life – Mostly letters and poems for sincere spiritual listeners

Being okay with death (both egoic and physical, that is, if we must separate the two for granularity) is what it takes to be secure exactly where you are.
Physical death is feared because the extroverted mind sees and feels the persisting (sense of the) body, identifies with it, and takes it for "I". The illusion runs so deep and strong that you go around exploding angrily on anyone who asks you to shut the fuck up and meditate traditionally with discipline and see for yourself of course because somebody is challenging your current view which says and validates that you are very much the mind-body or more technically the thought-sensation all of which has been strengthened over time through deep emotional investment in the view.
This is the egoic death part and the ego/sense of "I" resists this because it means falling and standing on no ground (a.k.a. not fixating) which it doesn't trust itself with, but well that's where things get interesting.. when "you" take the perceived blow and assault and just stop and see what happens. Was there ever anyone born who could die? find out. It's the most adventurous thing you could do. Nothing compares. And I am still describing the pure bliss of Nothing part (or more accurately experience of Non-Experience) in a very understated way.
I don't trust or recommend any new-age practices, they only reinforce the illusion precisely because the premise is to suit one's egoic preferences/likes-dislikes. Anything that isn't leading towards shedding attachment to these and realising that they are quite not "you" is fake and a waste of time.
The criterion as always is to abandon views, ideas, fantasies of enlightenment and liberation, and become painfully truthful to yourself about yourself right where you are. End all reactivity (a.k.a. stop reacting to the reactivity that plays out as thoughts, views loaded with emotion-sensation. No it doesn't mean not feeling them, only not reacting to them).
Do not try to conclude or not conclude.
In other words, shut the fuck up (inwardly) and go all in.
Try it and see how hard it is for you (at least initially) and why you go from doubt to doubt endlessly.

Never belong to the herd even as you sit and move with them, and love them.

Sākṣi (witness) is not a "state".
It is the experiential awareness that all states are just as much a part of the dream regardless of whatever purpose they may or may not serve in phenomenal reality.

oṃ sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ
sarve santu nirāmayāḥ
sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu 
mā kaścidduḥ khabhāgbhaveta।
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ॥

“My worship is of a very strange kind.
In this, Ganga water is not required.
No special utensils are necessary.
Even flowers are redundant.
In this puja all gods have disappeared
And emptiness has emerged with euphoria.”
― Lahiri Mahasaya

"Though the view should be as vast as the sky, keep your conduct as fine as barley flour. Don't confuse one with the other."
— Guru Padmasambhava

"Mindful amongst the inert
Awake amongst the sleepy
The wise advance like the race horse leaving behind the rest."
— Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada

"No sufferings befall the man who is not attached to name and form and who calls nothing his own."
— Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada


“Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a life is a life you didn't live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life”
— Kahlil Gibran

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Were it not for
the excess of your talking
and the turmoil in your hearts,
you would see what I see
and hear what I hear!
— ibn al-`Arabi

There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again.
― Rumi

You are the honored guest. Do not weep like a beggar for pieces of the world.
― Rumi

The source of all that is, is the Infinite Possibility, the Supreme Reality, which is in you, and which throws its power and light and love on every experience. But, this source is not a cause, and no cause is a source. Because of that, I say everything is uncaused.

Everything is uncaused. You may try to trace how a thing happens, but you cannot find out why a thing is as it is. A thing is as it is, because the universe is as it is.
— Nisargadatta Maharaj

What you are looking for is where you are looking from.
— St. Francis of Assisi

When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the supreme state will come to you uninvited and unexpected.
— Nisargadatta Maharaj

My religion is to not deceive myself.
— Milarepa

He who avoids misunderstandings,
Amused at the play of his own mind,
Is ever joyful.
― Milarepa

I need nothing. I seek nothing. I desire nothing.
― Milarepa

Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.
— Rumi

It's your road, and yours alone.
others may walk it with you,
but no one can walk it for you.
― Rumi

Now, this I say to you: Transient are all phenomena; work out your own liberation diligently.

— Last words of the Buddha