Welcome to Death Knells

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Most of the world religions 

teach some form of immortality,

 but you don't believe them;

 if you did 

you would not fear the annihilation of death.

 It has been said that fear of death 

is the basic, primal fear 

that generates all other fear,

 and is the underlying psychological factor

 shaping all of life.

 All of this is illusion,

 and all based on the essential misconception 

that you are an individual,

 inseparably associated 

with the body that apparently dies. 

 David Carse 

Perfect Brilliant Stillness 

The kabalists say that a man is not dead 

when his body is entombed. 

Death is never sudden; 

for, according to Hermes, 

nothing goes in nature by violent transitions. 

Everything is gradual, 

and as it required a long and gradual development 

to produce the living human being,

 so time is required

 to completely withdraw vitality from the carcass. 

"Death can no more be an absolute end,

 than birth a real beginning. 

Birth proves the preexistence of the being, 

as death proves immortality,"

 says the same French kabalist. 

 Helena P. Blavatsky 

 The Veil of Isis 

Death is with us throughout our lives

 and comes to us all. 

It is a source of deep anxiety for many of us.

 The challenge for me, 

having fought against premature death on a daily basis,

 is how to overcome this existential fear of death 

and develop an acceptance or even a welcoming mind-set. 

In Walking on the Pastures of Wonder,

 John O’Donohue notes that 

‘Death is the unseen companion, 

the unknown companion 

who walks every step of the journey with us…’ 

He goes on to argue that, 

in unifying all that has happened in one’s life 

and a reunification with all those one has loved, 

‘Death in that sense is a time of great homecoming,

 and there is no need to be afraid’.

 As the Connemara Irish say, 

‘Ní feídir dul i bhfholach ar an mbás’ –

 you cannot hide from death. 

 Patrick McGorry 

Rosalind Bradley 

A Matter of Life and Death

Traveler, your footprints

  are the only road, nothing else. 

Traveler, there is no road; 

 you make your own path as you walk.

 As you walk, you make your own road, 

and when you look back  

you see the path

  you will never travel again.  

Traveler, there is no road 

 only a ship’s wake on the sea.  

 Antonio Machado

 There is No Road 

quoted in:

 Rosalind Bradley 

A Matter of Life and Death 

 Thus shall ye of all this fleeting world: 

 A star at dawn,  a bubble in a stream; 

 A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,

  A flickering lamp,  a phantom,  and a dream. 

W.Y. Evans-Wentz

 The Diamond Sutra 

We would like you to consider

 that death of the physical body 

does not constitute the death 

of the spiritual aspect of being, or the soul.

 This essence of our being is who we really are, 

and it is not subject to the laws of life and death, 

of decay and regeneration, 

as it is purely energetic and therefore perpetual. 

The energy essence of the body, or the soul,

 survives in its natural state outside of the physical body,

 and therefore, death of the physical 

is allowing that spiritual aspect 

to return to its natural state of being.

  The return of spirit to the non-physical state 

creates a joyful feeling of release 

from the bonds of the physical life,

 and the spirit rejoices with its freedom

 and departure from whatever illness, pain or suffering 

it may have been experiencing in the material world.  

Tracy Farquhar  

 Frank Talk: A Book of Channeled Wisdom

It’s common that dying people

 are welcomed by their loved ones in spirit

 days or hours before their death.

 These experiences are known as deathbed visions 

or pre-death visions.

 Deathbed visions are when loved ones in spirit

 visit a dying person days or hours before their death

 in order to welcome them back to the spirit world. 

In this way, the dying are greeted

 by deceased family members and friends (even pets)

 to prepare them

 for their forthcoming transition from human to spirit

 and thereby ease any fears or anxiety 

they might have about death. 

Usually, when there is communication from spirit to human,

 it happens telepathically (by thought)—

from spirit to human and human to spirit—

so no words need to be spoken out loud. 

 Bob Olson

 Answers about the Afterlife: 

A Private Investigator's 15-Year Research 

Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death 

When we are on the spiritual path,

 we are laying up spiritual consciousness,

 and as we leave this plane, 

which eventually we do—

not by death, but by transition—

we find ourselves on an ascending scale, 

always going up,

 further into the light, 

further into freedom.

 There is really only one freedom in all this world: 

the freedom from the belief in good and evil.

 When we are free of that,

 we are truly free of physical, mental,

 moral, and financial limitations. 

 Joel S. Goldsmith 

 Realization of Oneness

There is no such thing as Death.

 The name is a lie—

the idea an illusion growing from ignorance. 

There is no death—

there is nothing but Life. 

Life has many phases and forms, 

and some of the phases are called “death” by ignorant men. 

Nothing really dies—

 though everything experiences

 a change of form and activity.  

Yogi Ramacharaka 

 The Life Beyond Death

All occultists recognize 

in the transformation stages of the caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly

 a picture of the transformation 

which awaits every mortal man and woman. 

For death to the human being

 is no more a termination or cessation

 than is the death-sleep of the caterpillar. 

In neither case 

does life cease for even a single instant—

life persists 

while Nature works her changes. 

 Yogi Ramacharaka  

The Life Beyond Death

We must face the fact 

that we have to leave this phase of life and enter another. 

That phase is the one we know the least about.

 But if you face death and lose your fear of it,

 you are wholly on the spiritual path, 

because you will have realized 

that you have no selfhood, 

that God is your Selfhood,

 that the life you are living is God’s,

 that it is God living your life, 

and that you are perfectly willing 

for God to take it around the world 

or even into the next world. 

Once you have lost your fear of death, 

you are wholly on the spiritual path.

  Joel S. Goldsmith  

Living By Grace: The Path to Inner Discovery 

Dying is not a condition

 that you actually go through. 

No one has ever died.

 There is no death. 

God has no pleasure in your dying 

and has never arranged for a death.

 Therefore, death is an experience 

only of corporeal sense,

 the sense that tells us 

we are physical, mortal, finite. 

Death is never an experience

 of our own being. 

 Joel S. Goldsmith 

 Living By Grace: The Path to Inner Discovery 

The fear of death 

is one of humanity’s most powerful sources of anxiety.

 Few  of us experience mortality as directly 

as do people who have had near-death experiences. 

Yet despite having the frightful experience of nearly dying,

 most NDErs do not report an increase in their fear of death,

 but rather a decrease in their fear 

or a loss of the fear altogether. 

This is a consistent finding in a number of previously published studies.

Catherine, who nearly died after surgery, reported:

 I had always been terrified of death, of oblivion. 

I no longer fear death. 

 Lauren was felt by the EMS to be dead on arrival after a severe accident. 

She wrote:

I am no longer afraid of death.

 I know now in my soul that there is so much more after life. 

I feel that once I have learned what it is I am supposed to learn

 or a task that I must complete,

, that I will be rewarded with a life after death.

Sharla, who nearly died of respiratory arrest, wrote:

 The most significant part of the experience 

is that there is nothing to fear of death. 

 Jeffrey Long, M.D.

 Paul Perry  

 Evidence of the Afterlife:

 The Science of Near-Death Experiences 

Spending time with the person who has died

 can be a profound and important experience. 

 A dead person is still a person. 

 Anna Lyons,  Louise Winter 

We all know how this ends.

If, when I die, 

you hear the flutterings of wings near you,

 ah, it will be my soul 

that yearns to take you with me.  

Konstantinos Lardas 

Mourning Songs of Greek Women

Sleep, you say, is the image of death;

 for my part I say 

that it is rather the image of life.   

Blaise Pascal 

Pensees

Death should be known. 

Known as a difficult mental, physical, and emotional process,

 respected and feared for what it is.  

Caitlin Doughty 

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes 

What will crossing into death feel like? 

What does it have to offer, 

as I step nearer, as it pulls me in?

 Dying is not an experience anyone else can do for me.

 While others can journey closely

 and with profound devotion and love, 

no one else will be able to die for me. 

I’m entering that alone, 

even as others offer their love 

and presence 

and deep prayers for healing and peace.

 How unexpected that, finding myself at this threshold, 

I experience fullness in death

 and in many ways 

so much loss in living life. 

  Tallu Schuyler Quinn 

 What We Wish Were True 

For the initiate

 the next physical death is an entirely different event

 from the death as he knew it formerly.

 He experiences death consciously 

by laying aside the physical body 

as one discards a garment that is worn out

 or perhaps rendered useless through a sudden rent. 

Thus his physical death is of special importance 

only for those living with him, 

whose perception is still restricted 

to the world of the senses. 

For them the student dies;

 but for himself 

nothing of importance is changed 

in his whole environment. 

The entire supersensible world 

stood open to him before his death,

 and it is this same world 

that now confronts him after death. 

  Rudolf Steiner

  Knowledge of the Higher Worlds

We are all going to die.

 One might as well die before his death.

 It’s the only way to become immortal.    

Nevit Ergin 

 Masters of Wisdom of Central Asia:  

Teachings from the Sufi Path of Liberation  

 The thing you lost at your birth, 

you will find at your death.  

Waves appear,

 disappear in the sea,

 are neither born nor die. 

Death and birth are the same. 

 Hasan Lutfi Shushud 

 The Sufi Path of Annihilation

Death is the poem of the universe. 

 Human beings are asleep; 

they only wake up at death  

Hasan Lutfi Shushud 

 The Sufi Path of Annihilation

After the ego is gone

 one finds that the self no longer exists, 

and one has died what Zen calls 

the Great Death, Daishi.

 With that death, though,

 we have at last become free.

 In Zen literature, this state is described in this way,

 The blue mountains, from the beginning, 

do not move; 

The white clouds, of themselves,

 come and go. 

Like the blue mountains, nothing can move us; 

we cannot be startled or frightened. 

In this state, what is there to fear?

 Like the white clouds

 we can come and go as we please.

 In such a condition,

 what is there to hinder us? 

This is the substance of the Hagakure,  

William Scott Wilson 

Yamamoto Tsunetomo 

  Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

In meditation,

 if our senses and passions are coming steadily under control,

 the ego dies a little every day. 

Whenever we forget ourselves,

 even for a moment, 

the shadowy, separate self is gone. 

Those are moments of immortality right on earth.

 Stretch them out, 

still the mind, 

and that false self is no more.

 In this very life the jiva will have died;

 how can it die again? 

In dying to ourselves, 

all mystics say, 

we are born to eternal life. 

Eknath Easwaran 

 Essence of the Upanishads

Death really is a kind of sleep, 

and not at all in a poetic sense. 

The purpose of both is strikingly similar:

 “R and R,” rest and recuperation.

 “As a tethered bird,” the Upanishads say,

 “grows tired of flying about in vain 

and settles down at last on its own perch,

 so the mind, tired of wandering hither and thither,

 settles down to rest in the Self in dreamless sleep.” 

It is the same in death. 

  Eknath Easwaran

 Essence of the Upanishads

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. . . . 

If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening,

 one is able to live as though his body were already dead, 

he gains freedom in the Way. 

His whole life will be without blame, 

and he will succeed in his calling.  

Yamamoto Tsunetomo  

Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Zen teaches us that we should live

 as though not only our bodies but our egos were already dead.

  In one Zen story, a monk happily reports to his master

 that he has finally thrown out his ego, 

and wonders what to do next.  

The priest answers wryly, “Throw that out, too.”

After the ego is gone 

one finds that the self no longer exists,

 and one has died what Zen calls the Great Death, Daishi.  

With that death, though,

 we have at last become free.

  William Scott Wilson 

 Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai 

Life never dies.

 At death, only forms die.

 Life that was in-formed 

then takes another form.

 So what are you afraid of?

 You are independent of everything. 

However, you'll never see yourself as independent of everything

 until you release your grip on everything. 

Take that first step.

 You won't fall; 

you'll float. 

 Roy Melvyn

 Life Never Dies

As we travel with a dying loved one through his or her last days, 

we clearly see the stages of detachment

 through which we will need to pass 

in our own life before being prepared to die.

 In other words, 

we learn to die well 

so that we can then live well, 

free from the fear of inevitable material losses. 

The Vedic aphorism to “die before you die” 

also addresses the wisdom 

of gradually dying 

to the ego and its trappings 

in order to fully live.   

Philip Jones

   Light on Death: The Spiritual Art of Dying 

In the Vedic tradition, 

our entire earthly life came to be seen

 as a pilgrimage through this temporary world 

to the immortal land of our soul, 

the spiritual world of infinite freedom and love. 

Caregiving a soul nearing death 

means journeying with our dying friend or family member 

through the final stage of their earthly pilgrimage. 

Our sacrifice of love in joining our loved one’s final journey 

has benefits to our life experience as well.   

Philip Jones   

Light on Death: The Spiritual Art of Dying 

 Once there is a deep acceptance of death,

 then life will happen to you in enormous proportions. 

 It is only because you tried to keep death away, 

life has also stayed away from you. 

 This is why almost every yogi 

spent a significant amount of time in the cremation ground 

at some point or the other in his life.  

  Sadhguru

 Death:  An Inside Story

Many things that you have imagined about yourself

 will all get burned in the cremation ground

 if you sit there and keep watching what happens. 

 When you are watching the bodies burn, 

you should not think about it. 

 Simply look at it;

  just look at it and look at it and look at it. 

 After some time, you will see,

 it is just  you.  

It is not any different.

  It is your own body. 

 Once you can replace that body with yours

 and still sit there,

 there is a deep acceptance of death.

 This is not a psychological process. 

 When your very body perceives

 the fragility of its existence,

 there is a very profound relief and acceptance.   

Sadhguru

 Death:  An Inside Story

What every man,

 whether he has patience or not, 

has always expected

 is, of course, death. 

But he knows this only when death comes …, 

when it is too late to be able to enjoy it. 

 E. M. Cioran 

 The Trouble with Being Born

This is the death we have to undergo,

 to go beyond the rational understanding, 

beyond the imagination and the senses, 

into the primeval darkness,

where God, the divine mystery itself, 

is hidden

 It is a return to the womb,…

to the original darkness

 from which we came.

 But now that darkness is filled with light, 

it is revealed as God. 

The senses, the imagination and reason by itself 

cannot pierce through that darkness,

 but when we die to ourselves,

 to the limitation of our mind

 which casts its shadow on the light

 then the darkness is revealed as light,

 the soul discovers itself

 in the radiance of a pure intuition;

 it attains to self knowledge

.  Bede Griffiths

 The Marriage of East and West

WHAT IF YOU COULD DECIDE,

 at the end of your life, 

exactly when and where your death would happen? 

What if, instead of dying alone, 

in the middle of the night,

 in a hospital bed,

 you could be at home at a time of your choosing? 

You could decide

 who would be in the room with you, 

holding your hand or embracing you 

as you left this Earth. 

And what if a doctor could help ensure

 that your death was comfortable, peaceful, and dignified? 

 What if you could plan 

a final conversation with everyone you love? 

You might never look at death the same way again.  

Stefanie Green  

This Is Assisted Dying: 

 A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life

I tremble to say there’s good in death,

 that there’s a death positive narrative,

 because I’ve looked in the eyes of the grieving mother 

and I’ve seen the heartbreak of the stricken widow,

 but I’ve also seen something more in death, 

something good.

 Death’s hands aren’t all bony and cold.  

Caleb Wilde 

Confessions of a Funeral Director

“It’s dark because you’re trying too hard,” said Susila. 

“Dark because you want it to be light. 

Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. 

‘Lightly, child, lightly. 

You’ve got to learn to do everything lightly. 

Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. 

Yes, feel lightly, even though you’re feeling deeply. 

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.’ 

I was so preposterously serious in those days, 

such a humorless little prig. 

Lightly, lightly—it was the best advice ever given me.  

 Well, now I’m going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi . . .

 Lightly, my darling, lightly. 

Even when it comes to dying. 

Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. 

No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona 

putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. 

And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. 

Just the fact of dying and the fact of the Clear Light.  

 So throw away all your baggage and go forward. 

There are quicksands all about you, 

sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down 

into fear and self-pity and despair.

 That’s why you must walk so lightly. 

Lightly, my darling. 

On tiptoes; and no luggage, not even a sponge bag. '

Completely unencumbered.”   

 Aldous Huxley 

Island

Even if God brings death,

 there is nothing to be afraid of. 

It is he who is bringing death, 

so there must be a reason in it, 

there must be a hidden secret in it, 

there must be a teaching in it. 

He’s opening a door. 

The man who trusts,

 the man who is religious 

is thrilled even at the gate of death—

he can give a lion’s roar. 

Even dying—because he knows nothing dies—

at the very moment of death he can say,

 “This is it!” 

Because each moment, 

this is it. 

It may be life,

 it may be death;

 it may be success, 

it may be failure; 

it may be happiness,

 it may be unhappiness. 

Each moment … 

this is it.  

Osho 

 Trust 

If, at the time of death, death inquires of you, 

 “Would you like to live your life, 

 the same life that you have lived, one time more?” 

 What do you think your answer is going to be? 

 I don’t think that any intelligent man 

 would be ready to live this whole tragedy again – 

 exactly the same wife, the same husband; 

 exactly the same drama, the same dialogues. 

 Only a man who has really lived intensively and totally

  and who has not been lukewarm and tepid,

  who has burned his life’s torch at both ends together,  

will be ready to go through life again  

because he knows he can change everything that has been. 

 He can find new spaces,  

he can find new mountains to climb, 

 he can find new stars to reach, 

 he can trust in himself. 

 He knows his courage  

and he knows that to live dangerously 

 is the only way to live. 

 Osho. 

In Love with Life: 

Reflections on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra 

 When it comes your time to die

 Be not like those whose hearts 

Are filled with the fear of death, 

So that when their time comes,

 They weep and pray for more time 

To live their lives over again 

In a different way. 

 Sing your Death Song

 And die like a hero going home. 

 Chief Tecumseh

These are the only three things

 that can be major incidents of your life: 

birth, love and death.

 Birth you cannot control – 

your own birth; nobody asks you,

you just find yourself one day born. 

And the same happens with death – 

it does not ask you either,

 “Are you ready? I am coming tomorrow.”

 No advance notice; just suddenly it comes, 

and you are dead. 

Only love 

is the freedom standing between these two. 

 Osho

In Love with Life: 

Reflections on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra  

“The Master came at his right time Into the world.

  When his time was up, 

 He left it again. 

 He who awaits his time, who submits 

When his work is done, 

 In his life, there is no room 

 For sorrow or for rejoicing.  

Here is how the ancients said all this 

 In four words:  

‘God cuts the thread.’ "

Thomas Merton  

The Way of Chuang Tzu 

 Saint Thérèse on being asked shortly before her death 

what was the ‘Little Way’ she was so eager to teach others, replied: 

‘It is the way of spiritual childhood, 

the way of trust and absolute surrender. 

I want to point out to souls 

the means that I have always found so completely successful, 

to tell them there is only one thing to do here below -

 to offer Our Lord the flowers of little sacrifices 

and win him by our caresses. 

That is how I have won him,

 and that is why I shall be made so welcome.’ 

 Thérèse Lisieux 

The Little Way of St Therese of Lisieux 

For all we know 

We may never meet again

 Before we go 

Make this moment live again 

We won't say goodbye

 Until the last minute 

I'll hold out my hand

 And my heart will be in it 

 For all we know 

This might only be a dream 

We come and we go Like the ripples, 

like the ripples in the stream 

So baby, love me, love me tonight

 Tomorrow was made for some

 Oh, but tomorrow

 But tomorrow may never, never come 

For all we know

 Yes, tomorrow may never, never come

 J.Fred Coots, Sam M. Lewis 

Lyrics from For All We Know

The concept of a good death 

can put unbearable pressure on dying people and caregivers, 

and can take us away from death’s mystery

 and the richness of not knowing. 

Our expectations of how someone should die 

can give rise to subtle or direct coerciveness.

No one wants to be judged for how well she dies! 

Joan Halifax 

quoted in:

Andrew Holecek 

 Preparing to Die:  

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom  

from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition

For caregivers, be careful not to “should” 

on the dying person or yourself. 

Do not feel that things should go a particular way,

 or that you should be feeling a certain emotion.

 Bring the confidence born from preparation,

 then let the situation, and the dying person, guide you. 

In this delicate dance 

the dying person leads.

 Your job is to be aware of their needs,

 not to impose your own. 

Do not force them into your version of a good death.

 I once saw a cartoon 

of a man lying on his death bed, looking concerned.

 A few people were standing around the bed, 

and the caption above the worried man said,

 “How’s my dying?”  

Andrew Holecek 

Preparing to Die: 

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom

 from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition

After death,

 your awareness will be vibrating 

at a different frequency than it is now,

 and that entails a new world of abilities, 

new knowledge, and new concerns. 

However, if your soul growth dictates

 that you need the familiar faces of loved ones around you 

to feel secure on this new stage, 

then that familiarity is something you will easily create. 

Consciousness is a field of all possibilities, after all,

 and whatever is required in that afterlife state 

is as easily manifested as it is in a dream. 

 Deepak Chopra

  Ask Deepak About Death and Dying  

You have always associated the words 'darkness', 'death', 'devil' with evil.

 But if you want to know life,

 there is no other way to know it

 except by fully coming to terms with and accepting death. 

Only that person who is willing to die can live. 

If you do not want to die

you should not live. 

It is as simple as that. 

So they are not really separate.

 The separation has come out of ignorance. 

The separation has come 

because first of all 

you have separated yourself from life.  

Sadhguru 

 Don't Polish Your Ignorance...It May Shine 

 Because your entire life—

and the life of humanity—

is based on consciousness, 

you too are unlimited. 

You can stop buying into all the stories

 about birth, death, and everything in between. 

Knowing that you are unlimited 

means that no story can limit your possibilities.   

Deepak Chopra  

Metahuman

Many people who lose a loved one 

feel as if they will never see or hear from that person again

 and feel that this life in the physical is everything we have. 

 While the loss of life on earth 

is most assuredly something that produces real grief,

 the passing must be seen in perspective. 

There is a vast amount of evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, 

clearly displaying that our life continues beyond the physical, 

just not where we can see it with our human eyes. 

As this mountain of evidence grows,

 so too does the number of people 

who realize that life after physical death is real.

 According to the International Association for Near-Death Studies, 

well over 5 percent of the global population—

over 400 million people—

have had a near-death experience (NDE).

 As these people return from their experiences 

and describe what they have seen (which often defies logical explanation), 

we are coming to understand 

what happens after the physical body dies. 

The transition called “death” 

is really just a metamorphosis

 whereby our “being” evolves into another state 

with our consciousness intact. 

Our loved ones are still with us in another form;

 we just can’t see them.  

Chris Lippincott

 Spirits Beside Us: 

Gain Healing and Comfort from Loved Ones in the Afterlife

KRISHNAMURTI:  They have said that life has no meaning,

 and therefore we must give life a significance. 

Death has no meaning, 

and therefore it must have another significance.

 This is what man has done throughout the centuries, sir. 

We are saying quite the contrary—

that one cannot find the fullness of life,

 the depth of life

 if there is fear, 

and to end fear 

is also to understand death.

QUESTION: How can one put oneself voluntarily in contact with the state of death?

KRISHNAMURTI: You can’t put yourself in contact with death. 

You put the question wrongly.

 Look, you are afraid of death,

 and as long as you are afraid of anything, 

there is no contact with that thing.   

J. Krishnamurti  

 The Beauty of Death

To understand and be free of anything,

 one must come into contact with it.

 As we were saying the other day,

 one has an image about death,

 and that image, created by thought, 

brings fear of death.

 In the same way one has an image 

of this emptiness, of this loneliness,

and that image prevents a direct contact 

with the fact of loneliness.

 If you would look at a flower,

 look at it. 

You can only look at it 

if there is no image of that flower in your mind,

 if you don’t name it,

 if thought is not operating 

when you are looking at the flower—

thought as knowledge 

of the species or the color of that flower.

Then you are directly, immediately 

in contact with that thing. 

When there is such contact, 

there is no observer. 

The observer is the image-maker

 who prevents coming into direct contact with a fact,

with a flower, 

with death, 

or with that thing 

which we call loneliness. 

  J. Krishnamurti  

 The Beauty of Death

While he has not revealed the time of his own departure,

 Sadhguru has often said 

he intends to make sure he chooses the time and date.  

“I’ll hang on as long as see thirsty eyes around me. 

 The moment I don’t see those anymore, I will leave. 

 And I will walk to my grave. 

 Nobody will have to carry me there. 

 I promise you that. 

 If you have sufficient mastery, 

if you’re able to leave your body consciously, 

you should leave when everything is well. 

 I’m not in a hurry.

  But I will leave when I’m well. 

 I live quite a spectacular life within myself

 even if it’s not visible to most people. 

 And the way I die will be visibly spectacular—

like a signature.”

  Arundhathi Subramaniam

 SADHGURU 

More than a Life

“Would you say, don Juan, 

that death is the only real enemy we have?”

 I asked him a moment later.

 “No,” he said with conviction.

 “Death is not an enemy, 

although it appears to be. 

Death is not our destroyer,

 although we think it is.

” “What is it, then, if not our destroyer?” I asked.

 “Sorcerers say death is the only worthy opponent we have,” he replied.

 “Death is our challenger.

 We are born to take that challenge, 

average men or sorcerers.

 Sorcerers know about it; 

average men do not.” 

“I personally would say, don Juan, 

life, not death, is the challenge.”

 “Life is the process

 by means of which death challenges us,” he said.

 “Death is the active force. 

Life is the arena. 

And in that arena 

there are only two contenders at any time: 

oneself and death.” 

 Carlos Castaneda  

Power of Silence 

“You must agree, don Juan,

 not thinking about death 

certainly protects us from worrying about it.” 

“Yes, it serves that purpose,” he conceded.

 “But that purpose is an unworthy one for average men 

and a travesty for sorcerers.

 Without a clear view of death,

 there is no order, no sobriety, 

no beauty. 

Sorcerers struggle to gain this crucial insight 

in order to help them realize at the deepest possible level 

that they have no assurance whatsoever 

their lives will continue beyond the moment. 

That realization gives sorcerers 

the courage to be patient and yet take action,

 courage to be acquiescent without being stupid.”

 “The idea of death 

is the only thing that can give sorcerers courage. 

Strange, isn’t it? 

It gives sorcerers the courage

 to be cunning without being conceited,

 and above all 

it gives them courage 

to be ruthless without being self-important.”  

Carlos Castaneda

  Power of Silence

“The idea of death therefore 

is of monumental importance in the life of a sorcerer,” don Juan continued. 

“I have shown you innumerable things about death 

to convince you that the knowledge of our impending and unavoidable end 

is what gives us sobriety.

 Our most costly mistake as average men

 is indulging in a sense of immortality. 

It is as though we believe 

that if we don’t think about death

 we can protect ourselves from it.”   

Carlos Castaneda 

 Power of Silence 

We have various ways and means of facing death—

rationalizing it, escaping from it,

 belief, dogma, hope, and all the rest of it. 

But we have never really understood it;

 we have never felt what it means to die.

 Unless we understand this phenomenon 

psychologically, not physiologically, 

we can never understand 

this sense of a new action

 born out of total silence. 

Do you understand? 

That is why one has to die to everything one knows—

which is consciousness,

 which is the past, 

which is the accumulated result of time.

 Because it is only in death, 

in total death, 

that there is something new, 

that there is a total silence 

in which a different kind of life can be led.  

J. Krishnamurti  

The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: 

Volume 16: The Beauty of Death

If the soul remains but in a disembodied condition, 

then it can have had no original dependence 

on a body for its existence;

 it must have subsisted 

as an unembodied spirit before birth

 even as it persists 

in its disembodied spiritual entity after death.

 Sri Aurobindo 

The Essential Aurobindo  

If the soul was created to animate the body,

 if it depended on the body

 for its coming into existence, 

it can have no reason or basis for existence

 after the disappearance of the body.

 It is naturally to be supposed 

that the breath or power given for the animation of the body 

would return at its final dissolution to its Maker.

 If, on the contrary,

 it still persists as an immortal embodied being

, there must be a subtle or psychic body in which it continues,

 and it is fairly certain that this psychic body and its inhabitant 

must be pre-existent to the material vehicle: 

it is irrational to suppose 

that they were created originally 

to inhabit that brief and perishable form;

 an immortal being cannot be the outcome

 of so ephemeral an incident in creation. 

 Sri Aurobindo

The Essential Aurobindo 

As one near death experiencer said to me: 

 It’s like suddenly finding the love of your life

 and the next morning finding out 

that person has moved to Mars.

  They still exist, 

 they still love you and you still love them -

 but they are far away 

and you don’t know how to reconnect.

  For me it was like nothing in this world 

could compare to the beauty of “there.” 

 Everything back here seemed dull and almost dead. 

 The energy and the beauty and the feeling of “there”

 was beyond anything you can express,

 and coming back here was almost painful. 

  You know it’s still there, it hasn’t gone away, 

you just don’t know how to get back there.  

I think this life would be easier 

for those who have had near death experiences 

if they knew they could revisit at will 

or even occasionally travel back “there.” 

  But to be cut off from it - for some - can be very difficult. 

 The lucky ones 

are those who can take the “there” with them, 

and not pine for it. 

But to use that experience

 to make this world like that world.  

Richard Martini

  It's A Wonderful Afterlife Volume One: 

Further Adventures in the Flipside

The problem with the concept of reincarnation

 is that it creates the false impression

 that a distinct “you” keeps coming back over and over. 

That is not the case. 

When “you” die, 

you are no longer “you.”

 That term “you” ceases to have any meaning.

“You” reemerge into the great light 

and your identity is no longer relevant.

 That is why 

we don’t have much use for names here. 

It’s better to look at it like this: 

Something returns to continue 

the process of evolution

 that it began in previous lives

 but that something is an extension of God, 

not “you.”  

Todd Michael: 

 The Evolution Angel: 

 An Emergency Physician's Lessons with Death and the Divine 

Death is something that, more than anything else,

 has two totally different aspects. 

Seen from here, from the physical world,

 death no doubt has many aspects

 that are painful and comfortless.

 But it really is true to say 

that we only see death from one perspective here, 

and after death

 see it from a quite different one: 

there it becomes 

the most fulfilling, consummate event

 that we can experience, 

a living reality.  

Rudolf Steiner  

Growing Old

In the Bardo of this life,

 we may be very earnest 

in our contemplation of mind’s ultimate nature, 

and try with great effort 

to gain some experience of it through meditation.

 At the time of death, however, 

this very experience arises effortlessly. 

When we finally reach the point 

of the dissolution of all dualistic appearances,

 we experience a moment of complete awareness, 

a moment of vivid clarity. 

It is like a shift in the weather,

 when the sky clears up; 

the dense covering of clouds is gone,

 and suddenly we see the vast sky.

 At this moment,

 mind arrives directly at its own ground. 

It is just like coming home. 

 Dzogchen Ponlop

 Mind Beyond Death

I praise what is truly alive, 

what longs to be burned to death.

  And so long as you haven’t experienced this:

 to die and so to grow, 

you are only a troubled guest

 on the dark earth. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 The Holy Longing

Viewing ourselves in present time, 

rather than the past or future, 

is a difficult task for our Western minds,

 But the dying are pushed to that perspective 

when the future is abruptly taken from them 

and this moment, here and now, 

becomes the only thing that still exists.

 To learn the wisdom of the dying, 

we are asked to study 

the art of dwelling in the present moment

 in order to further our spiritual growth 

and advance our consciousness in the world. 

 Karen Wyatt

 What Really Matters

Remember that there is no tyranny as great 

as the tyranny of success,

 and the greatest success story 

is that we are healthy and alive.

 But health is just the slowest way to die. 

This success breeds the most insidious of tyrannies: 

the illusion of immortality.

 We read about death in the paper,

 hear it on the news, 

and see it all around us.

 We are swimming in an ocean of death 

and still do not acknowledge it. 

  Andrew Holecek 

 The Power and the Pain 

Transforming Spiritual Hardship Into Joy 

The Indian master Atisha says 

 that if you don’t contemplate death in the morning, 

 the morning is wasted;  

if you don’t contemplate death in the afternoon,

  the afternoon is wasted; 

 and if you don’t contemplate death in the evening, 

 the evening is wasted. 

  Andrew Holecek

 The Power and the Pain

Transforming Spiritual Hardship Into Joy

Whether we live on one side of the veil or on the other 

is of no importance 

except to those few people 

who temporarily will miss our physical presence.

 But very soon,

 when that sense of absence is healed, 

nothing is changed, 

no one has lost anything,

 no one has been hurt, 

for in God, 

life and death are the same.

 They are mortal appearances,

 human illusions.

 To understand that both are of the same substance,

 the fabric of nothingness, 

and that there is no difference

 between life and death 

brings about an understanding 

of the meaning of immortality. 

 Joel S. Goldsmith 

 A Parenthesis in Eternity

I like to refer to near death events

 as “near life experiences.” 

The experience is one where people feel 

that they suddenly understand the meaning of life. 

They feel they can suddenly understand 

the purpose of their existence,

 they say that they can see the connectedness

 between all people and things. 

 And when they return

 to a world where the rest of the people

 can’t or don’t see that –

 it can feel like being stuck in mud.

Richard Martini 

It's A Wonderful Afterlife Volume One: 

Further Adventures in the Flipside

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Robert Durback 

Beyond the Mirror