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.