Some people lives their lives, other just exist. People who really live life take pleasure in simple things: a smile from a friend, a field of wild flowers, a kiss from a pretty girl, a butterfly landing on your arm. These people are really alive because, while they may not say in these words, they see the spirit in the world, the spirit in everything that exists (nothing can exist without spirit). These people are capable of loving someone, or something, without thinking “what's in it for me?” They are capable of enjoying themselves without having to spend a lot of money or take a lot of risks to get their adrenaline flowing. And these people are capable of developing spiritually and becoming truly enlightened.

    On the other side of the spectrum, we have those who don't really live, they just exist. They generally don't like anything natural. Everything has to be altered, changed or replaced with something artificial. When they see a field of wild flowers, they want to pave it and make a parking lot. When they see butterflies, they want to spray them with pesticides. They see nature as an enemy to be defeated and the natural world as something frightening that needs to be “fixed” with piles and piles or artificiality.

    So when Lawrence says that these people never die, he means that, since they never lived in the first place, they were, in essence, always dead.

    If you find yourself leaning more towards the second group than the first, don't despair, there is hope. You can move yourself toward the first group in a number of ways. First, start making friends with those people and listening to them. Second, just get out of your house, apartment, and preferable out of urban areas into a natural environment. If noting else, go to a nearby park regularly. Pet a dog and watch it's tail wag instead of worrying about the possibility that it will bite you. Watch a bird build a nest and listen to them chirping. Observe nature, feel the love and energy and creativity in it, but without interfearing or trying to conquer it. You can lay outside in the grass on a summer eve and just watch the stars. Do these and similar things and before you know it, you too will be one of the living.  The photo below is a good example of this.  I took this picture of Morning Glories in a field where I walk my dogs.  Probably no more than two or three people have seen them because they are growing wild, not in someones garden.  Hundreds, if not thousands of cars drive by this field every day, but few bother to take a walk there.