There is no death, only a change of worlds. – Chief Seattle
It was never true.
All those years focusing on a belief that you couldn’t do it - that you weren’t good enough - were years spent feeding lies. Every choice to hold back, every surrender to futility, was rooted in illusion. No matter who spoke those words, or how often they were repeated, it does not change the greater reality - unworthiness was never true.
Spiritual principle would tell us we become what we think we are. Not what someone else thinks, but what we habitually define ourselves to be. And time, from the perspective of our human life, is too precious to keep feeding lies. Time spent begrudging family, former friends, institutions, or circumstances is time wasted in a fruitless alliance. Blame will not advance joy; it only builds a self around grievance. Our span here is brief. To squander it in grievance or shame is to waste the rare and sacred chance of embodiment.
I remember this vividly in my years as a conscious care visitor during the height of the AIDS crisis. I was assigned to sit with men who were dying, many left isolated by stigma. At first, I thought my job was errands, chores, even rubbing feet as Louise Hay encouraged. But the real work was listening - listening to the rage, the regret, the longing for more time. Each week, my list of visitors shifted with the regularity of death.
And then there was Michael.
Michael was different. Unconventional in his enthusiasm, unafraid of what was next. He had traveled, studied with sages, gone deep into self-awareness. And as his body failed, his spirit seemed more alive than ever. While others pleaded for more time, Michael sat in the peace of eternity. He wasn’t grasping. He wasn’t bargaining. He wasn’t waiting to be rescued from time. He was already beyond it. He embodied Chief Seattle’s words: no death, only a change of worlds.
I selfishly wished he would live. His visits comforted me, his peace was contagious, and his message of non-attachment shifted me. One of his last offerings was this: happiness is eternal - it is to be received, not pursued. Looking into his eyes, I glimpsed that eternity. Nothing in his words felt abstract. Simply sitting at his bedside was to sit in the presence of both disease and vastness.
In form, time is fleeting, and therefore too precious to squander. In essence, time is illusory, and eternity is already here. Both are true. Michael was paradox embodied.
The sages describe it in their own ways. Some tell of a mountain of rock, six miles high, six miles wide, six miles long. Once every hundred years, a bird flies over with a silk scarf in its beak, just brushing the mountain’s peak. The time it would take to wear away the mountain is said to equal the journey to enlightenment. For most of us, that feels unbearably long. For Michael, it was proof he was not bound by time at all.
So what are we left with?
We are left with the invitation to live by this creed: to the degree we believe in a world that works, the world rises to offer kindness. To the degree we embrace the truth that every life matters, fulfillment and community pour in like a flood. To the degree we know our voice is meant to be heard, ears will tune to the rhythm of our soul’s message. And above all, to the degree we remember life is eternal, we may stop lingering in lies.