Why Do We Have to Die?

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”  Lao Tzu

I have the dubious distinction of having "died" three times, experiences I definitely don't recommend; and obviously, I didn't really die because I wouldn't be talking to you now. What I did do was to survive three "Near Death Experiences," each one completely different from the other; and since my books about it (and more), How to Survive Life (and Death) and How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) were published, I've found myself answering a lot of questions about what death is, what it's like to die, and to the point of this piece: Why do we have to die?

Well, apparently I came back to give you some good news, and some bad news, all based on my (painfully obtained) understanding of it. The good news is that we don't really die, spiritually speaking, we only die to this life of flesh and bones and blood (but many of you suspected as much, I'm sure). The bad news is that we do have to die – our souls seem to require it. On top of that, we have to die in a number of different ways, none of which are all that pleasant, and all of which seem designed to accomplish the same thing. Here's what I mean by that:

If you've ever been around a loved one who's dying, or if you've ever been gravely ill or injured yourself, you know that there's no bluster left in your game in those moments. No claim to fame or fortune remains at all relevant in that grounding bubble of unfortunate reality. What's realized then is a state of absolute humility, where there's no longer any external importance attached, no pretense of "winning"–even though you really are, in a way, because you're free. That state of absolute humility is really a state of grace. You are reduced to the simplest condition of egoless selfhood – the state of simply being who you really are.

Counterintuitively, from that point on everything becomes possible, because in a way, you're starting over. In the grand–call it cosmically spiritual–picture, this happens in a big way when you actually physically die (reincarnation-wise, that is). But first, let's look at the other ways, the other "deaths" our souls require. Let's consider the 'living deaths' that also cause us to regenerate a new, unavoidably more authentic life. Let's look at the difficult times that lead us to be "born again" in this life.

When we witness the death of our family or friends. When a lover or spouse has a change of heart, and decides that they have to leave us and move on to their own new life. When a job or serious expectation we have suddenly, unexpectedly vaporizes – these are all "deaths," of a sort, that cause us to reconsider who we thought we were, and to consider anew who we may have to be from here on. Each death of this sort opens us up, strips us down, and makes us teachable about how we can change and improve our lives on that most important spiritual level – unattached to the material definitions and expectations that have failed to make us happy.

When we learn those hardest-of-all lessons – that our material, ego-based outsides aren't what's really important; when we "die" to that superficial sense of ourselves, and let go of who we thought we were, we instantly expand into Consciousness, and it suddenly becomes possible to become who we all authentically are – not as separate, searching individuals – but instead as loving, giving, creative, contributing pieces of a divine wholeness. Expressions of a single, love-based reality.

Now, let's get back to when we actually die physically. According to the Tibetan Buddhist monks (who really do know all about this stuff), if we don't learn these lessons on a spiritual level, and continue behaving like human animals, delusionally feeding from one desire to the next, we'll be reincarnated as a wild beast, most likely. In the meantime, we'll destroy ourselves, each other, and our planet. Quite a setback on either count, you can be sure.

When I had my experiences I lost my earthly body, and I lost my material identity, but I never lost Consciousness. Instead, I was folded into it. In two of my three NDEs, a new life effervescently expanded around me, I was liberated from the constraining limitations of the material life, and seemingly anything became possible. 

So, I'm afraid we do have to die to this difficult form – in a number of difficult ways. That's the deal here, this is a difficult life. But if we, in a way, embrace death – our many "little" deaths and our one "big" one – they will liberate us to our new, unimaginably amazing and wondrous potential, in this life or our next.

And that (I have learned, the hard way) is why we have to die, and have to keep dying. Our souls require it to merge us into our greater life in Love and Consciousness – into a life beyond our wildest dreams.

"Without a dying to the world of the old order, there is no place for renewal, because…it is illusory to hope that growth is but an additive process requiring neither sacrifice nor death. The soul favors the death experience to usher in change."

James Hillman, Suicide and the Soul

So it does appear that our souls "favor," even require, these 'death' experiences to enter the state-of-being that we think of when we think of "Heaven" —you've got to die to go to Heaven, everyone knows that. And everyone has had a taste of "Heaven on Earth" at one time or another in their life, so we know it is possible to find it here and now (in a much easier way...). We look into the guides to getting there in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), now available from Llewellyn Worldwide.

Read a related article: Suicide and the Superficial Self, at Gaia's "Spiritual Growth."

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct on this page or online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for them it at your local bookstore!

Life, Death, and Baby Boomers––an Excerpt

"I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

                                                                    

                                              Woody Allen 

When I mentioned the quote earlier that Life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you, I think that without a doubt the same is true for death. Death doesn't happen to you, it happens for you (unless you are eaten by a crocodile; that could not possibly be for you). We're all part of a much bigger set of ongoing considerations––the big picture I'm asking you to see as the context of your life. 

In particular, we need to escape that one self-centered cultural definition that's leading us so far astray––that death is our obliteration. The sad, absolute cessation of Life. The final chord of a sonata that starts wonderfully well, but ends in a dirge. That idea that we only have "one go-round," "one shot at it," and then "the party's over." There's a selfishness (a "sinfulness") in that definition that prevents us from living well, from showing up for each other with the proper compassionate presence. It's a self-centeredness that insists we should be getting something we want out of it all and each other when, instead, we could be forming true partnerships with one another––an understanding global fellowship of shared human experience––and creating a sane stewardship of life here on Earth. When we can get ourselves over this delusional assumption of self-importance, we can create a much less "sinful," more evolutionarily responsible, way of living.

If we know we're missing the mark with the cultural definition of death––one that leads to the fear of losing what we want to hang on to and the "I've gotta get mine before it's all over" approach––then what is a more realistic definition? What's the proper direction in which to aim our lives? Well, Shakespeare's always good for a few spiritual bull's-eyes, like this one: Death is a consummation most devoutly to be wished! So we can see death as a lifelong goal that we struggle to attain––one that we want to meet with preparation, with humility and honor, and with open-hearted promise. It is our matriculation of sorts.

Speaking from my own experience, death is an expansion into transcendent being, for crying out loud. We need to restore death to it's rightful place as a sacred ritual of passage. Let's get kind of Egyptian with it again. Don't mourn me; send me off with an open heart and a song!  This party is definitely not over.

It's absolutely essential that we show up for each other with this positive, life-affirming definition of death as a continuation of always being present. Contrary to what Woody Allen might request, you must never take a raincheck for anyone's dying. (That's the only "must" in the book.) While we supposedly have much busier lives than ever, that's just an illusion caused by technology. The really important parts of our lives are still what's really important. Put the business aside. What technology is best suited for is efficiently arranging our lives around those important people and occasions, so that we can maintain close contact with the loved ones involved in all of our momentous life events––making the appropriate reservations, booking the trip, and being there; contributing whatever you possibly can; showing up in a way that honors Life's real connections of the heart; bringing Love right up to the surface, front and center where it belongs. Again, it's not about me; it's about we.

Notice how when we're "coming to the end" of our time in this life with someone we love or for ourselves, just how precious and how special that remaining time together suddenly is. How intensely focused our love and appreciation for each other becomes in those few moments that are left. We need to try to treat each other that way all the time, and grow spiritually together in that kind of Love. We need to recognize the eternal in each other, always. That's what's really important here; everything else is a distant second place. These may be lofty ideals, granted, but pursuing them throughout our lives is time well spent, and leads to a sense of fulfillment that can never be matched in any other way.

From the time we reach that more adult perception we start to come upon as teenagers, to the time we lay ourselves down, our essential spirit remains generally young and energetic––especially in pursuing our passion for Life. It's just our bodies that atrophy, that break down and require costly repairs––or that just quit running. Our spirits, our eternal selves, always feel youthful. They're always ready to keep growing upward and onward, and so they do. That essential part of us can only collapse under the weight of selfish self-centeredness and that oppressively off-the-mark definition of death––and the negative effect it can have on the last third of our lives––when we permit those attitudes to define us as limited.

  

The truth is that we always have that unflappable, limitless hope that comes along with youth. Just scratch the surface and, like Love, it's always there. We've also got all that blind faith that we don't hardly notice enough even to take for granted when we're young. And, although it seems somehow harder to come by as we age,  there's also more evidence of that faith as we grow older. Hope, and faith are real working spiritual mechanisms that are always alive, and always will be in all of our lives.  And if you just add grace to those two, then you've got my three favorite names for girls.

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

A "How to Survive Life (and Death)" Excerpt from the Chapter "The Last Time I Checked (Out), I Was in Arizona"

Perhaps the scariest, but most awe-inspiring (and comforting), realization I finally reached—long after all my bumps and bruises had subsided—has also been the hardest one for me to wrap my head around and to actually learn to live with. It's the part I mentioned earlier that has to do with really never getting any privacy (in a way that has probably crossed everyone's mind at one time or another).

Years later, when I came to the point where I could turn the corner on all the pain I'd suffered and caused in my life, I was hit by something I'd known all along—something very, very moving: Someone had been with me each time I nearly died. Someone had gently shepherded me away from my wrecked car; someone had shown me those scrupulously selected scenes of great significance from my life; and someone had gently, but forcefully, pushed me back into this life to tell you what I'm telling you now. I've realized now that it was one someone—my guide, my guardian, my angel—whom I have finally come to know personally (like a lost and loving aunt). I'm certain that we all have one, and that we are all receiving that same kind of personal attention. We are never alone.

Now, we all know why that's scary. I mean, really, somebody's watching me all the time? That's right. But it's no big deal because, fortunately, I'm not particularly important, and neither are you. Nobody is, yet everybody is.

And "all the time" is nothing really. I believe that our angels observe us from a perspective apart from time. I believe they can see every one of those life moments eternally, as they happen, like discreet panes of time suspended in space—in much the same way that those moments can suspend themselves in our memories. All of this is happening now. All of it has always been happening now, and always will. Being human makes this impossible to see. Yet, in our hearts, each of us knows the cause and effect of all these moments strung together, especially when we concede to this intimate exposure of the truth. We know the parts of our lives that need mending, the edges that need smoothing, the loose ends that need to be bound.

Who really wants a witness to all their stuff, regardless of how forgiving that witness may be? It's been said that "your sickness lies in your secrets"—your misdeeds, selfishness, hostile thoughts, and all that stuff we "safely" hide in our little compartments. Being human makes us want to believe that no one can see it written on our faces, or veiled in our desires, or behind our actions. But, of course, they do. That's who we are, on the outside. The question is, who are we really; and who are we going to be? Those self-revealing secrets shouldn't cause us fear, because we're actually keeping them so we can learn from them. Life doesn't happen to you. . . 

Our angels (and angelic people) immediately forgive our misdeeds because they, too, know them so well. In this way, our fears can be dissolved into the reality of that profound intimacy—that shared knowledge of our greater selves. The Sufis call it fana, the dissolving of the human self into Eternal Love. That's nice, isn't it?

I think it was a great Swami named Maharshi who said that we don't fear death because of the painful end of life. By that time, many of us are ready for it. What we're never ready for is that painful accounting for what we've been up to, that golden interview. It's an embarrassment we naturally wish to avoid, again. So death is a blissful relief, but it can be made even more blissful by the way we live.

All of this helps me describe the hidden, but always available, "technology of the heart" that I've been talking about. It's all part of that greater reality that we're actually occupying—the realm of the spirit that constantly enfolds, supports, and directs us—and to which we and all of Life belong. But you already knew that.

 Still, I hope they haven't been watching everything. . .

Not to scare you any more than the idea of being watched all the time, but in the context of my last moments in Arizona, it is clear to me that there are real consequences to being bad—both now and later. It just simply is not good. Being self-centered, cruel, violent, even just unconscious will deliver us to a "darker" place, in this life or the next, than where we might be able to live otherwise. How much darker is up to you, what you've done in Life, and how hard you're willing to look at yourself–and don't fool yourself, everything is accounted for.

It comes as no surprise, does it? There simply are better ways to live and better ways to die, and one has everything to do with the other. And as I've found out about ways to die, exiting on a bad note is not the best way to get there. 

The way this physicality is imbued with life energy—the means of our animation and of our sensual awareness—is all achieved by a pretty particular set of forces. And it won't do to go about releasing it all willy-nilly, or without some consideration and some proper well-deserved reason. It may require effort. 

Personally, along with the very clear lessons I've learned through my own experiences, I find a lot of resonance in the wisdom of the ancient masters when it comes to the possibilities for our future, our past, and our present. And how can you go wrong with the good old ancient masters, for crying out loud? So, as best I can (and preposterous as it may seem), I'm going to try to describe what the three "fatal" experiences I've had have taught me about what may actually be the best way to go about "dying"—which (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) I don't believe is really dying, but actually just changing forms from this matter into a form of energy that grows out beyond our current constraints into an entirely different dimension of being. 

I hope that, by now, you see that this is the central message of this whole book—what my experiences taught me and what I want to pass on to you: Simply that there's nothing to fear about dying. It's really a logical and beautiful culmination of Life, and quite a fluid process. And once you get past the rough patches you may have to cross to get there, you'll see, as well, that there is no Death. 

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is now available everywhere, but ask for it it at your local bookstore!