The spiritual probligo – I think?
I made reference in the last entry to the principle of spiritual continuance, “The Path to Eternal Life” and subtitled it “Who is afraid of dying”.
That may have been a little on the glib side, a rather off-hand almost too simplistic comment. The relationships between individual and religion are as complex and subtle as are my own beliefs.
Once again I stress that my non-belief in the principles of organized theistic religion is in no way intended to belittle or denigrate them. Should I so do, then I leave myself open to similar criticism and treatment of my beliefs.
It is not surprising perhaps that the primary major thrust of every religion is the process of death and what happens after. The viewpoint may differ from one religion to another, but essentially the message is the same…
To those reading this, I have no desire that my time should come today, tomorrow or even next year. It is far more important to me that I recognize and accept the right time when it arrives.
How can I have such an attitude to life, and more particularly to death? By simple co-incidence one reason was brought home to me just in the past few days. Our Saturday paper featured the start of “Epilepsy Week” with an article on well known Aucklanders who have this condition. It is an article which I read with particular interest, and I was surprised to find (was I?) a reflection by at least two others of the same idea.
In my teens, I had gran mal seizures over the period from puberty through to about age 19. The point in common from those people in the article I mention, to my own experience is the sudden, in my case immediate, shift from “being” to “not being”.
There is no half way house. There is no “tunnel of light”. There is “being”, then there is “nothing”. There is no consciousness of the “nothing”. The only “memory” of the “nothing” comes with the return to consciousness. That, I regret, is about as plainly as I can express it. It is not “imaginable”. To give an idea of how hard this is;
Think of sitting in a very dark room. Now, turn on the light. Can you describe “no light”? Remember that you have experienced “no light”. If you had not had that direct conscious experience, how much more difficult would it have been to describe “no light”. That momentary confusion when the light is turned on; the contrast between “light” and “no light”; holds a key to the experience of waking from a gran mal seizure.
As a more direct parallel, see if you can describe “what it was like before you were born”? Certainly I know that I can not, without direct reference to this idea of “being” and “not being”, and without the benefit of conscious knowledge. I have read of one or two people who purport to describe “pre-birth experience”. There was a whole witch-doctor industry in the 1970’s which was based upon “discovering” the person that experienced and remember that pre-birth experience. I suspect that in fact much of this psycho-babble industry was more in the nature of very vividly imagined “knowledge” than “direct memory”.
There is also similarity in suddenly waking from very deep and dreamless sleep (not the pleasant dozy semi-consciousness after a good night) to full consciousness. There is a point at which the mind (is this the soul?) becomes “aware” of waking. In my case, it is generally about fifteen minutes before the alarm clock goes off. In my wife’s case it is usually about five seconds after the alarm starts up.
For this reason also I have some sympathy with people who try and describe “near death” experiences. They, I suspect, have visited the point between full consciousness and “not being”. In that respect it would seem somewhat similar to the “half waking” or “half sleeping” states. How much of their “memory” of that state, the “long white tunnel” and “the man in the flowing white robe”, is the product of cultural and religious conditioning I am not qualified to judge. I can say with certainty that it is not a state one visits at the onset of a gran mal seizure.
There are also the experiences of death that every person alive has – one’s grand-parents, parents, extended family, and partner’s family member’s deaths all impact in one way and another in “conditioning” to one’s own mortality.
As a child, as a teenager as well, there is generally no thought of death. The exceptions of children with terminal diseases would be otherwise. They seem to have that “special knowledge” of their mortality and often are amazingly accepting of this final step in their lives.
As one gets older, the loss of people of the same generation increases rapidly. It soon becomes a matter of simple statistics as to how many more are bid farewell before your turn comes.
The important thing here is that in my mind at least, I hold every life as dear as does a religious person, perhaps in some respects more so. There are elements of fatalism in there – “when my time comes”. There are the virtues and the responsibility for living a “good life”.
It follows, in my mind, that the only “wasted” life is one that has not already achieved or fulfilled its potential. The teenager killed in a car accident, the loss of a child from leukemia or starvation, or the death of a young adult from meningitis are all tragic and especially so for their families. It must also be recognized that some of these can also include people who have led very full lives, and who have left their small mark upon the world.
That may have been a little on the glib side, a rather off-hand almost too simplistic comment. The relationships between individual and religion are as complex and subtle as are my own beliefs.
Once again I stress that my non-belief in the principles of organized theistic religion is in no way intended to belittle or denigrate them. Should I so do, then I leave myself open to similar criticism and treatment of my beliefs.
It is not surprising perhaps that the primary major thrust of every religion is the process of death and what happens after. The viewpoint may differ from one religion to another, but essentially the message is the same…
It is interesting if we start at this point, because from here we can track quite a number of “consequences”…
• When you die, you don’t REALLY die, you just go “somewhere else”, you
become part of the tribe totem, or maybe you are born “to try again”.
• The “somewhere else” depends upon your ability to comply with the strictures of your beliefs; “good people” will be better off when they die, “bad people” will be
worse off; in some cases, people are provided with a “get out of jail free” pass
such as the souls collected from the battlefield by the Valkyrie in Norse
mythology and who are taken straight to the Elysian Fields.
• The first is the idea of “punishment and reward” for the living. Who in theirSo, how much is this “gift” of eternal life worth to me? Well, to be blunt it is not worth a great deal. Why might that be? Well there are a number of reasons;
right minds would steal a neighbour’s bullock if the consequences were instant
death and a vengeful god “on the other side” making sure that you suffered for
your crime for an extremely unimaginably long time.
• The second consequence is the comfort and solace of the living. The family of a good man “know” that when their time comes to die, the recently departed will be there waiting to greet them, show them around, introduce the ancestors, and they can all have a grand reunion; but once again it is predicated by the ability to comply as a “good person”. Obviously it works the other way as well. The survivors of a very bad person would not be at all keen to end up in the same place. Hence the reward system again encouraging compliance with the religious expectations.
• Next is the obvious construct of social law and mores which I listed as
the second principle of religion. It is simplistic, but the laws of every nation I believe will track back to the culturally acceptable and religious expectation.
• Less obvious perhaps is the place that religious expectations have in maintaining a social structure. It is immaterial whether it is the foundation for a caste system such as that practiced in India, or the fatalistic acceptance of one’s place in life as is commonplace in Bhuddism particularly or any of the other practices that create hierarchies in society.
• First is the fact that I recognize my mortality.To flick on these first and illustrate. If my wife were to die before me, I would have far less trouble handling that, than would my wife if I should predecease her. This is nothing to do with our relationship, who loves who most, or anything like that. It is a simple fact that my wife has far greater emotional impact from a death (even our cat’s demise) than do I. If one of our children were to die, say to be killed in a car accident, I don’t know that I would stay the same – I do not know how I would react in that situation. It is one of those imponderables which are unanswered until it actually happens.
• I also recognize the mortality of others.
• My “reward” in living my life in as virtuous manner as I am able, is in
knowing that I have succeeded. More particularly, it is knowing that in some
small way the world is a better place because of my life.
• When I die, I will be happy to go if for no reason other than I am unable to live any longer in this world. I hope that my family will be able to understand that to be the case when the time comes.
• Finally, and I hope that this is a thread that will wind through all of these posts, dying is no more than the final natural step - the last act in life. In that way it does not differ from being born, growing, being a parent, and seeing your own offspring grow to independence.
To those reading this, I have no desire that my time should come today, tomorrow or even next year. It is far more important to me that I recognize and accept the right time when it arrives.
How can I have such an attitude to life, and more particularly to death? By simple co-incidence one reason was brought home to me just in the past few days. Our Saturday paper featured the start of “Epilepsy Week” with an article on well known Aucklanders who have this condition. It is an article which I read with particular interest, and I was surprised to find (was I?) a reflection by at least two others of the same idea.
In my teens, I had gran mal seizures over the period from puberty through to about age 19. The point in common from those people in the article I mention, to my own experience is the sudden, in my case immediate, shift from “being” to “not being”.
There is no half way house. There is no “tunnel of light”. There is “being”, then there is “nothing”. There is no consciousness of the “nothing”. The only “memory” of the “nothing” comes with the return to consciousness. That, I regret, is about as plainly as I can express it. It is not “imaginable”. To give an idea of how hard this is;
Think of sitting in a very dark room. Now, turn on the light. Can you describe “no light”? Remember that you have experienced “no light”. If you had not had that direct conscious experience, how much more difficult would it have been to describe “no light”. That momentary confusion when the light is turned on; the contrast between “light” and “no light”; holds a key to the experience of waking from a gran mal seizure.
As a more direct parallel, see if you can describe “what it was like before you were born”? Certainly I know that I can not, without direct reference to this idea of “being” and “not being”, and without the benefit of conscious knowledge. I have read of one or two people who purport to describe “pre-birth experience”. There was a whole witch-doctor industry in the 1970’s which was based upon “discovering” the person that experienced and remember that pre-birth experience. I suspect that in fact much of this psycho-babble industry was more in the nature of very vividly imagined “knowledge” than “direct memory”.
There is also similarity in suddenly waking from very deep and dreamless sleep (not the pleasant dozy semi-consciousness after a good night) to full consciousness. There is a point at which the mind (is this the soul?) becomes “aware” of waking. In my case, it is generally about fifteen minutes before the alarm clock goes off. In my wife’s case it is usually about five seconds after the alarm starts up.
For this reason also I have some sympathy with people who try and describe “near death” experiences. They, I suspect, have visited the point between full consciousness and “not being”. In that respect it would seem somewhat similar to the “half waking” or “half sleeping” states. How much of their “memory” of that state, the “long white tunnel” and “the man in the flowing white robe”, is the product of cultural and religious conditioning I am not qualified to judge. I can say with certainty that it is not a state one visits at the onset of a gran mal seizure.
There are also the experiences of death that every person alive has – one’s grand-parents, parents, extended family, and partner’s family member’s deaths all impact in one way and another in “conditioning” to one’s own mortality.
As a child, as a teenager as well, there is generally no thought of death. The exceptions of children with terminal diseases would be otherwise. They seem to have that “special knowledge” of their mortality and often are amazingly accepting of this final step in their lives.
As one gets older, the loss of people of the same generation increases rapidly. It soon becomes a matter of simple statistics as to how many more are bid farewell before your turn comes.
The important thing here is that in my mind at least, I hold every life as dear as does a religious person, perhaps in some respects more so. There are elements of fatalism in there – “when my time comes”. There are the virtues and the responsibility for living a “good life”.
It follows, in my mind, that the only “wasted” life is one that has not already achieved or fulfilled its potential. The teenager killed in a car accident, the loss of a child from leukemia or starvation, or the death of a young adult from meningitis are all tragic and especially so for their families. It must also be recognized that some of these can also include people who have led very full lives, and who have left their small mark upon the world.
posted by The probligo at 6:10 PM
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