Death

[redbear]

How do you see/feel about Death?

[redbear]

I am now at the same age my father was when he died.

I wasn't looking forward to this birthday because not only did he die at the age I am now, but also two uncles and two cousins. Of course so many factors were in play for them and I know and understand so little...

...but for me, on a deeply personal and psychological level, the question of mortality has come to visit and has been hanging around for a while.

That's why I've started this thread...

[brifae]

Its scary although i no longer fear the opportunity. I don't fear death, just pain or the process unless immediate.
I have strong faith in the afterlife, and have talked to many and have had personal experiences in the
otherworld. I look as it as the chance to shed this body, and will reuinte with loved ones in a personally created awareness.

[Celtaur]

The concept of death changes for me from moment to moment. One minute I think of it in the terms of spirituality, that's it's a transition to a higher form and seeing it in a Pollyanna, or positive manner. Other times when I really think about it, as the "no turning back" point, it can be overwhelming and scary. Thinking about loved ones dying bothers me more than considering myself dying. I'm not sure if it's that I have a fear of death itself, or the moments leading up to death, which could be a plethora of possibilities, many possibly quite frightening.

I think because we can believe things but we never are 100% sure (although people often say they do know for sure based on beliefs, but I don't know... death is the ultimate detachment to ideas I think), there is always an element of fear to death.

I've been on my personal spiritual quest for years, as we all have, and I've come across many who speak of death in the "no big deal" perspective, usually new-age thinking people, and I think it can be helpful, but it's not always totally honest. I think regardless of beliefs, there is no way in knowing how we will react to our own personal experiences in those moments leading up to it.

Sometimes I feel like life is just a big dream. Like sleeping at night is the universes way of preparing us for the "big sleep". It happens without us being aware of it, we slip into the other realm without being conscious of it. Of course though, I've had interested sleep/wake meditations where it's like being between the two states, gently slipping back and forth.

This thread, I swear could become the longest thread on the site, as death and everything related to it, can be discussed forever I'm sure. It opens up so many ideas, which is a gift in itself. The quest for understanding life's purpose and our place here between birth and death and what then.

As Jim Morrison said "Nobody here gets out alive".

I've also heard the idea that after death, is when we really become alive, and this world is really where we are dead.

[brifae]

"Celtaur:
I've also heard the idea that after death, is when we really become alive, and this world is really where we are dead"

Makes sense biblically as god said we would die when we ate of the tree of good and evil.

We then fell down the tree or sefirot of creation into a more physical existance.

Honestly death is not a big deal as much as birth. Death is freedom to me or spirit life.
One of the gods said " death/life why is it that you have two words" as in it is similar.
But I am going to enjoy this life and the mysteries it contains as well, physical life is magical as well as spirit.
Both contain each other which yes is the great mystery of duality, being, the unbeing.
I don't believe physical carnation is evil, although I would not choose it again.
Death is a process as it is said we are dying all the time as we loose and turnover cells since we are born.

[Celtaur]

If we know we are going to die, how can we take half the things we take so seriously in this life so seriously? For instance stressing ourselves out over the small stuff is common for many people. Surely on one's deathbed many things we do in life would seem so trivial.

[brifae]

If we know we are going to die, how can we take half the things we take so seriously in this life so seriously? For instance stressing ourselves out over the small stuff is common for many people. Surely on one's deathbed many things we do in life would seem so trivial.

Because it takes great courage to incarnate, drink from the well waters of forgetfulness, and endure suffering at the microcosmic level of man,
seemingly in ignorance of immortality.
Courage to face death and mortality, or suffer the fallout of bring a rebel/leader while incarnated.

[Mohandas]

The Tibetans regard death in a very different way than most people of western origin. Death is seen as part of the trio of life, death and the between or 'bardo'.

The Bardo Thodol or Tibetan book of the dead details the post death 'between' experience and serves to guide one through it to a beneficial reincarnation in higher Buddha universes. It tells of the sequence of colored lights of the different realms and how to chose or avoid each, as well as useful practices like 'closing the womb door' when one has inadvertently been drawn into the karmic pull of birth in an undesired realm.

The triple nature of manifestation as seen in the Tibetan system of life/death/between has it's microcosmic parallel in our own individual human experience also. According to the Bardo Thodol (translation by Robert F. Thurman *who is Uma Thurman's father!) the states of life, death and the between correspond on our human plane to the waking state, the deep sleep state and the dream state, respectively.

Life is much like our waking state and what we see is real to our awareness. Death and deep sleep draw certain obvious parallels also. The between or Bardo, however is a little more obscure, as is the dream state to our waking consciousness.

The more we work with our dreams to attain lucid dreaming, the more we prepare ourselves for the strong impressions and visual onslaught of the great 'between' after death. In order to effect our highest evolutionary momentum at the time of death and to become aware during the bardo which follows, we must work with the graspable microcosmic reflection of that bardo, which is the dream state.

After falling asleep we first pass through the black gap of deep sleep. We then "appear" on the dream plane, usually with no recollection of the being we truly are who lies asleep. The people, places and events in the dreamworld are just as real to the dream being who reacts to them with unconscious impulse, according to the present mind state of the dreamer.

In the same way, when we die we are blotted out into the big black for a time. We then awaken into the bardo of the great between, similarly without recollection of our having passed. We then experience the karmic flashes of our life pass before us and enter into the plastic state before rebirth, to be shown each of the six realms of existence. Without having practiced lucid dreaming throughout one's life, one will easily be swept up in the karmic impressions which so recently meant so much to the human who had experienced them and be reborn into the appropriate sphere, be it human or animal god or titan, hungry ghost or hell being.

In the same way as when we are dreaming, if we are able to be aware that we have passed, we can positively effect our momentum and not fall victim to the strong visual impressions we are experiencing. If we can pass the bardo of the between without being caught up in old karmic patterns which drag us again down into bodily manifestation, we will not be doomed to suffer unconscious rebirth again and again on the wheel of Samsara.

With Love
Mohandas

[LadyofBlackLions]

To experience "death" - the transformation from one state of being into another.
To "die" - to become no known thing in this known universe... journeys into "Ceugant".

The Age of the Soul

In the spring...The newborn babe experiences "death" as it becomes the enfant; the enfant experiences "death" as it becomes the child; the child becomes the adolescent; the adolescent transforms into the young adult of summer. As the autumn unfolds, the middle age soul experiences "death" as it becomes the soul of early old age - of middle old age - of late old age of winter. The 13th moon of the Hidden God, Ruis, brings forth "conception" at Samhain, and rebirth of spring at Imbolc, is the experience of death as the ancient soul journeys on, learning to let go of fear, learning how to express unconditional love, learning how to adapt... as it evolves in a multitude of ways, on a multitude of levels, in a multitude of realms... simultaneously. Until now. The death of death brings the soul full circle,

- back to its own immortality...

Has anyone here ever experienced death? the answer is yes. Do you remember? The answer is you are able.

During this incarnation I have been pronounced physically "dead" 5 times since the age of 19. The first three crossings, I do not recall, but I do remember the last two, January 1995, (age 42- I did not know I was "dead" until I returned and they told me it was so), and February 2006, (age 53 - I knew I was leaving, and I knew I was returning) . I thought it strange how the only ones who thought this an "unnatural" state of being, were those working feverishly to keep the physical vessel alive until I chose to return. Last week I crossed over through the midnight threshold and returned with the dawn - and no - not of my own "conscious" free will... yet.

I am learning that I Am Presence.

To those who seek, you are invited to message me in private and I will chat with you as you walk through the thresholds that lay before you... Death is as individual as you are.

Peace, love and light to all,
Yours in service,
Lady

[redbear]

I hover between feeling there is only this life and nothing more, interspersed with moments when I absolutely know there is something beyond the death of our physical bodies.

From an early age I was taught to love Life but equally fear Death. One is giving, the other taking. One offers immense joy, the other immense sadness. Opposite. Opposite. Opposite.

Recently I’ve been exploring these two so called opposites not as conditions poles apart but more as close relations and Cosmic Guardians in their own right. Poetic thoughts maybe but this is where I am with this. When I can put something into words I’ll repost here.

At a cell level we’re experiencing death within us all the time yet for the most part are unaware of it. The body’s very survival is dependent on the death of 18.75 million cells a minute yet their demise is our physical replication and renewal.

I wonder if, on another level, Death the Guardian visits us more often than we know?…like when we sleep or undergo surgery.

As Wet, Wet, Wet might have said if they’d thought of it…

I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes
Death is all around me
And so the feeling grows
It's written on the wind
It's everywhere I go, oh yes it is.