true life

just as we are the gross collection of physical elements of our bodies, so are we the more ethereal elements of our mind. the Religions, Philosophies, beliefs of any kind. but what do these all mean, what is their purpose for we know we were not born of these. Rather they were imposed on our consciousness after we were born. and when we die they will not follow us or protect us. nothing shelters the soul from death and nothing survives the journey. yet what is it that exists without all beliefs all ideas all hope, exists before we are born and after we die? that is the reality that is imperishable, the truth that cannot be let go. for it is the hand holding, not the held object. it is the light not the reflection. we come as that and return to that and it is only that that creates us and sustains our illusion and our truth regardless of our belief in it. when all is left behind, there is a force that remains, beyond fear, beyond hope, beyond life itself, there is the unwavering being, untouched, unconcerned, unchanging, always there in what is no matter what it is, sharing everything without judgement, without worry, without meaning, we are that unceasing truth, what cannot be experienced for it is the experience, cannot be known for it is the knower, cannot be seen for it is the seer. there is no truth here, it awaits us when we come to die. As Sat Prem said, the man in the cell that knows he will be shot in the morning, he knows, he possibly can glimpse the truth, the strength, the force that soft and powerful being that  can and does sustain all, that brings all pain and sorrow to an end, that has no fear and feels nothing, that which is and cannot ever not be. All things crumble before its eternal truth for nothing else can withstand scrutiny. we exist to die yet we are not this life or body, we come from and return to that eternal source, and can never be separated even in life and death we are that.