Like many angst-ridden goth-wannabe teens, I had a viscous streak of suicidal ideation. It started through an innocent fascination with death, and before I knew it, I had actually named my suicidal thoughts “consumption”, as they were truly becoming all-consuming. I wrote poems and short stories, and invariably, the main character would off him/herself in some dramatic fashion. I was insanely drawn to dark art, films, books, etc. – anything that brought me into the deep reaches of the lowest imaginable notes. I loved the dark side and shunned the light, often in a literal fashion (I was known to actually put aluminum foil on my windows to keep out any shred of light, at all times.) As I got older, into my early twenties, this became a full-on obsession. And yes, I played the role of a happy-go-lucky college student, which was in part quite genuine, but I was far, far more fond of that tortured, pain-ridden artist. Alienated and misunderstood. Really freaking serious about finally taking the bull by the horns and seeing what this afterlife business was really all about.
I know now, and knew then, that I wasn’t really serious. It was just a game, just a role that I happened to have a true affinity for. I did trip up a time or two in my effort to make others believe the dance, and came close to actually doing the deed. But grace wouldn’t allow a tragic mistake. Either that, or I’m smarter than I thought I was. Whatever the reason, I’m still here, and as time wore on, the role got old. I transformed into someone more fond of the higher notes. I recognized the immaturity of my dark world-view, and started adopting something I deemed far more authentic. Ayahuasca, too, helped kick out the old dark obsessions. She showed me tangible results of what indulgences in such so-called “negative” forces really does. Yes, it’s all divine. Yes, it’s all God. But I don’t have to live my life in complete desolation and misery. And as it turns out, it’s way, way more fun to giggle and frolic.
Yet there’s a constructive, wonderfully uplifting aspect to my suicidal past. Now that my path is more clearly illuminated, I suspect there was way more at work back in those days of consumption. On the surface, it would seem that I was simply a sad little teenager, falling prey to the self-pity trap, and indulging in a role I really wanted to be true. By claiming myself the wanting-to-die goth-girl, I kept the world at a distance, and freed myself from vulnerability. I never had to admit to what I truly felt, in any moment, because I was too busy playing the part of the wanting-to-die pixie. That’s not to say that I didn’t want out – sometimes in the worst way – I just know I over emphasized my sincerity, because there really was none with regards to the actual finality. I have always, always loved living. This is why I gravitated to all that dark, gut-wrenching expression – it actually made me feel. And in a very real sense, that was living to me back then.
Today, I am a profoundly joyful woman very consciously on the path to enlightenment. And lo and behold, there’s a hell of a lot of talk about dying in this beautiful game. Enlightenment, it is said, represents the chance to die before you die. To allow the very possibility of death, so one can lay down the ego and actually experience the true nature of who we are. How exciting, then, that I get to bring back the old role. Only this time, it actually has to be genuine. But I’m not out to kill myself, really — I’m out to transcend the story of myself. This is WILD. And WONDERFUL. Full circle doesn’t even cut it. I’d like to think that old me was really on to something. That I was playing out this desire for liberation long before I ever knew what it was, and what was possible (not that I really know yet – the finger is just pointing ever closer to the moon.)
There’s even more delicious irony in all of this too. All of my enlightened teachers caution that suicide is not a viable choice. This puzzled me at first, because as I hear them speak it, once you self-realize, you recognize that this is all a dream-state game. So why would one’s choice of an exit actually matter in the least? I can’t say I know know, but this is starting to make sense. The state that you are in when you finally do exit your body is integral to the experience you create when you reach the next state. Whatever that will be. I’ve heard others express this before and it has (and still does) confused me a bit. That means to me that if I’m struck by a car tomorrow, out of the blue, and go out in a state of traumatic resistance, I’ll immediately be thrust into a similar repeat. Seems a little unfair to punish the unaware, right? Well, there’s the rub. There is no such thing on the highest level. In other words, if that is my fate tomorrow, I had that in the cards all along. I, the higher self, the master of this manifested existence. It may not be my time to “wake up” and become enlightened. It may in fact be a life that I need to learn more lessons seeped in trauma. Of course I hope this is not the case, but hope doesn’t amount to shit in this game 
So where’s the moral of this story? First of all, kudos to the old self for recognizing that the willingness to let it all go – to truly die – is actually a golden ticket. And even more kudos for having the wisdom to not actually do the deed – to just cultivate that willingness, and continue the game of the dream-life. Nowadays, I choose to nurture the willingness to detach and let grace lead me where she will. Pranananda has said to me before – Your life is not your own. That’s starting to make an amazing amount of sense. It does not belong to the egoic self that wants to drive the boat. My life is the divine. It is not, and can never be, my way. Because “my”, in that little ego-sense, doesn’t even exist. And so I shall enter my Tantric meditation tonight, in full willingness to embody my divine-identity Kali, and drop the story of me in the most complete fashion available in this current energy realm I’m swimming in. That is to say, I’m off to die. Or at least to practice.
Kali, the beauty of the struck-by-a-car-out-of-the-blue death scenario is that you exit before the trauma even happens. The body may go through an apparent expression of pain, suffering, trauma, etc., but the consciousness that feels these things is liberated from the body even before actual death occurs. The experience of such things reveals the truely “illusory” nature of so called reality. To borrow your words, what is really “unfair” at least from a certain limited point of view, is the total lack of respect and seriousness of the experience of death. It is very difficult for a non-liberated mind to encounter and experience death as being a total gag, a total joke that you have played on yourself and fully bought into. At the moment of death, you are face to face with the Reality that your entire life was nothing but a dream, a joke, a game of hide and seek that you have been playing on yourself. The raw revelation of the ridiculousness of our investment in such a colossal joke that is death typically becomes so overwhelming that our consciousness grasps at anything that will put us back to sleep in the dreams of life and death. It is not the trauma of the pain of life prior to the moment of death that gets us stuck on this seemingly perpetual wheel, it is the shocking revelation that our whole lives from birth to the moment of death is just one Colossal Self Punk; one gigantuan joke of cosmic proportions that forces our consciousness to hold on to the wheel of life and death as if our lives depended upon it. For in a sense it does. Attachment to the “reality” of our game, and hence, attachment to our game is the ticket onto this merry-go-round.
I had a class in Eastern & Primal religion when I was in college, in Ithaca, NY. We were discussing buddhism and other philosophies, and I asked my teacher, “…so if we’ve lived a high functioning life with a mindset of peace and love, and then we’re hit by a car and before dying, are really pissed off at the crazy inconsiderate guy that just hit us, …does that state stay with us into the next life and erase all the good work we’ve done on ourselves?” He said, “No, those angry feelings are superficial and on the surface, it’s your core and who you are and the ‘whole picture’ that carries on into the next state.” So that’s something to consider too.
Wow Kev, what an absolutely stellar, mind-expanding response. Thank you for helping me see the true nature of this dying business – this comment couldn’t be more appreciated.
Aw, now that makes perfect sense – the core is key, not the current surface experience, which isn’t even “real” anyway. THANK YOU love, I feel better now
thanks for sharing. we all go through the motions then in the grandest scheme of things we realize our essential worth.