Free

“There is no greater justice than death. There is no greater justice than the dissolution of everything we have known…. this emptiness…. a moral field in which truth catches up with our self deceptions. It’s not punishment that we are waiting for but we are waiting for the wisdom of the cosmos.”

~The Five Phases of the Vedic Afterlife Journey | Part 1, a podcast with Tami Simon of Sounds True and Acharya Shunya

I confess to being more preoccupied with death the older I get, but I have spent much of my life (if not most) with a sense that there is much more to come than simply the black or white punishment or bliss that is taught by Western theology. It is likely not news to those who know me that I have experiences of the continuity of consciousness. Incidentally, many (if not most) of my friends and acquaintances do as well.

What really caught my heart in the podcast was Part 2. Not sure how I missed seeing Part 1 but Part 2 is where I started. As I listened to Acharya speak of the stages of consciousness and the experiences of those stages, it all felt so familiar. She described in detail a stage where one knows the truth of the “self” as pure consciousness. Of knowing that we can simply be and that is enough and we don’t need to become or to search for enoughness.

She spoke about not grasping for success or fame or wealth and working to achieve something. As I listened to her describe actions as a response to an inner sacredness rather than a feeling that we must fulfill ourselves with material things and through relationships and acquisitions I thought, “We know this path.”

As she also spoke of intricate formulas and details I did not resonate with that part of the sharing, but the states of consciousness she detailed are what what is “familiar” to me. As I write this I remember hearing Robert Tuttle, a professor of evangelism, refer to Jesus in ways quite different from what I was being taught in church. He said Jesus never went out of his way to minister to anyone, he simply ministered to those he met along the path as he went about life.

Is it possible these might not be stages of consciousness so much as that they are states of consciousness? Perhaps it is not a linear process that must be performed in the way a foundation must first be laid before the walls and the roof can go up.

What joy to experience the awareness that we truly are already free.

Free to live a life without the view of death as punishment.

Free to not fear death.

Free from self deceptions.

The Daily Tejaniya for September 14, 2025 says, “If you are not on top of craving, aversion, and delusion, they will be on top of you.”

May all be free from craving, aversion, and delusion….

Stacey — 68 mile bike ride
September 14, 2025