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"A man of knowledge (...) knows that his life will be over altogether too soon. He knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived (...) Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't. So when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern."
Carlos Castaneda
The Gift of Death
"You didn't come into this world. You came out of it."
Alan Watts
"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
Susan Ertz
"Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he can't deny himself anything. A man of that sort, however, does not crave, for he has acquired a silent lust for life and for all things of life. He knows his death is stalking him and won't give him time to cling to anything, so he tries, without craving, all of everything."
Carlos Castaneda
The only certainty for us is the moment of death of the body, which means death of the person with whom we identify today and that it's getting closer every moment. Our face, character and name make us something specific and unique among people. The tricky part is that they are disposable and have a limited time to perform their dance before the world. Properly used awareness of the inevitability of the end of a personal experience can unlock resources of power and passion for life. It can give lightness in relationships, in decision-making and in meeting one's deepest natural needs.
Only by understanding the full cycle we are subjected to will make our flow through life smooth, that is, with as little pain as possible. The widespread fear of death and the daily denial of the prospect of not being here robs us of the only thing we really have - time to use to unleash our potential and to have fulfilling us experiences. Spiritual development by force and striving only for safety is a waste of that time.
A good approach to the impermanence of the personal world we create gives freedom that is difficult to express. Death teaches us that we own nothing but our time and stewardship of it. Everything we build and accumulate stays down here. Buying or building is actually juggling according to the fluid nature of life. By having distance from the desire to own, the feeling of being threatened by the system, or the opinions of others about ourselves, we loosen our grip trying to catch and keep life for our own use. It's like trying to catch flowing water - the tighter is your grip, the less water you have in it. The greater the panic with which you cling to life, the more you deprive yourself of it.
Immortality would be a curse for humans. Nothing would have a value if we had unlimited time and unlimited attempts to achieve any goal. Boredom and lack of motivation for action would kill the spirit of such a civilization. This is not to say that immortality of the body, or at least a much longer life, does not exist in the universe. It's just that it's not for us yet. At this level of our consciousness, it is necessary to throw ourselves into the unknown and learn about ourselves. Even our individual characteristics are "borrowed" and we will have to part with them, so use them without remorse and shine them among other people without restraint. People who, consciously or not, are in the same situation. Don't judge yourself for your experiences and current state. Don't take yourself too seriously and let life change according to its nature. Allow the body to wear out, people to leave, and yourself to benefit from the current state of yourself. Just get rid of the fear of death, because the fear of death, is the fear of life. And you can't be afraid of something with which you are deeply reconciled.
So how do we approach phenomena like fatal accidents, suicides, murders, or unborn children? From our experience, such situations affect many people at once making many changes and, contrary to common opinions, are never accidental. Here, however, everyone has to develop his/her own approach, because as we wrote earlier in Information Addiction - there are always many differing views on a matter, and all are correct depending on the breadth of perspective. In any emergency, one should first accept the new condition and only then try to return to balance.
Then what about our spiritual immortality? We die and what happens next? It is good to finally get rid of the misconception that death is a retirement in other dimensions. Death is an awakening from the dream of being man. Once awakened, the dream has little meaning for us. We will return to a more original form of consciousness that is not identifying much to what we are today. What you are now, your loved ones, your fate and personal thoughts need your attention now. After death you won't be interested with them because another will come along which, by the way, will also "consider" themselves to be the right and eternal ones.
Today look behind you and smile at your death. It is there. Every day death stands behind us with arms outstretched, and it is a gate wider open and friendlier than birth. In fact, it's the same gate just opposite directions of passage. Let nature do its thing and give it power over your end at any time. If you don't accept this and take this responsibility on yourself, you are one of the many walking dead - you are a life burned out on guarding itself from death, with which you are one anyway.
The state of struggle for survival and for dominance comes from a lack of understanding that we are only a fleeting part of the whole. We are not a colonizer who has come from other world to conquer this one - we are a handful of pixels that have replaced the previous ones in displaying a rippling picture of the universe, and which will be replaced in a moment by the next ones. The general laws, the grading system, the regular shapes of buildings and devices, the covering of large areas with flat pavements, and rigid religious and scientific dogmas are all manifestations of man's opposition to the variability and fluidity of reality. An opposition to death. The phenomenon itself is not a bad thing. Unlike the rest of nature on this planet, humans are creative and actively change their environment. Our progress requires compromises. For us as humanity at our current level of development, this is in a sense a natural way of expression. The question is: How far are we from the point of balance?
It is a paradox of the human psyche that the fear of death makes us act as if we were immortal. We accept long years of sacrifice and hard work for a distant future, where for a seemingly unlimited time we will rest safely and enjoy the fruits of our labor. We look forward to graduating from school, to getting promoted, to developing a company, to growing up and moving our children out, to retirement... For most of our lives we are investing our strength, time and mental comfort in a future where life has yet to begin. We create in our heads an infinitely long rest in prosperity relative to those ridiculous few decades of hard work. This gives some consolation and justification for the current inconveniences. The people of Western civilization have maintained this lunacy for generations, even though observation of others who are already on their last stage shows that it doesn't work.
What modern man doesn't understand is that once he has achieved a satisfactory social status and financial security, he won't start a happy life overnight - he won't be able to, because he never learned to do so. Many years of race, struggle and fear for survival have become his natural state. This cannot be quickly reversed. It takes years to change such fundamental habits.