why fear death? what dies?
Vic Shayne
author
The Enduring Myth of the Buddha
We all die because we are all born. This is an immutable fact of life; a fact of the very nature of consciousness that contains everything that arises and falls, comes and goes. Plenty has been written about death over the millennia. Most likely, this is because death is among the top fears we silly human beings latch onto. If the fear of dying is abnormally pronounced, we even have a word for it: thanatophobia. Still, it is quite normal to have a fear of death if for no other reason than we know that death is our guaranteed fate.
Epicurus, our good friend from ancient Greece, said, “Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?” Mahatma Gandhi said, “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn” It is this last sentiment that I’d like to explore.
to sleep perchance to die
When we go to sleep at night we all wish for a sound, eventless slumber. Sleep is an escape from the stimuli and thoughts that go on all through our waking moments. We want to be dead to the world. But not too dead. Not really dead, just a little and for a little while. But how do we know we are alive while we are in this state of thoughtless, dreamless sleep? Does it matter whether we are alive or dead when we are not conscious of anything at all? We only care before we go to sleep and after we wake up.
out of touch with death
We celebrate birth and we mourn death; this is an age-old cultural norm. Even in the most raucous Irish wake there is still sorrow.
Prior to the age of materialism, death used to be acceptable as a natural end to one’s physical existence, as well as a transition. Now death seems to have been swept under the rug for no one to see, if possible. Old people are placed in nursing homes out of sight of the rest of their family to die in a clinical setting amidst strangers, blinking lights, and sterile floors.
In the natural world of our distant ancestors there were examples all around of the stages of life. Death and life were entwined and the relationship was accepted as a fact of existence. There was the miracle of birth followed by all the trials and tribulations of life. In between there were rites of passage and hard-earned wisdom (hopefully). Then there was the gradual decay of life, and if you were lucky enough to get old then the next stage was sure to come: Death.
Everywhere you look in the natural world, life brings death and death brings life. There’s an old Native American saying: “Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.”
we are all food bodies
In the words of the mystic Nisargadatta, we are all food bodies. We return to our source, and the source of the physical body is Mother Earth. In the natural world, the same body that fed upon life becomes the food for other life forms. Joseph Campbell, whom I’m fond of quoting, said, “Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order. Death is an act of giving.”
are we really some eternal principle?
And the other thing that Campbell said that leads us in a more spiritual direction is, “The eternal principle, which never was born, never will die: it is in all things: it is in you now. You are the wave on the face of the ocean. When the wave is gone, is the water gone? Has anything happened? Nothing has happened. It is a play, a game, a dance.”
What is this eternal principle of which Campbell spoke? I call it consciousness, the steady stream of life and all of its contents. It is a singular movement that does not differentiate, the way the human mind does, between death and life. This is the principle that we all live by whether we are aware of it or not.
death and the meaning of life
There are two Holocaust survivors who come to mind when bringing up this subject of death: Primo Levi and Viktor Frankl, both intellectuals who somehow emerged from the Nazi death camps by the end of World War II. Both men found this essence, this eternal principle, of which Campbell spoke. Primo Levi, survivor of Auschwitz, said: “Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last — the power to refuse our consent.”
And Frankl discovered that life without meaning was a quicker path to death in the most dire milieu of the death camp. While there may be no meaning to life, Frankl found that there must be a meaning in life. This meaning, when felt with passion, is what Campbell called your bliss. Follow your bliss, he said.
death is the end of life but not the end of existence
Life is precious, especially during the contemplation of death. Those who have reported near-death experiences (NDEs) seem to be saying the same thing: Death is not the end of existence, only the life that we are currently living. At one point in history this was a commonly accepted truth, but along with the age of Science we have separated ourselves from death. And beyond the biological imperative to die, we have been psychologically conditioned to fear and abhor death if for no other reason than it is thought to be the end of existence.
So precious and important are we to ourselves and the world in which we live that we resist the inevitable as if we have the ability to do so. The most convenient way to do this is to remove death from our sight. We don’t want to see it or be around it.
Even worse, our civilized, advanced, sophisticated, and modern society lacks any myth to cope with death. There used to be plenty of myths; but no more. Our heavy reliance on science and materialism has ensured this by trying to erase the focus on spirit from our daily lives. But science cannot hold back the tide of that ineffable essence that is within and without all of us. So there are scientists who have fragmented themselves away from the rest of the materialist pack to entertain the role of feelings, insights, qualia, emotions, spirituality, and so on.
This new face of science understands reality as a field, perhaps and probably holographic. Quantum and theoretical physicists have taken the lead toward finding the essence of reality while they dare to bridge the gap between the spiritual and material worlds. Maybe it’s all physical; or maybe it’s all spiritual; or maybe it’s a combination. But in any case, at the end of physical life there is something more than meets the eye.
life in a field of energy
Existence is a field of energy, and the body is simply a physical expression that comes and goes within the field. But that which has operated the body is not the brain or the body alone. It is “the essence” of which mystics have spoken for millennia that is impervious to death, no matter how greatly some intelligent and persuasive minds argue otherwise. (I recently came across an article suggesting that scientists who report the reality of the quantum field and state that reincarnation and some form of afterlife existence are only making such conclusions based on their own fear of death).
We aren’t discussing beliefs, religious or otherwise, about an afterlife or reincarnation, but rather a reality that is unaffected by the death of the body. It is only the conditioned sense of self — the persons we take ourselves to be created out of ephemeral ideas, memories, knowledge, etc. — that fears death. Consciousness does not fear death, because it is the bringer of death, along with everything else that it is. It is death as much as it is of life.
where is science leading us?
It will be interesting to see how leading-edge science continues to progress in its understanding of consciousness as the unified field of potentiality. So far scientists have managed to shed light on what the most ancient mystics have been saying since the beginning of human history, which is that life as we know it is but a reflection of something much greater and immutable. And we are that.
