HOW TO GO BEYOND THE FEAR OF DEATH?
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Though we know from the moment of birth that our life will culminate in death, we never try to visualize it. We never try to actualize the possibility; we never try to welcome it. At least once if you go through it with consciousness, you will lose your fear for it automatically. When you conquer the fear of death, you conquer death itself, because death is just one more imagination! Just like how our greed makes us imagine the world to be more beautiful than it actually is, here our fear makes us imagine death to be more frightening than it actually is
Unless death becomes a
conscious experience, the
fear will never leave you. But
you can do one thing.
Repeatedly listen to these
words. Develop a conviction
about them. Try to see how
your minor and major fears
are actually related to the
fear of dying. Bring some
clarity into all your day-to-
day fears. See how
interrelated all your fears are.
Bring awareness into your
fears. Then you will steadily
evolve and come closer to
the truth
WHY DO PEOPLE FEAR DEATH?
The main reason why people fear
death is, they have not lived
their lives totally. They are afraid
because they feel desperate that
they have not lived life enough.
They feel this way because
throughout their lives they have
lived in memories of the past, in
the anxieties of the future, for
the sake of others, never in the
present.
HOW DO YOU LIVE LIFE TOTALLY?
Try to live with more clarity,
that's all. Make the other
people see sense in whatever
they try to impose upon you.
With clarity, you will be able
to identify what your own
desires are, what others have
imposed on you and what
desires you have borrowed
from others. The first set of
desires alone need to be
fulfilled without any harm to
any person or property. The
other two need to be
dropped with the help of
clarity
HOW DO YOU LIVE LIFE TOTALLY?
If you live this way, you will no more be fulfilling others' desires and you will be no more living others' lives. You will live your own life, and experience fulfillment, and you will be ready to die when the time comes. You will have no lurking confusion and fear of death.
A SMALL STORY
Once a Zen monk was ordered
by the king to be put to death.
He was supposed to be killed the
next day. The monk remained
calm and silent. One of his
disciples, shocked by the monk’s
calmness, asked him, ‘Do you
realize you have only 24 hours to
live? Are you not afraid?’ The
monk replied calmly, ‘I have
lived, and therefore I have no
fear of dying.’
If you look deep inside, you will
realize that most of us are not
afraid of dying, but we are afraid
that we haven’t lived our lives
enough. We are afraid that we
have lived a pseudo life. We feel
a deep unexplainable regret
about the whole thing. We feel
we have not lived as we wanted
to live. We don’t feel fulfilled –
and there starts the fear of death
HOW TO GO BEYOND FEAR?
When you start loving
beyond names and forms,
you are not losing anything,
you are only losing what you
are not; the illusion which
you need to lose. What you
have gained is reality. So just
have faith and don't fear
when you find yourself
merging with the whole.
HOW TO GO BEYOND FEAR?
Understand: Fear is always
imprisoning, while love is always
liberating. But unless society instills
fear into you, you will not listen to
it and so it instills fear in you
through all possible means –
through insecurity, rules,
regulations, worship etc.
