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What Would I Say Today if I Were To Die Tomorrow: Reflections on the Life of a Seeker

by Orest Stocco

264 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0337; ISBN 1-55369-524-0; US$23.50, C$26.95, EUR19.50, £13.50

In What Would I Say Today If I Were To Die Tomorrow spiritual issues and questions are discussed in depth. Other spiritual teachings are explored so that readers may understand how the author comes to form his own distinct philosophy of life.

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About the book      About the author      Sample excerpts       Catalogue info

About the Book WHAT WOULD I SAY TODAY IF I WERE TO DIE TOMORROW? gives readers more than a glimpse into the mind and life of a New Age Thinker. "WHAT WOULD I SAY TODAY IF I WERE TO DIE TOMORROW? was inspired by the tragedy that terrorized America on September 11, 2001, "says author Stocco. "Realizing how vulnerable we really are, I was moved by the tragedy to tell the story of my spiritual quest for the answer to the meaning and purpose of life." Orest Stocco conveys his inspirational messages through in-depth depictions of his personal relationships and life experiences. In true-to-life scenarios, he interacts with colourful personalities, all of whom have distinct foibles and strengths. What may appear to be coincidental encounters turn into ideal opportunities to share his messages of spiritual enlightenment. As one might expect, however, his insights are embraced by some and rebuffed by others. Having explored ideas and belief systems from many teachings, Mr. Stocco reveals his own spiritual philosophy in this true account of his healing journey. His provocative and, at times, controversial insights clearly reflect his newfound priorities in life and form the foundation for each chapter of WHAT WOULD I SAY TODAY IF I WERE TO DIE TOMORROW? "Woven into the text of his daily life is the story of one man's spiritual quest that answers the question that is central to every person's life: 'Who am I?'" says author Stocco. The author is not afraid to defy conventional thought regarding spiritual matters, or tackle head-on the spiritual questions many of us are afraid to ask. Mr. Stocco's beliefs and the process by which he develops his philosophy of life are clearly defined. While he may appear brash and forthright at times, he is equally honest and sincere in his desire to educate and enlighten those around him. Similarly, he is very candid when sharing his own private spiritual experiences and revelations.

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About the Author OREST STOCCO was born in Panettieri Calabria, Italy. He emigrated to Canada with his family and studied philosophy at university. He lived in France for a time before taking up residence in "Eckshar Place", the home he built with his fianceé in Nipigon, Ontario where he operates his own business and writes short stories, novels and poetry. Orest Stocco is also the author of On the Wings of Habitat. Click here to read about ON THE WINGS OF HABITAT

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Sample Excerpts and Table of Contents

CONTENTS

1 ................ The Seeker's Dilemma.................... 11
2 .................... The Sleep of Life ........................ 37
3 ..... There Will Always be This and That ......... 61
4 ........... Unfettering the Fettered Soul............... 89
5 ................ The Coming Out Party .................. 115
6 ................ Living Outside the Box ................. 143
7 .............. The Great Reconciliation ................ 169
8 ................ The Suspension Bridge ................. 197
9 ...... Waiting for the Hundredth Monkey ........ 225
10 ............ Post-September 11, 2001 ................ 247

Excerpt (From Chapter One)

"What would I say today if I were to die tomorrow?" I heard myself saying, and I sprang to life like a startled rabbit from my prone position on the couch.

That thought leaped into my mind as I was perusing my monthly QPB book club selections and came across the title of a book written by Ruth Picardie, BEFORE I SAY GOODBYE.

This is a true story of one woman's recollections and observations in the final year of her cancer-stricken life, and in one sudden burst of creative awareness my life flashed before my eyes, and I knew what I had to do.

The first thing that I would say today if I were to die tomorrow would be this: We live more than one life, and it is foolish to deny this simple truth; and the second thing that I would say is that self-deception is our greatest threat to personal growth, happiness, and wholeness.

I became a seeker at a very early age. Fortunately, unlike so many unresolved seekers, I found myself; and what I have to say were I to die tomorrow comes from who I am today, and who I am right now is what my quest was all about. I met a professional woman in her mid forties not too long ago who is stuck in her journey through life. She is definitely a seeker, and freely admits it; but to the chagrin of her overweight good-times husband who never tires of saying, "I hate it when she gets philosophical."

I went to university as an adult student (I was in my mid twenties) to study philosophy because my search led me to the doorsteps of the "lovers of wisdom". But in the second semester of my third year I abruptly left university because my search pointed me into the very heart of life itself.

Two years before I went to university I was living in Annecy, France. One night I went for a walk in the snow. I found a dead cat in the middle of the street. I picked it up and placed it on the curb. I was so lonely I was terrified.

When I got home to my one room apartment I sat at my desk and wrote the following words which, thirty-three years later, tell the tale of my journey through life -

"Steadfast and courageous is he, who having overcome woe and grief remains alone and undaunted. Alone I say for to be otherwise would hardly seem possible, for one must bear one's conscience alone. He must fight the battle and he must win the battle, odds or no odds. He must win to establish the equilibrial tranquility of body and soul, and sooner or later he will erupt as a volcano of unlimited confidence which will purpose his life thereafter. And having given birth to such magnificence he will no longer be alone alone, but alone in society; and he will see the mirror of his puerile grief in the eyes of his fellow man."

When I looked into the eyes of my fellow seeker I saw her desperate need for resolution, and I smiled. "You're at a crossroads, Cheryl," I said, to her surprise. "You have a choice to make, and it terrifies you."
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"I just do," I said, and smiled again. I didn't smile out of pride. I had been there, at the same crossroads, and I knew how terrifying it was. I smiled because I cared for her plight, and I told her so: "If I have any wisdom to offer you from my own search, it's this: you don't have to give up your life to find yourself. That's a Christian myth that need not possess your soul. Believe me Cheryl, you can find yourself right here, in your present circumstances."

I knew that the only way to reach Cheryl was to talk to her Soul to Soul, completely bypassing her professional personality which I knew would only get in our way.

"I'd love to go to Africa and do missionary work," she replied, deliberately keeping my words at bay.

Cheryl was a general practitioner whose recent move to St. Jude and thriving new practice at the St. Jude clinic afforded her the good life; and her quandary was that she was convinced that to find herself she had to deny herself.

"I've never made so much money in my entire life," she explained herself to me. "I feel guilty."
"And to expiate your guilt you feel you have to go to Africa and do missionary work?"
"Something like that," she said, with a look of regret in her dark brown eyes for having been found out.

But she had opened that door. She wanted to have a private conversation with me. Everyone else was in the pool or by the open fire enjoying the late summer evening.

Opportunities like this didn't come very often in a seeker's life, and I regretted never having one; so I availed myself to herั "You can have your cake and eat it too, Cheryl," I said, directly addressing her spiritual quandary. "Jesus Christ even tells us that. Be in the world but not of it, he tells us. But the problem is that few people know how to do this."

Cheryl looked at me, her doctor's eyes trying desperately to bore into my soul; but they couldn't.
"How do you do that?" she asked.
"Discipline," I said, and laughed. "What keeps us slaves to life are the five passions of the mind ั lust, anger, greed, vanity, and undue attachment to things. Aristotle said it best, Cheryl: moderation in all things."

But it was obvious by the frown on her face that she didn't see the humor of her own quandary. She didn't want to hear that. She wanted a cure to her spiritual malaise that she could live with. She wanted another prognosis.

"There has to be more to life than this," she replied, her voice pleading with me. "I understand what you mean by moderation, and I agree with you. But after moderation, then what? What Oriano? That's my dilemma."
"Cheryl, I hate to ask you this because I would think you are beyond the point of answering this question; but do you believe in God and the afterlife?"
"I don't know. I honestly don't know."
"Then you're not as far in your search as I thought you were. I'm sorry I took liberties with you. God is a given, Cheryl. And so is the afterlife. But even so," I quickly added, the thought springing to mind, "it doesn't matter if you believe in God or not to find yourself. I studied Sartre at university. He was an atheist, but his existentialism helped me more in my search than most spiritual paths. The trick is to be true to yourself. But that, as Shakespeare would say, is the rub that makes calamity of so great a fortune!"

I chuckled again. Cheryl couldn't quite grasp my sense of humor, and looked at me inquisitively.

It was easy for me to be aloof. I had been bought with a price. I had died to my life to find my life; but Cheryl was deathly afraid to look at the price tag that came with this purchase. She was, I was forced to admit, not serious enough about her search; and like so many seekers who set their hand to the plow, she kept looking back.

"The flies are getting pesky out here. Why don't we go inside and continue this?" she said, and stood up.
"Sure," I replied.

The walk inside gave her time to think. She didn't want to let me go now that she had me, and she had to ferret out of me what it was about me that intrigued her. Cathy and I had her and her husband Philip over for dinner one evening, along with Cathy's nurse practitioner sister and new husband-to-be who had befriended Philip at the St. Jude General Hospital before moving to a new job in the city; and during the course of the evening Cheryl formed an impression of me that would not go away.

From the moment our eyes met when Cheryl and I shook hands I was given a glimpse into her troubled soul, and on the deepest level possible we connected; but this connection mystified her because it forced the child in her to speak with me and not the respected family doctor who was used to giving advice and being deferred to.

"Oriano seems so calm. So powerful. So centered," Cheryl told Cathy over coffee at the hospital the following day. "He's so sure of himself. "I've never met anyone quite like him before. He makes me feel like a kid ั"
Cathy laughed. "Oriano DiFelice is one of a kind, that's for sure! He has that effect on me too, Cheryl!"
Relieved that she wasn't alone in her feelings about me, Cheryl smiled. "Can I ask you something, Cathy? I know it's personal, and I don't blame you if you don't answer me; but I'd like to know what his secret is."
"Secret?" Cathy asked.
"Yes. I'd like to know what makes him so centered."
"Oh. That's simple. Oriano has his priorities in order, and he never changes them."
"Priorities?" Cheryl said, her mind quickly processing the information. "Then what's his first priority? That's what I'd like to know."
"The spiritual life," Cathy replied, and smiled.
"The spiritual life?" Cheryl repeated, expecting something far more mysterious. "What kind of spiritual life?"

Cathy, whose sense of humour is not unlike mine now, appreciating irony more each day, broke into a gentle laugh. "There's only one kind," she replied. "And if you want to know the truth Cheryl, that's how I live my life too. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Cheryl frowned. Her heart heard what Cathy said, but her mind resisted. "I guess that's what makes your relationship work so well, you both share the same beliefs."

And that was Cheryl's quandary: she had outgrown her marriage to Philip. He was a hedonist, she was a seeker; and the two simply didn't mix. That explained the tragic look in her eyes, and which I had to address ั
"It takes a lot of courage to find your true self, Cheryl," I said, a minute or two after settling into the soft sofa chair in the upper floor of their country house. "But the irony is that few people find this courage until they hit bottom, and you're a long way from there yet."
Having said that, I wanted to chuckle; but my better judgement kept my chuckle locked inside. Instead I gave her a warm sympathetic smile.
"Do you think so?" she asked, dumbfounded by my comment.
"Yes," I calmly replied.
"How do you know that? How do you know that I haven't hit bottom? And why does one have to hit bottom before they can find themselves? I don't understand where you're coming from Oriano. I honestly don't."

Cheryl's skeptical professional side came out fighting. She could not let me into her soul so easily. I hadn't earned that privilege yet. But I had no time for protocol. I heard her inner child's desperate cry for help, and I was there for her. That's what it meant to be who I was.

"You're a family doctor, Cheryl. You have a history of diagnosing the body, don't you?" I said, deliberately changing tactics by addressing her professional personality.
"Yes, of course. I've done it for nine years up north before moving here, and to some extent I did it as a paramedic in Toronto for ten years before I went back to medical school. Are you saying that you can diagnose my soul like I diagnose a patient's body, is that what you're saying?"
I laughed. "Something like that."
"And you're sure of yourself?"
"In this case, yes."
"Well I'd like a second opinion," Cheryl said, in all seriousness. But her comment made me laugh, I couldn't help myself. I looked into her troubled eyes and said, "Where are you going to get a second opinion in St. Jude, Cheryl?"
Cheryl, whom I deliberately refused to address as "Doctor," or simply "Doc," saw the humour and laughed too. "I guess I can't, can I? There aren't many people here who are interested in this sort of thing, are there?"
"On the contrary, Cheryl; there are plenty of people in St. Jude interested in this sort of thing. But not unlike yourself, they think they have to give up what they have to find answers to their troubled souls. That's why Thoreau said that 'the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation and go to their grave with the song still in them.'"
Cheryl's eyes popped wide open. She had asked Cathy at work one day if I had any books on Henry David Thoreau and Cathy brought her my collection, which she was still reading. "Thoreau said that?" she asked, her curiosity now more piqued than ever.
"Yes, he did. And believe me, Cheryl; that describes most people I know. Not on the surface though. They hide it quite well to get along in life. But I'm a housepainter by vocation, and I get to see people in the privacy of their own homes; and what I've seen these past twenty-five years confirms Thoreau's observation. And to tell you the truth, it's sad because there's always a way out. Always."
"That's why we're having this conversation, isn't it? I think you know the way out, don't you?"
I laughed a deep, hearty laugh. "Of course I do. Have you ever read Plato's Dialogues, Cheryl?"
"No. But I should, shouldn't I?" Cheryl said, in a girlish, pleading voice.

I smiled at the sound of her inner child's voice coming out of her confident family practitioner's mouth. "If you're serious about finding yourself, you should. But you don't have to, Cheryl. In fact you don't have to read anyone; not even Thoreau. Just be honest with yourself. And have the courage to live your own life. That's all it takes."
"That's all!" Cheryl exclaimed. "If you only knew how difficult that can be some days!"
"Not just some days, Cheryl; every day. If you want to know my secret, I'll tell you. Life itself is the Way. I know that you're under the impression that I'm a member of this New Age religion of the Light and Sound of God that you're leery about because you think it might be some kind of spiritual cult; but the true seeker looks everywhere, Cheryl. You never know where the scent will take you. That's what I mean by having the courage to live your own life. You have to do what your heart tells you to do, not your mind. That's the essence of Thoreau's philosophy - the courage to live your own life. It's not which spiritual path you're on that's going to nurture your inner child, it's having the courage to listen to what your heart tells you to do. Let me tell you something about myself, Cheryl. At one point in my search I came to a dead end. I came to many dead ends in my search, but this one devastated me. I had absolutely nowhere to turn, so I forged my own path. I did something so foolish that now that I think about it I wince at my own presumption."

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Catalogue Information

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