Hope allows the energy of divine love to drive deep into the human condition—the theological condition usually referred to as “grace.” And at the same time, it allows the yearning, outstretched hands of creation to pierce the heart of God and call forth what can only be expressed in the dimension of the sensible. It is the root oneness and interconnectedness of all things in what Kabir Helminski calls “the electro-magnetic field of love.” And because this field does empirically exist, all those who have deeply loved—”to the root”—will be able to make their way to one another in and through it.
~ from LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH by Cynthia Bourgeault
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.