DEATH
[Please see the Introduction posted March 2013]
Death is of course, not the end; we continue to
continue. But, the internal split also continues; it can only be healed during
life/incarnation. I suspect that the split at death is between the spirit and
the soul, rather than NOVAK’s (which see) argument that it is between the
conscious and unconscious which is split during life, but that is academic for
the practical purposes of this UUS.
The ‘judgement/assessing’ of the Bible appears to be
our chance to assess how we have done in this life, but we can choose to avoid
that too. There are too many people who have said ‘my life ran before my eyes’
as they thought they were going to die, as well as the number of people who
have had NDE’s to think otherwise. ‘Assessing’ is the business of facing ourselves,
and that can be a very uncomfortable process indeed, such that many will not do
it; this time. Notice here that the person doing the assessing is not God, or
the church or anyone else but you; you are the one that carries the memories.
We don’t even like this one; it implies that if someone does not feel guilty,
they won’t even feel the blame, which is correct in that they may not; but the
mirror laws are always there, whether we know it or not.
Through reincarnation we carry whatever our decisions
about Life may be along with us to the next life, where we will receive
feedback about these decisions, and so we continue on and on.
We are ‘dust’ = earth.
There’s a lot about ‘dust’ in the story of Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden; ‘Dust we are, and dust we shall become’.
This was part of God’s ‘cursings’ in the story, so we
consider this a curse, but we forget that God is not going to curse anyone;
what for, if She needs nothing from us?. But we are made of earth, and I
suspect that there is something inherently powerful in that, even if the
‘powerful’ is only for our own purposes, and, I don’t actually know what that
‘power’ might be, except to guess that it is by coming back to our own bodies
and to just exactly who we are and what we have and what we can do, that makes
us ‘powerful’. The instruction may well include considering that we will die
sometime, so we need to consider/remember that we are mortal; life is fleeting
etc, etc.
It is also true that the more you are able to connect
directly to Earth, the more you will be able to draw energy from the Earth. You
may be able to notice that as you do so, Earth considers that you are good
enough for her, as is true for all creations made from earth. How could she
think otherwise? If you feel ‘good enough’ you can feel safe; the safety that
comes from not being judged or compared. This is a pretty good feeling.
Death follows life as night follows day. It is not
only our chance to rest and take time out, but also to ‘start over’ and tackle
it all again. But, ultimately we need it to inform life.
By informing life, I mean asking the ‘death
questions’, some of which are…
‘What would you do today if….
..You were to die tomorrow?
..You were to die within 3 to 6 months?
..You became ill and only had x months to live; and
so on?
I spend more time on these in the goal-setting
chapter.
These types of questions help you to work out what is
important to you, and what you want and what you can do about it. That is why
we ask them. They inform you about your life. Who are you, and what would you
change? The pressure here is on you to ask, especially about what you value the
most, and usually that’s relationships and love. But, notice too, that all of
these questions are about you having to ‘go inside’ and ask your InSelf for the
answers.
We fear it; it is the end of what we know, (as well
as the potential for the assessing which can actually feel worse). On the other
hand, many people don’t know why they are alive and are not that interested
either, so they don’t really care either way. Life has a habit of trying to
make/help them care, even if it is a solid ‘whack around the ear-holes’ and
sometimes it is just that, especially if we will not take any notice any other
way.
In the end, the person you get to face is your real
Self which is hidden within the InSelf. It is that unknown ‘other’ (have I said
this before?). We would like to run from our fears or we try to block them as
much as possible. But, there is no way out, only through. We get to face our
fears and we do that by understanding that everyone fears their fears as we
fear terrible dragons. The question is when, not if we face them.
Facing ourselves = facing our own dragons.
Our society has many myths and tales about horrible
dragons breathing fire, who sit on a great pile of treasure and defend it. And
of heroes who fight these dragons and become owners of this treasure and thus
able to win great things in life.
These ‘dragons’ are your fears and guilt and shame
because that is exactly what they feel like. Facing them is what fighting the
dragons is about. They are very frightening, and awful. They are terribly
strong, tricky and agile; they breathe fire and can burn us and even kill us,
and want to. They must be treated with the deepest respect for their
powers to kill us, because they can.
You must armour yourself with your resources and
check that these resources are in working order first. This means finding out
what these resources actually are and practicing on something very small or
‘fake’ first, and work up. Think of knights practicing with jousting posts and
wooden swords and finding and developing their own strengths first.
There may be several jousts as you try to battle the
dragon and you learn what the dragon can do, but when you win and the dragon is
dead, you get the treasure, and become ‘wealthy’. You have been heroic,
and will feel stronger internally and be able to tackle more dragons if needs
be. The internal ‘wealth’ is the Insights.
There is truly nothing more heroic than facing and
killing your own dragons, and the ‘treasure’ is immense, and there is always
‘treasure’. We will deeply ‘treasure’ what we find when we kill the dragon and
inspect what was underneath it.
This UUS includes a useful method for tackling many
of them, but not all. Some of them do need 2 people, and are thus not DIY;
you will have to have help for them. I discuss this in Trauma (which see).
Death and Life.
We tend to think of death as the opposite of life,
but it actually isn’t; it is part of life, and in fact, it is our greatest ally
in learning to live correctly for ourselves.
The opposite of life is un-life. It comes about
through un-love. But another opposite can be non-life.
So, what do we think life is? If we were truly alive,
what would we be? We might be what…?
And here’s a list of opposites (again). Once again,
as always, the concept and its opposite are on the same line. And, once again,
you may like to add your own concepts…
About building a list of contrasts.
A list of contrasts builds a ‘picture’ or a ‘feeling’
(depending on how we take in information). Notice that each word is a separate
concept or Modality that we use to build up these pictures, with the more
modalities making a more compelling and specific/particular picture/definition.
Some of the modalities used here are colour, brightness, movement, temperature,
and so on. The ‘opposites’ are not necessarily fixed in that your opposites may
be different from mine.
But the point here is that increasing the number of
modalities builds the picture increasingly clearly.
LIFE vs.
NON-LIFE
= ‘Ghost’
Vital Sluggish,
still
Colourful Grey,
colourless
Giving Wanting
Warm Cold
Expressive Dumb,
silent
Creative Consuming
Trusting Fearful
Having Taking
Relating Alone
‘Present’, Real Invisible,
unseen
Happy Sad
‘Fed’ Hungry
Effective Impotent
Passion Boredom
Free Trapped,
stuck
Etc. Etc.
My argument here is that an opposite of life is the
ghost, and that makes us really fearful, and rightly so. And yet, it is
far more likely to creep into our lives when we refuse to ask the ‘death
questions’.
[Children know all about ‘the ghost’; any attention
being indeed better than none.]
Cynicism.
I also think that we need to beware of cynicism,
which tends to build as we have trouble believing in what we are told to
believe. We kind of end up in a limbo land of can’t believe what we’re
‘supposed to believe’ and can’t work out what might be useful to us to believe
(and make sense too?). It seems so self-indulgent to look for or well, actually
find a belief system that keeps us happy, but what use is your unhappiness, to
yourself or to others? Were you wanting to spread it around? Cynicism makes us
sad ‘at bottom’ which brings in the ‘greyness’, and really, it’s the greyness
that can be a useful warning that we might be heading in the wrong direction.
Where else might ‘greyness’ be in our lives?
Well, have you looked around at city environments
lately? Concrete, steel, glass and bitumen; so little plant material or
anything that belongs in nature unless it’s a useful office plant. Lots of
coloured lights to cover it up, but it’s still there. We all wear black as we
go about our working lives. Modern colours for gymnasiums and many
corporate-style meeting places are grey, white and black, with red for luck. Is
this what you want in your life? If we dance, it’s by ourselves in the dark
with a few lights thrown around, and being deafened. If we sing, it’s others’
music’ in a beat (rock; heavy metal) that kills life, and deafens us with
generally sad/angry ‘male’ words about ‘the lost only lerv’.
So, the upshot?
I think the upshot of this is that there are some really
scary things that can happen to us when we will not submit, ‘turn around’, face
ourselves, and use life to learn about who we are inside. They are not
punishments per se, or even threats, but they are the
consequences of energy laws that extend from love to un-love; life to un-life.
It is not easy, we don’t like it, and don’t want to
do it, but getting to be partners with God is what we need and want to do, and
we truly love it when we ‘get’ that, and there’s more. There’s always more. The
Universe expands all the time; (apparently even the earth is expanding).
Life is Fierce.
It really is. The Mirror Laws are fierce in
terms of ‘watch out’; even Being at Choice is fierce. It’s up to you. Life can
give us some awful whacks if we won’t ‘wake up’. It seems to be really hard and
mean to even say this. We actually like the idea of staying as a child, but we
mustn’t and we can’t. All we have to do is look at and watch animal behaviour
in the wild, but we can’t do it without judging. We refuse to look at this. We
want life to be all nice and ‘lovey-dovey’ and our way and get very cross and
sorry for ourselves when it isn’t.
This does not mean you need to hide under a rock, or
be afraid or avoid the natural world, but it does mean be careful, observant,
awake, and use all your senses, including your intuition, as you explore life.
Animals get to do it all the time.
Finding our own power for ourselves as we head toward
being a full Adult; (it’s a kind of ‘powerless power’ in a strange way because
it is not a ‘power over’ anyone); is immensely rewarding.
And that’s what this UUS is saying Life is for.
Facing death and submitting to the information that
Life brings to us is the way through (it’s not out). It’s not if; it’s when.
When will you stand and Look; now or later? As we do so, Life becomes a
Present, and we live with our own Purpose which leads to great satisfaction
with Self, ie, proper Self-esteem (TSE) and ‘fed’-ness. There is a feeling of
great internal Security here; it is the ‘house built on rock’. [As well as that
‘Rest in Peace’ bit.]
And now we go on to the next chapter which is about
Wanting to be Like God.
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