You can’t take it with you.

In the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, you will find the following excerpt: “When we die, we leave everything behind, except our karma and our spiritual realization.”

As I relate to this statement, I reflect upon the number of people who come see me, who feel that their successes and achievements in this lifetime (as they relate to career and wealth accumulation) are so important that they get ‘hung up’ on worldly things – stressing out about material things that will remain connected to this world even after they themselves pass on to another dimension.

So, I ask, “What do you choose to take with you?” The experiences in this lifetime are very subjective. How do you experience failure? Is it a lesson to be applied to future endeavours, or a disappointing validation of your inabilities? How do you experience your past relationships? As an indicator of the values you are/aren’t looking for in a partner, and a guidance system for attracting what you really want? Or, do you still grieve over love lost, relationships broken apart by unfortunate circumstance? Do you focus on those finite items that can be made and bought, obtained and lost in this lifetime, or do you strive to learn more about the infinite beauty found in all of nature, volunteering to bathe in the wonderment of it all?

Some time ago, I attended a lecture given by Dr. Wayne Dyer, and I remember very well a story that he related to his audience about the concept of ‘no-thing’. In this story, he explained the same idea as above, yet in a different way. It went something like this: “When we are born into this world, we are born with nothing attached to us. No-thing. When we leave this world, we leave in the same manner as when we came – with nothing attached to us. No-thing. So why is it, he mused, that we get so attached to the ‘things’ while we are experiencing our lifetime on this earth? If we don’t possess the things when we arrive, and we don’t take the possessions we acquire when we leave, why is the possession of ‘things’ so stress-producing?”

I’m not suggesting that the acquisition of things is necessarily a bad thing, or that we should judge those with lots of stuff to be ‘bad people’. What I am suggesting, however, is that the focus of our life experience be turned away from the material things that we are going to leave behind when we go, and instead turn our focus towards the things that matter more – family, friends, self-expression, etc. For all the material things are finite, whereas shared experiences are potentially more infinite.

Where’s the proof?

There are many accounts of people who receive organ transplants, who recover from their surgery to find that they have acquired a taste for something new and different. Or, they have flashes of memories of people and places that they have never seen before. Those that choose to investigate these ‘senses’ further, almost invariably discover that these new tastes and memories were once shared by the organ donor! The experiences of the donor have been passed on to the recipient, such that ‘essence’ of what used to be defined as the experiences of one person blends into the life of the next. How can this be so, unless memories and experiences can be taken with us?

What about people who experience past-life regression? In the book Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, a whole section is dedicated to people who have experienced recollections of past lives. Given that a significant number of these individuals are young children, with no agenda or anything to gain from telling these tales, it is more likely to be within the realm of the possible, even if it doesn’t sound plausible. In many of the stories of past-life regression, historical accounts are found to accurately support the descriptions of what was described, down to the last detail.

However, in none of these stories of organ transplants or past-life regressions do these people manifest out of thin air a new Mercedes, or a diamond ring. Even if the person, in a past life, wore jewelry and furs, the person recalling the experience does not suddenly don a shiny new bracelet and mink coat while telling the tale.

So, if you want your life to have purpose, to mean something, or is worth carrying it with you into your next experience, pay close attention to this life’s experience, and strive to make every action and interaction meaningful. Create memories that you will cherish forever. And I mean, forever. For you can’t take the stuff with you when you go.

“In this lifetime, do you choose to witness only a brief flicker of light, as you focus on the finite-ness of human experience, or will you choose to admire the entire spectacle of fireworks presented to you by the infinite nature of all things?” Dr. Christian Guenette

Sincerely yours,

The Common Sense Coach^TM