For my birthday, I've giving myself death

OK, readers of this blog post title should refrain from contacting a suicide prevention hotline.

The form of death I've decided to give myself for my 71st birthday is writing another book comprised mostly of what I've already composed for my Church of the Churchless blog on the subject of death.

After publishing a book, "Break Free of Dogma," that consists of 93 early churchless blog posts (2004-06) on various subjects, I decided to give a theme-based book a try.

Death seemed like a great subject. Not cheery, but inevitable. 

I have no problem admitting to a fear of death. I understand why many people, including my wife, Laurel, say they aren't afraid of death, but rather of suffering in the course of dying.

That makes sense, since I'm afraid of that also. But the idea of not-existing for eternity after I die strikes me as decidedly dreadful also, not that I, or any other living being, has a choice in the matter. So many of my Church of the Churchless posts deal with the fear of non-existence.

I devoted a couple of hours today to seeing how many blog posts I could find that dealt with death. From November 2004 to March 2007, I copied in over 10,000 words of death-related posts. 

So, yay, it looks like I should be able to cobble together an interesting book just from what I've already written about death. And I can always write more on some aspect of death that has escaped my attention previously.

If anyone who comes across this post has written about dealing with the fear of death from a non-religious perspective, I'd be interested in reading whatever you've put together. Again, non-religious. I realize that believing in life after death is how most people cope with their eventual demise, but as an atheist I reject that approach.

My email address is in the right sidebar. Or, click here. Here's a link to a recent post I wrote about death, "Recognizing the reality of death is key to living life."

Comments

[La Madrugada]

Good morning Brian,

“Be happy! Today is the day you were brought into this world to be a blessing and inspiration to the people around you! You are a wonderful person! May you be given more birthdays to fulfill all of your dreams!”

[Meditator]

Death summarises life as a dot - a moment. Nothing more. Just a passing moment finally and as if we never existed.

If the non religious and non spiritual hints, answers or even such experiences could be concluded into some hypotheses and compiled in a book it is a good idea..

Appreciate it .

The death is the least talked about topic in social gatherings. But defining it may be helpful for us to be sane, loving and full of empathy as we all belong to same herd essentially irrespective of our temporary posturing, stature and clan we hold on to till our last breath.

After all death is a great leveller!

[tucson]

Consciousness is the primary substrate within which, of which, by which appearance manifests. Between manifestations Consciousness is simply present as itself. There is no memory of this transparent, objectless presence because there is nothing objective there. without objects there is no time. There is no space. There is just Consciousness experiencing itself as itself. This is the primordial state from which we arise and to which we subside. It is clear radiance without form, location or attribute. It is everywhere and nowhere. It cannot be conceived or grasped. It is just as it is with no other.

Consciousness moves and takes the shape of an appearance and may eventually lose itself in identification with a fragment of this experience.. a body. Consciousness contracts itself into a body/mind and the world is projected by the mind as "outside" of or separate from itself as 'me' and 'that'.

The illusion of division occurs and the One pretends to be two, or the mutitude of lives and shapes as observed by a contracted self now contained within a body. Consciousness becomes a 'me' and the world becomes separate and 'other'. Despite this, at all times, there is only One and just the illusion of 'other'. This is the play of Consciousness of losing itself within itself as objects (including the body) and then rediscovering itself as itself. The Consciousness here is seen as the Consciousness there.. "I am that".

The appearance of the body/mind/world eventually subsides (death) and Consciousness reposes as itself with no other...

Go back to the first paragraph and start again.

[Michael]

The thought of the million year death is still terrifying 😵

Oddly enough though, my films of choice are Horror based. Zombies 🧟‍♀️ 🧟‍♂️ Ghosts 👻
Killers that never die.
Jason, Freddy, Michael.
Bruce Springsteens Sister.

Oh and yes a book would nice 🤩

[Jen]

I'm looking forward to a transcendental state where there is no suffering, desire, or sense of self.

Emptiness and Nothingness actually sound pretty cool to me.

Death means liberating one's self forever from illusion and dream, realising perfect Nirvana.

[a wise owl]

"Death means liberating one's self forever from illusion and dream, realising perfect Nirvana."

Wow. Strange then is why all living don't want to die.

[s*]

The Unkown...
Can be very scary..
It is our own fantasy wich make it ''scary'' delightfull'' or whatever we ''think..feel''
So nothing of all our fantasies are real...
What can be done??
Maybe the surrender to the Unkown..seems good to me.
Is faith and surrender the same thing??
Not quit but..
Surrender feels good.
When we become nothing..we do'nt know..so no suffering there.
When we know.. we are there..so no suffering about not a'' Being..''

[a wise owl]

"Emptiness and Nothingness actually sound pretty cool to me."

"I'm looking forward to a transcendental state where there is no suffering, desire, or sense of self."

Posted by: Jen | October 07, 2019 at 04:45 PM

Yes only sound cool. Actually experiencing is quite terrifying.

And

Done or doing anything so that you end up being in that state? Or just simply looking forward to it, but doing nothing?

There are no free lunches ever!

[a wise owl]

Midnight - is where the day begins (U2)

Death - is where another journey begins

[Tim Rimmer]

Hey tucson

I enjoyed your recent post about consciousness and pretty much agree with it. It’s not the first time you’ve presented such a perspective and as you say - ‘go back to the first paragraph and start again’….
What we are is consciousness playing with itself :-)
The view you express makes sense and appeals to me because it is simple and speaks to some of my own experience.
Seeing Brian’s post is about death then I guess he won’t mind me pitching in with some musings/questions on what you wrote, given from his posts (as I understand it) he would likely say death is the total absence of consciousness.
I am intrigued about that ‘space’ where a human seems to be able to operate from/at both an individual and universal level. To me this so called illusory self must be a key part of the play otherwise how could consciousness rediscover itself as itself?
You express your view fervently and confidently that this is definitely ‘it’. And to me this ‘it’ is what many of us who post here are still hankering after. I know you’ve said you did a Sant Mat (RSSB) stint for a while until the 90’s. I wonder if you subsequently found another ‘path’ to follow or you ditched the lot to do your own thing which has led to such realisations? The nearest teachings to what you say are those given by Nisargadatta imo. When you talk about clear radiance - some Buddhist influence perhaps?
Which brings me to meditation - I certainly gave RSSB a fair shot, but came to the realisation that unless one can completely hand it over and ‘surrender’ some types of meditation can hinder one’s realisations of truth - because if there’s things to see, places to go, things to achieve, progress to make, then this can act to strengthen the thing we need to let go of - the doer/contracted self.
So I wonder if you still meditate, do some other practice, or just be? Any method that quietens the mind, enables mental stillness, helps to point out the nature of discursive thought etc has got to be good, yet ultimately it seems that all practice needs to be given up.
So then what in the absence of/non-involvement with thought? Consciousness, no-separation. I’d say ‘it’s a job done’ when such a realisation occurs. It also means like Nisargadatta says - nothing was born and nothing dies. Death happens to a body mind only.

If you could rustle up a response sometime between hand washing the dishes or fixing your Harley I would much appreciate it.

Best wishes