If I Should Die Before I Wake , livre ebook

Balboa Press - Erik Knud-Hansen

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56 pages

English

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"If I Should Die Before I Wake" shares some of the author's personal stories and reflections about his life committed to awakening insight into living conscientiously with purpose, and dying consciously into the heart of divine consciousness.
If I Should Die Before I Wake leads readers on a quest to understand what it means to be a human being unbound from materialistic society.
While it touches on timeless spiritual knowledge, it does not endorse any particular supreme being, or spiritual traditions reliant upon rites, rituals, dogma, or intercession. Instead, the book seeks to equip readers with the knowledge and tools they need to fulfill their spiritual destiny.
The book considers questions such as:
• Why should we pay attention to the endgame of death and dying?
• What can we learn from various spiritual traditions?
• How can we transcend sectarianism and bigotry?
The author observes that the other side of the mountain is probably not as far away as you think it is. There is a way to look inside yourself and see what is true, without taking someone else’s word for it. This is the knowledge that enlightens the mind and liberates the heart.

Sujets

Autobiography

Biography

Personal Memoirs

Informations

Publié par	Balboa Press
Date de parution	06 novembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9798765228753
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE

A WAY OF LIFE

ERIK KNUD-HANSEN

Copyright © 2022 Erik Knud-Hansen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com
844-682-1282

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well- being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 979-8-7652-2873-9 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-2874-6 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-2875-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022919054

Balboa Press rev. date: 11/02/2022

This book is dedicated to my dear family and friends, and to the many dharma teachers, students and companions who have benefited me and others along the way of life. My heart of gratitude embraces you.
Peace, Love, and Aloha,
Erik
Maui, Hawai’i
March 2, 2022
Contents
Preface

Beginningless Beginning
War and Wariness
Conscientious Objection
Anesthesia and Awakening
Going Green
The Eyes Have It
Pumpkin Crazy
Awake and Away
Problem? No Problem
Dharma, Tao, Here and Now
The Gift To Be Simple
To Asia with Love
Tiger Tales
Flesh and Bones and Maggots
Come Willing to Die
A Middle Way
Astronaut of the Mind
Sharing the View
Familiarity and Forgiveness
Heart of Devotion
Effortless Effort
Heart of Healing
Birth and Death
Here Now
True Heart’s Release
Experience and Imperience
As It Is
Preface
When I began this writing project, it was going to be a single book that would include some personal stories and learning experiences, as well as a view of timeless teachings regarding the nature of mind from the spiritual traditions that I spent my life studying, serving, practicing, and teaching, namely, Buddhism, Taoism, and Advaita Vedanta. Before long, it became clear that this needed to be two separate books. As I had already begun working on the more impersonal elements of wisdom teachings, I wrote and published in 2015, Imperience: Understanding the Heart of Consciousness , offering a way to understand spirituality without religiosity or dogma, to say the least.
After some years of malignant writer’s block and pandemic distraction—trying to feel OK about letting the more personal part go—I finally surrendered to the task of finishing what I had started. And so this is that, a brief account of my life shared through some stories that may help family, friends, teachers, and students better understand the present and forgive the past. May this be useful as well to others interested in clarifying their own way of life.
As I have no children and my parents have passed, I offer this account primarily to my dear siblings and the wonderful offspring they produced, as they may be the people most curious, concerned, or confused about choices I’ve made during my journey. If four rocks started rolling down a mountainside, each bouncing along and deflecting this way or that way off the contacts it makes, it would not be surprising to see their paths spread wide in different directions. In fact, one might end out on the other side of the mountain and want to explain to the others what this is, how it happened, and how the distance apart had nothing to do with them.
Two particular elements of human conditioning have been prominent themes in my life: first, our innate desire to conform to the familiar ways of our heritage and culture; and secondly, our innate urge to mature and strengthen our heart’s umbilical linkage with our true source of life, beyond our human form. For me, the former has been both a heartful refuge and a struggle because I may not have handled expectations very well. And the latter—which liberated me from the former—provided such joy and energy to my life that I found it difficult to relate easily with people who were not interested in the other side of the mountain.
This book intends to offer some understanding about what attracted me to inner investigation and awakening conscious awareness, which became most important to me in this life. I practiced and learned through many spiritual teachers and traditions, and found benefit beyond sectarian language, rites, and rituals. I enjoy the ways seemingly diverse views are actually alike when it comes to matters of the heart. Everything that helps us transcend sectarianism and bigotry will serve to unite us in the heartful compassion and intuitive wisdom of absolute consciousness, and will support people in going deeper together. Hopefully, my practice and teaching have contributed to weakening the prejudices that divide people.
Living on a remote island necessarily means crossing a lot of ocean. Sometimes, people come here who have personally never seen an ocean before, much less been in one. Some might think they already know very well what an ocean is because they’ve studied it at school, seen it on TV or movies, and even watched incredibly good documentaries and nature films. They may not realize that this is all secondhand knowledge at best, until they at least get their feet wet.
Obviously, the shoreline offers only a beginning touch of ocean reality. There is further discovery and excitement upon entering the water and immersing their bodies for the first time. Sometimes it is challenging to overcome one’s fear of the dark, unknown power of the wave action at the surface, and that too can be exhilarating. Perhaps then they will put on a mask and see for the first time the real ocean below the surface. Again they may feel like they now know the ocean and maybe even fall in love with it, as long as the conditions aren’t too extreme.
From the surface, one can see to a certain depth, and then it can get really dark and scary. For the relative few who don the scuba gear and go deep, the experience of ocean becomes vivid, firsthand, up close and personal, quite unlike the first view from the window of an airplane. Even though they do know the ocean so much better now than before, still they’ve experienced only a minute portion of it. Some may become passionate about exploring the depths and no longer find the surface so interesting. They now understand the limitations of books and films, and know that other people’s descriptions don’t begin to touch the real experience. Nobody could ever convince them that secondhand knowledge could ever be sufficient to know the ocean or even come close to satisfying the urge to immerse oneself in it.
As it is, we human beings don’t require an ocean experience to complete our destiny or understand our humanity. We are, though, like waves, thirsting to discover the ocean as their source while not understanding that they already are unified with the whole of it. As concerned as we are with our individual experience in our relative world, we are capable of living long lives, oblivious to the big picture—the absolute reality that is the source of our beingness. However, even long lives can feel like either a blessing or a curse depending on whether or not we are heartfully fulfilled, and this can depend on the dominance of our inner sense of wholeness over feelings of separation. We are free to choose a way of life that develops either, and it may be wise to understand the difference.
Knowing that dissolving into oneness is my destiny, how I die is extremely interesting to me—not in a morbid way, but perhaps more like an astronaut committed to a one-way journey into space. I already know that my dying experience will be mostly influenced by my own faith and willingness to let go of this body into the vastness of divine light. Otherwise, it might be marked by the heat of my fear and resistance—self-created friction with the imaginary walls of what feels like a long, dark tunnel without end. This is only a passing illusion, of course, but then, so was everything else before now.
There is no need to either agree or disagree with the views I share in If I Should Die Before I Wake . Sometimes, deep intuitive insights about our own true nature simply get triggered regardless of our views and opinions. This is because the truths they reveal already exist in us and are not even hidden, only obscured. The other side of the mountain is never as far away as we may think it is. There is indeed a way to look inside our own blood and being and see for ourselves what is true, taking nobody else’s word for it. This is the knowledge that enlightens the mind a