Ghosts? - Paul F. Eno

I don't believe that ghosts are "spirits of the dead" because I 
don't believe in death.  In the multiverse, once you're possible,
you exist.  And once you exist, you exist forever one way or
another.  Besides, death is the absence of life, and the ghosts
I've met are very much alive.  What we call ghosts are lifeforms
just as you and I are.

Paul F. Eno
Footsteps in the Attic

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

"Spirit Light"

~

My favorite grandmother passed 26 years ago yesterday.
My father passed 39 years ago tomorrow.
Although their bodies are gone something of them lives on
 somewhere, maybe not as the personas we remember,
although my brother insists that my father joins him on his
 motorcycle  rides quite frequently :) - not as a ghost that he sees,
 but a felt presence...  My husband's mother passed in Nov 2017. 
Two weeks after her death my husband and I both felt a strong
loving presence, and we both *knew* it was *her* presence -
how I don't know...  Not as a ghost or apparition, but as
 living presence.

A Mystery...

MM

 

Non-continuity - J. Krishnamurti

Photo - vincent guth on unsplash

Questioner: The fact that death stares everybody in the face,
yet its mystery is never solved.  Must it always be so?

Krishnamurti:  Why is there fear of death?

There is fear of death as long as there is desire for continuity
[of the] character, the name, and so on.  Fear comes into being
when this continuity is threatened through death.  So, there is
fear of death as long as there is the desire for continuity.

Death, the state of non-continuity, the state of rebirth, is the
unknown.  Death is the unknown.  So death remains a mystery.

Immortality is not the continuation of "me." [the character]
The me is of time.  So there is no relationship between the me
and that which is immortal, timeless.  That which is immeasurable
and timeless cannot be caught in the net of time [and
therefore never dies - and we are that timeless energy]

J. Kirshnamurti
excerpt from a talk in Bombay March 1948

[Brackets mine]

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo -Vincent Guth
Unsplash

~

For all the innocents who have passed in humankind's never ending
propensity toward war...

_/\_

Namaste

 

Reorientation - May Sarton

I am not ready to die.

But I am learning to trust death
As I have trusted life.
I am moving
Toward a new freedom
Born of detachment,
And a sweeter grace -
Learning to let go.

I am not ready to die.

But as I approach sixty (73 😊)
I turn my face toward the sea.
I shall go where tides replace time,
Where my world will open to a far horizon.

Over the floating, never-still flux and change.
I shall go with the changes,
I shall look far out over golden grasses
And blue waters...

There are no farewells.

[.....]

May Sarton

With thanks to Death Deconstructed

Photo from the Internet

 

Treading The Gate - Cate Kerr

Approach the gate as a pilgrim, a seeker,
wear sturdy boots for the craggy trail beyond.
Go cloaked and hooded against the wind,
blackthorn staff and lantern in your hand,
an abundance of candles in your pack
for the dusky nightfall hours ahead.

Bring the gifts and votive offerings for those who
dwell beyond the ancient threshold, bundles of sage,
clear water, kindling, earth and seaborn salt.
Bring flasks of tea, incense and bread,
tales and laughter to share around the fire
with those you meet along the way.

Travel light and make your journey by the moon,
taking the owls, true kindred, as your fierce
and tender companions.  Feel their soft breath
along your own wings, share in their dark
and watchful wisdom as you go.

Let the songs you sing as you are questing
be your own sweet music, and the stories
you spin by the fire in the nights ahead be the
narratives of your own wild and shining life,
this journey into an unknown land.

Listen to the night and be content, for you are not alone -
around you is a vast and singing throng.
The very stars are singing with you as you go.

Catherine Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

With thanks to Cate for her photo as well!

 

I am not dead - Robinson Jeffers

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.

The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That's gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)

But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,

Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.
I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

Robinson Jeffers

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

20-Watts of Energy - Robert Lanza

 Many of us fear death.  We believe in death because we
have been told we will die.  We associate ourselves with
the body, and we know that bodies die.  But a new
scientific theory suggests that death is not the terminal
event we think.

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain
observations cannot be predicted absolutely.  Instead, there
is a range of possible observations each with a different
probability.  One mainstream explanation, the "many
worlds" interpretation, states that each of these possible
observations corresponds to a different universe (the
'mutliverse').  A new scientific theory - called biocentrism -
refines these ideas.  There are infinite number of universes,
and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some
universe.  Death does not exist in any real sense in these
scenarios.

All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of
what happens in any of them.  Although individual bodies are
destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling- the "Who am I?' -
is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain.

But this energy doesn't go away at death.  One of the surest
axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be
created nor destroyed.....

The linkages between the various histories and universes
transcend our ordinary classical ideas of space and time.
Think of the 20-watts of energy as simply holo-projecting
either this or that result onto a screen. .....it's still the same
battery or agent [source] responsible for the projection.

According to Biocentrism, space and time are not the hard
objects we think.  Wave your hand through the air - if you
take everything away, what's left.  Nothing.  The same thing
applies for time.   Everything you see and experience
right now is a whirl of information occurring in your mind.
Space and time are simply the tools for putting everything
together.

Death does not exist in a timeless, spaceless world.  In the
end, even Einstein admitted, "Now Besso (an old friend) has
departed from this strange world a little ahead of me.  That
means nothing.  People like this...know that the distinction
between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly
persistent illusion."  Immortality doesn't mean a perpetual
existence in time without end, but rather resides outside of
time altogether.

After the death of his son, Emerson wrote: "Our life is not
so much threatened as our perception."

Robert Lanza
Excerpt from The Huffington Post - Dec. 8, 2009

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Doors through which we pass - Thich Nhat Hanh

 This body is not me.
"I" am not limited by this body.
"I" am life without boundaries.
"I" have never been born,
and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
manifestations from my wondrous true mind.

Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.

So laugh with me,

hold my hand,
let us say good-bye,
say good-bye,
to meet again soon.

We meet today.
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source...
We meet each other in all forms of life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

via - Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Why We Fear Death - J. Krishnamurti

Questioner: The fact that death stares everybody in the face,
yet its mystery is never solved.  Must it always be so?

Krishnamurti:  Why is there fear of death?
When we cling to continuity, there is the fear of death.

There is fear of death as long there is the desire for
continuity [of the] character, in action, in capacity, in the
name, and so on.  As long as there is action seeking a result,
there must be the thinker who is seeking continuity.  Fear comes
into being when this continuity is threatened through death.

So, there is fear of death as long as there is the desire for
continuity.

Death, the state of non-continuity, the state of rebirth, is the
unknown.  Death is the unknown.  The mind, which is the
result of continuity, cannot know the unknown.  It can only know
the known.  It can only act and have its being in the known,
which is continuous.  So the known is in fear of the unknown. 
The known can never know the unknown, and so death
remains the mystery.

Immortality is not the continuation of "me."  The me is of time,
the result of action towards an end.  So there is no relationship
between the me and that which is immortal, timeless.  We would
like to think there is a relationship, but this is an illusion.  That
which is immeasurable cannot be caught in the net of time. 

J. Krishnamurti
excerpt from a talk in Bombay in March 1948

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

No Such Things as Death - Sadhguru

Most people are investing their whole lifetime
just for their material well-being.
Dying to live, this is called.
When you are constantly in pursuit of security,
you are in pursuit of death.

There is no such thing as death.

There is only life, life and life alone..
moving from one dimension to another,
another and another.

Most people only experience peace and
transcendence when they are dead.
But in the yogic tradition, the word 'samadhi'
is used to describe a state in which one has
transcended the limitations of the body and mind,
in this life.

If you work five to ten years for your security,
that's okay...
But if you are going to work all your life
for your security, you are seeking death
because death is the only secure thing
in existence.

Life is never secure...

Death - An Inside Story
Sadhguru
Feb. 19, 2020

With thanks to Ocean Speak

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Briefly Here - Jim Wilson

Briefly
We walk this earth.
We have
But a short time.
We resemble grasses;
Green in the spring,
Brown in the summer heart,
Withering in the winter wind.
Those who understand this
Put aside their useless quarrels.
The cosmos is unfathomably vast.
The human mind is very small.
An act of kindness is never wasted;
it is the gateway to the deathless and unborn,
it is the exultation of the heart.

Jim Wilson

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

Photo via No Mind's Land