The real invitation is to live fully, every day
Most people say, “You only live once.”
I understand what they mean. They are trying to remind us not to waste life.
But the older I get, the less that statement resonates with me.
What strikes me now is something else:
You die only once.
Life, on the other hand, keeps happening.
Every morning I wake up, life is there.
In every conversation, life is there.
In every sketch, every page read, every step walked, every idea explored, every moment of wonder, life is there.
Life keeps arriving.
Death, from everything I have understood through yoga, inquiry, and observation, appears to be just a single event.
One crossing.
One transition.
One change of form.
Yet we spend so much of our lives worrying about that one event while barely paying attention to the thousands of moments that make up life.
As my understanding deepens, the body increasingly feels like a vehicle rather than the entirety of who I am.
The brain is not the mind.
The mind is far larger than the brain.
The body may contain the brain, but the mind seems to extend beyond the boundaries of the body.
And behind the individual mind, there appears to be something even greater: a cosmic intelligence that continuously moves life forward.
Call it consciousness.
Call it awareness.
Call it God.
Call it the cosmic mind.
The name matters far less than the experience.
The more deeply one lives, the more obvious it becomes that there is an intelligence operating beyond our individual stories.
When I watch my own life, it often feels like standing on a shore watching waves.
Joy arrives.
Sadness arrives.
Success arrives.
Failure arrives.
Excitement arrives.
Disappointment arrives.
The waves keep moving.
Sometimes I am swept up by them.
Sometimes I remain on the shore and simply watch.
And then something remarkable is noticed:
I am the one experiencing the waves.
But I am also the one watching them.
Both realities exist simultaneously.
Life becomes less of a battle and more of a play.
Less of a problem and more of a participation.
Indian wisdom traditions have been pointing towards this for thousands of years.
The Bhagavad Gita.
Yoga Vasistha.
Vivekachudamani.
The Bhagavatam.
Different languages.
Different stories.
Different teachers.
Yet a remarkably similar message.
You are not merely the body.
You are not merely the mind.
What you truly are neither appears nor disappears in the way the body does.
Death therefore becomes less of an ending and more of a doorway.
A port.
A transition.
A movement whose full nature cannot be understood while standing on this shore.
What has changed for me is not that I have become certain of anything.
Quite the opposite.
Life has become a beautiful mystery.
But the fear has reduced.
Not because I have answers.
Because I have become more interested in living than worrying.
This morning I completed something that made me smile.
For sixty consecutive days, I sketched.
One sketch every day.
Sixty pages.
One entire sketchbook completed.
Today, another sketchbook arrives.
The journey continues.
Not because somebody asked me to do it.
Not because it is my job.
Simply because living wants to express itself through art.
The same applies elsewhere.
The reading continues.
The writing continues.
The coaching continues.
The conversations continue.
The questions continue.
The learning continues.
The walking continues.
Six to seven kilometres almost every day.
Workouts continue.
Speaking continues.
Exploring continues.
Living continues.
And that has led me to another realisation.
When you do something for someone else in exchange for money, it is called work.
There is nothing wrong with that.
We all work.
But when you do something because it has become an expression of who you are, something changes.
It no longer feels like work.
It becomes a mission.
A calling.
A joyful necessity.
Whether somebody employs you or not becomes secondary.
Because the source of energy is no longer outside.
It comes from within.
You carry your skills, your curiosity, your creativity, your service, and your love wherever you go.
You offer them to the world.
Perhaps that is what freedom really means.
Not freedom from responsibility.
Not freedom from pain.
Not freedom from uncertainty.
But freedom from fear.
Freedom to participate fully in life.
Freedom to laugh, create, learn, teach, serve, fail, recover, love, and explore.
Freedom to become the fullest expression of whatever life wishes to become through you.
So today, I don’t find myself repeating:
“You only live once.”
Instead, I find myself smiling at a different possibility.
You die only once.
Until then, live.
Sketch.
Walk.
Read.
Write.
Learn.
Serve.
Love.
Create.
Become.
And help make the experience of being alive a little more joyful for everyone who shares this brief and beautiful journey with you.
Because death may happen once.
But life arrives every day.
Frankly Kranky
Living fully is not preparation for death. It is participation in life.