So how can you enjoy life fearing death?
It is not really a case of actively fearing death. I do not really fear it, because I know that I will simply carry on in my spiritual form and take on a new body. I see it very much like sleeping. However, what I do fear as everybody else probably does, is the actual process of dying. Everybody knows what it feels like to be suffocating, gasping for air, it is not very pleasent. Well, this is exactly what everybody has to face in the end.
I think the very fact that it so unpleasent and hard to die prevents so many of us from giving up in life. If it was as simple as pressing a button and dying, almost everybody on this planet would have pressed the button by now.
[QUOTE=Techne;31748]Sure: I’ll try it this way:
During this experience you changed your mind: noticed that you were lying to yourself about not being afraid of dying. Now that you’re not using your energy to tell yourself that lie, what do you get to do instead?[/QUOTE]
Maybe the OP isn’t afraid of dying but just didn’t want to die at that time and in the manner described.
Again I agree with SD, I don’t actively walk around fearing death, but if a bus was traveling in my direction, I’m out of there without even thinking about it. It’s called fight or flight, and it’s what keeps us alive. If a fear of death did indeed make us unable to enjoy life (which I don’t agree that it does unless we developed an anxiety disorder), then that’s just too bad. We are survival machines, and our instincts to stay alive are far more dominant than our desire for enjoyment. If we where suddenly in an environment which necessitated us to either be unhappy or dead, we are wired to pick unhappy every time. This is how Evolution by Natural selection works.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;38344]However, what I do fear as everybody else probably does, is the actual process of dying. Everybody knows what it feels like to be suffocating, gasping for air, it is not very pleasent. Well, this is exactly what everybody has to face in the end.
I think the very fact that it so unpleasent and hard to die prevents so many of us from giving up in life. If it was as simple as pressing a button and dying, almost everybody on this planet would have pressed the button by now.[/QUOTE]
Nope, it’s not like that. I tell you because I had a death experience. Not near-death, REAL-death experience ! My heart stopped for 4 min 16 sec. officially and I was resuscitated. My experience was due to a trauma, when I clashed with another biker on a mountain and rolled over a very steep cliff. I was conscious on my way to the hospital but my heart stopped when I arrived at the hospital room. The experience was totally unfathomable !
I remember OSHO’s words, “the very moment of death is painful, only if you have attachments to the world.” Because you don’t want to leave the world, that’s why one cannot let go his/her breathing at the moment of death and suffocates. However, if you are familiar with the breathless state from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, you’ll know that one can have a conscious death when the moment comes. If one can master the breathless state in deep meditation, then it’s practically a death experience, only that your body still lives.
Death is like a very deep meditation. Very similar to it. And it’s so unfathomable! I have a death wish everyday, for I like risking my life in the mountains and hope that I’ll have a very good death one day 
When you had this death experience did you feel any physical pain?
[QUOTE=lotusgirl;38337]So how can you enjoy life fearing death?[/QUOTE]
No to fear it I guess…
We just do not face the death too often in everyday life. Ask the people who work in those cold cellars filled with corps under the hospital ( I do not know the name for the place). They do not really scared of death.
Most of people who came back from the brutal wars do not afraid. Some people who had experienced clinical death and survived.
[QUOTE]Quote:
Originally Posted by lotusgirl
So how can you enjoy life fearing death?
No to fear it I guess…
[/QUOTE]
You got it!
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;38389]When you had this death experience did you feel any physical pain?[/QUOTE]
There was a physical pain. And it happened when I hit my chest and broke couple of ribs. I have endured tha pain surprisingly without feeling anything; my luck, my chest got numb. On my way to the ER, I gradually started to loose consciousness and fainted ~ my biker friend reported so. I don’t think I felt anything quite immense, except the first ten seconds after I broke my ribs. It was like sleeping when I fell unconscious; apparently, my breathing hadn’t stopped immediately and lasted till I went asystole (no cardiac electric activity). That state continued, as I said, for over 4 min, and I was resuscitated with CPR. When I came back to breathing, I felt very very heavy, and had difficulty in breathing. Actually, that heaviness was quite painful.
I can’t believe how many people don’t fear death here. That would be amazing! If you were victim of a home invasion, by a couple of shotgun wielding junkies, you could just smile and wave, or if someone pushed you in front of I train, you’d just shrug your shoulders, instead of run for your life, or if you were mistakenly recognized as a mass murder and got given the death penalty, you’d be like ‘At least I don’t have to go to work anymore’, or if you were under heavy fire, in a war, and your comrades yelled ‘keep your head down!! Your gunna get your head blown of!!!’ you could reply ‘don’t tell me what to do, bossy boots!’
YogiAdam,
I think what several of us said is that while we don’t fear actual death, we do fear the process. Whether it’s getting hit by a bus, cancer or what not. No one likes pain. Especially the prospect of a bus hitting you! Does that help?
[QUOTE=lotusgirl;38444]YogiAdam,
I think what several of us said is that while we don’t fear actual death, we do fear the process. Whether it’s getting hit by a bus, cancer or what not. No one likes pain. Especially the prospect of a bus hitting you! Does that help?[/QUOTE]
No, you just don’t listen. All you care about is being right!!!.. Ok, I was being sarcastic there lol Seriously though… Yeah, I actual I did consider that you may have been saying that, but I couldn’t resist sharing the idea of a solder under fire, being attacked and his comrades telling him to get down, and the soldier replying “Stop being a bossy boots”. My reply wasn’t so much about arguing a point, as it was more just about typing cause I’m bored and like the sound of my own voice You got to admit, what I said was pretty creative
No, you just don’t listen. All you care about is being right!!!.. Ok, I was being sarcastic there lol
That better have been sarcasm YogiAdam!:rolleyes:
But do you understand the difference in fearing the process and not fearing actual death? If a bus was heading straight toward me, of course I would move. The prospect of the pain from being hit by a bus would make me move out of the way. I don’t have a death wish, but when it’s my time, I will not fear the actual moment of death. Again, I believe if you have lived a good life you will not fear death.
There are people who don’t fear death. They’re amazing. I’d be lying if I said I don’t.
I agree with others that it is the way you die that produces fear…being strangled and fighting against it will produce fear, I dont believe a more peacful type of death will produce this fear.
You can practice the very first stage of death by accidentally or on purpose, holding your breath, long enough, during meditation…the air will come out of your left ear sounding like a train…tiny bells are also present which you hear.high up in your head…this is the 1st stage of death.
It will help you familiarise yourself with this and recognise it when your time comes. And of course there are other steps in the process.but this is the first.
Familiarisation with the death process helps to reduce fear at the time it begins.
Kind Regards Kareng
[QUOTE=kareng;38511]I agree with others that it is the way you die that produces fear…being strangled and fighting against it will produce fear, I dont believe a more peacful type of death will produce this fear.
You can practice the very first stage of death by accidentally or on purpose, holding your breath, long enough, during meditation…the air will come out of your left ear sounding like a train…tiny bells are also present which you hear.high up in your head…this is the 1st stage of death.
It will help you familiarise yourself with this and recognise it when your time comes. And of course there are other steps in the process.but this is the first.
Familiarisation with the death process helps to reduce fear at the time it begins.
Kind Regards Kareng[/QUOTE]
lol, hilarious!!!
HA…i am enjoying this yogiadam…what are your beliefs then…do you have any?
King Regards Kareng
[QUOTE=YogiAdam;38443] That would be amazing! If you were victim of a home invasion, by a couple of shotgun wielding junkies, you could just smile and wave, )[/QUOTE]
They would got so scared and frustrated that probably would drop their guns and run:)
BY the way… the human being is the only one spice on the Earth who aware of his own mortality… isn’t it interesting?
[QUOTE=FlexPenguin;38501]There are people who don’t fear death. They’re amazing. I’d be lying if I said I don’t.[/QUOTE]
Yep. But I can not recall if I met one or not:)