Imagining one's death is impossible, but a crucial part of living

Some things are impossible to imagine, because we have no experience of anything akin to that thing.

This is why, as I noted in a recent blog post, we can't imagine what the cosmos would be like without consciousness existing within it, because our attempt at imagining takes place within our consciousness. 

It's also why, no matter how hard I or anyone else may try, we can't imagine what things will be like after we're dead, because our attempt at imagining takes place while we're alive.

So our living consciousness is an inescapable barrier to knowing what, if anything, lies beyond conscious life.

Still, I believe that making an effort to imagine the imaginable can be beneficial, even if the attempt is doomed to failure.

Rather strangely, the older I get (I'm 74), the less concerned I am with pondering my eventual death -- which, as the saying goes, is as certain as taxes. Well, actually a lot more certain, since we can escape taxes but not death.

When I was younger, and a devotee of an Eastern/Indian spiritual teaching that taught either rebirth or union with God awaited us after death, I made the attorney who handled the wills for my wife and I say "When Brian gerbils..." instead of "When Brian dies..." Back then I had a strong fear of non-existence.

I have no idea why I picked the word gerbil for a death substitute.

Maybe it was because we used to have an annoying gerbil when my daughter was young, and I'd wish that it would die a peaceful gerbil death and leave us in peace.

Now, though, I don't think about death nearly as much, even though I've become an atheist. And when I do, the thought, or more accurately a feeling, usually comes over me unbidden. Meaning, spontaneously.

I've written about this now and then -- how I'll be raking leaves, or walking to my Tai Chi class, or doing something else routine, and suddenly I'll have a sudden realization that one day will be the last day I do that activity.

Or any activity. Because I'll be dead.

It's both a weird disturbing feeling and a normal pleasant feeling. Somehow my mind manages to combine both sensations in a single experience. 

I don't like the notion that eventually I'll die and be gone forever. As Woody Allen said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." I heartily agree, though sadly, I don't have any way to make that wanting a reality. Nor does anyone else.

What I do enjoy is how a visualization of death, as imperfect an imagining as this may be, leaves me with a deeper appreciation of life.

When that feeling of my eventual death comes over me, it makes my present-day living seem richer, more vibrant, more important. For at least a little while I vow to not sleepwalk through life, since each and every moment of this life is hugely significant compared to the nonexistence of death.

So there's a lot to like about death, as well as a lot to fear. If death were absent from life, seemingly the meaning we derive from our living would be much reduced, since we'd have plenty of time, eternity really, to do anything we wanted.

As it is, we don't know when we'll take our last breath. This lends every moment a certain poignancy. And it makes our problems seem less serious, given that most of us would rather be alive with problems, than dead with no problems. 

The exception being a life filled with so much pain and suffering, death appears preferable to life. Some people end up in such a state, and I find it difficult to deny them the right to end their life if that's what they want.

Comments

[KS]

Good job we don't live forever. Him ( or She ) up there is very bad planner . Getting old should be in the middle and from there people should start getting younger before death.

[Anonymous]

KS,
What is the logic in being old in the middle?? You still have to go through a period of old age and being sickly and weak. And there is a very good chance that you may pop off in the middle. Bummer, you won't be able to enjoy your youthful old age. Why don't you leave the planning to him/her. It probably will turn out much better.....just saying.

[Kranvir]

Those sorry satsangis that have been swallowed up by cults like RSSB and gurinder singh dhillon or any of his predecessors are zombies like the walking dead. They literally are dead in mind, as they believe nothing other than what gurinder the clown Dhilllon tells them. If you try to wake them up, they will only become emotionally triggered into fanatical animals. The remote control is dangerously in the hands of a man, a narcissist, someone they have never ever met and keeps them from thinking clearly and logically and keeps them in a trance and sedated state. Gurinder Singh Dhillon will pay for the loss of life he has and all those innocent individuals he has taken advantage of. Your days are numbered sex demon baba. Justice will be served.

[Anonymous]

Brian,
You say in your post " I don't like the notion that eventually I'll die and be gone forever. As Woody Allen said, " I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." I heartily agree, though sadly, I don't have anyway to make that wanting a reality. Nor does anyone else."
Really? I'm dumbstruck, well not exactly, I'll speak up. The total human population on Earth for 2022 is projected to exceed 8 billion. I don't even want to imagine the population of all living beings on this planet. Now let's add in all living life forms that came into existence since this whole "thing" began. Do you actually want to live in that situation of having nothing die? We are already at each others throats with the current population. I cannot even imagine what sort of a nightmare it would be if nothing died. No, I for one would like to leave it in the hands/or non hands of the one/or no one who set this in motion in the first place. Just my thoughts. Peace out.

[Generation77]

The last few themes of this blog:

We need to imagine death -- so say the TEACHINGS OF SANT MAT

The mind creates our reality -- so say the TEACHINGS OF SANT MAT

Our mind creates "magic" if we used it correctly -- so say the TEACHINGS OF SANT MAT

We shouldn't rely on our emotions or feelings -- so say the TEACHINGS OF SANT MAT

Hope and gratitude come from service - - so say the TEACHINGS OF SANT MAT

...and yet the author of these blog posts all but pulls his ponytail out when telling us how wrong, wrong, wrong, and evil Sant mat is.

I once heard an ex-Hare Krishna say something very perceptive about why people join particular religions. He said that people tend to join religions with ideals they already agree with. That is, religion doesn't really instill new ideas but just reifies the ideals a person had before they joined the religion.

And so, if you were an ardent member of sant mat, you'll probably keep those same ideals that drew you to sant mat in the first place. If you "leave" sant mat you may think you've made a radical changes in beliefs. And yet, as we see with the false trajectory of neuralsurfer and this blog writer, the same sant mat ideals and practices (eg diet, seva, meditation) stay intact despite all the heated rhetoric about how they've "left."

[🦉]

“Maybe it was because we used to have an annoying gerbil when my daughter was young, and I'd wish that it would die a peaceful gerbil death and leave us in peace.”

I wish a lot of people would die a peacefully death and leave us in peace. 😂

There is no God. At least, not one worth worshiping. If “God” would allow suffering like you see in this world, then why would you worship him. It makes no sense at all.

I would say that “God is dead” except that would be incorrect. “God” has never existed.

Try to make the best of the time you have left. It’s all you have.

[🦉]

The glorious thing about death is that you will no longer have consciousness, therefore you will no longer experience suffering.

The thing is, you have to completely lose consciousness in order to stop suffering.

[Trez]

Thank God you're out of that rotten King of Cults, Radha Soami n Gurinder Singh Dhilions little smelly hands Brian

As death would be certainly recarnation for anyone who's looking for any kind of a chance of soul liberation.

He helps in recycling of the soul with his mucky little hands which have no remorse in what he does to the poor individual as long as it helps him in his own selfish needs.

As we all see today he's the talk of the town and not in the good way either.

He has shown the world what the true meaning of a BABA is and what they really stand for. SEX, FRAUD, MURDER, REAL ESTATE, LAND GRABBING, RIPPING PEOPLE OF THEY'RE ASSESTS AND MONEY. JAILING HIS OWN NEPHEWS

And sit on a stage and rant on like a rat.

The word Baba and Dera are the only 2 things one needs to stay away from to have a chance at God realisation.

Oh how would one ever get to God without Gurinder Singh Dhilion he is the savior we have all been waiting for😂

We would have a better chance with Santa Claus Baba 🧑‍🎄 ho ho ho

[umami]

If death is anything like being under anesthesia, no big. As the propofol hit, I felt tingling in my body and thought to myself that it wouldn't work. Next thing I knew, I was pleasantly rolling on the gurney into recovery! The time in between was a compete blank.

Here's a quote from Mark Kelly, the astronaut and senator. "In my half-awake state it occurs to me that one day we’re all going to be dead, that we will all be dead much longer than we were alive. In a sense I feel I know what it will be like, because we were all 'dead' once, before we were born. For each of us, there was a moment when we became self-aware, realized that we were alive, and the nothingness before that wasn’t particularly objectionable. This thought, strange as it may be, is reassuring." (2017) Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

I lost all sense of smell for a few days because of covid, giving me an idea of Detachment with a big 'D.' It was like experiencing my life on Earth from memory or revisiting in a spacesuit.

[Kranvir]

If I see Gurinder singh dhillon appearing infront of me at death It would be a nightmare - for him. But before he faced HIS karma I would give him a small chance at answering a few questions

1. Why have you got no remorse at telling lies so effortlessly to innocent souls looking desperatly for answers to their suffering ?

2. Why are your values , morals, and actions hypocritical to a good human being ?

3. Was it really worth selling your soul to satan ?

4. Why have you been hiding your true etherial nature - a sex demon ?

[Appreciative Reader]

Heh, you might want to think that through, Kranvir. If as you say GSD's truly a sex demon, then, in case you he appeared before you after death, as you suggest, then you'd be screwed, quite literally!

[Trez]

The inner regions of the light of lucifer better known as kaal ( blackness means Devil) is a disguised way for the Devil to delude the world as it means the opposite in reality
Confusion deludes all

That is what Gurinder Singh Dhilion is preaching. They're both in hiding as they are the Sex Demons of the inner and outer physical realms read about them in the history of Indian temples and its a open book for all to see.

Gurinder Singh Dhilion should be ashamed of himself for what path he has chosen against the real God our creator

They will both be made to pay for and they're evil ways will end soon

[umami]

Sex Demons. We should be so lucky.