‘If you do not die, you shall not live’, said Jesus. The idea of resurrection, then, is linked with death and disintegration. If the seed does not die, it prevents the manifestation of the power of life buried in it. In a human being, it is the lower self that must die to leave room for the Spirit, the divine principle, which is then free to act and transform everything… The secret of the resurrection is before our eyes in Nature, waiting for us to understand it and decide to die consciously so as to become a new being……

‘If you do not die, you shall not life…’ To die means to be melted into the Infinite whilst God takes the place vacated by you. God now reigns in you, no longer do you care about your life, you are willing to disappear, to have God take your place. If you really insist and keep on insisting He will be obliged to capitulate, because you are using the same methods he uses! God cannot say, ‘Let’s see, we will see how this person lived in the past…’ There is no past, there is nothing left at all. This kind of desire effaces everything, nothing is left but the decision you took this very day.

As long as you do not wish to give yourself, the inner you, to a Higher Being, nor even to God, you will always be vulnerable, fearful, timid, miserable. Nothing in religion is higher than sacrifice: accepting to die in order to live, not your life but another kind of life, to be alive with the Life of God. You want to disappear, but not only do you not disappear, you become more alive than before. That is true heroism. True heroes are those who are not afraid to disappear entirely in order to be replaced by God.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov Christmas and Easter in the Initiatic Tradition 

Spirit in bloom