http://www.care2.com/greenliving/do-you-fear-death.html
Do You Fear Death?
Dying is horrifying to us on many levels. It is a fearful prospect to suffer intense physical pain, and since we have all felt it, our minds recoil from experiencing more. The prospect of being annihilated, of disappearing into the void as experience comes to an end, creates perhaps the deepest fear.
In response, people try to escape awareness of mortality in all the ways we’ve become familiar with, from substance abuse to our culture’s endless fascination with youth and beauty.
Death as a fact becomes less brutal if you can accept that it is a necessary part of life. The universe recycles everything in the never-ending flow of time. The atoms that make up your body have found a temporary shelter only. Like birds of passage they are always in flight.
With your next breath you will take in several billion molecules of air once breathed by Buddha or Jesus, and when you exhale you will send molecules of air to be breathed tomorrow by people in China.
Every other atom of your body is borrowed and must be repaid to the cosmos. The reason that the ancient Indians worshipped Shiva, the god of death and dissolution, wasn’t out of fear alone, or a desire to placate him. The traditions of wisdom looked at nature and saw in its design creation and dissolution, the one inseparable from the other.
At the deepest level, everyone is borrowing and repaying all the time. The scene isn’t one of perpetual death but of life circulating within itself. When you realize how intimately connected we all are, the reality that life is a common possession, more like an eco-system than like a new car, hits home. Like my heart and my breathing, my mind is recirculating images and feelings that are shared with millions of other people. Without death, this renewal would not be possible.
Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001).
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104 comments
add your comment »As I was saying when I ran out of room...
Our unconscious PROGRAMING will often dictate our behavior and responses to give us what we have always been used to having happen. If someone doesn’t give it to us, we will find a way to coax it out of them and then proclaim that we had nothing to do with how someone else treated us. We keep doing the same things and wanting different results. That’s insanity but that is how we are.
The only thing that will get us airborne again is to look at what REALLY drives us and then to see if it is driving us where we want to go.
We all have choices but if we can’t be aware of our programming and what is driving us unconsciously, then we are less able to take the wheel and steer ourselves in another direction.
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Is somebody SHOUTING in here? :) I heard it all the way over here. ;) (wink)
Me thinks we sometimes protest too much. I sure have been guilty of that at times. My greatest spurts of human and spiritual growth have been when I looked to see why. But then I was WILLING, nay, DESIROUS at those times to take a look and I wanted not to self efface but to expand, to lift myself above where I had been coming from to a place that brought more love, peace, and harmony rather than discord, anger, and separation. Other times I wasn't in that kind of space so I can understand that we all have choices and whatever choice we make at the time is the best one we can do at that time.
We all see things through the particular lenses that we have on at any given time.
When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
You can be anything you want to be. You can have angst and anger and violence or you can choose peace, love, practice forgiveness, and let go of what doesn’t get you want you really want or really need. Only you can determine what you really want or need. If you want a fight you can find one. If you want a loving embrace, you can find that too. Sometimes I just want someone to kick my butt all the while protesting that I want to be loved, accepted, and embraced. It would seem that I was confused about which I really wanted but not so. Our unconscious PROGRAMING will often dictate our behavior and responses to give us what we have always been u
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Alright People.Here is something that You should ALL keep in mind. I am ABSOLUTLY RIGHT and the REST of YOU'S are ABSOLUTLY WRONG and that's ABSOLUTLY IT!!!! And there is ABSOLUTLY NO WAY AROUND IT!!! Keep that in Mind and We can get along Very Nicely Thank You.
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Dont start that Rumor Chana. My NAME really IS Moonbeam!! That is the Name that My Mom and Dad gave Me and the Name that is printed on My Birth Certificate. My Mom and Dad we're BOTH Hippies in the 1960's and 70's and were heavelly into the 1960's Counterculture. THAT'S how I got the Name Moonbeam Thank You very much! Any other questions?
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ahhhh,..NO they were NOT trying to defuse the anger and I DO NOT APPRECIATE YOU SAYING THAT THEY DID!!! I do NOT think that I am being the LEAST BIT out of line here!!! STEPHEN IS MY FRIEND AND MY PEN-PAL AND IF YOU MESS WITH HIM,YOU MESS WITH ME,YOU DIG??NOW LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!
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Has anyone else noticed that Moonbeam's language and style is almost identical to Stephen's? I'm wondering if Stephen were kicked off for inappropriate language and has been resurrected as Moonbeam.
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Moonbeam, you are totally out of line with your language and your insults. Stephen DID start the name calling and some of us tried to defuse the anger on the site, but he kept on ranting. I'm sorry if he has mental problems, as he alleged, but that is no excuse for attacking other people who post here. Let's try to keep it civil.
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Moonbeam no one is picking on Stephen: 1) as Chana just said no one has been to this article in months. 2) If Stephen was freaked out by the death issue why did he spend so much time here arguing instead of passing it up for something more to his interests? You can hardly blame anyone here for entering into dialogue with him because that's what this site is for and if a concept is overly disturbing he should just leave it alone. I don't know him and he verbally attacked me and other people here who are very nice and just trying to get him to lighten up with such abusive language that I CAN'T REPEAT IT HERE. It was that he was using us as an attack point to dump all this suppressed garbage and it was hurtful and totally out of line. I don't know what delusional madness he has used to provoke you onto this site to attack people but it is really water under the bridge, or sewage may be closer, and I ,for one had forgotten about him till now. Janeen emailed me about you attacking her around this but it is so old and out of place that this is a very strange communication and I hope it is now forgotten and resolved. Let him take his nastiness elsewhere. I reported him for verbal abuse. In his frame of mind it's to all mutual benefit that he just stays away and you too if you have nothing currant to discuss.
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Okay, Moonbeam, take a deep breath and relax. No one has been at this site for over 3 months. You're getting upset over very old stuff. Let's keep it friendly on the Care2 pages.
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Seriously now People. EVERYONE GROW UP AND LEARN TO HAVE MORE RESPECT FOR MY PEN-PAL STEPHEN LANG'S FEELINGS!! HE IS A HUMAN BEING WITH FELLINGS AND THOSE FEELINGS SHOULD DAMN-WELL BE RESPECTED!!!!
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