http://www.care2.com/greenliving/dying-unto-death.html
Dying Unto Death
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.
In the East it is believed that our bodies store memories of many deaths as we move from on reincarnation to the next. Thus our terror at the prospect of dying is really a memory. Likewise, the peace that can be felt in the face of death is also a memory. Each of us is susceptible to both recollections, the pain of dying and the joy of being reborn.
Without having to endorse any belief in reincarnation, I have found that people do locate the memory of peace inside. Since the fear of death exists on many levels, so does its healing.
On the emotional level you need to begin ridding yourself of the energy of fear. On the mental level you can read philosophy or scriptures, or if you are a nonbeliever, delve into the many scientific studies of near-death experiences, which have now been documented by the thousands. Faith can come in through the mind.
Yet wherever you place your faith, death remains mysterious. No one fully accepts the reassurances being offered by reason or religion. Dying is a natural process, but our attitudes toward it can be very unnatural. Of course you can be just as afraid of dying before it happens – the fear itself is what needs to be healed.
In every wisdom tradition there is a teaching called “dying unto death,” as the New Testament calls it. This means experiencing the truth about dying while you are still alive. At this moment your body could not be alive without death. Billions of cells have to perish to bring new ones to life. You could not think or feel or dream if your mind did not allow your old thoughts to die away and make room for the new.
Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001).
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7 comments
add your comment »Settle down! We, as care2 members, need to ALL be nice... please?
I am scared to death of dying, what it all entails just before the last breath... but it doesn't mean that I am not in the least bit curious as to what comes next :)
Moonbeam, we need to accept death as it IS inevitable and this was an article trying to express this. We're being told to understand our fears, to try and get over them, help some of us cope with the aspect of death.
If you get upset about a certain topic, don't read the articles, please! This is why religion and politics and other debatable subjects are taboo... too close to the heart to not get upset, BUT:
This is a place to express yourself freely and fairly, not to judge or make people feel like an @$$.
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ALRIGHT,...EVERYONE GROW UP AND LEARN TO RESPECT MY PEN=PAL STEPHEN LANG'S FEELINGS!!!1 IT'S BAD ENOUGH THAT HE GETS REALLY UPSET EVERY TIME HE GETS INTO A DISCUSSION ABOUT DEATH!!!!
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Embracing Death is the ABSOLUTE DUMBEST thing I have EVER HEARD and as far as I know,it always WIIL BE!!!And I'm NOT saying that to be rude,disrespectful.or mean! I am SAYING it because it's My gosh-darn HONEST OPINION!!!!SO EVERYONE GROW UP AND LEARN TO RESECT MY OPINIONS!!!! IT IS NOT DUMB OR IMMATURE TO HATE DEATH!!!!!
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Thank you for sharing, Uma. I have dreams like that too, though not of past lives. More of training in the astral realm, which is where we will all end up for a time. :)
I get the feeling big changes are coming for a lot of folks. Not 2012, but a sort of spiritual revolution for all humanity.
If that happens, well then, we'll have billions of people who have seen and felt the other side. :)
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Collie, that was rude... it was a dream.
We are all looking for that window to show us what comes after death, and I believe that dreams are the best route to understanding our unknown inevitable.
Uma, your dreams will give a lot of people who have read your comment comfort whenever they fret about dying... me included!
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I have dreamt of dying many times and staying in the dream throughout the death experience and after is very nice. There are all kinds of superstitions that say when you dream of dying and it happens in the dream you will die for real but here I am alive and well to tell you not only isn't this true but if you can manage to stay in the dream past the death point you'll have some neat experiences. In one of these dreams I was working in the Ashram of the Gods cleaning. Everything I would touch that was all mucky would glow with a clear white light when I wiped it. Then one of the disciples came running to me and seized my arm. "Master is here; you must stop what you are doing immediately and come!" I entered the hall and Guru was in his chair at it's head. He had the form of a Tibetan wrathful deity. He bellowed "Who wants me to cut off his head?" I found myself running to him saying "I do.....I do!" He cut off my head and after that never appeared wrathful to me again. I was given the work of helping different elemental beings, fairies and such, and continued doing so until something prompted me to seek rebirth, I found myself a bubble and was swallowed by a fish (both my parents were Pisces ) and then I awoke to this reality. During my life since just before puberty I have had this kind of dream various times. It always leaves me feeling immortal. In one of these dreams I experienced four deaths waking to the present wondering if I was still dreaming.
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Bravo! This reminds me of a simple excercise, not mine, of course. You can practice dying in meditation. You can feel the disolving process like in the Bardo Thodol, Tibetan book of the dead.
This loving book helps the dying understand what is happening and offers a key to jump out of reincarnation.
There is really no reason to fear dying. Having been there and back, it is wonderful. Thanks so much Deepak for your comforting words.
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