In a daily way, the light within merging with the light without—this is renewing, if we can shed what continues to accrue in between. Some would urge shedding to the point of eliminating the self. But, though our deepest experiences are moments of unity in which all distinctions between self and other are for the moment erased, we need a self to stay alive. And caring for that self, as it endures the agents that remove everything non-essential from us, we begin to survive the paradox of feeling. We begin to inhabit Truth, and through our experience of light—within and without—we’re slowly empowered by that Divine Reality immanent in everything.

Living within ourselves within the Whole opens us to a humility of being. As Joseph Campbell so profoundly suggests:

For those who have found the still point of Eternity, around which all—including themselves—revolves, everything is acceptable as it is; indeed, can be experienced as glorious and wonderful. The first duty of the individual, consequently, is simply to play his given role—as do the sun and moon, the various animal and plant species, the waters, the rocks, and the stars—without resistance, without fault; and then, if possible, so to order one’s mind as to identify its consciousness with the inhabiting principle of the whole.

Even so, such a centered way is not void of pain or frustration or sorrow. But when centered, the difficult things are ground in the crucible that is us, rather than we being ground in the crucible that is them, the latter being misery. When in misery, the terrible knowledge is all consuming, causing us to see the world through accusation and blame in an attempt to hold others accountable for the terrible fragility of life. When that fails, it causes us to see the world through guilt and shame in an attempt to blame ourselves for our suffering. And though we’re certainly responsible for our individual actions and though people often hurt one another, no amount of good will or virtue will eliminate the pain of breaking that arises from the nature of living.

Indeed, when in misery, when consumed by the terrible knowledge, we empower the two chief reasons to fear death. The first, the fear of not being, is inevitable. But the second is the insidious nature of regret, the fear that we have not lived well. And thus, the prospect of not being is doubly empowered by the threat that all we have not done, all we have let slide or done poorly, all we have not dared to say will not be given tomorrow to rectify. Therefore, living a full life is the best way to shrink the fear of death. The less regret we engender, the more accepting we become of what is and what will be.