Quote of the Week: March 27, 2011

Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature”, not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,—all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.

Manual for Teachers, 27,1

At the source of all illusions is the concept of “death.”  It is an idea so ingrained into our awareness that it forms the central theme of all our thoughts, and activity.  To us it is a given, an undeniable, unavoidable, and apparently obvious fact of life:  that all things that have a beginning have an end; that the goal of life is death.   We can all agree that we do experience life as cyclical, changing and unsure, undependable and unsteady, waxing and waning, and finally ending in the dramatic transformation we call death, but what we fail to question is whether or not this concept and its experience is true, or even makes any sense.  If we agree that our lives end in death, then God, who created us in his image and likeness must also be subject to death.  But this cannot be for it directly contradicts our basic understanding of God’s nature, namely:  all powerful, all knowing, and all present, which all testify to His eternal nature.  Furthermore to believe in death is to believe that God is cruel and vengeful, as opposed to benign, benevolent and caring.  

 

Clearly there is a glaring flaw in the idea that death is the goal of life.  But let us examine this concept from our common experiential level by asking the question:  Does anything really die?  What becomes of a tree or a human being when it “dies?”  We need not consider the “Soul” in our analysis, because it is an accepted fact that it continues on after “death”, so we have only to consider the physical material parts that remain, which slowly decomposes into their component elements.  Is it not more accurate then to say that what we perceive is not a death, but simply the deconstruction and subsequent transformation of one life form into another.  This is a process that is constantly going on in and around us, which we simply call growth, or evolution.  As time passes each of us grow from being a baby, to a child, to a teen, to a young adult, to a mature adult, to a senior, with each stage arising from the previous and giving foundation to the next.  And in each of these transformations we could say that the previous stage “died” to give birth to the next stage, but instead we simply say that one stage grew into the next.  The only difference between this and the more dramatic transformation we call “death” is that in the case of humans, we don’t easily perceive or know what the next stage of transformation is.  But for another species, the caterpillar, we are able to perceive the next stage which is the creation of the butterfly, where it is clear that there is no death, only an elegant and continuous process of growth.  

 

From still another perspective, all religions state that there is something after “death,” something happy or something unhappy, but in either case “something” exists after “death,” so where O’ where death is thy fearful sting, which we seek so desperately to postpone as long as possible?  Even science which understands everything to be energy or more correctly vibrations, declares in its first law of thermodynamics that the total quantity of energy in the universe is a constant; that no energy can be created or destroyed, and that all life is simply the transformation of energy from one form to another. Clearly this fundamental belief in death has no real foundation, for it is found wanting from every perspective.  

 

Perhaps it is not so much death that we fear, but much more the aftermath of death, what religions call final judgment.  Aha that indeed would be something to be feared, but only if we believed in a vengeful and punishing God.  For those believing in a loving and compassionate God, final judgment is a welcomed homecoming; an event for celebration; a reunion; the return of the long lost prodigal son to his father; indeed, the awakening of the holy son of God.  

 

So be not saddened by the idea of death my siblings for it is but an illusion, a dream that engenders fear in those who see it not as an illusion.  The wise, however, recognize it for what it is and therefore grieve neither for the living nor the “dead,” knowing both to be illusions that arise and fall like waves on the ever stable and unmoving ocean of eternal bliss consciousness that is God.  God suffices because there is nothing else that exists but Him.  God is dependable unavoidable and inescapable for He is One, and never changes, even while appearing in all the infinite multiplicity of forms in creation.  You and I are part of that unchanging multiplicity, so we too are One with each other and One with Him.  In scientific terms, in the mathematics of infinity: One + One = One, and in the immortal words of the Upanishads:

Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahman, the totality); 

Tat Tvam Asi (you too are that totality);

Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma (All this is Brahman, the totality).

Purnam adah purnam idam purnat purnam udachyate
purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavashishyate
(That absolute existence is full; this relative existence is full;
from that absolute fullness, this relative fullness comes out. 
Taking fullness from fullness, what remains is fullness.)