Over the last few months I have spent far more time than I would have liked cleaning out a close relative’s house. This started just after they were hospitalized and continued during their stay in hospice. Across my life this person and their spouse were very close to me, my wife, and children, and yet, as they say, “You don’t really know someone until you have cleaned out their sock drawer.”
Well, it would have been very nice if it was just the sock drawer and not every drawer, nook and cranny, and space in between.
But this is not another essay saying, “Clean out your house before you die” – although I am saying that. No, this is an essay saying, “Stop wasting your life – either in pieces or in total – and leave something other than a physical, financial, and with it – spiritual mess behind. It is all karma, action and result, and leaving others to clean up after you is not a mature or adult way to live. In fact, it is the most common form of serious disrespect and injury we find, as it waste’s the life force and time of those close to us, and life force and time span is ultimately our first and best “treasure.” Wasting our own life is one thing, wasting the lives of others is a serious karmic event.
I say this because I’ve seen it too many times, and yet, when I bring it up with “students on the Path” it is a topic too many respond to in a less than realistic or mature manner. They shrug it off, or “kick the can down the road” as is often said.
Jordan Peterson is often known for telling people to “make your bed” first thing in the morning to bring order and control over their lives. I say that as well, and am including now the following, “Make your Will.” As with Peterson’s phrase, more is meant than just pulling the cover up and straightening the sheets, so too, more is meant than just having a document for the handling of your affairs.
“Make your will” means that you recognize first that you have a life that will end, so plan for it. Two, it means that even if you do plan for it, do so as an adult, in a realistic fashion. As I read the Last Will and Testament before me, of someone I knew for my entire life, I see a document that was unrealistic at the time it was written. It did not take into consideration the realities of that time, and certainly not later. Third, once done, leave a copy where it can be found along with other important documents. This year alone I became aware of three different instances where a Will was written but it took weeks of cleaning and searching to find them. This is irresponsible to those left to handle your affairs and for those reading this, is not consistent with the ethics required for spiritual practice.
Regardless of what you consider your wealth level to be, you have something that is of value to you and possibly others. Get your affairs in order. Get them on paper. Leave that paper with someone and somewhere that it can and will be available to achieve its goal – bringing your life to an orderly close and on good terms with those you leave behind.
This last part if vital to those on the Path.
Nearly all of you reading this have spent countless hours acquiring, cultivating, and building various collections of items dealing with esoterica. If you do not want to them to thrown out, sold at an estate sale for pennies on the dollar, or at best donated to a local charity’s second hand resale store, do the following: either dispose of them in stages before your die; or make arrangements for them – again, in writing – for after your death. For those wishing to undertake the rehoming of their collections it is critical this be arranged to ensure the designated party or parties is able and willing to assume responsibility for your collection, in whole or in part. We regularly meet people who assume that public and university libraries want their books for inclusion in their institutional collection, when in fact very few will include them in their regular holdings. Most institutions will accept them and then sell them off for $1-3.00 a piece.
Along these lines I have seen at least five significant collections destroyed: two into a dumpster, one sent to a Salvation Army Thrift Store, and the others sold for pennies on the dollar at estates sales. This was all because their creators and owners did not make suitable written plans for the ‘care’ of their ‘children’ when they were able to do so.
If your collection is of value to you while alive then arrange for it be taken care of for when you are no longer able to do so. At the Institute for Hermetic Studies we have taken possession of parts of several collection and integrated them into our own holdings. We have also made significant contribution of remaining titles – usually duplicates – to several institutions with whom we have developed a relationship with to handle a certain amount of overflow.
Right here, right now, each of us has the opportunity to make a difference in our own life, and that of the lives of those around us, and to an extension, our communities and the world as a whole. To do this we must exhibit a healthy amount of self-reflection, self-discipline, and self-confidence. Combined, these will easily allow us to have self-actualization – or, the fundamental reason for our being here on planet earth. It means recognizing our limits so that we might best work within them to achieve our goals.
All this requires planning and forethought. So on this Day of Saturn, take a few minutes to come to terms with the ultimate term limit – death itself – and make some solid written and documented plans on what you intend to leave behind.
