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).

Read more: Deepak Chopra's Tips, Spirit, death, life, recreating

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Eternal G.

6:59PM PDT on Apr 25, 2012

Not death itself but the way it might happen!

April 25
send a green star

6:57PM PDT on Apr 25, 2012

2:45PM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

(((Uma)))

If you love Kali, than you understand why I love Lord Kal Niranjan so much! The spiritual paths that speak of him regard him as the Devil trying to keep people bound to these lower worlds when they want to return to the "BORING!!!" god worlds where everything is subject to your slightest whim. B S

Uma, with my latest wipe out on Care2 account (NO, it was NOT suspension) just my messing with tech, perhaps, anyhow, all my friends, including you, got deleted. I'm sending you a new invite. Should be good for a couple of weeks. lol (weak laughter). I sure ain't quittin'.

Be my friend. I adore you. Let Shiva (another of Kal's many names) and let Kali dance, dance, dance!

March 26
send a green star

Uma C.

11:04AM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

Thank you Zee that was most beautifully put. Kali Ji is the face of the Goddess that has my trust since she will never allow me to be trapped in any form, any identity which is not the supreme permanence creation arises from. I prostrate my self before her as she lops off all my heads setting me free never allowing me to be trapped.

3:42AM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

internet -- Kubler-Ross and other psychotherapists (especially the practitioners of Gestalt therapy and Re-evaluation Counseling) insist on our need to ventilate, externalize, or discharge these feeling, either through tears, rageful yelling, or symbolic destroying. Kali of the fearsome form is the patroness of such healing. Kali emanates from the warrior goddess Durga in times of peril, and like a bloodthirsty whirlwind slays the demons of ignorance which conflict the human mind. In her greatest of such archetypal battles, Lord Shiva had to throw himself at her feet to halt her. Dancing upon his body, she calmed and brought the universe back to life, as symbolized by Shiva's enigmatic smile.

Her dance of destruction is ultimately the destruction of evil, and seekers who throw themselves at her feet are reborn out of pain into vitality, spontaneity, and appreciation of the full joy and beauty of existence.

Hindus recognize that beneath her frightening appearance is the truth that life, though fraught with suffering and terminated in death, is ultimately rooted in joy.

All ancient traditions created archetypes of this wisdom. Greek Medusa, Medieval Hecate, Yoruban Oya, Celtic Morrigan, Norse Valkyerie, and Mayan Ixchel Crone each tell us that to realize this joy, suffering and death must be faced.

Only by conquering them through recognizing them as portals of rebirth, thereby reconciling them with ones hopes and expectations, can peace and joy be found.

8:04PM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

Dying is horrifying to us on many levels. so says the article.Death holds no horror for me. I have faced death twice and have felt no fear.A gentleman with a mental diagnosis held a gun straight on me.

I said, "If you're going to do it, be sure you do it right." Then I repeated.

He put the gun away. We remained friends.

It's life that holds the terrors, unless you've lived in such a way as to fear punishment.

My faith is in Jesus, but, just as he was not limited to the deceptions of the day, so am I not limited.

I look forward to crossing over. However, I don't want to go over as an illegal. Let me live each day to fhe fullest, overcoming my faults and doing as much good for others as I can do. I thank God for Care2.

March 24
send a green star

Marianna B M.

6:13AM PDT on Mar 21, 2012

noted

March 21
send a green star

C.M P.

2:57PM PDT on Mar 20, 2012

There is an old Norwegian saying: "Death will not come for ye, tell it is your time to die..."

I have a greater fear of living a long meaningless or unhappy life than I do death.