Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts

Sunday, September 1, 2019

What happens to our ego when we die?


Human beings are, we are taught, the only animal species that knows it is going to die. We live in fear of death most of our lives. This fear is rich territory for religion to take over by providing people comfort and eliciting their allegiance to their creeds and financial support oftheir institutions.

As Paul Pearsall suggests, if we want to understand a person, know what ultimately makes them tick and motivates them, we need to understand what their understanding is of what happens to them when they die.

My answer is “nothing”. We go back to where we came from, nothingness. I see no evidence that there is any human consciousness after physical death. If there were human consciousness after death, I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams how that could be or what it would look like.
What we have is now, is this life, and the memories we will leave behind for a short time in the consciousnesses of those who survive us.

Part of growing old gracefully is the acceptance of this nothingness and the giving up of childish fantasies. Childish fantasies may give comfort and hope and calm our fears. This is perfectly OK, if people need this, but it is childish and not the sign of a mature soul.

We are all a part of the universe of the interdependent web of life and the manifestation of energy that we call me is released back into the power grid and gets used for some other purpose that we have no idea of. As my teachers told me in seminary when I was an adolescent, “David, it is a mystery.” It is a mystery, indeed, and one to which we must eventually submit ourselves.

We can go out terrified, kicking and screaming, believing in fantasies, or accepting gratefully the lives we have had, and the re-integration back into the cosmic mystery.

The Universalists believe that we are not bodies but we are Love and as the Beatles sang, "Love is all there is."



I'd love to hear and sing this song about love in church. It's my kind of church music.

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Ask Alexa - Where does the fear of death come from?

Alexa: Where does the fear of death come from?

Attachment to the ego which is but a social construction, an illusion, and nothing but a figment of the imagination which must be discarded to become one with the all.

Alexa:Did you hear about the woman named Penny who wrote her funeral wishes in her will stating that she wished to be cremated so that her ashes could be kept on her daughter's mantle.

Yes, the daughter told the rest of her family and friends that "a Penny saved is a Penny urned."


Monday, June 3, 2019

Ask Alexa: What happens when I die?

Alexa: When the day comes that my spirit will be pried lose from my body what will happen to it?

You will become one with the all as the law of physics called the "conservation of energy" tells us.

Alexa:Did you hear about the guy who dated a fitness instructor?

Yes and they didn't work out.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Love does not die - just changes form

I was taught and many other people too in my Catholic upbringing that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. A Course In Miracles makes it clear that the body is not the temple of the Holy Spirit but relationships are. It is written in ACIM: "The Holy Spirit's temple is not a body, but a relationship." T-20.VI.5:1 Section VI, The Temple of the Holy Spirit describes this idea in more detail. It is our relationship with our Creator and our fellow Creations in which the Holy Spirit abides. Jesus told us the same thing in the New Testament when he said, "Where two or more are gathered together in My name, there I will be."

Rev. Marlin Lavenhar at All Souls Church in Tulsa Oklahoma gave a wonderful sermon on October 29, 2017 entitled "Gone But Never Forgotten" in which he makes the point that love never dies. Bodies do, but not love. Love just changes form. Love is eternal. People with highly developed spiritual awareness know this. It is another indicator of spiritual maturity.


Sunday, June 25, 2017

Unitarian Universalism and the good life and good death

Nothing can provide a spur to one's spiritual life like a brush with death. Facing one's mortality square in the face brings existential concerns front and center. Considering one's imminent death leads one to reflect on what one has done with one's life and what is left to do - the so called "bucket list."

For me consideration of the end of my life left me feeling full of gratitude and thinking of all the people I was grateful to and wanted to say good bye to. It dawned on me that getting to the end of one's life and being full of gratitude is the sign and largest criterion for what we call "the good life."

The "good life" is one, the philosopher's tell us, comprised of virtue. Has one lived a life based on honesty, kindness, compassion, effort, good work, appreciation of beauty, recognition of evil, and awareness of one's Higher Power?

A life of reverence is better than a life of cynicism although cynicism has its place. "Don't mistake my being kind for being a fool," is an important principle. However, love and forgiveness trumps everything else.

Facing one's imminent death focuses one's attention and priority setting becomes much more desired. What is really important? "Will this make a difference after I am dead for the world left behind" becomes the navigational North Star by which one can make decisions.

People have said that they never started living until they were faced with their imminent death. Nothing focuses one's attention as well on what is really important.

What does Unitarian Universalism have to teach us about how to die well? Having lived a life based on the seven principles and using the six sources is a blessing. Perhaps Unitarian Universalism could flourish more if it promoted its principles as a way of life that leads to a good death full of satisfaction and fulfillment because of a life well lived.
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