What do you
reckon about dying?
What will it
be like?
Have you
been in the presence of someone who dies? Was it an effort to die? Or easy?
Personally,
do you dread it? Do you fear it? Do you distract yourself with busyness so you
don’t have to face those feelings?
So many
questions? And another, do your beliefs about life and death make a difference
to how you feel about it inside. If you are really honest, do your beliefs make
a difference? Of so, how?
Or coming at
this topic from a different angle………….can you totally accept each moment of
life as it is? So that when death is happening there is total acceptance of
just that moment. That moment of going into the unknown? And it is unknown
because your mind can’t know, and you are going to leave your thinking mind
behind
When I held
my nearly 4 week old baby in my arms as she died, it felt so natural as she
just drained away to leave her body.
When I sat
beside my mother as she died, it felt simple and natural.
Some months
ago I had an experience of dying. No, not a physical near death experience as
some people have had. I was in a situation of increasing emotions of
worthlessness, over a few days. Fortunately, I was attending a retreat where
there were people to support me. Someone sat beside me. The worthlessness got
stronger and stronger, and then turned into the emotion of self-hatred. This
also got stronger and stronger until it was totally engulfing. Then total
blackness. Even though it was total blackness, even blacker spears arrived,
many of them, aimed at me, penetrating me. As they did their job, I felt myself
draining away. Who was this “I” that felt myself draining away? As I drained
away, I found myself in a place……well, it wasn’t a place actually. But what was
it? I don’t know. It was nothing. But really it was even less than nothing…..it
was complete emptiness. Words can’t describe it but it felt beautiful. It felt
true. It felt like everything all together.
So has this
prepared me for dying? I don’t know. There is no way to know.
But nevertheless,
the emptiness is with me always. Which sounds like nothing and yet it is
everything at the same time. Everything in life and of life. A state of love,
and stillness and eternity.