Dealing with Death

Death

    What is this misunderstood word we’ve come up with to describe the living body to cease functioning?  According to the dictionary, death is: “The act of dying, the termination of life.”  As you can see, that is pretty obvious.  The same thing was said in the first sentence.  Within these lines, we will look into exactly what death is, and how we cope with it.

What is death?
    Death itself is the same for all people. Medically, death is when all functions of life, especially the heart and the brain, cease to function. That is the basis, and fact, of death.
    But the true question is:  What happens after death has occurred? Many put this idea into the heading of what death is.  The answer to this question is absolutely unknown.  The only people who know what happens after death, are the dead, and we can’t ask them as of yet.  There are a few who claim they talk with the dead, yet they never seem to ask them the question of “what was it like, and where are you?”  One has to decide for themselves whether they believe these people or not.
    There are many religions that claim they know what happens after death.  Many Christians believe the soul goes to one of two destinations.  They call these destinations “hell” and “heaven.” Hell being the place of damnation and torment for unsaved souls, and heaven being the destination of enlightenment and happiness for all souls that are saved.  In the Greek and Roman religions, however, people’s souls go to a eternal resting place in a river named Styx.  Looking over this lair is Hades, a type of devil.  The only place that resembles heaven is on the top of Mount Olympus, where all the gods reside, and no mortals are accepted in.  Then there are the Eastern religions that believe we don’t really die.  Our soul is taken out of our body and put into another creature and born again.  They call this process “reincarnation.”  There are also some side sects of Christianity such as Jeahova witnesses, and Baptist, who agree that heaven and hell exist, but these are only places for angels and demons.  When a person dies, they wait until a great spiritual person wakes them when evil is gone.  The time when this happens is called “Armageddon” or the second coming of Jesus Christ.  We all choose what we want to believe in.  The truth actually, is nobody knows for sure.
    There have been people who have come back from being dead, but their memory is indeterminate. What they saw and felt could have been many things, the brain dying and coming back, or the body itself dying are just a few of the hypotheses.  These visions aren’t exactly the best explanations.  Because we most likely never know for certain what happens after we die, there’s no reason to dwell on it.  It’s more important to know how to deal with another person or animal dying.  Coping with this will increase your thinking ability, expand your mind, and let yourself continue living.

How to feel about Death and dying
    When someone dies, their presence is completely absent. In Every sense, they are gone.  There is the spiritual thoughts that people have, and there are other various after-life ideas that were mentioned above.  But what we are trying to do here is deal with death in a Wholesome minded way.  In this way, you look at the whole experience in a unique way, and you can deal with it in a clearer fashion than most.  Let us begin.

    When someone around us dies, or someone we care about dies, the first thing we do is feel sad and cry.  Why do we do this?  This is an often asked question.  We cry and feel sad for one, and only on, reason.  That reason is, to a degree, complicated.
    When we lose someone to death we immediately enter a one track mind, that track is: “I can’t believe he’s gone.”  In other words, you immediately think about yourself.  You are barely thinking about the person who is dead at all.  Ultimately, you become sad and depressed.  Why does this happen?  This is where is becomes a bit complicated.  You are feeling this way for what you’ve lost.  In other words you are thinking about you, you, you.  You are beginning to be very selfish, even if you aren’t usually.  From our very beginnings, we are taught about being selfish and always thinking about ourselves.  We are taught this is wrong and shouldn’t be done. The teaching of unselfism is correct.
    When you cry when someone dies, you are crying about what you’ve lost.  It is the same as if you had lost your favorite toy and now you’re sad and depressed that you have lost it.  All of the feelings that you are feeling and crying about are selfish.  You’re not going to talk to, or see this person again.  That person in the casket, or in the urn, is not going to be in your life anymore.  You have lost your loved one.  All anyone thinks about are themselves when someone dies.  People mourn because they have lost someone.  The mourners are feeling hurt inside, maybe even betrayed, because that other person has left you. All of these feeling are selfish.  Is this really the right way to act?  When another person dies, all you think about is yourself, rather than about the person who is dead and the others close to you.  This selfish way is really a terrible way to be.  Unfortunately, most individuals are just this selfish.
    When someone dies, do not think of what you have lost.  Think of what they have gained.  As previously said, nobody know what the afterlife is.  For all we know, it could be a big party complete with drinks, dancing, the dawn never coming, and the band never stopping.  If you knew that when you died you went to a big party with all the other people that have died, would you feel sad? yes.  You’d still have all of your selfish feelings, and you’d be sad and unhappy that they left you to go to this party.
    This is where you put yourself to the side and say, “I’m happy they have left.  They might be happier there.  They might be having the time of their ‘life.’  They’re probably glad they don’t have to deal with the pressures of this world.  Now they’re on to the pressures of the next world.”  We don’t know what the other side holds for us, it might be that we’ll be glad to go.  This is how you have to think about it.
    For this reason, my family has never had a funeral.  We get the entire family together, and have a giant party.  We remember the good times, we remember the bad.  We think of the laughs and the tears.  In no way, though, do we think of missing them, or wanting them back.  If someone dies, there’s a reason that they die.  Death does not pick at random.  He’s a very methodical fellow.
    When it’s time for someone to die, they know it.  They usually tell you that it’s close, and to be ready.  Nobody understands why or how people know these things.  There are also violent and unsuspected deaths that there is no way to expect.  But somewhere in a maze of interwoven reasons, it was meant to be.  These are the things that science and research will never be able to uncover.  For if they did, the mystery would be over, life would cease to exist, and all of our life would be pointless.  When death is figured out, life is then figured out, and we cease to need either of them.
    When someone dies, one has to look deep in their soul and throw out all they’ve been taught.  Throw all self thinking away.  This does not mean throw away compassion or humanity.  Do not go down that road, it only leads to becoming numb to people dying.  Throwing away compassion and humanity makes one become morbid on death, and won’t see death as anything but in the way.  All this means is that death should be seen as a journey of enlightenment and unknown teachings.  We should see it as that.  Open your mind to more than one thought.  Do not look at a dead person and just see a dead person.  Look and see a person who has just begun a journey, a person who has entered the unknown of unknowns.  One religion or maybe all religions are correct; this isn’t denouncing any of them.  But, whatever the faith of whatever you’ve been taught in life, it will always be a journey of wonder.  There is no reason to feel sorry for yourself or to sulk.  That doesn’t do you or the person dead any good.  In a sense, you Hurt yourself more than do good.  Open your mind to see a different thing; open your mind to see farther than the tip of your nose.  Don’t just think about yourself when someone dies.  In all reality, when someone dies, it has nothing to do with you.  You should be the last person you’re thinking about.
    To think about yourself at a time like this takes away all the ways you could help with the work a dead person creates. Just because you don’t have them, doesn’t mean others don’t.  Those people who don’t understand and don’t see this will need your help.  Those who are in their old selfish ways will grieve and mourn for many days.  These days are the days that they need your help.  Helping other people and keeping the memory of the dead person alive are great ways to unselfishly remember the dead.  This is how all must strive to act.
    You should not let this act consume you.  Remember, it is not you who is dead.  The deceased person’s day on the planet are gone, yours are not.  You still have at least one more, if not a lot more.  Look at the person that is dead, learn something from them, be happy for them and move on.  There is too much of a world out there to be sulking for a dead person, whose soul is not even in the body.  You can’t even consider the dead body a person, it’s just a bunch of skin and blood that once housed a soul; it doesn’t anymore.  Why dwell on death, something that is eventually going to happen.  Why not dwell on life, what is happening now.  If you dwell on death all of your life, you will end up with a worthless life and an end that you already knew would happen, because you spent your whole life dwelling on it.  Why be scared of death when you don’t know what it is.  Death is a point in time, why spend more then a few fractions of a second letting it bother you?  There is no reason. Life will always move on, and death will always be the end of the move.  So, while you are moving, pay no attention to the point at which you will stop.  Think about each step in the race, and not about when you are, or how you are going to pass the finish line.