All of life’s events try to teach that out of death comes life. In the process there is an urge to know and feel something that cannot die. Jesus taught that “whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall save it.” In the next sentence Jesus asked, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Jesus meant that whoever is attached to the wordly life and this earthly body will lose them in death. But whoever lets go of attachments to this worldly life and this earthly body and identifies with the permanence or God-consciousness that Jesus represented, will never die. What good will it do to have all the riches of the world and all the world’s pleasures? They will all disappear in the flash we call a human lifetime. Focusing on the pleasures of the world keeps the mind too distracted to search for the inner Self.
Buddha’s four noble truths state that life is suffering, the suffering has a cause, there is a cessation of suffering, and there is a means to that cessation: a solution. Buddha’ s solution was to live life correctly and to travel through life productively and enjoyably. This path requires dealing with the desires and attachments that are the cause of suffering.
“For him who is wholly free from attachment there is no grief, much less fear. From craving springs grief, from craving springs fear; for him who is wholly free from craving there is no grief, much less fear,” said the Buddha.
Another Buddhist text states: “Through the abandonment of desire the Deathless is realized.”
“Put to death what is earthly in you,” said St. Paul.
Commonly we get the message early in life that happiness is earned by acquiring things and getting something from relationships. Things are lost, relationships change, and pain is the consequence. We have a parade of emotions and thoughts that we identify with, and this brings pain. We think we are our bodies, and when our bodies are sick or they age, or we watch the bodies of others get sick or die, we experience pain.
Pain is an alarm system that indicates that something is not in balance. What is the pain of lost objects, changed relationships, shifting emotions and thoughts, and deteriorating bodies telling us? One possibility is that is simply how life is. We arrive here, strive to obtain whatever we think we need, and suffer pain in the process. End of story. That doesn’t make much sense though. If someone felt pain in his foot, and the pain alerted him to an infection, would the person simply say, “Well, that’s the way it goes—have a foot, get an infection.” The infection would spread through the leg and kill the person. That’s not rational. The person would use the pain to identify an issue in his body that needed attention. He would see it as a problem that needed a solution. Life’s pain is telling us that we are perceiving our relationship to things, people, feelings, thoughts, and bodies incorrectly.
We are dependent on those things, people, feelings, and bodies. We identify with them and are attached to them. When they go or change, we feel pain. These attachments, along with ignorance, are the source of the fear of death. The more we are attached, the greater is the fear we have of death. Those without any attachments—those who do not perceive themselves as owning anything in their lives and who know that their bodies are just instruments—they are free from fear.
What does it mean to be attached to or to identify with something? Attachment means we believe we need something for our existence. This is the ego operating. It says, “I am so important and I need to have this car. This car is mine, this car means I am successful, this car helps identify me.” Or, “I need a relationship with this woman. Without her I cannot be happy. If she leaves me I will be forever broken, and life will be meaningless.” People get attached even to the idea of things. For example, in American culture people have been raised with certain images of what life ought to be. They see themselves from the time of childhood growing up to have wonderful marriages, living in white houses with picket fences and flowers, and having devoted children. They see themselves getting bigger houses, second cars, second homes in resort areas, and retiring early. These are the ideas the culture creates, and when these things don’t come about to match their ideas, they are miserable. They feel as if some bad trick has been played on them.
This is identifying with images. You see yourself, your identity, as this person in the white house with flowers and a perfect life. You think that is you. But that is not you. Don’t be attached to these images. Learn to flow with life and all of its ups and downs.
The same tendency works in the lower mind with emotions. We get angry, and we think, “I am angry.” Who is angry? To say “I am angry” is to identify with the emotion, to believe that the emotion is us. We cannot be an emotion. As humans we are capable of having anger and experiencing anger, but we are not anger or any other emotion.
Similarly, we are not our bodies. We have bodies. They are instruments for our use. We say, “I am 6’1″ and blond with blue eyes.” We are not that. Yet this is what we think. When someone criticizes our appearance we feel hurt. When we see our bodies getting older and slowing down, it scares us. Most of us remain in body consciousness and that is why we identify ourselves with the body. When one learns to separate the mortal self from the immortal Self, the faculty of discrimination dawns.
Death does not touch the real Self. That is difficult to believe only because we so strongly identify ourselves with our bodies and the world around us. Just because we are not conscious of something does not mean it doesn’t exist.
Yama says to Nachiketa, “When all desires and passions are removed, when perfect stillness prevails, the mortal becomes immortal.” That is the key. Death cannot mean an end because death has no effect on the Self. The cycle of life and death is not a random, unfortunate reality. It is an instructor. The Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu stated:
“Birth is not a beginning, death is not an end. There is existence without limitation, there is continuity without a starting point. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing it, that is the portal of God.”
Life is an ongoing Upanishad that directs a person to search for the eternal and identify with what is permanent, not with that which is impermanent, and thereby overcome death.
According to Vedanta we exist not because of our bodies but because of our very being. The inner self creates the body. During sleep we are not conscious of our bodies, but still we exist. Materialistic thinkers turn it the other way around. They look to the body, declare it is evidence of our being, and assume if there is an inner being, it comes by way of the body. Vedanta says just the reverse. Consciousness makes our body appear to exist.
Death is not something to fear but its function in life should be understood. Accepting death is a reality that will help you to realize that this life here is temporary, that the world is only a platform, that you have come here on a journey to learn and grow, and then the journey ends.
St. Paul referred to life as a slight, momentary affliction that prepares a person for eternal glory. “Everything in human life,” he said, “is for spiritual work.” In somewhat darker imagery, but with a similar message, Chuang Tzu said to “look upon life as a swelling or tumor and upon death as the draining of a sore or the bursting of a boil.”
At the same time remember that God, or the eternal Reality, is within you. Death reminds you not to attach yourself to this world. Learn from the world and let it go. See your body as just an instrument. It serves a purpose and then its work is done.
Reprinted from Sacred Journey, an HIHT publication.
