When we were very young, we hadn’t yet learned things about death from society. Then we were full of innocent bliss and we truly felt eternal. Then we were not chock full of knowledge and ideas. We just timelessly looked and marveled.
As adults, most of us have been spoon-fed by a psychologically disturbed society. Most of us no longer feel eternal and timelessly blissful but, rather, feel frightened and insecure. We are afraid of the death that they told us about… about the death we had learned about. We, as adults, exist in a very linear, second-hand, and antiquated fashion. Even with our so-called “correct religious beliefs”, we fear death; beliefs often stem from fear. We fret about a lot of illusory things. It is disturbing to realize this, but it is even more disturbing not to realize it.
To be mentally youthful and untouched by the cadaverous ideas of others is a great order and intelligence.
While lingering in the very curious dark a quaint two-horse somber carriage happened by and, as it almost paused adjacent to me, Miss Dickinson peering out, smiling, said, “Won’t you hop in to savor some pie?”
We (much later passed) the School, where Children strove Happily at Recess—in the Ring And Staring, (we passed) the Fields of Gazing Grain We (without fail) passed the Setting Sun We passed those Dusky Creatures that were on the Wing
Well, the atmosphere tasted scrumptious, but the Coachman suddenly brought the whole sweet thing to a blinding halt However, Timelessness has that radiant aroma of infinity oozing out from all around it where ending simply began again with just a pinch of salt
If you don’t understand what living is, deeply and passionately, then you will not understand about physical death. A man (or woman) who often is psychologically dying to the dead past, to corrupt (limited) conditioning, to illusory limititations, and to robotic traditions and habits… is someone who is deeply living.
By the way, regarding physical death, it’s not what you have been told. It’s not any of the crap that people have dished out to you. It’s not that your special human soul floats away to a bliss with an anthropomorphic god or gods. It is not that when you are dead, you are dead (and that that’s it); it is not that you are reincarnated to some kind of better life; it is not that you go to some kind of heaven or hell; it is not that you float around like a ghost or specter, looking down upon everyone else. It is not what you have been told (by others). So what happens? One must find out. Intelligence must find out. I certainly am not going to tell you. It’s for deep perception to find out (and discover); it’s not for being told (for people to merely robotically believe or not believe). Again… it’s not for being told.
Ever so beautiful. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021
It’s not a subject that most of us care to consider. We, most all of us, tend to push it off, avoiding thinking about it. Shortly before my wonderful wife Marla recently passed, i tenderly said to her, “If things should happen to go south with this, death will not keep us apart for very long; death is too superficial, too shallow.”
I am very appreciative of the warm condolences within my previous blog posting and in cards and letters that people have sent to me. It means a lot.
Death is not (at all) what most people think. As Walt Whitman sagaciously wrote, “And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” There are different kinds of death/dying. There is the death of the physical body; there is the death of a mind that merely goes through life blindly accepting things according to tradition, organizations, and leaders (who, themselves are not truly living). There is the death that permeates a mind of indifference, callousness, and narcissistic behavior. (Perhaps such a mind was never truly alive whatsoever.) So many of us assume that we are living and free; we may not be.
There is, however, a dying, a “good dying,” throughout life, that can exist, psychologically, that may truly be a very highminded, splendid, and vibrant kind of living. A wise entity, who is frequently psychologically dying to dead, stale, stagnant, second-hand thoughts, may be engaging in one of the highest forms of living. As one has often said, thoughts and words are merely symbols and are, for the most part, never the actualities that they stand for and represent. However, most of us live in (and exist through) the domain of thought/thinking. (And we perceive through the screen of thought/thinking.) It’s tragic, really, and (actually) few of us are truly living. We accept authorities and organizations that are, in themselves, rather static, barbaric, and dead. We are followers, rarely thinking and discovering for ourselves. To be second-hand, repeating what was fed into you, is what computers are essentially capable of; it is also what too many of us exclusively do. We were trained to imitate and copy… not to feel and question.
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