If we have allowed ourselves to move in and out of Center throughout our life, moving into death will not be foreign. It will, in fact, feel familiar, intimate, personal. The silence out of which we came into life is the same silence into which we will return at death. It has accompanied us, a faithful companion, in our breathing, in all of our letting-go, in each attempt we have made to create more space within for the light.

Death is passing through that hidden gate in the center of the garden and recognizing it as home lit up. We recognize the light we have been shepherding in ourselves to be one and the same with the Light that receives us in death. We can let go and become one with it, at last.

The more comfortable with mystery we have been in life, the more comfortable this mystery of death. Death cracks open all mystery and invites us inside. Perhaps this is why so many who have briefly passed over to the other side only to be yanked back into life report feelings of deep peace and joy. In the end, it is so natural.

Christopher Reeve speaks of leaving his body in a moment of death, content, happy to be with the Light, then, returning just as mysteriously, happy to be back in the light of his body, in the love of his family beside his hospital bed. Both life and death hold rapture for him now.

Life for most of us offers less dramatic experiences of what we can expect. Small moments of wholeness in which we catch a glimpse of our true self and the divine energy that emanates from the core of us. These are as close as our breathing.

We have only to close our eyes — to listen for that part of us that does not change, that informs us of our true nature, the potential of our being – to hear how close death has been to us, all along. Seeing ourselves as separate – separate from all things living – deludes us into thinking of death as an unnatural event, a tragedy. It’s as natural as breathing, as laughing.   

Age allows a certain wisdom. We learn we can’t hoard energy. We can’t control or will it. We are energy, localized in a human body. Sacred energy. It does not belong to us. It is on loan, for our delight, for our creativity, for our compassionate contribution to the spiritual evolution of life. As the energy of our body ebbs, the energy of the one who first gave the gift enters.

If we have been open to recognizing this divine energy in the persons, the insights, the words, the natural state divine energy has taken shape for us throughout our life, we will recognize this divine energy in death. Perhaps that’s what people speak of when they tell us they saw their whole life pass before their eyes just before they thought they were going to die.

This is the light we have discovered in our darkness, has shepherded us through our experiences, that has informed our life. We follow it now, in instant flashback, through all the steps of our life, and beyond, to where it bends and returns to the Light that has sustained us throughout. If we were conscious of this connection in life, death is a validation. If we were unconscious of this in life, we will be delightfully surprised; that’s all.

Dying is part of living, not the end of it. Science tells us that energy is not lost, but changes form. The mystery of our matter and what happens to our matter at death is not something we can know. We can only look at the moon, and all things that cycle in nature, and ask the question. The answer lies in our future. It resides at the Center.

What of this spirit whose longing for matter set life in motion? What of this light we have harvested within us all these years? What of this breath that has cradled us and witnessed us? What of this life that has poured itself through us? Does this end with death? Does it carry us forward in that eternal river that flows, far beyond our mind can carry us?

We can only wonder and listen to our breathing, and be at peace. It is our breathing that marks for us that we are not dead. It is our breathing that holds the mystery we have never been able to crack. Our breathing, that mystery that has companioned us in life, becomes our bridge.