On Death

Quick Facts

-Death is often considered the ceasing of physical existence, however, death can be considered in a psychological sense as well!

-Going through egoic and psychological death is very healthy for us!

Intro

Death is such an interesting topic. So many people are frightened of it, and many people embrace it as well! But what is death? Can we consider death to be anything else besides what we traditionally associate it with? Even if we could, should we?

What We Consider To Be Death

As it stands, almost everyone believes that death happens when a living being ceases to live in the physical world. When our breath is gone, our heartbeat stops, and we permanently stop moving others consider us to be "dead."

This can be thought about all kinds of living things - squirrels, trees, dogs, rabbits - when they permanently stop moving, they're "dead."

Also, some people are smart and remark that someone seems "dead" or "brain-dead" when they exhibit a lot of black energy. They are beginning to refer to death as a mental state rather than a physical state.

What Death Can Really Be

While we think of the above as death, there is another perspective I want to write about!

When a tree dies, for example, it goes into the soil and becomes fertilizer for other plants and trees to grow on top of it. Since its nutrients are being used for another tree to grow can anyone say it actually died?

Some people argue that death and decay can only truly happen if we don't let the earth reclaim its own, by putting our bodies in caskets, for example. When life "dies" it becomes the grounds for new life, and anyone/anything that disrupts that process is asking for trouble! The earth only has so many resources, after all.

Others argue that death simply doesn't happen, and that life always carries on whether it be in physical form or metaphysical form.

And lastly, speaking of the metaphysical, death can refer to psychological/emotional death. We tend to hold the same beliefs, emotions, and fears for a long time, and they grow in intensity the longer we identify with them. When we disidentify from them and release them from our being we refer to this as 'ego death,' and it often feels like death when a feeling that intense becomes replaced with another intense, positive feeling.

Why Death Is Good For Us

Most of us are afraid of death and dying! I see a lot of people who harbor a subtle (sometimes not-so-subtle) fear of death, and I want to argue towards the contrary - if we're afraid of death and dying all the time our quality of life will dramatically decrease on the mental and physical levels. It's the same for any kind of chronic fear, but it's especially true for the fear of death since most of us fear death more than anything.

In fact, the act of death itself can be seen as rather… Unceremonial! When we take the emotional context away from it it's rather simple and painless. This is me talking about the physical death, but what about the metaphysical death?

When a large but detrimental (outdated) part of our psychological/emotional being is disidentified from, we often become a different and better person entirely! We feel better, we treat ourselves and other people better, we are more likely to think and perform well, the list of benefits goes on and on. While metaphysical death can feel painful, I assure you, anything that deserves to be slain in the mind probably wasn't worth identifying with anyway. Learned from? Maybe. But not identified with!

However, this kind of death is intense and, often, unpleasurable. Digging up traumas, old emotions of the past, and subconscious/suppressed pain hardly ever feels good in the moment, especially if it comprises a large part of our identity. However, if we're willing to let it go, feel the intensity, and come out on the other side, we'll have gone through a kind of death that's very important to our well-being!

Why We Shouldn't Be Scared

Some of us mistake the fear of death as the actual act of death itself. Sometimes we say "wow, I feel like death" because the pain and suffering that we feel can be thought of to be like death.

In reality, however, there is no reason to associate pain, fear, and negativity with death. This is why I propose we shouldn't be afraid of any kind of death! And what I mean by this is, literally, we shouldn't identify with the fear of death. Perhaps we can feel the feeling, but we shouldn't identify with the feeling and be the feeling. We should feel the fear and pain, accept it for what it is, then release it, because that provides a lot more wellbeing than simply staying afraid! :)

Final Thoughts

My speculation is that we're programmed to be afraid of dying from a very young age. TV shows, movies, commercials, our parents, other adults… I've even gone so far as to speculate that the government does this on purpose so it can keep most of us compliant and afraid. It makes sense since this is what an intelligent government would do if it was completely and totally void of morality or positive power and totally obsessed with gaining control and corrupt power, which is true for most (if not all) of the (at least American) government.

I used to think that all fear stemmed from the fear of death, however, I've recently been wondering if other fears are completely autonomous and completely okay with existing on their own. IE, she's scared to meet this new group because she wants them to accept her. Why does she want them to accept her? Because she wants them to accept her. And the loop continues. I feel as if I cannot say the fear of death is the root of all fear, however, I can say that it is the root of a lot of fear, pain, and suffering, so I highly encourage you to disidentify from it by continuously repeating, "I choose to disidentify from the fear of death. I do not need to fear death anymore."

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my article! I hope you found some value in it, and I'll see you in the next post :)