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My mind spends a large proportion of my time in a place of quiet now, thank God ( and Peter and me and….)
Anyway, things become noticed.
Funerals.
In Britain, when you are a person who does a 9-5 job which you have to drive away from your home each morning to get to, and then you don’t get back home till night time.
You miss a lot.
Every hearse, every funeral procession you see, virtually every single one you see and spend time with…
That is the very painful departure of a loved one, to the unexplored mind.
In time, you might well forget that not only your friends and family, not only celebrities, die.
You don’t want to even think about death. Why would you?
You pretend that it will never happen to you, or, God forbid, those most close to you. Even the thought of it…
You don’t go there.
Just work hard, escape at weekends or holidays, escape with distractions like alcohol, or shopping, or ….
Then.
Say something awful happens.
Like, you are really ill, or maybe just have a time of not quite being able to ‘hold it all together enough’ to fulfill your day to day responsibilities.
You might have a little ‘breakdown’
For a short period of time, you are not leaving your home every morning.
A whole new world appears.
Almost every day, if you venture out into the unfamiliar daytime world of your community…
Almost every day, you may see a hearse drive by.
Especially if you live close to a crematorium.
Now, a different perspective on dying emerges.
It’s not just special people who die.
Strangers die.
That weird man who lived over there died.
Dying just happens.
It’s really no big deal to you now..
Well, unless it’s someone you love.
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This topic was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by
Hazel. Reason: Spell check
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This topic was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by
Death is the greatest fear of the ego. The fear of death is one of the primary things that keeps the ego going. To the ego, death equals extinction. I will be no more. And the ego’s primary goal is very simple: survival. This is a very powerful and primal goal. Behind all the ego’s various thoughts and plans is this primary fear of death. Stripped down to its basic essence, the ego is fear and resistance. That’s really all it is.
Because the ego is so terrified of death and at the same time knows it has to happen, it also resists life. So the view from the ego’s eyes is terribly small and confined. Make sure it’s safe. Avoid everything that could threaten my existence.
And of course the thing that threatens the existence of the ego more than even physical death is awakening to truth. The thoughts that create the ego also know this. They know the ego’s days are numbered because it is not true. And eventually the one believing the ego is real might find this out. So when this begins to happen, there is often great fear and resistance. The ego does not want to die. And as soon as it is seen clearly, it will. It cannot survive in the light of truth because it isn’t.
The very good news is that what is true, what is our True Self, is formless infinite presence. It cannot die. Never. Ever. Bodies die all the time. But this never dies. When we realize this is what we are, not with thoughts but direct undeniable experience, the ego’s days are truly numbered and our fear of death is gone.
Thanks for bringing this up, Hazel. Death is the number one thing the ego is afraid of. It doesn’t understand it. In spite of life’s constantly revealing that the ego is not true, we cling to it simply because this fear of death is so powerful. That is the big attachment. When that is gone, the ego loses all its seeming power and reality.
And of course we’re extremely happy and grateful for such Grace when it happens.
Very few humans do not fear death. But nobody who is awake does. That’s part of the great freedom. Death is nothing like what the ego thinks it is. Our True Self, what we really are, can never die. We’ve been here forever.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by
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This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by
Death is a part of our day to day family life here!
My husbands brother used to be employed by the local council to dig graves.
Now he works as the crematorium
He incinerates bodies.
It really does bring the reality home
The lack of reality
He showed us around.
No secrets
Just a job, carefully and professionally and efficiently done.
My good elderly friend was incinerated by him last but one New Years Eve.
Very very strange.
She was a wise, gnarled, grandmotherly figure to me.
Uncomfortably needy
Not my responsibility
But needing, all the same
Partly abandoned, in self preservation
Not completely
Our last meeting. My husband and I visit her in hospital
She is frightened of dying, of being abandoned, of being buried alive.
We bring her chocolate, Jaffa cakes, her favourite.
She kisses me, and apologises if she has got chocolate on my cheek.
We talk.
She had passed her lived wisdom to me
Her realisation that her mother, always a very strained relationship
Her mother was just a women who needed love
She just gave her love
If her mother wanted to treat her like a small ignorant child
So be it.
She could always take that lovingly insisted scarf off again
Once she was out the door.
Her mother would comment
Other sisters talked, took her to places
My wonderful gift of a friend Enid
She just let her mother be
Who she was
She sat with her
They talked
And loved each other.
She also made peace with her father before he died
He was extremely deaf
And lived on the other side of the world
But she wrote
Remembered the good times with him
In the end there was peace underneath it all.
Nice, Hazel. I like that writing. It felt like there was a lot peace and space in it. Peace underneath it all. Very good. Thank you.
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This topic was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by
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