On Death

I am now about to complete my 79th year of life; what began at conception is now passing.  I note in the obituaries that about half of those listed are older.

Often I look at my image in the mirror, on the screen, and photos and ask, who's that; and I honestly don't know.  Because there are actions taken by this person that are not deliberated ahead of time; they are more reactions.  Often they are the result of another action that was taken for a different reason.  I have gone to places for one reason and when I got there, there was an unforeseen consequence.  Most of the time it was good.

There are different occurrences, resulting from inattention.  These produce unexpected and unanticipated results, often inconsequential.

I conclude that "Master" is a driving force within me.  He is mute and secret.  He seems to occupy a niche inside me.  He may have aim and a purpose that he is fulfilling; a purpose as part of a larger, spiritual world that uses life to do whatever.  For example, there are those who study Mathematics and Physics and use the results to reach out into space, to Mars and beyond, and those who study Biology and improve the quality of life and the span of lifetime we are able to experience, and Ecology to extend and protect life on earth; to name a few.

These studies require discipline, without which nothing would be accomplished.  There is a struggle between doing what one needs to do and what one wants to do; discipline and permissiveness.  It is the balance of these, the compromises made, that allows progress and pleasure; too much of either and the results are destructive.

Our time, our cognizant time, time that we experience during our lifetime, is taken up with living from day to day.  A portion of it is applied to fulfilling our basic needs, real and perceived.  The rest is seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, fulfillment of psychic needs, emotional gratification, and satisfying appetites of one kind or another.  The wise person sees this and maintains a degree of control; keeping one or more from gaining so much power that gratification becomes the sole purpose of existence.

All the while the physical being is living a lifetime, Master uses the being to advance the aim of the spiritual world of which he is a part.  When that lifetime is over, when the body can no longer renew enough cells to carry on, Master bids it fond farewell, in most cases, and moves on to another.  If a body is unfortunate enough fall victim to fatal gratification, disease, or suffer fatal harm, Master may likewise move on to another.

This body, then, is no more than a means for Master, as part of a spiritual world, to achieve aim.  There is, however, an illusion that it is more than that.  It, the brain-body, has been evolved to be quite a complex being, capable of imagination, reasoning, and decision making.  In being thusly constructed, it gets the notion that it is more.  This is unfortunate because it is not.

When death occurs, all of the physical aspects of this brain-body cease to function; Master moves on.  And if this is what is meant by soul then, yes.  "Rest in peace" may be restated to "Go in peace."  What could have been accomplished, given the circumstances, was accomplished  in this lifetime; on to the next.

What I realize, as I write these thoughts, is the truth of death.  This body ceases to function as an instrument of the spiritual world; it decomposes to its disparate constituency.  All of the "personality" experienced during it likewise ceases to be.  It remains, only as memories that were recorded and recalled; and when not, as in the case of some civilizations past, it is lost.

Dust to dust.