Since we are generally used to repressing death and dying, our lives can only bob on the surface; our focus, our interest is only on external things.
And these external things are subject, how could it be otherwise, to the merciful law of transience.
You shall only know the present day and the present hour. What do tomorrow’s worries concern today? For death does not come tomorrow, it comes today.
Paracelsus
A conversation of two friends who meet by chance after a long time in a shop downtown:
-Hi mate, how are you? Haven’t seen you for ages! (they hug and kiss each other)
– Thanks for asking… We don’t always make dying easy …
– What?! Am I hearing right? Are you seriously ill – thinking about dying or something?
– (Laughing) Yes, I’m thinking about dying, actually for quite some time now …
– But you don’t look like you’re dying to me at all! Your eyes are laughing and you don’t sound at all serious, rather somehow cheerful; you are not a little tipsy, are you? You don’t drink, if I remember correctly?
– Well, there are different things to drink, my dear, especially spirits, but I’m not necessarily thinking of alcoholic beverages …
– Tell me more; let’s have a coffee here.
One begins to share his thoughts , the other asks questions now and then.
– My old ideas, complexities, neuroses, worries are allowed to die so that I can live. And all my difficulties only come from the fact that I somehow get stuck in these old things …
In the beginning the two friends spoke about worries and fears …
We humans are really something peculiar. We worry about this and that – and spend whole days with banalities; our chattering, restless, confused thoughts occupy us day and night, then we move this from here to there, and that from there to here and moan about how hard it is; we go about our work, which somehow feeds us, but rarely gives us any real pleasure; we feel in many moments of our lives like „rats in a wheel“.
It often takes catastrophes or at least real crises, in which we are shaken to the core with disappointment and grief until we begin to ask ourselves what this is good for, what we are doing in our life here on this earth. Out of this agony, this pain of our souls, we then begin (if it is good) to ask questions, begin to put out feelers for something else – of which we have a hunch. There must, yes there must be something like paradise … Next to me, people are wasting away, becoming ill out of frustration and senselessness, very often dying deeply unfulfilled; many, especially in our days, pass away – suddenly and unexpectedly. And what for?
Western humanity in particular follows completely externalised goals in life, such as power, prestige, prosperity …
A spark of eternity knocks at the door of our soul, of our conscience – and what do we do – we freeze in anxiety and fear of the future and of death, which dissolves all our endeavours and our goals into a black nothingness. After all, it’s no wonder, because sooner or later, the beautiful appearance, the contented smug grin of our vanity turns out to be illusion and unreality.
Since we are generally used to repressing death and dying, our lives can only bob on the surface, our focus, our interest is only on external things. And this external is subject, how could it be otherwise, to the merciful law of transience. Death is a normal part of the order of the universe, at least in the world we know so well, in which everything comes and goes. Death is the guarantee that everything that is not suitable for the infinite will sooner or later break apart, be dissolved.
The undeniable transience of earthly things confronts the conscious human being again and again with the essential question of existence. Without death, life has no meaning and no depth. Death is, one could say very realistically, the salt of life. Through the end, through death, life picks up speed, becomes dynamic, fiery, gains weight and, above all, deeper dimensions. We can no longer avoid the burning questions about the whence and wherefore. And it is only up to us whether we remain part of the dull masses – the masses that live in distraction, are anxious, unenthusiastic, shaken by illusions and ill at ease – or whether we begin to take an interest in the background and interrelationships of life, in the laws and forces that hold the world together at its core.
A philosophical orientation cannot be avoided. Why do we live if we have to die? Those people who sense the importance of this question and stick with it and don’t allow themselves to be blinded and paralysed by the western digital comfort zone, they first get out – at least inwardly – and go on a search, because „Brother Death“, the „godfather“ of the old tales, stands glowing and deadly certain before their eyes. Yes, and at some point, usually quite soon, they hear (as we can be less and less ignorant of the facts) that there is actually no death at all, that death is an „optical illusion“ (Einstein). – And that is a huge joy, but one that only comes to us if we are prepared to recognise the immortal, the infinite, the Spirit within us and begin to orientate our lives accordingly, in natural goodwill and a good attitude towards our fellow human beings.
The two friends came to the subject of immortality and the conversation took an interesting turn. An inexplicable cheerfulness pervaded them both.
We don’t actually need to become immortal because we already are, at least in principle. There is a great protest in your eyes at these words, of course. When we call the transformations of life ‘death ’ we can observe that something in and of us is actually dying every moment. Millions of cells of our body die and are renewed every second; all the processes of dissolution, as banal and mundane as they are, serve life. When the Bible says that „the soul that sins must die“, then this dying can be understood as an unbinding, actually transforming that which is not in resonance with the primordial light. What eternal values live in us don’t die. The forces of the primordial light work within us in a transforming way. We are, so to speak, in the Athanor, in the alchemical furnace, and it burns hottest in the heart.
The crucial question is: How can I support this process? That points in the direction of religion. The word can be derived from religare (lat.), to connect. So we, the mortal-material creatures must connect with our inner being, the immortal-in-us, or Christ or Krishna-in-us. And then death can actually be welcomed by us at any moment; only then death and dying are no longer frightening spectres, but joyful doors to yet more light – doors that can be walked through daily, during the day and especially at night.
Everything old, my ideas, judgements, my opinions – I become aware of them; I question and scrutinise them and hand them over again and again to the fire of the heart, the Athanor, sometimes with pain, sometimes with drama, sometimes lightly and with love.
So in principle, the issue of immortality is quite simple. Once it is unveiled within me, it remains in practical life the life task par excellence. All questions of life arrive in our “letterbox”, delivered by the messenger called fate or karma. When karma once again brings something for us, something from the mysterious lands of the unconscious, and we ignore the message, then further letters come, reminders, so to speak, which are more severe from time to time, until we learn to stop resisting and accept what comes to us . And the more I deal with the questions, the more I explore them with interest, the quicker any problems change, die into the light, as it were.
A wonderful example of this is the candle. Once the wick is lit – by the spark – the wax dies into the flame, and what emerges is light, warmth, well-being – life.
The only real prerequisite for this is living in the „flaming today“. Yes, life can become a daily celebration. If anxious thoughts, however, permeate my being as worries about tomorrow and I am therefore not living in the present now, I am dead alive. Death does not come tomorrow, it comes today. It is already here.
The two friends looked at each other. They had the feeling that life had just touched them in a gentle and admonishing way …
Ruediger Dahlke, Von der großen Verwandlung – Wir sterben und werden weiterleben (Of the great transformation. – We die and we will live on), Crotona Verlag, 2011
