I’ve been thinking about dying lately. People in Japan are facing death as I write this. One woman talked about her father being employed at a nuclear power plant, and he was staying to try to minimize the damage because he already knew he wasn’t going to get out of there alive.
Ten years ago, people in the towers in New York faced death with no recourse, and from all accounts, they bravely did everything they could.
And I have clients come to me so depressed, so distraught with how things are going in their lives that they wish they could just die.
I’ve felt that way myself. A couple of years ago, facing my worst financial disaster, part of me just wanted to die so I wouldn’t have to feel so much shame and pain.
And we watch TV shows, movies, read books about death and never seem to tire of the subject.
So I asked myself this morning, am I afraid to die? How would I feel if I knew that the power plant near my home was exploding and saturating the air with radioactive particles. Would I panic? What would I do?
I have no way of actually knowing the answer to that, so I can only make up a story based on what I believe to be true. One of the things that kept me from choosing death as an option during times of great duress in the past was a little voice inside me, reminding me that even if I did die, I would wake up to another state of awareness. I can’t know what that state is–we’ve all seen or heard about people with near death experiences seeing the light, the white light, or seeing a tunnel, or seeing some sort of vision that calms them, gives them a new sense of meaning to their current lives when they wake up.
And even though I haven’t had one of those, from everything I’ve read, studied, been taught and experienced, I saw so clearly this morning that the reason I don’t choose death, and the reason I think I would remain calm in the face of impending doom, is that I need not be afraid of something that isn’t possible.
Yes, I could die from this body, and this life that I love so much. But I wouldn’t die from myself. I absolutely know that.
Many years ago I heard one of my metaphysical teachers say it this way, “if life could actually die, then it would cease to be life, and that is impossible.” I didn’t quite believe her at the time, because I was in my twenties, I had a lot to learn and experience to be able to even comprehend a statement like that.
And now I’m 63 and I feel like it is true. I feel it–in my body, in my heart and it remains an underlying conviction that seems, at least right now, unshakable.
So what is all this pain, death and dying really about? Why do we experience it? Read about it? Flock to movies about it? Another thing I learned from a teacher is this: “any individuals, organisms or organizations not working toward a higher purpose will cease to exist.”
If that is true, then this organization we call the human experience–with all its joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, and life and “death” experiences must have a higher purpose, else why would it exist? And the only purpose I can really come to, and reach over and over, is Love.
These experiences are all teaching us how to love ourselves, each other and our lives, master the business of life and turn our lead into gold.
Our burdens, our fears, our difficulties, our challenges all hold within them the seeds of opportunity, to paraphrase Napoleon Hill. We can let them drain us and bog us down or we can face them and find the gold in them.
And so it is crystal clear to me that is why I say that to myself each morning when I wake up, reminding myself of my own life purpose. I can’t imagine any other true reason for us to be here.