Welcome to Death Knells

---

It was a silent invisible festival 

permeated by an incomparable, indescribable feeling of eternal bliss, 

such as I never could have imagined

 as being within reach of human experience.

 Death is the hardest thing from the outside 

and as long as we are outside of it.

 But once inside 

you taste of such completeness and peace and fulfillment 

that you don’t want to return. 

As a matter of fact, during the first month after my first vision I

 suffered from black depressions 

because I felt that I was recovering. 

It was like dying. 

I did not want to live 

and to return into this fragmentary, restricted, narrow,

 almost mechanical life, where you were subject to the laws of gravity and cohesion, imprisoned in a system of 3 dimensions 

and whirled along with other bodies in the turbulent stream of time. 

There was fullness, meaning fulfillment, 

eternal movement (not movement in time).

C.G. Jung

Letter to Kristine Mann 

From Letters, Vol. 1, pp. 357–59

As you know, the angel of death has struck me down too,

 and almost succeeded in wiping me off the slate. 

 I have been practically an invalid ever since,

 recovering very very slowly 

from all the arrows that have pierced me on all sides. 

Fortunately enough my head has not suffered

 and I could forget myself in my scientific work. 

On the whole my illness proved to be a most valuable experience,

 which gave me the inestimable opportunity

 of a glimpse behind the veil. 

The only difficulty is to get rid of the body, 

to get quite naked and void of the world and the ego-will. 

When you can give up the crazy will to live 

and when you seemingly fall into a bottomless mist, 

then the truly real life begins 

with everything which you were meant to be

 and never reached.

 It is something ineffably grand. 

I was free, 

completely free and whole,

 as I never felt before.

C.G. Jung

Letter to Kristine Mann 

From Letters, Vol. 1, pp. 357–59

Throughout my illness something has carried me.

 My feet were not standing on air

 and I had the proof that I have reached a safe ground. 

Whatever you do, if you do it sincerely, 

will eventually become the bridge to your wholeness,

 a good ship that carries you 

through the darkness of your second birth, 

which seems to be death to the outside. 

I will not last too long any more. 

I am marked. 

But life has fortunately become provisional.

 It has become a transitory prejudice,

 a working hypothesis for the time being, 

but not existence itself.

 Be patient and regard it as another difficult task,

 this time the last one.

 I greet you, CARL G. JUNG

C.G. Jung

Letter to Kristine Mann 

From Letters, Vol. 1, pp. 357–59

Death is psychologically as important as birth

 and, like it, is an integral part of life. ...

 As a doctor, I make every effort 

to strengthen the belief in immortality,

 especially with older patients

 when such questions come threateningly close.

 For, seen in correct psychological perspective, 

death is not an end but a goal. 

C.G. Jung

On Death and Immortality 

You determine the meaning of the form you “see” 

by your perception of what is real for you.

 Seeing through and beyond the limitation of these beliefs 

allows you to see the form in its reality 

which is infinite.

 You will not then even perceive a change in form, 

because the form will no longer be the object of your focus. 

You will experience the changeless, 

the absolutely infinite expression of the Mind of God. 

There is nothing created by God,

 which is the expression and the extension of the Mind of God, 

that is changeable. 

There is no need to alter perfection.

  As your fundamental belief in guilt and fear changes, 

 it won’t be a matter of seeing energy change form; 

you won’t experience the illusion of forms. 

You will not experience war 

nor will you see war; 

you will not experience death 

or confusion or chaos in any form. 

As it leaves your mind, 

it must also leave your experience.

Tom Carpenter 

Dialogue on Awakening: Communion with the Christ 

I know that it is quite difficult to understand 

that as you see birds and plants dying, 

they are dying because of your belief system, 

they are dying because you are seeing them die. 

Once you have lifted the veil 

of identifying them and yourself as being perishable,

 you will no longer experience 

that which you have identified as the process of death.

Tom Carpenter 

Dialogue on Awakening: Communion with the Christ 

Regardless of the state of their physical bodies,

 there was never any pain felt

 while floating in this observer position separated from their bodies. 

Even those who were struck by lightning or hit by a train, 

had no sensation other than weightlessness, 

freedom from the confines of their dense physical body,

 and a deep sense of inner peace. 

Most people who have experienced these near-death experiences 

admit that they felt so absolutely wonderful while out of their body 

that they did not want to return to it. 

That’s how blissful it feels to leave our bodies

and exist in spiritual form.

Bob  Olson:

Answers about the Afterlife: 

A Private Investigator's 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death 

I don’t understand why. 

if this is a dream, death is necessary.

In a word, it is not. 

Does that surprise you?

 It is only your acceptance of it which makes it apparently so. 

Should you at this moment absolutely discard 

the very firm belief that you hold that says,

 “I was born; I will die, there is a beginning; there is an end, there are transitions,”

 you would no longer experience death.

 The meaning of that which you believe 

is transferred into those things you experience within your physical life. 

If there is no longer meaning to beginning and end, 

to birth and death, 

how could you possibly experience it? 

You see infinite life as being a process

 of going between the physical and discarnate state.

 If you saw infinite life as being a continuous flow 

without the need for interruption,

 then that would be the way you would experience it. 

Too simple? 

If you truly had no problem with this, 

you would never die.

Tom Carpenter

  Dialogue on Awakening

Don’t choose between life and death. 

Don’t choose between this type of death and that type of death.

Choose not, remain whole,

 and whenever you are whole,

 there is a meeting with the whole,

 because only like meets like.

Osho

The Empty Boat

Life has to continue,

not “you” have to continue. 

 Life is not your lifespan or your children’s lifespan

 or the lifespan of what you hold dear. 

 How about holding dear the fact t

hat nothing you hold dear lasts?  

How about holding that close to your bosom? 

 That’s making meaning of the end of life, 

the willingness to do that.

Stephen Jenkinson

When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world 

in response to the thoughts and affections of its spirit 

(which it derives from the spiritual world),

 then we say that the individual has died. 

This happens when the lungs’ breathing and the heart's systolic motion have ceased. 

The person, though, has not died at all. 

We are only separated from the physical nature 

that was useful to us in the world. 

The essential person is actually still alive.

 I say that the essential person is still alive 

because we are not people because of our bodies

 but because of our spirits. 

After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks,

 and thought and affection together 

make us the people we are.

Emanuel  Swedenborg:

AFTERLIFE: A GUIDED TOUR OF HEAVEN AND ITS WONDERS 

Questioner: 

 Yesterday I couldn’t sleep. 

 When I was lying on my bed 

I kept hearing sounds and seeing lights. 

I was scared, sweating. 

I thought I was dying.

Maharaj: 

 Whatever is happening is happening as it should. 

 Even if whatever you felt was dying 

actually was dying, 

you were not dead.

  Keep that firmly in mind.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Seeds of Consciousness

“Because, Lord, by every innate impulse

 and through all the hazards of my life, 

I have been driven ceaselessly

 to search for you

 and to set you in the heart of the universe of matter, 

I shall have the joy, when death comes,

 of closing my eyes 

amidst the splendor of a universal transparency

 aglow with fire…”

Teilhard de Chardin quoted in:

Cynthia  Bourgeault 

The Mystery of Death: Awakening to Eternal Life 

Tibetans describe the moment of death

 as a time where the mind is “imprinted” —

 either by fearless love and compassion,

 or by strong emotions such as fear, regret, and doubt. 

For that reason, the yogis of Tibet spend their lives 

attempting to surpass ordinary fears,

 so that when they suddenly see the face of death, 

they can fearlessly rely upon their spiritual training 

and die in perfectly relaxed, mindful meditative equipoise.

Anyen Rinpoche, Allison Choying Zangmo

Living and Dying With Confidence

Death gives man the opportunity

 of posing his first completely personal act; 

death is, therefore, by reason of its very being,

 the moment above all others for the awakening of consciousness, 

for freedom, for the encounter with God, 

for the final decision about his eternal destiny.

Ladislaus Boros

The Mystery of Death: Awakening to Eternal Life 

You are waiting for me 

to describe what this silence is

 so that you can compare it, interpret it,

 carry it away and bury it. 

It cannot be described.

 What can be described is the known,

 and the freedom from the known

 can come into being 

only when there is a dying every day 

to the known, to the hurts, the flatteries, 

to all the images you have made, 

to all your experiences.

Krishnamurti 

Freedom from the Known

Death in the morning, at evening another birth – 

this is the way of things, 

no different from the bubbles on the stream. 

Where do they come from, these newborn? 

Where do the dead go? 

I do not know. 

Nor do I know why our hearts should fret over these brief dwellings,

 or our eyes find such delight in them. 

An owner and his home vie in their impermanence, 

as the vanishing dew upon the morning glory. 

The dew may disappear while the flower remains – 

yet it lives on only to fade with the morning sun.

 Or perhaps the flower wilts while the dew still lies – 

but though it stays,

 it too will be gone before the evening.

Kamo no Chōmei

Hōjōki "An Account of My Hut"

1212

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 

Our effort to separate one pole of a magnet from the other

 can only mean breaking the magnet itself. 

The "freed" sage is no longer interested in manipulating the opposites 

so as to choose one from the other. 

He is content to accept both as the very basis of life. 

He fully understands that what-is,

 is not good against evil, 

not life against death. 

There is a center of attention, 

an awareness that witnesses and transcends both.

Ramesh S. Balsekar

Final Truth: A Guide to Ultimate Understanding

Jung believed it was important for individuals

 to develop a personal myth about death. 

This myth was not meant to be a literal story, 

but rather a psychological framework 

to help us grapple with the inevitability of death

 and to find meaning in it.

 Jung believed that death was an archetype,

 a universal symbol that combines with our individual lives 

to make them whole.

 From his perspective, 

death was not an end, but a goal, 

and he understood life’s inclination toward death 

to begin as soon as we passed life’s meridian. 

In his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he advised: 

A man should be able to say he has done his best 

to form a conception of life after death, 

or to create some image of it—

even if he must confess his failure. 

Not to have done so is a vital loss.

 For the question that is posed to him 

is the age-old heritage of humanity: 

an archetype, rich in secret life, 

which seeks to add itself to our own individual life 

in order to make it whole…. 

The more the critical reason dominates, 

the more impoverished life becomes; 

but the more of the unconscious

 and the more of myth we are capable of making conscious, 

the more of life we integrate.

Joanna Ebenstein

Memento Mori

The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life

 Death Must Be Your Daily Medicine

Death, and the study of death, must be your daily medicine 

if you are not able to turn back from your inquiry into NonDual Reality.

 And I am not talking about contemplating your own death,

 for that is too complicated and tricky. 

There are plenty of other kinds of death to go around 

before you attempt to be at one with your own death. 

We should walk before we try to run a steeplechase. 

In this case, the backdoor approach is best. 

Why is this so? 

Why must death be the topic of study? 

Because NonDual requires it. 

To be in your life 

and simultaneously not be attached to your life

 is where NonDual Reality resides.

 Being in your life is already a challenge, 

but it is an even greater challenge 

to not be attached to your life,

 to experience that nothing is really about you

in the way that you believe you are.

 That is the holy grail of NonDual.

Liam Quirk

The NonSense of NonDual: From Mindfulness to Oneness 

Death is a very real experience. 

Usually, we do not connect with a sense of reality. 

If we have an accident—

or whatever happens in our lives—

we do not regard it as a real experience, 

even though it may hurt us. 

It is real to us

 as far as pain and physical damages are concerned, 

but still it’s not real for us 

because we immediately look at it

 in terms of how it could be otherwise. 

There’s always the idea of first aid

 or some other redeeming aspect of the situation.

 If you are talking to a dying friend or relative, 

you should transmit the idea 

that death is a real experience,

 rather than that it’s just a joke 

and the person could get better. 

Often people tell the dying person things like,

 “Life is really a joke altogether. 

The great saints say it’s not real. 

Life is unreal. 

What is death, anyway?”

 When we try to take this kind of approach, 

we become jumpy ourselves; 

and that jumpiness 

is what we end up communicating to the dying person.

 We should help them to understand that death is real.

Chögyam Trungpa 

Crazy Wisdom 

In the conventional world,

 people do not want to relate with a friend who is dying. 

They do not want to relate 

to their friend’s experience of death as something personal.

 It is a mutual embarrassment, 

a mutual tragedy that they don’t want to talk about. 

If we belong to less conventional circles,

 we might approach a dying person and say, “You are dying,”

 but at the same time, we try to tell him,

 “After all, this is nothing bad that’s happening to you. 

You are going to be okay. 

Think of those promises about ongoing eternity you’ve heard. 

Think of God, think of salvation.” 

We still don’t want to get to the heart of the matter.

 We don’t talk about purgatory or hell 

or the tormenting experience of the bardo. 

We are trying to face the situation, 

but it is embarrassing.

 Though we are brave enough to say 

that someone is going to die,

 we say, “But still, you’re going to be okay. 

Everybody around you feels positive about this, 

and we love you. 

Take the love that we feel toward you with you 

and make something of it as you pass from this world, as you die.” 

That’s the attitude [of avoidance] we have toward death.

Chögyam Trungpa 

Crazy Wisdom 

For don Juan, the world consists of dimensions within dimensions 

and holds unimaginable opportunities. 

When he guided Castaneda to perceive himself as a crow, for instance, 

he showed that human awareness was only one option available to us.

 He also teaches that constant and varied manipulation of the focal point 

enhances awareness of other life forms, including Earth. 

He indicates that as one progresses, 

a Toltec’s relation to Earth automatically becomes more exquisite and intimate. 

Toltecs connect points within personal awareness to Earth. 

This alignment grants additional power for entering other universes.

 By aligning intent with other emanations

 and then hooking into Earth’s vital energy,

 don Juan maintains that you can propel your complete awareness

 into realms beyond normal life and death. 

He thinks that seers at this level,

 the death defiers, 

have the ability to die only when they want.

Ken Eagle Feather

On the Toltec Path: A Practical Guide to the Teachings of don Juan Matus,

Carlos Castaneda, and Other Toltec Seers

Life continues, or the consciousness continues. 

I’m not referring here to actual reincarnation,

 physical birth and death.

 That’s actually a very crude example of rebirth. 

Rebirth occurs in every moment.

 Every moment you die and you are born again. 

This birth and death takes place all the time

 on and on and on. 

So as long as there’s consciousness, 

which dies and gives birth to the next moment,

 then that is continual reincarnation,

 continual rebirth. 

The next moment depends on one’s state of consciousness in this moment; 

then you give birth to a similar next moment as well. 

The next moment depends on whether this moment of consciousness

 has a negative quality or a positive quality. 

That quality continues as you give birth to the next moment. 

The minutes and seconds of the hour continue 

as minutes and seconds in the night as well as during the day. 

You may not remember your past life.

 There’s nothing to prove or disprove it, particularly. 

However, you can’t stop your consciousness; 

you can’t kill your consciousness

 or stop the consciousness of this moment.

 This exists continuously.

Chögyam Trungpa

Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness 

The body dies often, 

and as surely as you think it dies but once in the death you recognize. 

On numerous occasions it physically breaks apart, 

but your consciousness rides beyond those “deaths.” 

You do not perceive them. 

The stuff of your body literally falls into the earth many times,

 as you think it does only at the “end of your life.” 

Again, your own consciousness 

triumphantly rides above those deaths that you do not recognize as such.

 In your chosen three-dimensional existence, however,

 and in those terms,

 your consciousness finally recognizes a death. 

There is a time when you, as a consciousness,

 decide that death will happen,

 when in your terms 

you no longer bridge the gap of minute deaths not accepted.

Jane Roberts 

The “Unknown” Reality, Volume Two

Death is the veil which those who live call life:

They sleep, and it is lifted.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Does the “I” continue after death? 

 Who cares? 

 And what is this “I” that you want to continue?  

Your pleasures and dreams, your hopes, despairs, and joys, 

your property and the name you bear,

 your petty little character, 

and the knowledge you have acquired in your cramped, narrow life,

 which has been added to by professors, 

by literary people, by artists.  

That is what you want to continue, 

and that is all.  

Krishnamurti

On Living And Dying

It is real and deep wisdom 

to learn to look at things in terms of manifestation. 

If someone who is very close to you has passed away 

and you define him or her as non-existing, 

you are mistaken.

From nothing cannot be born something. 

From no one cannot be born someone. 

From something you cannot become nothing. 

From someone you cannot become no one. 

That is the truth. 

If the person who is close to you does not manifest 

in the form that you are used to seeing or perceiving, 

that does not mean that he is non-existing. 

It does not mean that he is no longer there.

 If you look deeply,

 you can touch his or her presence 

in other forms of manifestation.

Thich Nhat Hanh

No Death, No Fear

A curious delusion seems to prevail in many quarters 

that the mere fact of death at once turns a demon into a saint-- 

that, whatever a man' s life may have been, 

the moment he dies he becomes practically an angel of goodness. 

No idea could possibly be further from the truth, 

as those whose work lies in trying to help the departed know full well. 

The casting off of a man' s physical body 

no more alters his disposition 

than does the casting off of his overcoat; 

he is precisely the same man the day after his death 

as he was the day before,

 with the same vices and the same virtues.

C.W. Leadbeater

The Hidden Side of Things

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

I