It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive — to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got.
—Art Buchwald
The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realize that before you die, you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.
—Richard Dawkins
Go Wild & Bloom!
The only thing I know for sure, absolutely without question, is that one day my physical body will cease to exist. I will die. It is a fate that awaits all living organisms at some point no matter how long science may extend our life span. It is one of only two traits common to all living organisms. The other is birth. Every living organism is borne into life, whether by cell division, duplication or cell fertilization, it does not matter. We come into life and we leave life. This is the process of existence.
Is there something between "the leaving and the coming?" An afterlife of some kind? Or is the process instantaneous? Our last breath in one life becomes the first of another. Or is this life, now, really all there is? I shared with you one after-death experience inLife's Greatest Transition. Are there others?
From the view point of logic, it would seem since the life experience of each organism is different, the experience of death might also be different for each organism. After the cessation of life from the physical entity, do we continue to experience existence? I know the energy which is the core of this body continues, based upon the laws of physics, but does it experience its existence as me, ever again?
As a philosopher, I have pondered the reason, my purpose for being here on this planet, at this time, now, ad infinitum. I don't have an answer but I understand so much more. I believe my life is a gift but the magnitude of this gift is just beginning to be understood, appreciated and accepted. We are each uniquely made. If we put our common features aside, there is no exact duplication of any life form as we know it—including clones. The chance that my exact combination of atoms will be duplicated again is unfathomable if not impossible. But in an infinite universe, is anything ever finite?
For the "Big Bang" to have occurred, energy had to be created from nothingness or it had to have always existed. Take either side, it doesn't matter. An implosions of energy or "black hole" is energy turning in on itself, returning to the nothingness from which it came. The process we call life and death. All that we physically experience in any way is merely energy expressing itself as a manifestation. I am a finite physical expression of an infinite energy.
"I am a finite physical expression of an infinite energy." This, at a root level is truly who I am! I will only be expressed in this form once. It is an invitation to grow in wisdom, to go wild and bloom! I could hold out for some afterlife but without consciousness, it would just be eternal existence without form. Energy. Think of it as the space between everything else. The darkness of outer space. It's there, but you can't define it except in terms of its physical manifestations — stars, planets, etc. This is the nature of what we call death. Energy existing without consciousness of itself, without manifestation. Upon death the body, the physical manifestation of your energy ceases to exist.
So this life is your chance to experience the full, rich, consciousness of your manifestation in a physical body. Let your senses run wild. Smell, taste, touch. Be a witness to as much of life as you can absorb. Learn to listen to the quiet, to see life's energy in everything. Love with a full and open heart.
Do these things before you die. Before you are six feet under... before your manifestation is reduced to ashes in a burial urn... before your physical body can no longer support the energy that is your life. Although some do, most of us will not receive a second chance.
So, Go Wild and Bloom!
Press StartNow!
Photo Credit: Black Granite Headstone