corimagua

Talking about death makes people very anxious. That’s if you ever manage to talk about it. Most of the time it isn’t until someone you know passes away that any discussion on death takes place. You are forced to confront it when it hits close to home. In a way I understand why people don’t want to talk about it, it’s sort of a downer subject. But talking is the best therapy, and when death hits close to home, as it sure will at some point, it won’t hit as hard if you had previously acknowledged this sad, grim but all too real aspect of life. Even if its in a small way, talking will helps us deal with death when we have to face it.

You ever wonder what happens when you die and cross over into the other side? We go through life thinking we know what the fuck is going on, thinking there is a certain order and structure to things when in reality we have no idea how or why things go. We have no idea  what this crazy experience we call life is really all about, and we are even more clueless when it comes to death. When or if we move on is a mystery to us all and no one knows what will happen. I certainly don’t know, religious people don’t know, gurus and politicians don’t know, even the wisest among us don’t know. Everyone has ideas and suppositions but the best ideas are just guesses, no one truly knows the meaning of things, no one knows where it is that we go when we pass. The truth is that no one has ever come back from the other side to tell us about it.

Maybe, if you were a pious and good person, you take the conventional route and go up to heaven where you will rejoice in the presence of god and live in angelic harmony and eternal peace. Maybe, if you were a bad and naughty person who “sinned” repeatedly,  just the opposite could be true and you end up experiencing physical and physiological torture for eternity as you burn in hell. That sounds discouraging but whether we take the ladder to heaven or the highways to hell is is a mystery. I think it’s possible that your fate, decided at the moment of judgment the day you die, depends on how you lived your life. Maybe you are re-born into an other life, where you placement depends on your actions in you past life. If you do good then each life gets progressively better and this way you keep moving forward, growing and evolving a little more in each life. Maybe you simply cease to exist and you experience eternal-solitary-dark-nothingness. Shit, for all we know, maybe this life is just a heaven and hell for another reality in some other world. Sounds crazy but who the fuck knows. 

You can believe in any story you like,  but remember them for what they are, stories. They are just guesses of what might happen, things we tells ourselves in order to make sense of things we can’t truly grasp and comprehend. It’s the same with religious teachings they are just stories and it’s okay to believe in them, especially if they help you to be a better person. I personally don’t do good things because I expect to be rewarded in the next life just like I don’t’ avoid doing negative shit because i’m afraid of going to hell. I do choose to good because it’s good. Period, that’s enough for me. Doing good things brings you closer to god, the life force of this universe, not when you get to heaven and not in the next life, but in this life.  

 Not knowing the meaning of life doesn’t take away from the fact that life, even with its hardship s and sufferings, is truly a beautiful, wonderful and miraculous experience. The uncertainty associated with death can make people incredibly afraid. What a strange predicament us humans are in, we live knowing we are going to die. We are blessed with our intelligent and powerful minds and at the same time cursed, not only to die, but to know we must, we are conscious of our temporary existence. But I think knowing we are going to die makes the lucky ones because in order to die you have to be alive first. Knowing we will some day die should motivate us to make the most of our experience here on earth. 

Life and Death are two subjects that are beyond our understanding. So why do we spend so much time stressing about it, dreading and fearing it? isn’t it senseless if you can’t prevent it? It comes natural for human beings to look for reasons and answers, but i think that sometimes the secret is to live without the answers. In part, it’s the mysteries of life that give it its magic and life is better when it’s magical. 

To wrap this up, what we do in this life might have some sort of influence in our next lives, i like to believe this, but i’m not really sure about it. But what i do know with a certainty is that we have some say in this life, the one we are currently living. Like William Henley said in his wonderful poem, we are the masters of our fate and the captains of our souls. We should worry and preoccupy ourselves with that which we can control, ourselves, and worry about our development and progress. You can spend your life as you think you should, in any way you want, but remember that your life is an example for others to see. Remember that your life could be the most fantastic adventure. Our lives can be one epic journey. Don’t let the fear of death bring you down and consume you, rather, let death be your companion and take it with you everywhere you go. Let death be your life long reminder that you are here on this earth to LIVE. Our purpose is to be alive, so let death motivate you to truly and fully live your life. Like always, keep growing, in the light direction. 

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“Death is the indispensable ingredient in having to believe. Without the awareness of death everything is ordinary, trivial, It is only because death is stalking us that the world is an unfathomable mystery. Without an awareness of the presence of our death there is no power, no mystery.”

 

“My interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvellous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”

-Carlos Castaneda, The Teaching of Don Juan