ja_mageia

Over the past few months aspects of death and dying have been very present in my life.  I have awoken to an awareness of death occurring at many different levels.  These writings have a strong resonance with these personal reflections:

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death." 
And he said: 
You would know the secret of death. 
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? 
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. 
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. 
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; 
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. 
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. 
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. 
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? 
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? 
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. 
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. 
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

If you think that you were born you cannot avoid the fear of death.  Examine whether your true Self has actually been born.  You will discover that the Self always exists and that the body which is born resolves itself into thought, and that the emergence of thought is the root of all your problems.  Discover that from which thoughts emerge.  Then you will be able to abide in the ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth or the fear of death.

Ramana Maharshi

You have squeezed yourself into the span of a lifetime and the volume of a body, and thus created the innumerable conflicts of life and death.  Have your being outside this body of birth and death, and all your problems will be solved.  They exist because you believe yourself born to die.  Undeceive yourself and be free.  You are not a person.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

John 14: 1-4, 27

I will reveal to you what no eye can see, what no ear can hear, what no hand can touch, what cannot be conceived by the human mind.

Gospel of St Thomas

Oh God, who holdest all souls in life and callest them unto thee as seemeth best: we give them back, dear God, to thee who gavest them to us.  But as thou didst not lose them in the giving, so we do not lose them by their return.  For not as the world giveth, givest thou, O Lord of souls: that which thou givest thou takest away: for life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and the horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

Rossiter W. Raymond

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

John 1: 1-5

Death is not the extinguishing of the light but the blowing out of the candle because the dawn has come.

Rabindranath Tagore

To desire life and fear death is crazy.  This world is only a passing dream which the sleeper is convinced is real, until unexpectedly the dawn of death frees him from this fantasy.  Some who wake from a good dream are upset, whilst others who wake from a bad dream are pleased.  Death is the great awakening, but few amongst the living understand this.  Most believe themselves to be already wide awake and think they actually are kings and servants.

Chuang Tzu

There are two types of death.  One which is inevitable and common to all, and one which is voluntary and experienced by the few.  It is the second death which Muhammad prescribed saying “Die before you die”.  Those who die this voluntary death are resurrected.  All the business of their lives returns to the Oneness of God.  As the Prophet said, “You will not see your Lord until you are dead.”  This is because it is through this death and resurrection that everything becomes nothing and only One thing exists.  One Reality.

Abd al-Kader

Why should we not assume that life and death are equally good?  Death is to life what returning is to going away.  Death is a return to where we set out from when we were born.  Clinging to life and fearing death is crazy, because they are two successive phases of the same process.

Lin Lei

Think about this.  Isn’t everything that has an opposite created from that opposite?  There is any number of examples.  Anything which becomes bigger must first of all be smaller.  And something which gets smaller must first of all have been bigger.  Things become weaker after they have been stronger.  And things get faster only by first being slower.  And something worse was once better.  Do you see what I am saying?  And do you see that this is universally true for all opposites?  So think about it.  Sleep is the opposite of waking.  So sleep comes from waking and waking comes from sleeping.  They generate each other.  Now let’s analyse death in the same way.  Death is the opposite of life.  So death and life must generate each other.  What comes after life?  Death does.  And what comes after death?  Life does.  We are forced to conclude that the living come from the dead.  This means that after death our souls exist in some other world.  If the dead come from the living and the living from the dead then the souls of the dead must exist somewhere from which they can return.

Socrates

What can anyone know about their end?  There is nothing for it but to patiently wait and see what will happen.

Confucius