Death is not a stranger who comes to you. Death is not an enemy. Death is not a farewell. It is an entry. It is a passage from one room to another. It is a movement through the rooms of an art gallery where you admire different paintings. And you are the one who passes through the rooms. The rooms are for you to pass through, gain from, and grow in.

But what is growing? It is greater recognition. It is a sigh of understanding. It is a sigh of recognition. "Yes, that's it. That is what it means." And you climb higher.

No one is born alone, and no one dies alone.

In an uninhabited desert, a man alone does not die alone.

There is no alone.

What touches you touches another.

No man is unaffected by another.

No spot on earth is exclusive of another.

No dream is yours alone.

No event happens to you without its reaching another.

As in death, no life is alone.

You form a whole.

There is nothing that is unconnected.

In your life, you try to connect the dots.

You try to make connections.

And you yearn to connect to Me.

When you connect to Me, you have connected everything. Everything falls into place. The world gives a sigh of relief.

There is nothing that is unconnected. Life is connected to what you call death. One supports the other.

You can say you are on a seesaw. Up or down, it is still you on the seesaw. Or you can say you move to the other end of the basketball court. The change is in where you are positioned, that's all.

Or you can say that life and death are merely changes in costume, or that in death you wear none, for you leave all the costumes behind.

In death or in life, you are all light.

See it. Pay attention to it.

It is said that there is light at the end of the tunnel. In truth, there is no tunnel. There is only your eyes closed. Darkness of life is a pretend thing. It is a misdemeanor that everyone has agreed to take seriously.

You think that when you are still in your body and someone dear to you has left theirs that they have left you. It feels like that to you. You feel that you have been left behind to carry on without them. Or that you somehow left them behind and went on without them.

Those who die have always had their own light, as you have yours. Your light is not dimmed by another's passage any more than theirs is. What is dear to you is dear to you whether extant in a body or not.

All of life is a moving on. It never is sitting still.

You would not hold another back. You would not keep them from their destiny. You would not keep them from the natural roll of evolution.

All of life is an initiation into one thing or another. Birth is an initiation into life, and death of the body is an initiation into life as well. There is no leaving. There is only entering.

The breath of the body is a little thing. It is movement of the body. The last breath has nothing to do with anything but the body. Life is of far more than the gasps a body makes.

When a friend leaves his body for a different kind of encounter, be joyous for his exploration into another realm.

It is for yourself that you mourn. There is no mourning for another.

All is well, and nothing is changed but the surface. Love does not leave. Love stays. There is no less love when a dear one departs for another engagement than before they left. They do not leave. This you must remember.

The physical is a fleeting thing and not to be attached to. The physical is merely a token of something far greater. It betokens spirit. Spirit is what you are made of; the physical is merely a coating. The physical is dear to you, but it is not essential. It is not the essence of you or any other. Remember and recount the essence of all beings, and you will know there is no loss of the holiness that enjoins all.

It takes courage to love, for always you fear its loss. But the love you feel for another is not packaged in another. Love is the power of a laser but its rays are not so precisely focused. The rays go out and they land where they will. Where they land is not their story, and where they land is not their source. The source of love you always have. It remains and cannot be removed, although you can try to withhold it and thus cramp it.

Isolated targets may change their course, but love is many-rayed and not dependent upon any receiver of it. Love from your heart is yours. It stays your love. For all love is Mine, merely housed in your heart to dispense for Me.

The love in your heart need not be aimed so specifically. It does not need to be aimed at all. It just needs to go out. Do not conserve your love. Let it go. Your love is needed in the world. You don't need what you already have and which there is evermore of.

Love is not to be mourned for. There is no such thing as a lost love. The object of your love may move or wither or not be what you thought, but love itself is great and therefore expands outwards into infinity where it is retrieved and recycled and returned to fill hearts with more pure love once again.