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Start building your big picture mind & support the global emergence of Integral consciousness
“Integral Life is the most important and globally-relevant platform for the leading edge of Integral consciousness evolution”
– Eugene P.
After a near-fatal accident left him with a spinal cord injury, Kabir Kadre recounts his near-death experience and the life-defining moment he was asked: “Do you want to be alive or dead?” What unfolds is a profound dialogue on death as spiritual practice, the ordinary art of awakening, and the sacred responsibility that comes with choosing life again — not just for the self, but in service to all beings.
Perspective Shift:
- Death isn’t the end — it’s the doorway to who you always already are. We fear death because we mistake the relative self for the real one. But the awareness that sees your thoughts, memories, and name is timeless — it was here before your ancestors, and it remains after your story dissolves. Practice dying before you die, and you’ll wake up to the deathless self already living you.
- There is no ‘later’ — death lives between you and every postponement. We convince ourselves we’ll live more fully later — after the job, after the healing, after the breakthrough. But the time of death is uncertain, and the invitation to live is now. If death is always possible in the next moment, what becomes most urgent is loving, serving, and being awake in this one.
- The profound is hidden in the ordinary. Awakening doesn’t require escaping into transcendent realms. It means noticing that the snowstorm, your coffee cup, or a runny nose are all arising in the same awareness that spiritual traditions call divine. Enlightenment isn’t “out there” — it’s right here, scratched and sipped and lived.
- Real spiritual practice is relational, embodied, and accountable. It’s not about ascending above suffering or self. It’s about meeting what arises with fierce compassion and clear seeing. The most awakened beings don’t avoid life’s complexity — they show up for it, scratch the itch, pay the bills, care for the sick, and grieve what’s lost.
- Death is always already here — and that makes every moment sacred. The proximity of death isn’t tragic. It’s clarifying. Every breath might be your last. Every moment is an unrepeatable gift. This is what makes life worth living—not in spite of death, but because of it.
What happens when death becomes your teacher, instead of your fear?
In this continuation of their earlier dialogue, Kimberley Lafferty welcomes back spiritual teacher Kabir Kadre for a profound exploration of death, dying, and the awakening that can follow. From tantric death meditations to near-death experiences (NDEs), this episode weaves together intimate storytelling, esoteric practice, and clear-eyed insight into the deathless nature of awareness.
Kabir shares two near-death experiences — one physical, one existential — that radically altered his relationship to identity, impermanence, and meaning. In the first, he’s met with a simple, transcendent choice: “Do you want to be alive or dead?” The second comes not through injury, but despair — a moment when death seems preferable to life in a system that offers so little care for disabled bodies. It’s here that Kabir receives a deeper call — not just to survive, but to serve; not just to live, but to embody the dharma in full accountability to all beings.
What unfolds is a beautiful meditation on what it means to say yes to life — again and again — as a devotional act. Together, Kimberley and Kabir reflect on the wisdom of the Tibetan tradition, the subtle body realms, the raw ordinariness of awareness, and the sacred necessity of teachers and lineage.
Whether you’ve danced at the edge of death or are simply seeking to live more fully, this conversation offers a clear transmission:
There is a Self that does not die — and you can know it before you leave this body.
Key Questions
Here are some questions you can contemplate while listening to this discussion. We suggest you take some time to use these as journaling prompts.
- How can I practice dying before I die? What would it mean to rehearse letting go of everything I think I am, and trust what remains?
- What part of me is aware of my name, my thoughts, my memories—and does that part ever change? Can I feel into the awareness that was here before “me,” and will be here after?
- If I truly accepted that death could come at any moment, how would I live differently today? What truly matters right now, not later?
- In what ways am I still postponing my “yes” to life? Where am I waiting until conditions are perfect, rather than choosing to be fully here now?
- Where do I still believe awakening is elsewhere — higher, brighter, better, more extraordinary? What if 100% of the sacred is already right here in my coffee cup, my grief, my breath?
- When I encounter suffering — my own or the world’s — do I turn away or move toward it? What does it mean to meet pain with both compassion and clarity?
- Am I living from a place of ownership and responsibility, or passively enduring what comes? What would it mean to say: This life is mine, I chose it?
- What is the unique gift I’m here to give before I go? How can I serve the field of life—not someday, but now?
Previous Episodes of Evolving Spirit
Become a member to access the full episode
Start building your big picture mind & support the global emergence of Integral consciousness
“Integral Life is the most important and globally-relevant platform for the leading edge of Integral consciousness evolution”
– Eugene P.
About Kabir Kadre
A lifelong practitioner of Pathfinding the Way Less Traveled, Kabir Kadre places in his service to life, his deepest embodied prayer and most sincere efforts towards the fruition of realizing an integral, ethical, and practical expression of impact in the world. With background in philosophy, spirituality, psychology, evolutionary development, systems thinking, and lived experience of resilience and perseverance with heart, Kabir leverages a renaissance view of life, the universe, and everything towards locally inspired and globally contextualized strategic initiatives in service to the evolution of life and well-being for all.
About Kimberley Lafferty
Kimberley Theresa Lafferty is a seasoned teacher-practitioner specializing in constructive developmental psychology and Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana. She leads multi-year, private spiritual education cohorts with the Confluence Experience. Kimberley co-leads, with Terri O’Fallon, the penultimate Minds I year-long developmental course of Stages International. She is an active Board member for the Association for Spiritual Integrity. Kimberley is also a wife and mother to a young son, living in a remote valley of the North Cascades of North America which deeply impacts her worldview and practice.