Yesterday, in the Playground session, we spoke about the fear of death.
“They” say all fear is fear of death. I am not afraid of death. I have faced death several times. Some of the times it was because I was ill. Many of the times I did it to meet death, to make friends with death. And even more often I faced death to get beyond it. To get where only through death you can get.
“They” say that you have past lives. Reincarnation is not Eastern, original Judaism also had reincarnation, gilgul in Hebrew. Kabbalah talks about it.
Some 30 years ago I accidentally visited some stories and experiences that I decided must have happened in a past life. One of those, during Nazi occupation of Hungary, February 1944, I think. I was 8~9 years old in that “episode” and was lined up with other Jews on the Danube shore, and shot at.
I saw the eyes of the Black Shirts, Hungarian Nazi Party execution squad. I could see which one was aiming at me. I saw the bullet as it headed towards me. It hit me on the shoulder, above the heart, and pushed me into the river that was covered with ice slabs. I landed on one of those snow covered ice slabs. It was a bright, cold sunny day, and I slowly floated down the Danube, drifting away into hypothermia. It was blissful. No thoughts, no concerns, just joy, wonder, and contentment.
Osho says that if you die consciously then you’ll be born consciously.
Most people die unconsciously and in fear. I see the benefit of being unconscious; having been conscious all my life, even when I took 10 Valiums a day to dull me, I felt, experienced, saw.
Lots of ugliness, even in me.
Fear is the sign of unconsciousness.
Fear is the tip of the iceberg of unwillingness to be conscious, unwillingness to look, unwillingness to pay the price.
Life is myriads of choices, some big, some small, but choices nevertheless.
When you choose something, you unchoose another. You have to unchoose… it’s like this… you can’t hold onto something and catch something else… we have all dropped stuff in our hurry to catch something else.
The biggest resistance comes from the egomind. Just like when you climb a tree, you need to leave the branch you are standing if you want to go to the next one. But it feels like death…
Every time you let go of something, it feels like death. That’s the fear.
You can’t have anything other than what you have until and unless you let go of what you have.
Fame, fortune, social standing, love, comfort, looking good, sounding smart, knowing, respectability, are all anchors.
Letting go of them is like saying yes to death for what’s on the other side of it.
When I went to Israel, I wrote a letter to a friend: For me, going to Israel is like an atheist to commit suicide: it is near impossible to imagine that there is life after death.
I was a respected, established, award winning architect in Hungary. I knew nothing of Israel, not a word of Hebrew, not a friend there, not a thing about the culture or the religion.
It was excruciating, but it had to be done. I had been stuck, I had been growing backwards in Hungary, paralyzed in my ambitions to be my own person. And uncertain life after death was preferable to a life of deadliness.
Death, or what feels like death, is the price you pay to move towards the Light
Israel turned out to be just a milestone on my journey to become my own person. But without letting go and jumping, I would have never got there.
By the way, I have yet another jump to take, soon, I think. All my dreams at night point towards that.
Death is an illusion
Death is an illusion. If you are already dead: you cannot die… you never lived.
If you are conscious and alive, death is the symbol of choosing. Whatever you are leaving dies to you.
The reason people don’t want to change, because they don’t want to leave what they know. When you are ready, you will.
I see that you need huge inner desire to be pulled by (like me) or huge misery to be pushed by, to be able to move through the gates of death, also called choices, towards your inner desire, or away from your misery.
And here are some great quotes for you on this topic:
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I’m eager for more too.
I’m eager for more. Thank you