Brief reflection of life and death

Can a deep reflection of death help us to understand life?

By the Harmony Page team

Life. Death. Peace. Conflict. Ego. Letting go. Regaining. Freedom. Liberation. 

These are words we often read within news bulletins in varied contexts. But some of these we also associate within other backdrops – such as in teachings of spirituality. 

For example when we go to a meditation retreat or a religion based discourse we may find that we are taught to let go of the ego. In almost all currently existing organised religions the ego is seen as a deterrent to the elevation of the core essence within the human encasement – the core energy also termed as the spirit or soul. It is this core that needs to be set free at the end of each human tour on this earth. 

Human belittles another human because of the ego and nation battles others for the same reason. Modern statesmanship is often engulfed in the narcistic, that does not want to lead by promoting sharing, whether it is land, resources or rights. Our education system trains us in this obsessive competitive disorder. 

Let us now re-examine.

Life. Death. Peace. Conflict. Ego. Letting go. Regaining. Freedom. Liberation.

Is there a common link that one can thread these words to understand life better? Can a deep reflection of death help us to understand life?

We now below quote Christiane Klimsch who heads a hospice in Jena, Germany that help aged or terminally ill people to die in peace. Let us reflect awhile on what she shared with this page.

“My experience at the hospice is that people who have unresolved conflicts die very badly. I have learned from this to be aware of all conflicts and to look for solutions. Not only to be able to die well, but above all to be able to live well. 

When a person looks back on their life with gratitude and is ready to die, that is a beautiful experience for me. Everyone should live their life with gratitude for every day, then it is much easier to live and also to die. I also experience people who refuse to come to terms with their imminent death, even in a hospice. This is very difficult for all of us, as we deal with the subject of death very openly in the hospice. We see life as a natural process to which death belongs. In my view, the fear of death makes life more difficult and fearful.

Most people regret something at the end of life, sometimes even their entire life. Through the conversations I have had with the residents of the Hospice in Jena, in Germany, I have learned to live my life the way I want to, not to put off things that are important to me, not to carry anger around. And an important learning: to be grateful for everything I have.”

We will later in our upcoming editions feature a detailed interview with Christiane Klimsch. The purpose today of featuring the above brief quote from our conversation with her is to link what a well lived life and well exited death should mean.

Every individual whether a labourer, statesmen, military commander or religious leader must one day face the departing of the last breath from the body.

If the regret of a normal citizen is say, letting an inflated ego preventing forgiving or appreciation of his or her spouse, what can we imagine the emotion a statesman would be, at the very last hour when he faces what he did or did not do, not just to one person but to millions? If a statesman spent his entire life pitting one community or nationality against another and maintaining power on the sole foundation of brewing hate, fear, suspicion and bloodshed, in what manner of torment would his last breath break out of his body?

Many sages, mystics and spiritual teachers have taught us that death is actually another beginning. 

Buddhism and Hinduism is based on the traversing of the energy that has powered the body to diverse realms, including the return to earth. The return to earth is referred to as reincarnation. 

Modern clairvoyants that sparked the new age movement such as Dolores Canon and Edgar Cayce amongst countless others have spoken in detail that what we go through on earth is a fragment of our energy or soul voyaging that criss-crosses across the universe and that each individual energy field or soul chooses their own karmic debt repayment. For instance where an oppressor would choose to return to earth as the mother of the soul he once oppressed. This is referred to as a soul contract pact chosen by the oppressor and the oppressed in a bid to set the record straight. If the attempt fails they return again, changing the roles. Until they get it right. This, many spiritual teachers, in different ways, have explained occurs thousands of times until such time, when all karmic debts are settled. 

Then the well-travelled ‘energy’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ that changed into countless human body vehicles – withdraws finally – with every score settled – and the troublesome ego nullified – into much sought for freedom. This in Buddhistic linguistics is Nirvana and in Hinduism Moksha and in Christianity Heaven. Accounts of near-death experiences have also recorded similar explanations including the one that the segmentation of religion belongs to earth and not to the destinations beyond life. Karma incidentally means action.

Those such as Edgar Cayce and Dolores Canon and others who have bridged the world that we are in and the worlds we cannot see, have stated that the real hell that the bodyless energy or the soul experiences is the reliving of what he or she did or did not do when occupying a living body.

For example a leader who leeched his people of their rights, happiness and wealth would relive this. This then would be the horrific scorching – the hell of a conscience awakened too late. 

Because modern science has labelled much of these as fringe theories or pseudo sciences we unfortunately live and die ignorantly, ending each lifespan thinking that we have mastered knowledge – assuming that knowledge is limited to that which we cram in our brick made edifices.

The end result is a myopic world that has normalised cruelty and competition while vilifying qualities such as compassion and insight.

Let us reflect on this as we read the rest of the writings in this May edition.