag-dread","tag-end-of-life","tag-fear-of-death","tag-letting-go-2","tag-life-without-end","tag-purpose-of-life","tag-resistance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Death is Not the End of Life - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/09\/death-not-end-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Death is Not the End of Life - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We live in a stream of a living light that never stops pouring down upon us, even as it ceaselessly wells up from within us. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Life of Learning Foundation, Guy Finley, and their life-changing messages, visit guyfinley.org. \"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential.\" -Nightingale Conant \"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives.\" -Barnes and Noble","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.guyfinley.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","https:\/\/x.com\/guy_finley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/author\/gfinley"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5528,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5527\/revisions\/5528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}