Life in death
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What I usually say at this point is "you know who I am, so let's go", but I wonder if we could change the routine this time? Sorry - it's just that you're going to say "Give me more time" and that your family won't be able to cope, and I'll have to reassure you and help you through the trauma - but there is another way. You see if I give you another week, month, year, century, it's going to be the same when we meet again - you won't be ready. So I thought we could talk about the idea of being ready as a state of mind.
 
No, you don't have to speak - just let me explain that this time idea is only an agreement - a tool for living. It's a framework, based on the idea that we live in a continuum. You will tell me that given a certain number of clicks of your chronometer, you will be ready to leave this level of consciousness, though you know that such measures are relative. They can be over in a moment or each one can take a lifetime (sorry to use these analogies). Why don't we skip this and get to the crux?
 
No. it's not too late. You're going on a journey, and you don't need these concepts to hold you back. Imagine what "being ready" means. Does it mean bringing regrets for leaving things undone, for your "unsociable" acts, for your "inadequacies"? You won't have room for these in the new emptiness and you will have to restart the cycle. It's really all the same. To be "ready" for life, we must be "ready" for death. We live and die every moment fully, so that the following moment is not destroyed by the former.
 
Yes, you can do this now. We can cut out aeons of rebirth. Do you see that shadow on your nose? It's been there while we've been together. The bullet is waiting to enter. It's waiting for you to be ready. Would you prefer it to smash its way in uninvited? Transform yourself now. Accept the bullet, welcome it. Open your mind to it. All memories, possessions, goals, emotions, have no more use for you - they were only ways of escaping this moment.
 
The bullet will enter when you are ready.
 
Sept 24/5 2000
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