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in these anecdotal,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes personal meanderings of the Heart's opening in the every-day-ness of life...

Sunday, August 21, 2016

What Remains After Death...


I seem to be drawn to the topic of "death" lately - especially after watching this creative you tube video called "The Life of Death", which really impacted me.  Not in a morbid way, but in opening the door to bring awareness to the reality of "my" mortality - the certainty of exiting life as "i" know it... It left me feeling that death is really always with us.  It's right here - part of life. We know this, but we often avoid the idea.  But what really happens when we die...  Does this thing we call "consciousness" really "go on"?  What's left, if anything...  Is there truly a Greater Cosmic Beingness in which we are absorbed after physicality is gone?

My personal belief has been that our personal identity as a human being does not "go on" - that is, the "ego"/personality does not...  My belief has been that this "i"-wave called "christine" does not go on as christine, but dissolves into the Greater Ocean of Beingness - that famous analogy of the wave receding back into the Ocean...  But do I believe that because I like that scenario over others?  And will "i" know this is happening?  Will there be awareness?  I don't know...  Who really knows...  Just meandering here...

My father died in the early morning hours before dawn - we think - sitting in his chair in the living room.  He evidently couldn't sleep and had gotten up sometime in the middle of the night to sit in his chair.  My mother was still asleep in bed, and told the story later that Dad had come to her in what she thought was a dream and said: "Skip, I just died."  When she awoke at 5 am, he was not in bed.  She got up and found him dead in his chair.  Now some may call this woo-woo stuff, but...  who knows! Was my father aware of his death?  How exciting!  Did his consciousness go on, able to communicate somehow with my mother? And if so, how long did his consciousness linger...  Is this "dissolving" a gradual thing...  The Buddhists believe that one goes through what they call a Bardo period of "traveling" after death for something like 30 days or more.  But how do they know this? My father had had a near death experience several years before his actual death, in which his heart stopped after open heart surgery and he was "clinically" dead for a few minutes...  But was *he* "gone"?  Evidently not, as "he" was revived, and reported to us that he was now not afraid of death because his experience of dying, which he believed to be real, was peaceful.  There was something there that experienced "peace."  Fascinating...

My grandmother died in the hospital, having fallen and hitting her head, creating a blood clot under her skull requiring surgery.  After several days the decision was made to remove all life support because she was not improving...  I was not present when she died, but upon entering the room a half hour later, or so, I was gifted with an intensely tangible presence of Love that I have never experienced before, nor since.  It was like a warm presence that absolutely engulfed the room...  What was this!?  It was not the love I had for my grandmother, nor her's for me, but a greater Love.  

I realize now that it is this Greater Love that absorbs us, is what remains and "goes on."  Whether "we" retain anything of consciousness or the personal self remains a mystery.

In death and beyond there is only Infinite Love...


~*~

Photo -Imprint of a bird and wings in the snow


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