Mattie Stepanik is a personal friend and one of the most remarkable young people I have known. He wanted to be a peacemaker and through his poems and own courageous example, he proves that finding peace within one's self can lead to harmony among families, communities, and nations. With wisdom and uncomplicated vision Mattie reminds us how easy it is to forgive others, to find something amazing even in the most trivial things, and to celebrate the little gifts of each day.
~ President Jimmy Carter in JOURNEY THROUGH HEARTSONGS by Mattie Stepanik (age 10)
The only way to avoid death is not to be born in the first place. In death there is union with the Beloved. The real skill is to reach the secret of death before dying.
We prepare for death, or rather eternity, by consciously adjusting the focus of our life so that it is not upon our personality and the flowing world that spawns upon it, but instead upon our individuality and the Great Fullness with which we are one. This process of focusing our attention is called meditation. In meditation we die to the personality and are reborn as something much greater. That rebirth is not a sudden or one-time event, but is a gradual process in which we become ever more focused on who and what we really are behind the mask of personality ... the process of dying to death by being reborn to reality.
