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I am not afraid of death

Cosmic Trigger said:
How do you know "this part" is true? How are you sure of anything you just stated?
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I can't appeal to you on cerebral grounds. The mind can never get it.

If you do the work, you'll know it's true. I know how that sounds, but I have worked with dozens of spiritual systems to try and figure out how to help my own suffering, and this way, which is not even a system, is the only thing that has brought me permanent peace.
 
Subjectivism is a trap, and logic is not the highest authority. You need to accept these things else life is a lawless free for all devoid of meaning. Opinion is the highest order of truth, because then can there be participatory natural law.

On cerebral grounds, I judge Foreigner's thoughts as weakening the ego and accepting identity beyond your body and subjective consciousness. It's a trick that brings peace to many people.
 
lazydullard said:
Subjectivism is a trap, and logic is not the highest authority. You need to accept these things else life is a lawless free for all devoid of meaning. Opinion is the highest order of truth, because then can there be participatory natural law.

On cerebral grounds, I judge Foreigner's thoughts as weakening the ego and accepting identity beyond your body and subjective consciousness. It's a trick that brings peace to many people.
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No it's not a weakening of the ego. It's not reckoning with the ego at all, actually. Once core consciousness, the original state, the only real state, the only thing that is actually happening, is experienced, its love expands within the traumatic memory and heals the ego. The ego then falls in line with core consciousness rather than trying to act on its own.

You're basically bridging original consciousness with wounded memories that are an identity process with the body-mind. Because core consciousness is *not* the body-mind, it can show everything else what is real.

The only tradition that comes close to tackling this is Advaita, but I have had to diverge from it in some ways for myself. This is the only method that truly heals trauma, IMO.

DJ Saint-Hubert said:
death is just instant amnesia.
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This 100%.
 
The awe and wonder of Death.

In the past humans lived much more closely with the idea of death. We embraced it in many ways including holidays and festivals etc. Now we hide from the idea and reality. Many won't even say a relative is dead. They say they "passed on" or some such. We as a culture have grown fearful of our own demise and animal nature.

Here is a really cool IMO video on the subject of death and wonder. What's your take on death? Don't tell me you're not afraid of it because I won't believe you LOL. Studies have all proven that everyone fears death at least unconsciously and often consciously. If you doubt it check out the conclusive studies done by the TMT (Terror Management Theory) folk on how fear of death influences almost all of our actions in the world.

Enjoy.

 
To satisfy your belief criteria, I don't "consciously fear death, I dream of it quite a lot at night. I've been very close on multiple occasions, and have come to accept that it is inevitable, why should I fear it?

I don't actively seek it out, but if it comes it comes. I am at peace with that reality.
 
Almost everyone says they don't consciously fear death. Yet it's the big taboo subject in our society. Well I'd say along with many psychologists that most people shove their fears into their unconscious rather than face them and spoil their days.
 
I truly don't, I've been very close several times, and it always brought a peaceful serenity over me. I dream about it almost nightly, there are circumstances under which this is true. Why fear an end when you're living in a hell?
 
Look this is something never resolved by discussion due to the nature of the beast IMO however to continue I'd say that humans crave peace and serenity but it is often very elusive, some degree of suffering being the norm. If being close to death brought about that state many more people who got close would be offing themselves IMO. In the same way the junkie craves the needle even though it's dangerous. If you believe you're in hell then why not kill yourself if it feels that great? The oft quoted response that one lives on for others loses some credibility IMO when while alive we often don't even like to be around some of these people we don't want suffering.


The TMT folk have shown in 100s of studies that just the mention of the word death to a person will usually get them to alter their behaviors in controlled situations. The studies are fascinating and even funny in a sad way. That puts most death anxiety into the realm of the unconscious because full awareness of our true mortality is too frightening to live with moment to moment. Ernest Becker wrote a seminal book that won a Pulitzer about this very thing called. Denial of Death. This book was the inspiration for the creation of the Terror Management Theory groups studies.
 
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"Usually" you said it yourself, not always. You know there are states of thinking in which despite the fact you believe something will bring you relief and not do it. You can see an end to your pain and think to yourself that you don't deserve relief.

It's clear we will never agree on this.
 
This is a tough one. I know how I handle stress because I've had to often and I know how well I handle sickness because I get sick every few years. In the two instances I've locked eyes with death I didn't even have a strategy.

How will i go out? I'd like to say not really an issue because I think I don't have big problems but I'm guess screaming like a school girl despite my best philosophical ideas.

We just don't get a good amount of near death experiences to work with, when we do get a near death experience we often focus only on the plan of avoidance. Its like being in a car crash where you are moving slow enough to know you won't be killed but your still trying to control your wildly skidding car to avoid obstacles or pedestrians.

As awake mammals we don't go willingly into the dark night. But we really can't, we aren't built for it. Every single improvement that life makes on us is to be an advantage for living, not death. If the process of evolution could create a creature that didn't have an impetus to always seek life, that creature wouldn't dominate it's planet. Even more simply put that isn't humanity.

I can not just sit down and turn my body off. My consciousness will does not control my life, despite thinking we are all ok with death we have only 3rd party control of our own lives. If I don't use some kind of assistance I can't stop living.
 
I agree and so do those who study our reactions to death. It's very easy to say "I'm not afraid of death when you are safe at home" Yet let someone pull a knife or gun on you and just see what happens to your heart rate. I trained in and taught combat fighting skills and when I got a gun pulled on me I got scared.
 
Studies or not, I both fear and don't fear death. I fear death for the potential suffering I would probably endure until my prefrontal cortex would go AWOL and I would no longer feel existential pain from the process. I don't fear death in the sense that, really, nobody knows what happens after death, and I'm rather curious to find out. It certainly ain't what religious texts tell us, which is naive BS anyway - and it'd be interesting to find out, even if it was null.

I shouldn't have survived the multiple organ failure following septic shock a few years ago, and it was quite a ride, but it hasn't changed my attitude towards death. I don't value life as most people do, as in I'm ready to die any minute, I just don't want to physically suffer - which is why in the real event I plan to take the euthanasia route.

As for the thread question, I really don't care either way. Maybe because of my diminished feelings or whatnot, it just seems like everyday business to me that organisms die and both me and my close ones will one day face it. Don't see the need to dramatize it, although I understand the motivation.

Cosmic Trigger said:
I agree and so do those who study our reactions to death. It's very easy to say "I'm not afraid of death when you are safe at home" Yet let someone pull a knife or gun on you and just see what happens to your heart rate. I trained in and taught combat fighting skills and when I got a gun pulled on me I got scared.
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It's called survival instinct. It goes deeper than the part of brain that you recognize as you and the one you recognize as your free will. You'd find the same phenomenon in people willingly killing themselves through starvation in prison.
 
The body will fight to the last, unless it has been sufficiently weakened by the lead up to death. The fear comes from the body-mind wanting to continue existing, especially the body aspect of the body-mind. It is hard encoded into our DNA. Once the body starts freaking the mind starts freaking -- they are one in of the same. The only way I can see a person overcoming this at the time of death is if they have done enough training to realize their true nature reality that exists as untouchable within the temporary outpouring of the mind-body. If you don't have this direct experiencing of your Real Self and insight into who you really are then you will only know the mind-body as "you" and when death approaches you will freak because you'll think it's really you who's dying.

When you're weakened enough your ego gets softened and the prospect of dying no longer seems as scary, conceptually. This is because you no longer have the energy to generate concepts, narratives, spiritual beliefs... the stories are gone and the present moment is laid bare, and it's usually rather blissful. If you are calm enough you can roll with it and it becomes apparent that the root problem of all your suffering in this entire life as well as the confounding paradoxes of death are all due to believing that a person is happening. Birth is consciousness identifying with a body-mind. Death is consciousness disidentifying from a body-mind. That's all.

The body though... it doesn't understand this. When it is threatened, it will usually struggle, unless it has been sufficiently debilitated already.

When my grandmother was unconscious and in her final hours of cancer, she gasped every single breath to the very last, until her lungs were filled to the brim with fluid. Her lungs breathed until they could not physically take in air anymore, until there was silence and stillness.

The body is an animal and animals cling to life at all costs.
 
Foreigner said:
When you're weakened enough your ego gets softened and the prospect of dying no longer seems as scary, conceptually. This is because you no longer have the energy to generate concepts, narratives, spiritual beliefs... the stories are gone and the present moment is laid bare, and it's usually rather blissful.
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I'm sure you have also experienced something of this sort, but for me this rings true. Not in the spiritual sense, but in the sense that when I was in my "state" in the ICU I was way too delirious to think much. As people say "ignorance is bliss", delirium was bliss then because I could have passed out and died then and there, but I was in no way disturbed by it because I couldn't really comprehend it the same way a healthy person can. I'm sure it applies to many dying of other diseases as well.
 
I know that this is a discussion about the fear of death but does anyone else here experience a sadness or a nostalgia when they think of death? Perhaps because I'm older and time flies so quickly now (10 years is experienced as 1 year) I feel like a kid at recess who sees the teacher standing by the classroom door raising the dreaded whistle to her lips that signals an end to whatever glorious, mundane activity that I have been enjoying with the 100% enjoyment a child is capable of. When I think of death now, I feel like shouting, "Not quite yet! I'm not finished!";)

A poem I really like:http://www.ellenbass.com/books/the-human-line/if-you-knew/
 
You bet I do at times herbavore. I'm an old guy too (65) but I've felt that much of my life.

Thanks for sharing that poem.
 
Death terrifies me. Not the pain or the thought of what comes after. I'm pretty sure I know what comes after. What I can't stand is the thought of leaving my consciousness for good. I love getting fucked up and leaving it temporarily, but I always have the presumption that I'm coming back. In short, it's the finality of it all.

I never figured I'd make it to 30, but I'm about 6 months away now. Kind of surreal.
 
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