Chapter 4: We Are Afraid of Death Because We Want to Control It

Chapter Four opens Part Two, the part where we begin to touch the root of fear. Until now we have spoken about why it is worthwhile to smile at death, and now we turn to explore the opposite question: why are we actually so afraid of it. As long as this fear sits inside us, we cannot truly smile. The fear of death is the root of many other fears: fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of aging, fear of change, fear of love, fear of surrender. As long as we do not understand this fear, we live under its shadow.

So why are we afraid of death. Chapter Four says: because we want to control it. We want to know when it will happen, how it will happen, to what age we will reach, in what way it will arrive. We want to predict it in advance and make sure we are not surprised. We want to be the owners of this whole thing, but that is an illusion. It is impossible to control death. In a certain sense, our fear of it is born precisely from this desire to control it.

The need to control death comes from the human need for control in general. Control gives a feeling of security. It gives us the illusion that we understand, that we know, that we are managing reality. But in front of death, control breaks. There we meet the border. There we are confronted with the fact that we are not really managing the story. There, in that place, the greatest anxiety appears, the anxiety of the unknown.

This unknown frightens us because it reminds us of what we are trying to forget, that we do not own time, that we do not hold our own breath, that we are part of something larger than us. The fear of death is the fear of losing control, and the fear of losing control is the greatest fear of the ego.

The ego loves order, loves definitions, loves to know and to explain. It is built on a sense of certainty. When death arrives and shows it that there is no certainty, that anything can happen, that everything is temporary and passing, the ego panics. It clings more tightly, tries to define, to explain, to categorize, to plan, to control. But death does not belong to the realm of control. Death belongs to the realm of letting go.

When we want to control death, we are actually trying to hold on to something that cannot be held. We are fighting a powerful force of nature instead of learning from it. That inner war creates constant tension, chronic worry and anxiety. Instead of understanding that death is part of us, we treat it as an enemy, as if it is an external entity that threatens us, when in fact it is an inseparable aspect of the same consciousness that lives within us.

We want to know how much time we have left, as if knowing will solve the fear. But knowing does not solve it. It only deepens the illusion. The kind of knowledge we are trying to get will never satisfy us, because it cannot touch the truth. The truth about death cannot be grasped intellectually. It can only be known through experience.

When we look deeply at the fear of death, we discover that it is the fear of losing my story, my identity, everything I have built. We imagine that death erases us, but in truth it only removes a form. It does not erase the essence. It does not cancel who we really are. It simply releases us from the particular shape we have become used to.

The desire to control death is also born from the fear of disappearing, from the fear that nothing will remain of me. This is a very deep fear, almost existential, because we confuse form with essence. We think that if the form disappears, the essence disappears as well. But that is not true. When we learn to look at life from a wider place, we understand that essence does not disappear. It only changes form.

So we are afraid of death because we want to control it, and we want to control it because we refuse to surrender to life itself. The one who is trying to control death is actually trying to control life, because life and death are two sides of the same coin. Whoever does not know how to surrender to death, does not really know how to surrender to life.

Life itself asks for movement, change, surrender and flow. Life cannot be fully managed, cannot be fully planned. Every moment is a surprise. But our ego clings to planning, to knowledge, to certainty, as if through them we can prevent death. We build walls of insurance, of health, of money, of control. Yet death remains there, smiling from behind the wall, not as a threat but as a presence that says: stop clinging. You are already part of me.

When we begin to loosen the need to control, something loosens also in the fear. One who does not need to control, does not need to be so afraid. One who is willing not to know, does not have to panic when he does not know. One who is willing to live without control, can also die without fear.

Death is not the enemy of control, it is the teacher of control. It teaches us what life fails to teach us, how to let go. How to agree to be part of a wider movement. How to trust the flow of existence even when we do not understand it.

When I stop trying to control death, I begin to learn how to truly live. To live truly is to agree to be part of something I do not control. It is to agree to be in a movement of surrender rather than a movement of grasping.

The way to begin this is simple but very profound, to smile at death. To smile at lack of control, to smile at uncertainty, to smile at the fact that everything changes, to smile at the fact that I do not know when and I do not know how. This smile is a bridge. It is not a shield and not a new form of control. It is an agreement.

When I smile at death, I am actually saying: I understand that I am not in control. And I choose not to be afraid of that. I choose to trust life, the larger story, the source that moves everything. I smile, and I calm down. Because I understand that I do not need to control something I already belong to.

Smiling at death, because it frees me from the need to control. Smiling at death, because it reminds me that life is not something to be held onto but something to flow with. Smiling at death, because in the place where control ends, wisdom begins.

Chapter 5: We Are Afraid of Ourselves and Therefore Afraid of Death

First of all I want to thank you for being here, for giving this creation of mine its space. Among all the things I have created, I regard this work as a kind of summit. I do not know if there is such a thing as “the most important thing a person does in his life”, but this is how it feels to me. Here I am doing something I have been preparing for through all the other things I have done. Thank you for being here, for allowing this to happen, for allowing this expression to take form, for allowing my energy to become shape, a place, a living process. Without you, it does not exist. I would just be talking to a camera, and that is all.

This also tells the deeper social story that is unfolding here. The information I am bringing, the way of dealing with things that I am proposing, are part of a larger story of human interaction. It is part of a group process, a process of consciousness that evolves through connection, sharing and encounter. I bring something, people listen, they think about it, they speak with each other, they experiment, and it becomes a collective process. Something is happening to us as a human community, not only as individuals. Again, thank you for being here, for being part of this learning, this focus on something that I believe is one of the most significant foundations for human growth today and for the healing of many of the conflicts we experience as people and as a society.

I believe that the difficulty to smile at death, the fear we have cultivated around it, is at the root of many problems. The fear of being in contact with death, with that territory of endings and transitions, sets in motion many mechanisms of resistance, separation, distorted fears, destructiveness and violence. It is the fear that feeds what we call human pathology. The denial of death is the denial of who we really are. It is the denial of the big story, of the wonder, of the mystery, of what lies beyond what the eyes can see. We have an unconscious preference to remain in the small story, the narrowed story, inside the prison of not knowing, not looking, not being willing to see what lies beyond the walls.

Chapter Five says: we are afraid of ourselves, and therefore we are afraid of death. Nelson Mandela once wrote that the greatest fear of a human being is to recognize his own greatness. He wrote it while in prison, and it is an incredibly deep sentence. It is hard to explain, but perhaps our greatest fear is not of death itself, but of the magnitude within us, of our light, of our freedom, of our immense potential to be divine beings.

We are afraid to recognize the rules of the game of this place called life. One of the rules is that we are in complete uncertainty about what is going to happen in the near future, and even more so about the distant future. We are in total uncertainty, and we cannot stand that. We deny it. The more we deny it, the more we fear looking at it, and in fact the more we fear looking at ourselves.

Because the self, the inner being, is fully alive only in the present moment. In the present moment there is immense certainty. Here, in this moment, I exist. Here I have infinite creative potential. Here I have the capacity for healing, for change, for growth. Here, I am in my greatness. And in this present moment, I can also die, because death does not exist only in some future point. It exists now, as part of life itself. But we prefer not to see that.

The more deeply we look into the present, the more we understand that we are temporary. At the same time, we also understand that this temporariness is connected to eternity. We are temporary only in our form, but always connected to something eternal, something larger than us, something we are part of. And that “something” invites us to creative and courageous expression, not out of fear but out of love.

It is as if that larger voice, that voice from there, says to us: you have nothing to fear. This is an illusion. Nothing really ends. Nothing truly disappears. It is a manipulation. Come for a short visit to the other territory and you will see that everything is infinite, that everything is connected and flowing.

But we are afraid to see this truth. We are afraid of ourselves, of our enormous potential, of the light we hold, of the freedom that is possible for us. We are afraid of our ability to create, to shape, to change. Because this power exists only in the present, in the place where there is no certainty, in the place where we are forced to trust.

The present is the place where we can die and be born in every moment. It is also the place where we are most alive. And the part of us that knows this is in constant contact with what we call death. It is not that we will “go back there” someday. We are already there. Part of us is always there. All the time.

This place, what we call death, sends us here with tasks. It sends us to experience, to learn, to love, to create, and at the end to return with everything we have learned. To do this well, we need to connect with it here and now, with less fear. We need to connect to the fact of our temporariness, to the fact of uncertainty. Because instead of being afraid of it, we can bring it into a different place, into a place that is creative, fertile, abundant and renewing.

There is no other time but now. There is none. Through the now we sow the seeds for the next now and the one after it. Every moment we live shapes the next, but we have no control over what exactly will be there. This is the hard part, to acknowledge that we do not know, and that this is actually exciting.

It is hard for us to release the need to know, the need to control the future, the length of our life, the conditions of our life. When we cling to this control, we are denying death. Because death reminds us of the truth, of our temporariness, and of the fact that this temporariness is the gateway to eternity.

Death tells us the truth. It says, here you are. Right here. Right now. This is all there is. And in this very moment there are endless possibilities. Possibilities for creation, for realization, for love, for change, for healing, for inner and outer revolutions. Everything is here, now.

In this now there are so many things we can do, be and change. Other things we will be able to touch only later, after we live through more “nows,” more moments of physical life. But the path of development is always the same, to stop being afraid of this platform we call life.

Life is temporary and eternal at the same time. This is a paradox that is difficult to digest, but that is the game. Part of the game is that we cannot see all of our potentials in advance, that we do not know exactly what awaits us. Part of the game is learning to trust even when we do not know.

Our challenge is to stop fighting the game itself. To stop fighting ourselves. To step into the now. This is not easy. But perhaps this is the great story of smiling at death. Because when we really learn to be in the present, we discover that this is the place where we have the most energy, the most power, the most life.

In the present we remember that we are temporary and at the same time eternal. We touch the pain in that knowledge, and we can also smile at it. Because there, in the place where we meet the pain, we also meet the release.

So why are we so afraid of death. Because death is the true story of life. It is the truth behind all the little stories. At first, as in many other matters, truth can hurt. But then this truth heals.

It is not simple to smile at death. Just like many other things that are not simple but are the right and worthwhile thing to do. This is what we are learning here. This is the journey. A fascinating journey. Smiling at death.

Chapter 6: Death Reminds Us There Is a Greater Story We Prefer Not to Know

Chapter Six closes Part Two. Part Two asked why we are so afraid of death. Here we are already at its end, and I admit that it feels as if it went by too quickly, as if something in this process is rushing forward, as if life itself is asking us to speak about this, to stop being afraid of it, to finally understand it more deeply. I think that the more we crack this question, the deeper we go to the roots of the fear of death, the more the quality and meaning of our lives will grow in direct proportion to the softening of that fear.

Not so that we can become more “heroic”, not in order to take more physical risks or do dangerous stunts, not to feel like heroes. I am talking about a change of mindset, about something existential and daily that touches every decision and every choice, from first to last. How we are influenced by what we see and by what we think is missing, what we choose to do or not do, what we dream about, what we postpone, how we feel, what we manage to achieve, where we get stuck. All of this, in the end, is connected in one way or another to a single place, the fear of death.

How important it is to shake this habit, the habit of fearing death. It is such a deeply rooted habit, so cultural, so global. This fear has become almost part of our identity as human beings. And apparently we have many psychological reasons to fear the unknown, the end, the separation, the loss, the abandonment. But I think there is another reason, much deeper.

If death is home, if death is a pleasant place to be, if it is a place where the full picture is revealed to us, where we are received with much love, a place where we can move and choose freely, a place of clarity and calm, then why are we so afraid of it.

Chapter Six says: because death reminds us that there is a greater story we prefer not to know.

We are afraid of death because it might open for us the door to a truth we do not want to see. And the fear of truth can sometimes be the greatest fear of all. Because this truth is so big, and our fear of it so strong, we do not want to know it. We run away. We invent distractions, dramas, occupations, just so we will not meet that very thing. We prefer the fear of death over the awareness that death exposes something we are not ready to face.

Death tells us there is a larger story, in which all the things we think of as “me” and “you” and “them” are only small parts of something much wider. But we do not want to recognize this. So we stay behind the walls. Walls of ignorance. We manage ourselves through fear and let that fear rule us, guide us, set our pace, our choices, our thoughts. Much of our suffering, many of the difficulties we live in, many of the places where others control us or influence us not for our benefit, are products of this fear, this great fear we have not released.

Again, it is not fear of dying itself, but fear of the place beyond, the place where, if we were to enter, we would find a truth that is too big, too exciting, too intense for us to contain with our current tools. But that place, this “death” we are afraid of, is a very alive place. It is a place full of existence, existing within us and affecting us all the time. The more I grow and develop, the more I understand that this place is not dead at all. It is full of life. It is a source. It is a root. It is the heart of consciousness.

It becomes more and more intriguing for me, not as intellectual curiosity but as longing. Not from a need “to understand,” but from a desire to experience, to feel, to meet. Because deep inside I know that I am part of that story. The big story we fear.

That story says there is no true separation between us. There is no such thing as “me” and “him” and “her” in the way we imagine. There is no real failure. No real loss. No real missing out. There is no higher value to a “successful” person than to someone who seems to be doing nothing. Both are expressions of the same consciousness, of the same soul, of the same cosmic game. That is the big story.

But this big story is threatening. It may cause us to stop and ask, even for a moment, perhaps with some shock, whether everything we are doing here, all the effort, all the investment, all the suffering, is truly necessary. Maybe not. Maybe it is simply a choice.

And this is the central point. Choice. I chose my life. I chose my problems, the people who challenge me, my pains, my traumas, my sadness, my tears, my frustration, my illnesses. I chose everything. It is not a decree. It is not a punishment. It is part of the greater story.

This big story, I admit, can be irritating. It can feel almost infuriating. Because it is completely different from the story I tell myself daily. I, with my dramas, my reasons, my justifications, my “why am I like this” and “why are they like that”, am busy with a small story. And the big story stands behind it, smiling, waiting for me to turn my head toward it.

The big story can show me that everything I thought about myself, about others, about the world, was a very small version, a narrowed, even childish version. It might show me that the annoying neighbor, or the prime minister I curse, or the person who hurt me, are all parts of my own script. It might show me that all these dramas, to which I have devoted so much energy, are just decorations on a much larger wall.

Am I ready for this. To dismantle all my stories. To see the truly big story.

This is not a simple question. Because when I open that door, I also free myself from the local drama. And maybe, together with that freedom, I lose some of the energy that the drama gave me. Perhaps the things I used to get excited about will no longer excite me. Perhaps I will no longer have the same urge to fight, to argue, to prove. Perhaps I will discover that I do not have to do all that.

Because truly, I do not have to. I chose this. I chose it all.

And there, beyond the walls, in that realm we call “death”, they see all of this. They see the big story. It is not easy to grasp this from inside our limited perspective. Our mind is not built to contain the whole picture. If I were to truly understand that every random encounter in the street, every word I say, every glance I cast, are parts of an infinite network of connections, causes and effects, I would be filled with awe. There, they see it. There, it is clear.

When you look beyond the wall, you see that all of this, the meetings, the decisions, the risks, the experiences, are all parts of the same vast story, so delicate and complex that it cannot be contained in the mind.

But when this becomes a little bit clearer, something happens. All the dramas, all the perceptions, all our need to be right, to cling, to win, begin to melt. All the unnecessary parts of the ego dissolve.

And then the question arises again: am I ready for this. Honestly, usually not. Most of us prefer the local drama, the familiar suffering, our small story. We prefer to feel terrible rather than feel infinite. And that is all right. It is a human path. It is a manipulation we choose.

But there is also another option.
When we learn to smile at death, we are not doing something simple. It is not just an interesting philosophical idea. It is a very brave inner movement. It is an agreement to come closer to the place where the big truth is waiting for us. It is an agreement to look at the big story and say to it, I am not afraid of you.

And maybe, if we are honest, we do hesitate to smile at death, because deep inside we are not sure we really want to see the big story. Maybe we are afraid of the light no less than we are afraid of the dark.

Because inside death our home is waiting for us, truth is waiting for us, the knowledge of why we came here is waiting for us. To return there is to meet truth, to see the whole picture, to be freed from the narrow local story. I do not know if I will ever be “ready” for that. Probably not. But I can come closer. I can start to look in that direction. Not with an intellectual look, but with an experiential one. And I can do it in one very simple way, by smiling.

Smiling at death. Smiling at its presence. Smiling at those who are no longer physically here, yet are very present around us. Because in truth, they are here. They are in this room. They are in this breath. We speak with them, they speak with us. Our whole sense of time changes there. Our whole sense of space changes. Everything becomes one.

Am I ready for that. Maybe only a little. But I can prepare myself. I can deepen my understanding of life, come closer to understanding the big story, simply through a smile.

The act of smiling may look small, but it is actually huge. A smile that changes consciousness, changes life, changes our whole view of existence and death.

Smiling at death.

Chapter 7: Losses Symbolize, More Than Anything, the Great Pain of Being Torn from the Source

Chapter Seven opens Part Three. We have twelve parts, each with three chapters, and Part Three says: losses are painful, you cannot smile at them. In these three chapters we are going to examine that statement. It is a first-level statement that still holds the potential for change, to some extent, whenever and wherever it is appropriate. It is important to look at both sides: where it is possible and where it is not possible to smile, where it may be fitting and where it may not be, while remembering that in the end each person decides for themselves.

Losses symbolize, more than anything, the great pain of being torn away from the source. I believe this is the root of existential pain, a root we usually miss because we think from a purely human, physical, earthly place, and therefore struggle to see the larger story. This is part of the illusion of being here, part of the exaggerated fear of death. As long as we see reality only through the local lens, everything beyond it appears frightening, irrelevant, “not according to the rules,” foreign to the rules of the game. It is frightening because it is unknown, and it is also frightening because we have built many layers of excessive fear around it.

What I am offering in Chapter Seven is, in my view, a very important perspective on the main pains we experience as human beings. This perspective comes to remind us that we are much more than we usually grant ourselves, both in our inner dialogue and certainly in our interpersonal communication. We have an almost unconscious tendency to shrink ourselves, because that seems natural here. We do not notice that this self-shrinking convinces us that we are small, that the divine is elsewhere, that spirit exists in some realm far above us, and that we are minor characters in a limited story. In my eyes the typical human mistake is not seeing that we are part of the larger story, that each one of us is part of the divine field, that we have other parts of ourselves residing in places we call God, death, soul, and that we are working together with them all the time.

Here, in the physical world, only part of the story is present. The bigger story is right alongside us, in those territories I call “death,”  alive, breathing, connected to us, feeding us, influenced by us. In truth we are a team, working together for purposes far higher than can be understood from here. Whenever I do meaningful work here, face my fears, undergo transformation, heal from something, it is significant here, and even more significant there. It has a value far beyond what I can grasp. Sometimes I can only feel that value.

In Part Three we meet losses as an inevitable component of human existence. Sooner or later, one way or another, a person loses close people. We lose in other forms as well: breakups, changes, people who exit our lives; the loss of a beloved pet; the loss of possessions, of things that were and are no longer. In this world, things disappear. In other dimensions, this is not entirely accurate. Even within us, we are often unaware that some of our losses are experienced in an exaggerated way, because parts of what we have “lost” have actually stayed with us. We are much more than our physical, tangible existence.

If I had a partner when I was eighteen, if there was an intimate bond between us and now she is no longer in my physical life, a part of her remains within me. A part of her is imprinted in me. A part of her is present in the DNA of my soul. That part is irreversible. It does not vanish. But we almost do not relate to this part, because it seems less important to us. We are so busy with the pain of being torn away from the source.

This is the drama that receives so much of our attention. To be here, to be physical, means to forget the pleasant, comfortable, whole, harmonious place, the place that is good to be in: home. In a certain sense I am a refugee here. A refugee by choice, yes, but still a refugee, outside the home, far from home. And that hurts. All the disharmony here, all the losses, injuries, fears, the long list of sources of suffering, all of these are part of the experience of this realm. I meet them, live them, wrestle with them here. At home, at the source, these things do not disappear, but they are experienced differently, as part of a story that has meaning, purpose and direction.

But I cannot be there right now, because I am here. And this distance, this choice to move away from there and bring only part of my essence here, involves pain. There is something in the existential structure that says: in order to enter this denser reality, I must go through a painful birth. The process of birth tears me away from the source, and that pain is present within me every time I meet the pains of life. Every pain here unconsciously reminds me of that earlier tearing, of that crossing.

This is probably a very deep pain, hard to connect with not only because it hurts, but also because it reminds me of where I long to be, a place to which my access is limited at the moment. It hurts to come from love and harmony and find myself in a world of fear, lack and disharmony.

When I experience a loss here, that loss echoes within me the great loss, which is, of course, a certain kind of illusion, but an illusion I experience as real: I “lost” my natural place; I temporarily gave it up when I came here. On another level I have many parts and strong representatives still there, but at the experiential level I feel that I have given something up, that I have entered this swamp of fears, pains and forgetting the source.

We forget this pain because we are afraid to remember the full story. There is no longer a real reason to fear it the way we once did, because we are here to smile at death. And part of smiling at death is also understanding the places where it is hard to smile, places where we meet, experientially and not only intellectually, the pain of coming here, of this passage we have forgotten and repressed, even though it is central to the human experience.

This pain is important. It connects us to truth. It reminds us that the passage into this realm creates many of the pains of life here. When someone leaves us, when someone dies and returns home, I meet within myself the old pain of my own decision to come here. The closer this person was to me, the more they were “part of me”, the more it hurts. A person who is close to me reminds me of the original love. When that person leaves, I am left here with the pain of this distance from home.

So in Chapter Seven I am offering yet another angle on one of the most difficult aspects of human life: losses. I am showing that there is a deep meaning hidden there — a recognition of my place here, an experiential recognition. This is not an easy part. Smiling at death is not easy at all. We did not come here to do something easy. We came to do something important — something that, in the end, may make physical life here a little easier. And just for that, I believe, it was worth coming.

Chapter 8: Supporting the Processes of Grief

So here we are. I am creating this course in a very complicated time, a deeply shaking time, as if the ground itself is trembling here (the events of November 2023). There is a lot of preoccupation with life and death, and a lot of encounters with death, mostly from a position of fear, pressure, violence, expressions of helplessness on one side, and revenge and hopelessness on the other. There are extremes, polarities, an extreme mode of being, a deeply polarized state that, at the moment, feels almost unavoidable. But like every polarized state, it is temporary.

Inside this situation, I am recording Chapter Eight and several chapters ahead, because this situation is not going to stop in a single moment. Alongside its pain and uncertainty, it also brings with it a deep personal and social change in our relationship with death. That is how I see it, and it is no coincidence for me that this course is being born precisely in this period. Chapter Eight is the second chapter in Part Three.

Part Three deals with the statement that losses are painful and you cannot smile at them. Chapter Eight says: smiling at death helps the process of grief and the healing that follows. And grief is something we truly need.

When we meet death up close, grief is bound up with the presence of death. We are used to seeing grief as a period of separation, of sadness, of a transition from a reality in which a close person is present in our life to one in which that person is no longer present and will never again be present in the familiar way. We have this process, this bridge, called grief, through which we pass, and you could even say we are “born” into a new state. As in every birth, there is pain. As in every birth, there is a big change. As in every birth, there is an irreversible shift. That is why grief is necessary. It is always complex. It always shakes the existing structure and brings with it existential questions, and sometimes philosophical questions as well, about existence, about life and about death.

What we do not always notice is that grief is not only about the loss itself. Grief is about the presence of death. Or, said differently: as a rule, we are used to living behind a wall of denial, with no dialogue and no connection to the world of death. For us, death is something unknown, sometimes even forbidden, distant, the end of life, something very sad that we eventually “arrive at.” I say: that is our source.

We are afraid of our source. We are in a kind of struggle with our source. On a deep level this is not really possible, but this is where we are at in our current state of development. We prefer to build walls of denial, and from time to time those walls crumble — when someone dies, when we go to a funeral, when we experience death close to us. For a while, that sharp separation between life and death softens. Death becomes present. We respond to it.

This is very different from a situation in which we simply hear, with sadness, that someone passed away, that someone died, was murdered, killed, or took their own life, but that person is not truly close to us. Then we may feel shock, a kind of jolt or sadness. Maybe it is a movie star, maybe a distant relative, maybe someone we once knew, maybe someone in the neighborhood. Death jumps in for a short visit into our awareness and, in most cases, we soon return to denial.

When it is someone close to us, death remains present in our experience for a much longer time. What is very hard to see,  and I addressed this already in Chapter Seven — is that we carry within us a pain related to death that is not necessarily directly about death itself, but largely about life. It is the pain of remembering the pain with which we came here. It is a pain we usually try to forget and deny, without noticing that this pain is deeply running us, that it is, to a large extent, the boss behind many of our choices and reactions. It is the pain of entering life.

From my perspective, it is fascinating to watch the kind of confusion or misperception we live inside. We often think we are afraid of a certain thing, but that thing we think we fear is not the real thing that frightens us. What usually frightens a person most is pain. Pain is the most daunting experience. And quite surprisingly, death or loss, which make death more present in our experience, stir up exactly that pain. They bring up the pain we denied and repressed.

If, in the midst of all the drama, for some portion of the time and not always, we can pause for a brief moment, for seconds, for minutes, and make a small inner movement of smiling at death, at the place where the person we lost is now, at the place where in truth they have always been, because they have always been there and we have always been there, then we have a moment of reconnection and remembrance. A remembrance that is not based only on the unavoidable pain but on a deeper knowing.

That moment of remembrance, of smiling at death, will not take the pain away from us, it is not meant to take the pain away, but it can allow us to place the pain within us in a different place, a place where we can work with it better: with less struggle, less anger, less shock, and more of a process of self-healing.

This can create a significant difference both in the healing process and in the grief process itself, which, as we said, is unavoidable. But when I do not truly know what I am facing, something in me is being run in a way I do not understand, and that places me in helplessness. I suffer more. It is harder for me. Everything becomes longer and heavier.

When I am able to look at the loss, that very loss which hurts so much that it almost does not allow me to smile at all, and still find inside myself a tiny option to smile at death on the level of metaphor and attitude, I discover that there is there a “closet full of fear.” There is a kind of exaggerated reverence for death. With such a huge reverence it is very hard to form familiarity, closeness, or dialogue. It is hard to see that there is actually teamwork here between life and death. Life and death are partners. As long as there is only fear, I cannot be in fear and in connection at the same time.

This exaggerated reverence comes from ignorance, from fears we have created around the unknown, around the “other realm.” We can begin to dismantle this fear slowly through smiling at death. Smiling at death as a message that says: I am curious. I want to listen. There is someone or something there that I can smile at, and perhaps it, or they, can smile back at me.

We cannot and must not take away a person’s grief, nor forcefully shorten it. The processes of grief are very important, very meaningful, and must be gone through — and gone through well. But sometimes they last longer than necessary. Sometimes they hurt more than they must. Sometimes they leave a scar that is too large, that influences the continuation of life in an exaggerated way, and creates a trauma that is hard to heal from.

We want to help ourselves heal, to move on, together with the knowing that we have experienced a loss. It is better to try, even for a few moments, to smile at death. Because the message within that smile says: yes, I am here, mortal, and it hurts that I lost someone. But deep, deep inside, I know I cannot truly lose them. I cannot lose them. It is not an option. Because they are there, and I am there.

This is another way to smile at death. It is hard, yes. But we did not come here to bypass the hard things. We came to meet them, pass through them, and slowly strip away their excessive heaviness so they can become a more creative space.

Chapter 9: Smiling at Death Ultimately Leads to a New and Higher Connection with Those We Have Lost

Chapter Nine closes Part Three. This is a difficult part to work with, but probably an essential one: to look at our losses, at the people we “lose” to death. This is one of the most complex tasks we face as human beings. I believe it is difficult both because it is meant to be difficult as part of our process, and because we carry exaggerated fear around it, fear of entering in and looking at our emotional story around death. That fear makes it even harder to deal with losses. There is great value simply in engaging with all of this. Even if at the peak of a loss I do not smile, maybe I will smile later. Not as a way to block the pain or sadness, but as a way to heal, as a way to continue living, as a way to reconnect all the parts — life, death, life, death — into one fabric that offers meaning, safety, and sometimes even moments of calm.

Smiling at death ultimately leads to a new and higher connection with those we have lost. These are just words; they do not promise that it will be easy to apply, nor that they will be relevant at every moment. But within the larger picture, they may become very significant.

Inside the drama of life and death, another drama is constantly taking place: the drama of together and alone. Almost all of our dramas touch this theme. Our arrival here was a transition from wholeness, from fullness, from the divinity that we are, into the feeling of being trapped, distant from the source, and also different and separate from other people.

Separateness meets us everywhere. Then family enters the picture, a family member, a relative, who in some ways is less separate than others. They are “more ours.” They are our tribe. They remind us of our source, of belonging, how important belonging is for us and how critical it is. When we lose someone close like that, something tears inside. It is as if a piece was torn out that helped create a sense of connection to the source. Family or community serve as reminders that allow us to exist within a field of great separateness. They grant us a sense of belonging that brings us back, for a moment, to source. When someone dies or is killed or murdered or takes their own life, that circle of continuity is cut, and the shock throws us back into that original feeling — as in birth — of having been in one reality and suddenly thrown into another: into a place of separateness, difficulties, crimes, illnesses and suffering. It hurts deeply, and it also invites us to work with it.

We were not truly “thrown” here. We chose to come. We chose to come out of a deep positive logic. There is a connection here to growth, to development, to healing on dimensions far beyond what we can see with human eyes. We chose, out of a high divine choice, to come. We chose the pains that would await us here. We chose them. But in our lived experience, it can feel as if we were thrown in, and that feeling is not easy to shake. Even if we repeat again and again “I chose”, the feeling that we may have been thrown into difficulty does not always change. It is not always truly clear to us why we are here. Many times we have not even really asked the question.

Why am I here. Why am I really here.
This is a question that sometimes feels like breaking a code, like breaking a contract, as if we are not “allowed” to ask it seriously or for too long, because it does not fit with functioning. As if we must function and not ask.

So we tend to take our being here for granted. Then we fight every possibility of not being here, also for granted. It is fine to fight for life and vitality. But that does not mean staying blind to what lies beyond them, to what belongs to them and is connected with them. That, too, is part of the game.

If I can practice, and here a concept appears that we have not yet named explicitly, if I can practice, that is, remind myself and bring myself again and again closer to a certain inner place, I enter into a movement of initiative, of action, of repeated doing at a rhythm that suits me, perhaps with a small ritual. I practice, because otherwise it will simply not happen. Like exercising, like meditation practice, like yoga practice, like writing practice, I bring myself, intentionally and with some effort, because it is important to me. The same is true here: to practice smiling at death. To practice and to get used to it, these two words even echo each other. Practices become habits, but they remain practices; they continue to challenge. Smiling at death is a practice. It is something we can train in. And this is, in fact, the main thing we can do at this moment.

The more we practice, allow ourselves to practice and to get used to it and to open up, the less we will be startled. We will be less governed by the old instincts we have developed, those automatic brakes: “No no, death, do not touch, scary, dangerous, taboo, darkness,” and so on, all the fears we grew up with.

When we practice smiling at death in the context of grief, at some point, in our own time, it allows us to reconnect, in a new and higher way, with those who are no longer here in the physical story. It reminds us that they are with us, that they have always been with us, that they will always be with us.

This is part of the larger story I have spoken about in previous chapters. Smiling at death is actually meeting the bigger story. It does not cancel pain. We are meant to experience the pain. Pain is part of the assignments here. But we can improve our ability to be with the pain, to turn it into a driving force, into creativity, development and growth, and not get stuck only inside the pain, not become addicted to the role of the suffering victim, but walk a path of learning. The pain of losing a loved one is necessarily going to be there. Even though it appears to be a pain of death, I believe it is also a pain of birth, the pain and difficulty of moving from one dimension to another, from one phase to another, a change of vibration until we connect again with a new place. Then this kind of pain is no longer needed in the same way. Yet it has been there, and it will be there, and it does not have to be as frightening as it is. We go through it, we are born through it, and we are changed through it.

If I am able to smile at the process while I am in it, not out of denial, but out of an understanding that the smile helps me go through the process of pain in a better way, then, if I have practiced beforehand, it will be easier at the moment of truth. Ultimately this helps me reconnect the parts, to feel less alone and less abandoned because someone has left the physical realm, and to connect with them, some of the time, on a spiritual and emotional level — to know and feel that they are here, that they are with me.

Whoever is more experienced in intuitive creativity, whoever is willing to play with imagination and creation, can contact them: can write, can receive answers, can even “invent” answers — and discover that this creates an emotional connection with the one who has left. Because they have not really gone as far as we think. The “gone” is only the small story we tell ourselves here, part of a huge and meaningful story that we are not sufficiently aware of, a story that makes it very worthwhile to smile at death.

The intention here is not to dismantle the pain or make light of it, but to expand the work we are doing with the pain, with the grief and with the losses, so that we can keep our eyes open to the larger story of which we are a part, and of which those who were here and are no longer physically present are also part. As long as I do not see this larger story, I am subject to more pain and suffering than necessary and, accordingly, I cannot grow, evolve and heal myself as much as is possible.

And therefore yes: to practice it. To practice smiling at death. Thank you.

Chapter 10: Two Realms That Constantly Nourish Each Other

Chapter Ten opens Part Four, and I am happy to arrive here. I want to bless you for being here. If you have come this far and chosen to continue beyond the first nine chapters, it means we can do something interesting together. That is my feeling. That is my knowing.

This topic is difficult, confusing, fascinating, creative, amazing and even repelling at times, and yet it is such a basic part of human existence. To remain in ignorance and not look at it is, in a way, to remain in ignorance and not look at many other things in our existence, because existence keeps replicating itself in reflections everywhere we go. If we shut ourselves down here, we shut ourselves down there. Then we do not understand why things do not work out for us, why things feel blocked. Once we put walls up, those walls travel with us everywhere.

But if we have come this far and are ready to begin Part Four, my sense is that we are now capable of approaching the wall, starting to clean it, starting to look for a stone we can push just a little, to make a small opening, a gap that is right for us, so we can begin to communicate and smile at “the other side,” which is not really another side at all, as we are about to discover. That is what Part Four is about.

There is a story behind the story we see. For me this is a psychological view, a therapeutic view, maybe even a philosophical view or a life approach that says: there is always another story behind the obvious story. There is always another drama behind the visible drama. There is a story behind the stories we see.

This is an approach that says: I cannot fully buy whatever is shown to me, told to me, explained to me or taught to me as the whole truth. I can listen, but I can also assume that there is something more. I can place a question mark next to what appears so certain.

Recently I watched a series that speaks about the light we cannot see. The most important light is the light we cannot see. It exists, and in order to see it we have to close our eyes, imagine it, look for it, and then it is there. But when we open our eyes and walk around with our usual accepted concepts, some of the big stories of existence remain hidden from us.

This is why we are here: to smile at death, first of all as a declaration. A declaration that I am changing the rules of the game. I smile at death. And smiling does not only mean to be less afraid. Smiling means to initiate a relationship.

If I see someone I like and I just look at her, that is one kind of contact. But if I smile at her, I have taken a step into relationship. I have invited her. It becomes harder for her not to respond in some way to my smile. Maybe she still can, but less. When we smile at death, we are inviting ourselves into a dialogue with the story we cannot see. We are inviting ourselves to be able to see more, not necessarily with our usual psychological tools or our ordinary vision.

Two realms that constantly nourish each other.
This is a basic principle, and you can look at it through many different philosophies and paths. Right now, I am speaking about something structural. You could say: there is “here” and there is “there.”

My basic assumption, the one that begins this entire story and sustains it, is that “there” is not only some place we will reach at the end of our life that is just passively waiting for us. It is much more than that. It is not only a destination but a field that does not exist only “over there.”

If I expand its presence to a ring that surrounds me, then it is indeed there at the end of this life, but it has also been beside me all along. And it is not only beside me. It is in relationship with me. It is influenced by me, and I am influenced by it. I feed it, and it feeds me.

The actions I take here, the choices I make, my decisions, my struggles, my experiences, they all carry energy that is sent out and has an impact. There is a kind of interest, on “the other side” of death, that I will go through certain experiences, face certain things, make certain choices, and experiment.

Whose interest is this? Mine. My own interest, in the version of me that exists there as well as here. Two realms that nourish each other.

We can describe this using the model of a relationship. When does a person truly feel alone? When they put up walls within themselves, when they isolate parts of themselves, when they are not in contact with parts of themselves. We are always in a kind of inner partnership. All the time.

Only that our awareness of this, our recognition of this, our ability to enjoy it or to consciously participate in it, changes from person to person, and changes with age, with personality, with birth circumstances, with culture, with the decisions we have made, with the development we have gone through, with the pains we carry. But the inner partnership exists.

From my point of view, what we have here, this realm, this humanity, this physical life, is, according to the “official” scientific story, the only place where such a story exists, and that is it. Everything happened by chance. That is the official narrative. There are other narratives, depending on who you ask: religious, philosophical, cultural.

But there is also another story, less spoken, that says this place is only part of a much larger system. This system functions as a two-way energetic exchange, like a partnership, like a pair of two forms of existence. One sees the big story. The other lives inside a smaller story that was intentionally designed to be small, in order to serve certain goals of growth and development that belong to the big story.

I clearly remember a moment in my life when it was absolutely obvious to me that I was standing in front of a certain choice, a certain action, and that I knew it would put me at risk. I knew I had all the reasons to hold back and avoid it. And I remember the exact moment when something in me said: do it. Do it, because big things will grow from it. You have here a mission that goes beyond what you can see. It has far-reaching consequences that are not limited to this realm. That knowing helped me to act. It gave me courage.

In that moment I knew I was acting beyond what I could see, and that my choices were affecting realms it is hard to name: parallel universes, the realm of death, the spiritual dimension of existence, God, the domain in which souls reside. We are not meant to put all of this into neat human frames. We cannot. The human mind is limited.

But there is one thing that is essential, and we can name it for now: there are two realms that constantly nourish each other. Whether it comes through intuition, messages I receive, insights, synchronicities, creative impulses; and when I embody them and do something with them, energy from what I have done flows back and nourishes the realm that sent me. We are in a loop.

Meanwhile my version here is growing, and the drives, roots and deeper parts of me that live “there” are also growing. They receive the energy that my life here generates. For me this is a much broader meaning for being here. There is a story behind the story we see.

And even if we never understand the entire story, maybe that is for the best. Maybe it is part of the adventure. When we fully return there, everything will open up again. But for now, we are meant to move closer. That is the growth. That is the task. To move closer and closer.

This means that from time to time we need to free ourselves a little from the local drama, which is never the whole story. In many directions it is not the real story at all. One of the important things a person can do during a lifetime is to ask more questions about the drama they see and to open up to other options, including options that are not “logical,” including ideas that the body resonates with and says “yes” to from within. “This interests me. I do not know if it is logical or not, but I am drawn to it.” And if I am drawn to it, perhaps it is part of the story behind the wall.

My role is to listen to that voice, to walk up to the wall, clean it a little, look for that small stone that can be pushed, make a small opening, and then smile.

Chapter 11: Infinity Is Very Familiar to Us, and From It We Came into a Space Where Freedom Is Developed Within a Framework

Smiling at Death, Chapter Eleven.
Chapter Eleven is the second chapter in Part Four. Part Four says there is a story behind the story we see. In my view this is true in almost every area where there is intense drama or strong energetic turbulence, but when it comes to life and death, it is even more evident.

In many situations there is a wider story than the one in front of our eyes, because our brain’s way of seeing is limited by design. We only see part of the picture. We do not really know what exists in those spaces that are not accessible to the mind, not only regarding life but also regarding what we call death.

I keep explaining that death is not a place waiting for us somewhere at the end of the road. It is a realm with which we are in continuous contact. We did not leave that realm, come here, and then one day “go back.” We came from there, we are still connected to it, and later we will return there in a fuller way. That is the structure as I see it, and this chapter wants to touch one of its deepest elements.

Infinity is very familiar to us. That is where we came from. Within us there is a complete knowing of infinity, even if at the mental level we have no way to comprehend it.

Physical life places us in a field with a framework. Here there is time and here there are boundaries. There is a sense of beginning and end. There are limitations of the body and limitations of emotion. There are laws of existence that operate inside a seemingly finite system. One of the most important life skills is to recognize the dialogue between freedom and framework. What is my freedom within the limitations? What is the movement of my soul within a system that seems limited? And to what extent am I the one limiting myself, beyond what reality truly demands?

In this course, Smiling at Death, I am offering a new kind of freedom. Not freedom from life, but freedom from the exaggerated fear we have created around death. From the moment I begin to smile at death, even in a small measure, a dialogue opens between me and the part of me that lives in the realm of infinity.

That part has been with me from before I arrived here. It knows infinity completely. And I also know infinity, and you also know infinity, through all those states in which we temporarily lose the sense of the frame: when we sleep and dream, when we truly rest, when we fantasize, when we create, when we are immersed in inspiration, when we fall in love, when we lose our sense of time. In those moments we touch infinity. That is where we re-encounter parts of the essence we came with, parts that we brought from the place I call “death,” but whose actual meaning is home, source, a field of fullness and love.

Infinity as a concept accompanies us much more than we imagine in daily life. The fact that we experience a finite existence here causes us to mistakenly think that our essence is also finite. But our essence is not limited by time, not limited by space, and not compressed into the body. What ends is only the form of existence. That is not the whole story. It is not even the larger part of the story.

Our mind is built to see boundaries. It wants a beginning and an end. It looks for structure. It cannot grasp a movement with no end. It cannot imagine a space that has no border. The awareness of infinity is not within its reach. But it is definitely within reach of our spiritual part, our heart, our inner voice.

In order to smile at death we need, just for a moment, to rise above the limitations of the mind while still using it. Not to run away from it, but to rise above it. To smile at what cannot be fully understood. This is the only way to begin to create a conscious relationship with the infinity within us, instead of living in separation from it. And when we do that, we allow more meaning to flow into our physical life, because we no longer look at it only from the narrow angle of time.

The passage from infinity into the physical framework is very hard to grasp. It is a passage from eternal essence into a body that lives and decays. A passage from a realm with no time into a realm where everything is defined by time. This is not a mistake. It is part of the game. It is part of human growth. Perhaps this is exactly why you came here: to learn how to recognize infinity while living inside a framework.

When I do that, when I look at life from the perspective of infinity, I understand that the rules here are not the final word. I understand that my fears are not the final word. I understand that a story that “ends” is not truly over.

I cannot have a book that explains to me exactly how all of this works. No one can. We can only offer concepts that point in the right direction. But I can say with confidence that smiling at death is a key. Smiling at death allows us to dismantle the illusion that there is something terrifying “over there.” The illusion that there is an end. The illusion that we disappear.

When we move from infinity into a place that has an end, we are actually invited to find, within the framework, the place that has no borders. To find the point of contact between who I am here and who I truly am. To find the freedom that exists inside the laws, not outside them. To find the space where I am infinite, through and beyond limitations that appear absolute.

Infinity is the part that wants us to bring it back here. To express it here. To let it appear in the body, in our choices, in our courage, in our creativity, in our love, in our healing. When I move closer to it here, inside the framework, I lessen my fear of death. I lessen my fear of life. I realize that the game I signed up for is a temporary game, that my forgetting was part of my choice, and that my fears are connected to my resistance to re-feel the pain of the passage from infinity to here.

What I am suggesting is that we learn to pass through that pain. Not to flee from it. Not to panic when it arises. To pass through it. And if necessary, to make a movement of inner return to the source while still being here.

When I do this, I make my life more creative, more meaningful, more free. I make the experience of being here fuller and less shackled.

To do so, we need to release what we have been told and what we have been taught to fear. We need to turn inward. To smile at death. To speak to it. To understand that it is not a far-away place. It is here. It is present. It is me. It is you. It is us. We are all, at every moment, here and there at once, and the only thing that separates us from that knowing is a frightened awareness.

When we smile at death, we stop living in separation between the infinite and the finite. We realize that both are part of one whole. Right now a part of us is here, in order to grow. At the right time that part will return there and continue on, because ultimately this is a game.

And if it is a game, then it is very wise to smile at it.

Chapter 12: There Are Higher Purposes Whose True Value Becomes Clear Beyond Death

Smiling at Death, Chapter Twelve.
This chapter closes Part Four, the part that says there is a story behind the story we see. I love this orientation. I think it is an orientation that brings a lot of flavor, meaning, value, and even a lot of strength to cope, when I understand that there is a story behind the stories. That there is a truth behind the visible drama, and that this truth is not the same as the visible drama.

It does not matter from which angle I approach this idea that there is a story behind the story, whether we speak of things we can somewhat grasp or of things that are beyond our usual capacity to understand. Taking this position, the position that says: what I see on the surface is not all that exists, and even the meaning I can extract from what I see is only a partial meaning, this position allows me to open to “more.” There is more.

And this “more” is not only something that will be discovered through scientific research or intellectual explanation. There is also a “more” that lives on the spiritual level. A spiritual orientation allows me to widen my vision and to see the larger story, maybe also a more interesting one, maybe also a more frightening one, and this is exactly why we are here.

Perhaps the largest story of human existence is the story of life and death. A story we consistently avoid. We live inside a certain prison that we build and maintain, and it seems to us that there is nothing beyond this prison. In the current consensus, death is almost always presented as something unclear, unknown, the end, darkness, loss, failure.

Someone who is connected to a spiritual practice may receive additional points of view, whether it is a Christian path, a Buddhist path, a Jewish path, or a more general spiritual practice that is not tied to any religion. Usually a spiritual approach looks beyond. It is not limited by logic. This is what makes life deeper, more interesting, more flexible, less frustrating and perhaps also much more creative and successful. When I approach a challenge from a wider place, I am less pulled into automatic drama. I can pause. I can ask. I can check. I can wait. I can explore in my own way.

The view I am presenting here tries to show that life and death are not two separate, unrelated things. They are two structures that complement each other and are in constant contact. This connection disappears from our awareness only because of the illusion we are living in.

This is what Chapter Twelve speaks about. There are higher purposes to be fulfilled, whose true value becomes clear more fully beyond death. I can almost draw it as a picture.

We incarnate here as human beings for a certain reason and with a certain list of missions. In the place we came from, this list of missions is completely clear. Here, our capacity to see it is very limited.

We are like someone sent out from a “mothership” on a mission to another place. Before setting out, we see all the details and understand everything. But we also know that in order to carry out the mission, we will have to forget most of the big story. If we do not forget, we will not cooperate. If we know all the truth in advance, it will be too hard, too painful. We must mix with the local drama, mix with physical existence, forget the source and remember it only through hints.

Those hints show up here as inner longings, as desires, as inexplicable urges, as a pull toward certain directions. A person feels something without knowing why. They may even argue with it. But the urge appears because it comes from the larger story that is not visible to them.

I am not inventing this from nowhere. Many spiritual traditions describe this in similar ways. I am simply illustrating it in a way that fits what I see and feel. That magnificent, detailed, strange and illogical “mission sheet,” which does not resemble any human organizational chart, is fully visible there. There everything is known. There the broad movement of all that we do is coordinated.

Here, within a body and a human identity, we are not able to see that. We are not meant to see that. Because if we remembered how pleasant, free, full, whole and infinite it was there, how good it was, how wide we were, how free from fear we were, we would not be able to truly be here. It is too painful to move from wholeness into density. It is a painful birth. It is the tearing from the source. So we must forget.

But we must also remember a little. We must also have points of connection. There needs to be a spark that allows me to understand that there is a real reason to continue, that there is meaning to the pain, meaning to the challenges, meaning to the brave choices I am asked to make.

When I smile at death, I smile at that part of me which is “there.” At the part of me that is there and sees everything. It sees the missions. It sees the reasons. It sees the gains. It sees the benefits. It sees the impact on other souls, on other stories, on other parts of the journey. When I smile at it, I create a connection. When I smile at death, I express within myself a consent to this deal. A deal born of love, despite its difficulty. A deal that I myself chose. A deal that says: I will do my best here.

I believe that these missions even change and update in real time. I change and evolve, and what happens around me changes. The energy created by each of my choices is recorded there, updates things there, and sends its influence wherever it is needed. This is a living dialogue.

But in order to take part in this dialogue in a wider way, I need to smile at death. That smile opens a channel. That smile echoes to the part of me that is there and tells it that I remember. That I agree. That I am here by choice. That this game is familiar to me. That the big story touches me.

There is a “mission sheet” that appears before my other part at every moment. Part of it will always remain hidden from me here. This is necessary. But turning life into a journey of searching is precisely the way to fulfill the missions themselves. The search is the fulfillment. The longing is the map. The inner pull is the compass. The rational mind is here only to help practically, to implement. It is a tool. It is not the leader.

The leader is there and also here, through the pull, through intuition, through the creative urge, through inspiration.

And when I smile at death, I give myself an opportunity to remember just a little more, to move a little closer to the big story, and to feel the value of what I am doing here, even when it hurts, even when it is hard, even when it is inexplicable.

Because there, the value is clear. There, everything is understood. And there, I am smiling back at myself.

This is the journey. This is the meaning of the smile.