Liber Plutonis - Chapter 5

Verses

The student came to the House of Death and found no guard, for every road already led there.

He said, Lord of the Hidden, teach me what survives when the name is removed, the body cooled, and the mourners return home.

Death answered, Ask instead what was present before the name was given.

The student said, Memory was not there. Personality was not there. Yet I cannot imagine my own absence without being present to imagine it.

Death said, Good. You have found the knot; do not decorate it with theology.

Whatever you can lose is not secure enough to be the Self. Whatever you can observe is not the final observer.

The body is seen, sensation is seen, fear is seen, even the thought I am dying is seen.

The student asked, Then is the witness immortal? Death replied, Do not turn a pointer into another corpse you hope to preserve.

Immortality is not endless duration. Endless duration is merely time refusing to finish its sentence.

Know that which does not enter time, and Pluto becomes a small stone at the edge of a dream.

The student laughed: Then why do you keep this kingdom? Death said, Because beings adore what passes and call the passing a robbery.

When the false owner disappears, who has been dispossessed?

The student bowed neither to Death nor away from Death. The lesson had removed the person who required a posture.