Death Space

Peace: It is not an emotional state or merely the absence of conflict; it is rather the presence of stillness, which is an aspect of Essence. It is the presence of Being as absolute stillness and calmness. This stillness is not experienced as dull or vague, but as an exquisitely alive kind of consciousness. Peace involves the cessation of the torturous ego activity, with its hopes, desires, efforts and resistances. That is why it is often equated with ego death. Peace is actually both death and life in the same consciousness. One learns that death is nonexistent on the Being level. More accurately, one learns that death, in terms of consciousness, is really nothing but an aspect of Being. The associations that most of us have with death are actually related to an aspect of Being which we call Death Space. By following these associations one can experience a certain state that feels like death, but which is actually a certain black spaciousness [see our book The Void]. Also, from the perspective of boundless and nondifferentiated Being physical death is seen as a transformation of form, and not as ultimate in the way most people think of it. What most people think of as death is actually the presence of the essential aspect of Death Space. Also, the aspect of Peace has experiential qualities similar to that of Death Space, such as stillness and silence. (The Pearl Beyond Price, p 313)