Do you have a fear of death?
I remember a chapter in my life about 30 years ago when I was in so much physical pain that I couldn’t sleep for a week. And I wouldn’t have slept then if it weren’t for the anesthesia the hospital gave me for the surgery I needed.
It’s amazing how we all long for a good night’s sleep, but from the great sleep called death we run in fear. But why? Death comes to all life just as surely as winter follows fall. It comes to take us into our formless state of existence–a state of consciousness.
All forms pass. Even this planet will pass away into formlessness someday. Everything in the universe is transitory. You might say that the only reason that form exists is for the discovery of formlessness.
I have come to learn through my life that whatever situation I find myself in, pleasurable or intolerable, that it will pass. Life is a passing show. Whether I deem it good or bad, I don’t take it seriously. The only thing that matters is my connection to what the mystics call the Ancient One-the eternal all-pervading, all knowing reality that is closer to each of us than our very breath.
In this ever-changing world, what could ever be more comforting than knowing that you will never be apart from that which always was, always is, and always will be.
Rooted in that inner knowledge, it doesn’t matter what the weather is, what the economy is, what the turbulence of the world is. All that will pass. To hold on to that which is transitory is only a source of suffering. To hold onto that which never fades, is a perpetual source of bliss.
The root of our problems stem from ignorance, an ignorance of who we are. We are not just a pile of flesh and bones. We are consciousness endeavoring to know ourselves as nothing but consciousness. But we get disoriented and confuse our physical state of being for what we really are. When our identity is wrapped up with a physical form that suffers illness and disease and ultimately death, it is easy to get frightened.
But is there any fear of death when rooted in formlessness? How can there be a fear of death when there is knowledge of deathlessness. Do you think the people who have had near death experiences (NDE) have a fear of death? They see it for what it is-a passageway into another dimension of being. Most of the people who have NDE didn’t want to come back to their physical bodies.
Why would they? They have seen the illusoriness of the illusion and the reality of the reality. The experience on the other side frequently awakens psychic abilities and higher energies of the inner life. Their once heavily conditioned minds are no longer so conditioned.
Knowledge replaces ignorance, peace replaces fear, and love replaces apathy.
It’s similar to coming out of the movie theatre after being absorbed in an emotional drama, having identified with the characters in the movie. When it’s over you know that it was nothing but a passing show. Now you are back in the real world.
Actually, you are back in a more real world, but it is not the real world. It too is only a passing show.
One Comment
From the time we are born we should be taught how to live our lives so that death is easy and happy, but instead we are taught to hang on to this life like nobody’s business, no matter what. What foolishness it is!!
Death is really a piece of cake. Just a change of costume.