FEAR OF DEATH

I just returned from a couple days in Eastern Washington, that other side of the Cascade Mountain Range so completely different geologically and climatically than this side of the mountains. Over there one immediately notices the sunnier skies, drier air, the brown barrenness of the rolling hills, the open spaces between the much smaller towns over an area nearly twice the square miles as here. An area much older geologically with the remains of successive basalt lava flows 6000’ feet deep from the Miocene covering an even older layer of sandstone from an ancient inland sea during the time of the dinosaurs. Massive flooding of the Columbia River from the receding glaciers 12,000 years ago created a series of coulees a mile or so across and many more miles long with steep porous cliffs at least five hundred feet up. The remains of an 800 foot high waterfall from those times now stands as some naturally formed megalithic monument to the land’s erosive history. The trip was a welcome respite from the mold, moss, sogged ground, cold damp air, and gloomy overcast above my home in Western Washington.

I motored there with my best friend from High School. He wanted to visit his sister who has a large cancerous tumor on her left lung and isn’t doing very well. I wanted to visit her too as it had been over ten years since I saw her last. She’s eight years older than us and played an important role in our youth by providing a safe haven where we could indulge our teen passions and indulgences free from parental interference. And she was the only member of his family who didn’t see me as the cause behind every deviant behavior my friend got caught at. All of which has endeared me to her over the years and now, fearing it may be the last time I could visit with her in a somewhat healthy state, I was happy to make the trip with my old friend.

She lives in a smaller town of nearly 7000 people with a residential area extending five or six blocks away from both sides of the Main Street that parallels the Burlington Santa Fe rail line connecting Seattle to St. Paul. We met at what she called the best restaurant in town which, as far as I could tell, meant being able to wipe the au jus of the $7 French Dip sandwiches off our lips with a cloth napkin instead of a paper one. She didn’t look well. Had lost too much weight. Breathing through a tube attached to a monitored oxygen tank. She reminded me of another friend I visited when he was nearing the last stages of cancer, with that wizened apple core discarded on the side of a desert road look.

Our conversation was amiable enough, catching up on the happenings of the last decade, laughing over past absurdities. It was when she unhooked her breathing tube and we went outside into the wintry chill night air to smoke cigarettes that she really began to talk. It was simple. She was afraid to die. Afraid of pain. Afraid for the future of her children and grandchildren alone without her love and protection. Especially afraid of the unknown. I said little. Only held her hand to help reassure her that hospitals today are much better at making their patients comfortable, that even though her children will miss her terribly they are capable of taking care of themselves and each other. I told her that they would all be together again soon enough. For them it would take a lifetime but for her it will all pass as quickly as the blink of an eye.

Archaeologists and cultural anthropologists have proposed, by dating ancient burial sites, that mankind’s perception of life after death goes back to Paleolithic times, possibly 130,000 years ago. This tells us that these ancient people were able to recognize the spiritual component of our species, the realization that the sum total of each individual is more than a structure of physical elements. They became aware that together with these building blocks of form there exists within us a feature that connects to another realm beyond this particular realty. A dimension that is not constrained by dual purposes and where the eternal abides. All the spiritual concepts and religious practices that have come down to us from those early days so long ago recognize the existence of this special attribute regardless of the mythology or revelation behind any one particular belief system. If we examine each of these methods it becomes apparent that there is a common bond or theology that demonstrates that any group which actively studies life and death, comes to very similar conclusions concerning what happens to our spirit when we die. Besides, we all have this knowledge within us anyway. It emerges from time to time through our intuition and imagination, that much neglected function of the human psyche. Like within the Australian Aborigine “Dream Time” we become cognizant of that place where the Creator, angels and psychic messengers, spirits and ancestors dwell beyond time and space. So why all the fuss? Our essence is spirit. Spirit is eternal. Why all this silly delusional attachment to the temporal when we know from the start that it is and always will be temporary?

We know, of course, that the natural world is dual in its composition and function; black/white, in/out, forward/backward, being/becoming, yin/yang, good/evil, self/Self, anima/animus, proton/neutron, magnetic north/magnetic south, the twins personified in the mythologies of people across the entire planet. Even though when we sit quiet and pay attention to that feature of our character, the spirit within that connects with the unity of all creation, the place where God is, our minds, in contrast, still must contend with the confusion of this dichotomous environment we live in. It’s as if we are forced to view this world with eyes crossed and must continually strive to put this dual perspective back together. Our wisdom literature describes this duality using different names. There is maya in the Hindu tradition, the tree of life described in the Quran and Hebrew Torah, the Taoist tai chi, the blooming war of the Aztecs. Whatever it is called, its potential for suffering by viewing death as permanent, can put us in that same place where my friend’s sister now dwells.

It doesn’t need to be so. Putting aside wisdom literature and tradition, and our intuitive thoughts on the matter, there are the experiences of others that give credence to life after death. Countless near-death experiences (NDE) have been recorded by individuals whose lives were declared clinically ended and yet survived to tell what happened. Akin to this are the accounts of those individuals, including myself, who have had out-of-body experiences (OBE). Unlike an NDE which occurs while one’s body is actually experiencing death, an OBE occurs while the body is asleep. What transpires is the feeling of an ethereal or energy body emerging from the sleeping body and within this “double” is a copy of everything within our consciousness that makes us who we are as an individual. This energy/ethereal body then has the will to explore different dimensions beyond this particular physical realm where we now reside. Ancestors and relatives may be visited, other worlds, angels and messengers, the Akashic memory banks. The opportunities are limited only by the individual’s proficiencies, which become increasingly more masterful with practice. Most importantly, the experiences verify that individual consciousness, spirit, soul, whatever one wishes to call it, does not depend on a physical body in order to exist. Extensive literature has emerged in this field in the past twenty five years and for more information than this blog can provide I suggest the writings of Robert Monroe, Robert Bruce, or William Buhlman.

I told my friend’s sister about my own experiences with OBE. She listened politely but I could see it didn’t spark much interest or help to alleviate her fears. If we could have had more time together I would have spoken more extensively about it for I am convinced we are more than mere configurations of atomic matter. When this stuff that makes up our body goes back to the elements from which it came, a copy of all our thoughts, experiences, and understandings that is also capable of making choices just as we do here goes beyond the grave. OBE gives us a glimpse of what happens at death and helps to alleviate our fear of it so we can go on with our lives making the best of a chaotic situation all around and gives us one less thing to worry about.