Maybe You were never Born and You will never Die!

Death. You may consider it morbid and unnecessary. Or you may even presume that avoiding talks or thoughts about death may help you escape it. Or you may be so busy with your life that you don’t give a damn about death unless you see it coming for you. Or probably you are thinking, death will take you to your God but you don’t want to die to get there. Or perhaps you think of death only when your favorite character in Game of Thrones dies!

Whatever, the very word death incites a variety of interesting thoughts and emotions within you. So what is it to die? And what is death for you?

Fundamentally, it’s the end of your attachments or identifications with all that, which psychologically and physically you have accumulated since your birth.

Attachments ? Yeah. You may be either consciously or unconsciously attached to a hell lot of crazy, trivial things in and around you. Asking yourself “who am I” can probably reveal your insane, subtle and unconscious attachments you have. You may be attached to your parents, your lover, your child, your friends, your leader or someone whom you feel comfortable to be with. You may be attached to an idea, your qualification, your career, your bank balance, your God, your religion, a romantic song which reminds you of those beautiful moments with your girlfriend or anything abstract which you think will lead you somewhere. You may be attached to your house, your car, your new laptop or anything tangible which brings you pleasure and enjoyment. You may experience power, pleasure or money, or have luxuries or sufferings. Whatever. Death comes along and says, “Dude! You can’t carry all that with you, it has to end” and cuts all your attachments and identifications!

So, if you hold nothing, does death mean anything to you now? But wait, is “holding nothing” that simple? And am I going to be one of those annoying guys who comfortably says “Simply loosen the attachments. Just let go. Conquer death”? Easier said than done, right? Because with freedom from attachments, identities and all dramas, you may feel a bit lost. You may feel disappointed, unmotivated, confused and indifferent about everything you do. Is holding nothing same as being indifferent?

Well before that, let’s get into any of those moments, at some point in your life, when you so deeply reflected on something that your mind for a second or so transcended to something beyond your imagination and offered you a brief glimpse of astonishment! That moment was perhaps, when you were awestruck by the grandeur of the marvelous mountains with deep valleys and shadows, or when you thought too hard what death actually means, or when you couldn’t comprehend who is that “you” in you, or when you were deeply engrossed in something insane that quantum mechanics says — like how can something be present and absent at the same time, until you look at it! The unfathomable greatness of such moments may be for few seconds, drives away all your life problems, your petty quarrels and more importantly all your identities! You perceive the beauty of such moments when there is a complete absence of self. No attachments with anything, yet complete involvement in everything. Those are the true moments of detachment!

Being detached with everything gives you happiness and clear mind to act in the moment. When you are detached, it is doing the thing which gives you immense joy not the result of the deed. But being indifferent is choosing not to participate in life and be a victim of circumstances. If you are indifferent, you will unconsciously have the expectation of rewards, security, approval and will end up being intensely satisfied or disappointed depending on the results. Attachments again. So I hope you agree that death means something if you are indifferent. See the difference?

But yeah, of course, the moments of detachment are much harder to maintain for long. The process of attachment starts soon after stepping out of it. So how can you hold nothing for long? And can we lead our life like that every moment — being totally involved yet not being attached? Sounds nonsensical?

Well just observe attentively how joyous a child, who is uninfluenced by ideologies, cultures, morals and all identities, conducts his life! You will see that the biggest joy in your life is you being alive right now!

But the structured world we have made for our wellbeing is rather consuming us. We are terribly intoxicated by the animal emotions which make us narrow-minded, stupid, narcissistic, judgmental and primitive survival-based creatures. We are just so much into our thoughts, emotions and psychological dramas that we have created in our minds and are missing the existential reality.

The Reality is not some vague, mystical thing that only your religious leaders can tell you. It’s very simple. It’s an amalgamation of knowing what we know and being conscious of what we don’t know.

So yeah, being aware of the presence of your animal-level consciousness that can only think about survival and reproduction, and learning to recognize that you are consumed by that, is the first step to becoming detached and to be conscious of the reality. Of course, such state of mental consciousness is difficult to maintain for long for many of us, but the clarity you get, each time while being in such moment, is so powerful that you will see your future chances of becoming a better version of yourself is exponentially increasing! Every time you see any complexities of a situation in your life with a broader scope and an increased clarity, you become ease with detachment and experiencing life in the best way possible.

There’s nothing wrong about your Identities. It’s just getting attached to them doesn’t let you experience what life is. And you need to understand what life is in order to comprehend what death is. Leading a detached yet completely involved life is not meant to make your life devoid of challenges but to offer you an increased clarity to help you experience life as it is.

So coming back to death, if you try to cut all your attachments, silly identities, and accept whatever comes, be it beautiful, ugly, pleasant, terrible, and transcend beyond your likes, dislikes and all other dualities of life, and try living blissfully every possible moment, does death still mean anything to you?

Well sadly, in my opinion, you can’t understand or learn or make knowledge out of things like Death, Life, God or Spirituality. I have only tried to articulate my experiences on being detached and how it enabled me to perceive death from a different dimension. Of course, I can’t say that I’m completely free of attachments or apathy and that I’m living my life consciously every moment. It’s definitely not my normal state but I’m working towards that. So my words can probably capture only part of what all that means but never fill it up.

The reality is, “You” can only experience it for yourself. You can only dissolve with it to know what it is! Maybe you don’t exist and death is nothing for you. Maybe you are immortal. Maybe you were never born and you will never die! Seek!

Cheers,
Raam

This is my first blog post. So, please let me know if this sucks! If you loved, would you consider hitting the recommend button? Thank you so much for reading.