Birth is not; life is not; dying is not;
They are not: they form parts of a Whole.
He who is born from the womb into the life of flesh
makes one step forwards;
The he makes another step;
Then a third one-
And he already leaves the corporeal shell.
With the first step who will not think about the second one?
And though, who dares to think about the third one
when he is making the second one?
He is vain, suddenly to want to be blind.
It is foolish to cut the threads
which run through the phases of existence.
Existence: from becoming physical
to becoming un-physical.
Who, when breathing in, hesitates to breath out?
Why fear, oh man, to breath out to becoming un-physical?
Everything you perceive is both mortal
and immortal:
Shells die off, like a coat wearing out
of sometimes also being torn: a new shell follows.
But does one wear a coat
When one lies down for a rest?
One time, for any who suffers from the cold,
If he wants; the time will come when cold will not have any hold on him anymore,
And without a coat he becomes happy and satisfied.
As long as he cosmically shivers, he will need shells
And with his earth bound gaze
He attaches himself to them as it was so heavily important.
It is vain, to want to be that warm.
It is foolish, to adore the shells
which guide through the phases of existence.
Extract taken from 'The Germanic Book Of The Dead'
