The New Life-Span
The modern age has not brought us physical immortality, but it certainly has increased our longevity. It is probable most of us will live well into our 70s and 80s. Or even older.
Along with this successful battle against early expiration has come a cultural consciousness which deplores death and glorifies the sustainance of the individual self above all else.
Such an attitude creates quite a conflict when the natural ebbs and flows of life require a person to let go of what was and become what is -- undergo one of the "little deaths", as I have many times called it. A person may be straight unwilling to do it, continue clinging to the past, and eventually suffer a much more dramatic loss, as life simply must go on.
Unfortunately, almost no one talks about death. The subject is taboo -- you are somewhat morbid if you go there. And afterall, who is anybody to talk about it? To really know anything about it, you would have to have been dead! So, there may be no experts. . .
None-the-less, people are dying right and left, here and there, and everywhere. Death is front-page news. In many smaller ways, children growing up and going away to college, divorces, career-changes, and an infinite list of more sublime life changes are causing people to confront the experience of death.
Still, there is no language for it! And the irony, in this modern era, is that -- due to increased lifespan -- each of us will persevere many more "death" experiences than ever before!
Still nobody is talking about it.
It is my humble belief that this dialogue must come to the surface so that people can truly begin to benefit from this miracle of medicine and technology. And then, when the natural end comes to a period of your life, go with it. Allow yourself to be reborn into the next phase of your growth. Begin to understand death as a natural process of Eternal Life.
Along with this successful battle against early expiration has come a cultural consciousness which deplores death and glorifies the sustainance of the individual self above all else.
Such an attitude creates quite a conflict when the natural ebbs and flows of life require a person to let go of what was and become what is -- undergo one of the "little deaths", as I have many times called it. A person may be straight unwilling to do it, continue clinging to the past, and eventually suffer a much more dramatic loss, as life simply must go on.
Unfortunately, almost no one talks about death. The subject is taboo -- you are somewhat morbid if you go there. And afterall, who is anybody to talk about it? To really know anything about it, you would have to have been dead! So, there may be no experts. . .
None-the-less, people are dying right and left, here and there, and everywhere. Death is front-page news. In many smaller ways, children growing up and going away to college, divorces, career-changes, and an infinite list of more sublime life changes are causing people to confront the experience of death.
Still, there is no language for it! And the irony, in this modern era, is that -- due to increased lifespan -- each of us will persevere many more "death" experiences than ever before!
Still nobody is talking about it.
It is my humble belief that this dialogue must come to the surface so that people can truly begin to benefit from this miracle of medicine and technology. And then, when the natural end comes to a period of your life, go with it. Allow yourself to be reborn into the next phase of your growth. Begin to understand death as a natural process of Eternal Life.
posted by Just Greg at Monday, February 20, 2006
3 Comments:
Discussion. dialogue. I think it begins between Parent and child. Don't start early....but don't start to late. Don't let Expericence be the teacher for this course. Pay for this College credit. Life is good....but death is real.
The question is how to link the multiple lives lived. I figure that I have already lived four lives in this one lifespan and they sure do not seem contiguous. Take the lessons, learn from them, and then leave the past life behind? Why can't we we learn and continue in the same "life" when we finally know enough to change it? It seems to be the finality of something that changes our actions, thereby rendering the knowledge only suitable for the next "life." Instead of broken threads, I would sure prefer a lifespan that is woven out of one cloth.
In response to Anonymous: The "linking of the multiple lives" business.
Friend,your intuition, your hope for a contiguous thread -- I believe -- is valid. More than valid, I believe actually, it is true.
Afterall (and with respect to all that you have lost in each "lifetime"), is there not one over-riding aspect of continuity, that is, YOU??
Nothing of my childhood remains today, except perhaps the pain of it -- and yet I very much experience my life almost as if I am still a child. I can say that honestly, because smells, de ja vu, and an infinite list of circumstances will create experiences for me which irrefutably remind me of moments in my childhood! At that moment, the cycle seems very much woven of one immense fabric, larger than will ever be possible for my mortal mind to comprehend.
It is from that stepping stone that the chakras other than the intellect will become even more treasured, as they are our means of more closely knowing the divine.
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