Since reading the book on death (Singh, "Grace in Dying"), I have talked to three people about the phases the author has said ALL go through, particularly the one about panic (called Chaos). Surprisingly, all three denied that they would have this problem when they died. I know what they mean, for we all know that death will come, and we all think that we are prepared for it.
This reminds me of a rather beautiful country/pop cross-over with the phrase, "If I die young, bury me in linen.." or something to that effect, evoking a beautiful but melancholy image of a beautiful young women covered in roses, leaving all to grieve. Which also reminds me of Tom Sawyer's funeral, which he witnessed from the church balcony and which brought tears to his eyes, even though he knew very well that he was not dead. In both cases, the death is envisioned by the superficial self as a handle-able, even poetic affair, all within the romantic aura that still permeates parts of our culture.
However, the author reminds us that our ego-self cannot imagine its own death. This is knowledge held in a repressed unconscious which, by definition, the ego has no access to. By definition, the ego is separate from the "Ground of Being," by its very nature, that of a separate and autonomous self. Thus, instead of finding the sad romantic image of death in our own death, we find chaos - a wild confusion at the crumbling of all our categories, including what we thought death was. We will panic, in one way or another.
Anyone who has taken a meditative path knows this, for at some point, the shadow, or repressed aspects of ourselves, begins to come out. This is not the Ground of Being, but the safeguards we have placed in our development to prevent the Ground from coming out. These safeguards are not pleasant. They evoke fear and attempt to turn us back, as if wearing a sign, "here dragons be." It is the unknown and forbidden land. And it is nothing, only the start, of where the chaos of death begins.
Now, it could be my delivery - no one likes to be told how he or she will behave in the future, as if there were no individual control. But that is exactly the point: at the closing in of death, there is no individual control. There is no escape. Our "selves" are cornered. The only recourse left in the end is to surrender. And it is here at surrender where, the author claims, we begin to find our true selves. However, according to her samples, even those who understand this must pass through the phase of chaos and terror, for it, death, is that total and that "other."
It reminds me of my fearless youth, when I eagerly took psychedelics to "see the face of God." The pattern is the same in this as in that of death - although at first there is hilarity in everything, as everything we have believed is unmasked as so obviously contrived. But then it gets to ourselves - that what we think of ourselves is just as contrived. There then comes the panic. I recall one time reaching this peak, and coming to the conclusion that I simply could not live in this chaos (called "suicidal panic" by the author. It does not necessarily come to everyone, but is a phase for some in Chaos). I then stoically went to the chicken coup and sat down amid the feathers and straw to calmly die. I did not die. Rather, in the giving up of a resolution to the mess, a revelation of wholeness and beauty came. I ended up never more glad to be alive (this, or another episode like it, is in the first chapter of my book, "Dream Weaver"). Unfortunately, I have long since fully regained the false ego. I have no doubt that I will come again into this frightening land. As for the psychedelics, it would take a lot of money - or maybe an impossible amount of money or something else - to have me go through that again. It's that scary.
I do not believe in death. Almost none of us really do. Yet, like the existence of the Ground of Being (aka, the All or God), we know underneath or beyond it all, somewhere beyond our guarded gates, that it is real, more real than the lives we live. We have given death a name, but like the name God, we do not, cannot know what it really is until we live it, become part of it. But to do this we must "die to ourselves," never a comfortable thing.
And so I understand the affront of those who deny that their death will be so laced with fear and confusion. To admit to that would be to admit to the limitations of our ego-selves, the soul source of reality to that same self. Chaos is a fearful thing. We can see it as it plays into the inevitability of war for our species, for to act upon chaos is so often thought to be a means of controlling it. But as history tells us, we are more often surprised that chaos is chaos, beyond our control, better left to the natural order of things which will arrange it all perfectly, for all of us, in the end. FK
This reminds me of a rather beautiful country/pop cross-over with the phrase, "If I die young, bury me in linen.." or something to that effect, evoking a beautiful but melancholy image of a beautiful young women covered in roses, leaving all to grieve. Which also reminds me of Tom Sawyer's funeral, which he witnessed from the church balcony and which brought tears to his eyes, even though he knew very well that he was not dead. In both cases, the death is envisioned by the superficial self as a handle-able, even poetic affair, all within the romantic aura that still permeates parts of our culture.
However, the author reminds us that our ego-self cannot imagine its own death. This is knowledge held in a repressed unconscious which, by definition, the ego has no access to. By definition, the ego is separate from the "Ground of Being," by its very nature, that of a separate and autonomous self. Thus, instead of finding the sad romantic image of death in our own death, we find chaos - a wild confusion at the crumbling of all our categories, including what we thought death was. We will panic, in one way or another.
Anyone who has taken a meditative path knows this, for at some point, the shadow, or repressed aspects of ourselves, begins to come out. This is not the Ground of Being, but the safeguards we have placed in our development to prevent the Ground from coming out. These safeguards are not pleasant. They evoke fear and attempt to turn us back, as if wearing a sign, "here dragons be." It is the unknown and forbidden land. And it is nothing, only the start, of where the chaos of death begins.
Now, it could be my delivery - no one likes to be told how he or she will behave in the future, as if there were no individual control. But that is exactly the point: at the closing in of death, there is no individual control. There is no escape. Our "selves" are cornered. The only recourse left in the end is to surrender. And it is here at surrender where, the author claims, we begin to find our true selves. However, according to her samples, even those who understand this must pass through the phase of chaos and terror, for it, death, is that total and that "other."
It reminds me of my fearless youth, when I eagerly took psychedelics to "see the face of God." The pattern is the same in this as in that of death - although at first there is hilarity in everything, as everything we have believed is unmasked as so obviously contrived. But then it gets to ourselves - that what we think of ourselves is just as contrived. There then comes the panic. I recall one time reaching this peak, and coming to the conclusion that I simply could not live in this chaos (called "suicidal panic" by the author. It does not necessarily come to everyone, but is a phase for some in Chaos). I then stoically went to the chicken coup and sat down amid the feathers and straw to calmly die. I did not die. Rather, in the giving up of a resolution to the mess, a revelation of wholeness and beauty came. I ended up never more glad to be alive (this, or another episode like it, is in the first chapter of my book, "Dream Weaver"). Unfortunately, I have long since fully regained the false ego. I have no doubt that I will come again into this frightening land. As for the psychedelics, it would take a lot of money - or maybe an impossible amount of money or something else - to have me go through that again. It's that scary.
I do not believe in death. Almost none of us really do. Yet, like the existence of the Ground of Being (aka, the All or God), we know underneath or beyond it all, somewhere beyond our guarded gates, that it is real, more real than the lives we live. We have given death a name, but like the name God, we do not, cannot know what it really is until we live it, become part of it. But to do this we must "die to ourselves," never a comfortable thing.
And so I understand the affront of those who deny that their death will be so laced with fear and confusion. To admit to that would be to admit to the limitations of our ego-selves, the soul source of reality to that same self. Chaos is a fearful thing. We can see it as it plays into the inevitability of war for our species, for to act upon chaos is so often thought to be a means of controlling it. But as history tells us, we are more often surprised that chaos is chaos, beyond our control, better left to the natural order of things which will arrange it all perfectly, for all of us, in the end. FK
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