Ante Mortem Nemo Beatus

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Ante mortem nemo beatus... No one is happy before death.

Fear once devoured my life. If I sat in darkness, I saw apparitions everywhere, and walking alone at night was out of the question. Of course, I was a small child. Yet after a certain age and a particular event, fear ceased to command my inner world. Death then acquired a special beauty within my vision of life, because death is the only escape, or the final revelation.

Last week, I was discussing death with a friend. He said that what matters is what you leave behind, or whether you can look back and see that you lived a fulfilled life. Then life ceases to be a burden and you begin to see it differently.

That may be true when the things you desire happen, when everything works towards the fulfilment of your dreams and destiny seems designed to obey you. But what about the other ninety per cent of us, struggling to prevent destiny from defeating us? Above all, what about the ten per cent who encounter nothing but hardship from birth until death? How can anyone continue to "sell" them the idea of a beautiful or fulfilled life?

For some, life is not necessarily oppressive or tormented on the outside. It is their inner world that suffers, granting them no peace because everything outside weighs upon them.

When I look towards death, it is as though I am looking optimistically at life. Life then appears beautiful, unique and mystical; it becomes worthwhile to live "death". Death is the one real truth in our lives. Everything else consists of dreams and deceptions. Why would you live an entire lifetime, whether it moved towards suffering or happiness, if death were not there to awaken you to reality?

The same friend echoed what others had already told me: that I see life and death in this way because I am too good. So, if I were too bad, life would be far more beautiful - or if I were simply selfish.

Ceasing to see existence through dualities causes problems for thought, because thought will fight until the final moment for its own survival. The death of thought is the death of the ego, while the death of the body brings the final reality. Until then, you may struggle for a long time within the snares of life's illusions.

Life sometimes catches you in its net. You wake a little, then fall back into dreaming. Suffering awakens you slowly but surely to reality. It reveals life as an illusion, a beautiful or ugly dream, or perhaps a nightmare. What happens within depends upon you, but the outer world depends upon others. They construct your actual destiny, the world in which you must perform your part as well as you can. Most people will enter their role so completely that they will confuse the script with their ideal or the purpose of their life.

When you begin walking the inward path, you receive rare flashes of whatever makes you happy and fulfilled, if such moments have been granted to you. As life continues striking you, or as you pursue your dreams, you gradually realise that those flashes in which life acquires shades of divinity are given by the death of thought and the beginning of the kingdom of the heart.

The world has misunderstood this kingdom, although its arrival was announced thousands of years ago. Love is not a torment, nor does it bring suffering. Only the things and people we love can give us a mistaken view of love's existence, because those we love still wear blinkers firmly across the eyes of their hearts.

You are happy because of what you feel and because it fulfils you, yet what you desire does not materialise or take form within your existence. Sometimes it does, briefly or for a longer time, then disappears like smoke. The ashes left by this revelation will either be buried in the urn of your heart or scattered by your thoughts to the four winds.

Sit alone with your thoughts and try to ignore them for even one moment. You will see that it is impossible, especially once you become conscious of their interference. Thought is disturbed by love's weakness before existence, destiny and the soul. Yet the heart is equally disturbed by thought's indifference towards the creator of its own existence.

Without the heart, and therefore without love, animals would stand above human beings. We can see where the kingdom of thought is taking us: towards a life without love, in which we ignore the consequences of our actions, allow ourselves to be manipulated into slavery, destroy nature and beauty, and invent an artificial world without value.

I do not wish even to imagine what life would look like through thought's vision, with the heart denied the smallest role. The Kingdom of Heaven is near. It has hidden within us for aeons. A struggle was invented because otherwise the world would have placed no value upon this kingdom, although no one knows with certainty whether it truly exists.

Few people have declared themselves genuinely free within our existence. Those who did built an empire around themselves through the people who followed their ideas and vision. The rest, caring nothing for the heart, monetised as thoroughly as possible whatever had been given to them.

Long ago, before I managed to write what I felt as I later did in this book, I had a song that repeated continuously within me: "Come, sweet death, come, and soothe my life." At that time, I felt that nothing in this life was worth living even as a dream, because the love within could find no fulfilment in the world outside.

A little later, the first hope appeared. Much later came what I believed would rival eternity, but in the end it too survived only within. Everything I have lived is a lesson. I can renounce thought, but I cannot renounce the heart. I cannot abandon love or drive it from my heart, even if that means my own disappearance.

Only death could give me the peace and happiness of which I dream, unless love were fulfilled not only within but also in the world outside, as it once was.

First published in Romanian on 9 March 2011. This English translation preserves the perspective of that period.

Original Romanian article: Ante mortem nemo beatus.