Life Beyond Death
An ongoing inquiry into purpose of death,
the nature of life after death,
how we can prepare for death,
and how we can assist the dying.
Healing Our Collective Fear and Denial
If a man remembers at every moment that one day or another he will have to leave this world, then he will never be able to bring falsehood or inappropriate conduct to his life.
One night, when I was a child, I suddenly realized the certainty of death and I began to cry. My mother came to find out what was wrong and I tried to explain, "I'm going to die." She hugged me and said, "You're not going to die for a long time. Don't worry." I stopped crying, but in my mind, I knew she didn't get it. Death was nipping at my heels.
The harsh reality of death seems mitigated by time. We imagine that in 20 or 30 years, we'll be ready to die. But that almost never happens. Thirty years ago, 30 years time is today. If we're not ready to die today, why do we think we'll be ready in 30 years?
Every day of the year, some 150,000 people die on this planet. Yet how many dead bodies have you seen in your life? Unless you've been a mortician or a soldier in war, the answer will be very few. How is that possible? There are as many as 300 people dying in any given city, every day. Where are all the corpses? The answer is simple. As a society, we're engaged in an unspoken conspiracy, a collective and unconscious denial about death. As soon as someone dies, the body is covered over and removed as quickly as possible; what spiritual teacher and author Barry Long refers to as "the macabre game of hide the body". Our urgent and obsessive need to hide the bodies is the outer manifestation of an unconscious group neurosis. Evidently, we don't want to know about death and we certainly don't want to see it.
Our fear of death has two aspects. First, we have an automatic bodily fear that's programmed into our reptilian brain to keep us out of danger; just one of many strategies employed by Mother Nature to preserve the species. This fear is not really a problem. It's a natural reflex and as long as we have a physical body, it serves a useful purpose.
But we also have a deep psychological fear of death, which arises out of ignorance and causes a great deal of suffering. We cling to the notion of a separate, individual self and we're deeply afraid this self will be lost or destroyed. Ultimately, this psychological fear can only be healed by the knowledge that we are not something that can be lost or destroyed.
When we inquire who or what is beneath the changing appearances, we discover a paradox. There is no solid, separate self. There is only the experience of a separate self, arising in Consciousness. We are this Consciousness and we are the experience at the same time. They're really two sides of the same coin.
If Self knowledge seems too remote, consider a common sense approach. How could there be any danger in a natural physical process that happens to everybody? Is it dangerous to be born, to make love, to have children, to live, to breath? If we really look into these questions, the only possible conclusion is that either everything is dangerous, or nothing is. Either way, it amounts to the same thing. One way to see this clearly is to contemplate the certainty of dying, experience the fear that arises and examine the underlying assumptions. Eventually, the truth will reveal itself. Life and death must be completely safe.
Sharing our time with the dying is another important tool in the transformation of our fear of death. If you don't have a family member who is dying, you can train as a volunteer for Hospice. Simply listen to the dying about their experiences and observe your reactions or any discomfort that might arise. You'll know something has shifted when you're no longer running away from death by avoiding the subject or trying to put a positive spin on the situation. I strongly recommend that everyone spend time with the dying in some capacity. There is no better way to come face to face with the reality of dying; to experience both the raw and the beautiful aspects of this very natural stage in life.
