How to avoid death

How to completely avoid death

What does it mean to die? To die means not to change. We change from an embryo to a baby, baby to adolescent, adolescent to adult, adult to elderly, elderly to eventually moving beyond the body completely, to the unknown. We call this “life”. What we are afraid of is not death, it is unknown change. Every night when we fall asleep, we move into the unknown, where time is no longer linear and we dive deep into the unrestrained creative power of our source.

When our sense of self, when our fixed ideas and patterns of thinking become so standardized that we are no longer open to change, that is death. That is the real death before the physical body dissolves. When the mind becomes as stiff as our joints, our world becomes restricted as well. New things, new ideas that threaten our old patterns are viewed with suspicion and resistance. When the walls we choose to define our way of living can no longer be tunneled through by the power of curiosity, we inhabit a prison of our own design.

What is the cure for death? The punctuation mark at the end of the last sentence is the cure. The question mark began as a “Lightning flash, from left to right” in the early middle ages. With this simple symbol of lightning - a force that both illuminates and destroys - the foundations of our previously held beliefs can be changed, adapted, and when necessary, exploded. When we allow a current of curiosity and wonder to swirl within even the things we take for granted, the possibility of seeing them as new unfolds.

Our big fear is that what we have believed in, the foundations of our way of living and seeing the world may change completely. If that were to happen, our sense of authority and value would be threatened. So to avoid this threat, we retreat into the walls of our own beliefs, retreating to the known.

So, how to avoid death? To avoid death, create an opportunity to let your beliefs dissolve, even temporarily. We can do this daily by taking a seat, closing our eyes for a few minutes and resting in the source that lies behind all of our thoughts and beliefs.

The initial motivation for belief

When we look around at Systems Of Belief, there are many. Christianity, Buddhism, Tantra Yoga, Classical Yoga, Islam. Although quite different in method, all systems of belief must share one starting point. The initial motivation for belief comes from the feeling that things are unsatisfactory as they are. Belief systems will disagree on exactly what is unsatisfactory, but it comes down to one thing in the end. We die. We die, and we don't know what happens next, if anything. This is profoundly unsettling to us. We don't want to end, so we create a belief. Hold on. What is a belief? This is one description:

Existential claim - to claim belief in the existence of an entity or phenomenon with the implied need to justify its claim to existence. It is often used when the entity is not real, or its existence is in doubt. "He believes in witches and ghosts" or "many children believe in fairies" are typical examples.

O.K. So.... we have a "belief" when we don't know for sure. None of us would say "My belief system is that I have a head". The reason that sounds so silly is that we know we have a head. We don't have to affirm a belief in it. This is important.

So, now we have a "belief" that we go to heaven, we re-incarnate, we turn into a luminous being, and so on. If we knew this, we would not have to have a "belief". Would we? So, if we believe something happens after we die, do we individually create a belief in some sort of continuation after death, or do we adopt one that already exists? Which one did you adopt?

Coming back around to my initial point in writing this, it is my assertion that belief is motivated by the ego. It is our desire to continue in some form that creates the motivation to adopt a belief system. If is sounds true to you that our adoption of belief is ego-driven, then good luck transcending the ego through spiritual practice based on belief. Uh-oh.

So, if we want our spiritual lives - strike that - if we want our lives to be based in truth, we have to start from a place of truth, and that is knowing what is and what is not. If we could, for a change, get rid of the beliefs we have about things and simply observe reality and then have a chat about it, we'd be further ahead. There may very well be re-incarnation, or heaven, or luminosity, or myriad other potentials for our energy when this form ends. But we will never discover that by adopting a belief and psychologically crossing our fingers, in the hopes that the belief we adopted is the "right" one.