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Learning how to die

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GroovyGoddess

This topic is something that I have been dealing with quite heavily lately. Because of the state that the world is currently in, people now seem to be searching for answers more than ever before.

I was talking to a close friend of mine yesterday about the purpose of life. It seems that so many people out there feel that they are lacking purpose. Yet, I propose in this thread that everyone is exactly where they need to be.

Lately, I have come to the increasing conclusion about what enlightenment really is. Although I have never achieved what the Buddhists call Nirvana, it is defined as a state where one is untouched by desire or fear. However, after great suffering in my life I have finally realized that enlightenment can not be found by searching for it.

Krishnamurti's conversation with David Bohm was very illuminating for me because I realized that truth is pathless. This is because following a path to something implies that there is time involved. So how can anything created in time ever bring about the discovery of the timeless?

This includes experience as well. If experience implies time, then enlightenment must be the absence of experience.  So ultimately, a realization that has come to me is that enlightenment is learning to see the world in a completely objective way.

In an attempt to explain this in more simplistic terms, it would seem to me that enlightenment is simply when your mind no longer distorts reality. If anything its the ultimate absence of experience because the need for experience implies distortion in some aspect of mind.

So, ultimately 'Learning how to die' means to me that a person has completely satisfied their need for experience, so there is simply nothing left to do...

What does this mean for all of the people out there that are searching for a meaning in life then? I feel that all of us are attracting into our lives the experiences that we need so that we can complete ourselves and one day come to the realization that we no longer need experience.

Nostic

No longer need experience? Or no longer need experience at this level?

Vilkate

I'm currently reading quite a good book on the topic of how to die  -  "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche (10th anniversary edition, revised and updated), released by the Rider Books on 2002.
~Our name is Eternity~

On my way to the infinite universe of Light and Unity.

Nay

I think everyone thinks waaaaay too much about, "enlightenment"  WThell, does that mean anyways?  

Learning how to die?? *taps chin*  ...Hmmmmmmm.. Hold your child in your arms, while giving him mouth to mouth to keep him alive.  Or...Hyperventilate, and try and think about NOT dying.. that's tough.

"learning how to die"  When you are no longer afraid of dying.  Lots can SAY they are not afraid..but have they been confronted by it?

Beth

It is my opinion that on this plane of existence we are born into bodies that begin the process of dying from the very moment of birth. For the rest of our lives, we die a little bit more each day.

"Enlightenment" may well be the realization that being in these bodies is not really 'living' at all, rather being in these bodies is to experience death in the making.

Sometimes I feel as though I am being held hostage in my body...it is not a good feeling. I want to fly free, to be free -- to be ME.

For some time now, I have been looking forward to the day that I die to this world.  I do not know whether I will be here one more day or several more 'decades of days' ... but, whenever I leave, I plan to leave with a smile on my face :grin: -- knowing that I will no longer be dying a little bit every day

~Beth
Become a Critical Thinker!
"Ignorance is the greatest of all sins."
                   --Origen of Alexandria

Nay

QuoteSometimes I feel as though I am being held hostage in my body...it is not a good feeling. I want to fly free, to be free -- to be ME.
I feel  this too, then I think about my children and loved ones.  They don't want me gone.  Maybe, learning how to die...........is learning how to live.

Stookie

There is a big stigma about death today. People don't want to die and avoid thinking about it. The amount of materialism shows this. It's an escape - it helps "sink" a person into physical reality, away from death.

It's not good to have a morbid preoccupation with death, but understanding it's possible to die at anytime can help focus on the "right" things to accomplish before death. I'd like to think that if I died tomorrow I'd be happy with what I've done till now.

Of course, understanding what "death" really is helps too.

AndrewTheSinger

Yup, there were times in my life that I wish I was dead, I thought about it all the time, they had me put on a mental clinic against my will.

But anyways, that was 3 years ago and now I'm finally getting the hang of things, but I've been having this nagging feeling that I will fall asleep and never wake up again, and I really, really don't like it. All I know right now is that death doesn't belong to me and I don't wanna mess with it again, he better not come soon or I'll kick his sorry a**.  :wink:
Where does this silence come from?

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GroovyGoddess

Quote from: Nay
QuoteSometimes I feel as though I am being held hostage in my body...it is not a good feeling. I want to fly free, to be free -- to be ME.
I feel  this too, then I think about my children and loved ones.  They don't want me gone.  Maybe, learning how to die...........is learning how to live.

Thats right,

I really never meant 'Learning how to die' to actually mean physical death; but rather a metaphorical realization that we will no longer have any more voids to be filled in life. Eventually we will die to our ego driven desires and be reborn in harmony with the universe.

Nay


WindGod

Quote from: GroovyGoddess
So, ultimately 'Learning how to die' means to me that a person has completely satisfied their need for experience, so there is simply nothing left to do...

I've always followed the simple explanation of what spiritual teachers mean when they say, "learn to die when living"
to be actually referring to the experience of OBE and projecting/higher focus.

So quite literally they teach the method of leaving the body so that we experience "death" of the physical body before leaving it for the last time.
Therefore, the "fear" of death is gone, because of having this experience.

Some teachings are very specific, and again, simply state, for example, "when you follow this path, you will learn to leave your body and you will know what happens at the time of physical death"
Are weather forcasters psychic?

visitfaraz

i had read in a book, " the power of now". It talked about dying to every moment. It said that just notice how the things that you are worried about become immaterial once you have left this world and are lying down in you grave.
well, i dont want to go and give a summary of the whole book here , but that is the whole idea. that you have to die to every passing moment and live afresh.

bye,
faraz

Daved

My grandma passed away this Monday :( and I was there. I guess I could share the experience with you as she was ready to die when it happened.

My grandma was stuck in bed for around 13 years after she had a couple health problems. Of course she didn't have a great living quality but still she fought every day to live.

That happened until a month ago when it was her 90 years birthday. Everybody thought her goal was to be alive until that time and not a day after. She first stopped eating and then drinking and she kept saying that she was tired and that she wanted to die.

I could describe the exact moment when she died but I'm not sure everyone wants to read that so I'll just skip it but I can say for sure that I felt that she was still there after her body lost life. Then she was completely gone as I couldn't feel her presence anymore at the funeral.

PS: I hope I can meet her again some day :(

Daved

Thanks, Lola.

It hurts me a lot but I have to think that it's what she wanted, she wanted to die.

I guess she didn't find any porpuse to live and I feel kind of guilty for that, for not sharing more time with her and make her feel it's worth it to be alive. I failed. But that's not what this is about.

Back to the topic, I'm not sure about the "satisfied their need for experience" thing stated in the first post, I think there's always a need for experience, so the problem is when you can't find any *better* purpose than experience.

thenextstep

i have died before.  i drowned at the age of 8.  i can safely and honestly say that i do not fear death after that.  it was a rather placid experience.  does this mean that if i do not fear death, that is i accept it, that i have no purpose in life anymore?

Daved

Quote from: thenextstepi have died before.  i drowned at the age of 8.  i can safely and honestly say that i do not fear death after that.  it was a rather placid experience.  does this mean that if i do not fear death, that is i accept it, that i have no purpose in life anymore?
Why do you think it was a placid experience? Would you care to elaborate? Do you want to die again?

Kenneth

Whou - a lot of good thoughts in this thread!!  :grin:

GroovyGoddess wrote:

So, ultimately 'Learning how to die' means to me that a person has completely satisfied their need for experience, so there is simply nothing left to do...
.... Other than to play with our life-situations, other people, and have a he** of a lot of fun doing it  :wink:

Faraz wrote about the book "The power of now" by Ekhart Tolle, and I would also like to recommend that book!! ... Also important from that book is the importance of being present in the here and now, instead of getting "grabbed" by the thoughts and feelings of the past and future.

About enlightenment:

- There is a saying that goes, that "Enlightenment is the absence of pain and suffering" (or something like that). So in order to bring that "down to earth", it must mean something like eliminating all these little nags, pains, negative thoughts etc. etc. within me, and I am home free?

There is a whole world of techniques to remove pain and suffering, and getting through traumas and stuck thoughts and ideas - I would recommend EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique - www.emofree.com ), as being one of the most effective ones.

Another saying goes something like: "Before enlightenment, bring wood and chop water - after enlightenment, bring wood and chop water" ... (or is it the other way round??  :wink: ). As I understand that one, it is to try to explain, that you do not actually change once you become Enlightenment - you are still you. There is actually so much of you, that pain and suffering does not have a snowballs chance in hell within your inward acceptance, clear mind, and ability to distinguish what is you, and what is your emotions and energy-movements, and thereby NOT you  :wink: (and writing become enlightenment instead of writing become enlightened is actually a conscious choice from my side - it is not something you "wear", or take on as a "role" or something - it is YOU on the inside, and not a shell you climb into).

"Accept inward in order to create possibilities outward" ... That one is (for me) the convincing theory why we should try to accept ourselves, accept ourselves, accept ourselves again and again and again.... and still being able to change what we do or say to others!! ...

I have tried to create a "filter" within my mind, that response to each and every degrading thought and difficult emotion, pain and fear with a couple of "Even though ... <this thought, pain, fear or emotion>, I completely and utterly accept and forgive my self".

It doesn't matter if you believe what you say or not - your subconscious is a sort of "automatic" programmable something, that very soon will learn to emulate what you are consciously trying to tell it. Once that happens, keep saying it, and slowly but surely you will "negate" all the negative within, by actually acknowledge that it exists within you, and at the same time accepting your self  :grin: (There is more to this, but this is a "short" version).
/Kenneth

--- One thing at a time, be in NOW, and be gentle to yourself ---

--- Your biggest obstacle is most of the time also your most powerfull startingpoint ---