At some level we all
wonder what is this dream we call life, where is it going and does it matter?
So each of us has our
own understanding of what death means to us so is there life after death, as
some believe, or do we reincarnate as others believe or do we just cease to be?
Whatever you believe, this task is designed to allow you to face and fully understand
you believe will happen to you when you die
“Jung’s last task of
aging, “Rebirth — dying with life," is a familiar theme throughout the
religious genre, but he was not thinking religion when he framed that task.
Rebirth after dying
with life transports a person into the timeless domains of an artist lost in
his or her work or a child absorbed in play when living in the time of a
delicious moment is all that matters.”
So here are some quotes
from others who have looked at death and have perhaps some thoughts we should
consider:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most
people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The
potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact
never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those
unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton.
We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively
outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it
is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
Richard Dawkins, 'Unweaving The Rainbow'; Dawkins has
stated on many occasions that this passage will be read at his funeral.
Shakespeare poignantly
captures the timelessness that comes with rebirth in King Lear’s soliloquy to
his daughter Cordelia in the time of their dying as though it were the time of
their living for the first time:
…Come, Let’s away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i’the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in , who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by th’moon.
—The Tragedy of King Lear, Act V/Scene 3
I believe this thought, of the possibility of death — if
calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as
to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of
sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in
a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless
it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be
sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which
we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life — that it
is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of
noble minds' — but that it is the development of character, the rising to a
higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man — and then,
so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for
evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an
end, but a beginning! Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Preface
Death is not the end. Death can never be the end. Death is
the road. Life is the traveller. The soul is the guide. Sri Chinmoy, My Rose Petals (1971)
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important
tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because
almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death,
leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is
the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement address (12
June 2005)
When you think of your own death, the fact that all the
good things in life will come to an end is certainly a reason for regret. But
that doesn't seem to be the whole story. Most people want there to be more of
what they enjoy in life, but for some people, the prospect of nonexistence is
itself frightening, in a way that isn't adequately explained by what has been
said so far. The thought that the world will go on without you, that you will
become nothing, is very hard to take in.
The fear of death is very puzzling, in a way that regret
about the end of life is not. It's easy to understand that we might want to
have more life, more of the things it contains, so that we see death as a
negative evil. But how can the prospect of your own nonexistence be alarming in
a positive way? If we really cease to exist at death, there's nothing to look
forward to, so how can there be anything to be afraid of? If one thinks about
it logically, it seems as though death should be something to be afraid of only
if we will survive it, and perhaps undergo some terrifying transformation. But
that doesn't prevent many people from thinking that annihilation is one of the
worst things that could happen to them. Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short
Introduction to Philosophy (1987), Ch. 9. Death
