Before I begin here, I just want to say that, despite the fact that this post is about death that, if you can get around that fact enough to read this, it is actually a lot more uplifting and potentially liberating than you might think and definitely worth the read... :)
The subject of death is something that most of the world puts off thinking about until those fateful last moments when their whole life flashes before them. Most of us live in a culture where death is not talked about or acknowledged as a fact of life until someone close to us passes on or we realize that our own clock is winding down and we have no other choice but to think about it. I've spent a great deal of my life thinking about death and therefore a great deal of my life keeping it to myself, as it's something that no one ever really wants to contemplate. It's generally considered to be too grim or depressing a subject to think about and the very idea of death often generates fear within the minds of many people. Many times, even those who say that they are not afraid of death and that they have accepted the inevitability of their own mortality, find that they had really only done so to tuck the idea away conveniently in the back of their minds and perhaps quietly prevent themselves from having to think about it as well...and therein lies the fear of it all.
In a lifetime of thinking about death, however, I can tell you that there is nothing to fear and that people who think about death as much as they think about life are not dwelling on the morbid side of things, but rather they come to know a great, fulfilling, secret about life and about why death is truly not a fearful thing because they begin to see a fuller, richer, view of what the whole picture of life really is. From birth to death. From incarnation to the grand adventure of life and at last into the great beyond...
These individuals see a more full spectrum of existence as a whole and are therefore often much more aware of the things that are truly important in one's lifetime. Rather than having all those regretful epiphanies in their last moments of how much more they could've loved their life and the world, how much better they could've treated people, how many more places they could've gone, how much more they could've explored and learned about nature and so on. They can apply all those things to their life right now and begin living with much more wisdom and love, as they embrace the perspective of life that usually only comes in those desperate last moments towards the end of one's life when they realize that they may not have much more life to live.
The great philosopher Alan Watts, spent a considerable portion of his life talking about death to people and helping to deliver them from the overwhelming fears that people have about it. I think that was an incredible service to have given to the world as, the fear of losing this existence that we all cling to, is really one of the most deep rooted fears that we can have in life and perhaps the most important one that we have to come to terms with. We like to control our lives as much as possible and the prospect of death is likely the most out of control thing that we can ever encounter or think of. We think that if we can just stamp the idea of death out of our minds that it might not be true and somehow that gives us the idea of having some control over our lives and where we're heading. We can overcome these fears of losing control however, just by remembering that while we may fear death, it is something that we simply have no control of...and never did. Death comes to us all eventually and there is a sense of liberation in that. We don't have to struggle against it now or ever because we simply can't.
We're afraid of the unknown...of what might lie beyond the veil...of what awaits us on the other side or perhaps an even more teriffying prospect...what doesn't lie on the other side. The thought of everlasting non-existence. We don't need to fear this though. For, everything that makes us up as human beings...our body, our mind, our consciousness and the spirit of everything we are is made up of energy and even science can tell you that that energy is never lost. It is merely redistributed into the universe, breathing life into other things and creating more of everything that you see around you. Your personality, your life experiences, the feelings you had, the things you created, the people you helped or inspired...they are all energies that you created in the universe and they will never die. Our body may feed the soil one day, which in turn may become a tree that might, in turn, feed the birds and so on and we can live on in this way as well, but you are not just your body. You are YOU...and the essence of everything that YOU are is part of the whole universe and will be absorbed into the universe in one way or another and will most undoubtedly live on forever. We don't know what comes next, but we can know that we have no need to fear it. The very nature of evolution in this universe suggests that, whatever it is, it will be something better and perhaps far more extraordinary than we can imagine. So, in accepting death and releasing the fear of allowing ourselves to ponder what it is, we can become truly empowered within our life and begin to experience the infinite freedom and joy that comes with TRULY living a life without fear...
Here is a quote by Alan Watts from the video below(9 mins.) of a talk he gave regarding eastern thought on the subject of death and why we have no reason to ever fear it. I hope you watch it and are just as inspired as I was to live more and to fear so much less... :)
"So, the bodhisatva saves all beings. Not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered...they are liberated...by the very fact of not being able to stop change. You can't hang onto yourself. You don't have to try not to hang onto yourself. It can't be done...and that is salvation..." - Alan Watts
