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Death is an illusion? I am sad, this is not an illusion. It is a reaction being caught in the death-illusion?
I want to get out of this illusion. How? Maybe by understanding why this is an illusion? I am sad. I tell you why: Yesterday at the place where I get my vegetables and fruits, there is a dog on a chain behind the storehouse. Always when I go there, I bring a bone to this dog, who never is free and nobody takes care except given tin food. I can't touch her (a female) because she is very afraid and bites. But she is glad to see me and enjoys the bone very much. I know her since several years. Lately she got sick and is bleeding. I offered the owner who comes only once a week, to bring her to the vet, but they don't help me. Yesterday one of the sales woman told me that they are going to sacrifice this dog. I said good bey to her and I was crying and the whole day sad. This morning the duck I am taking care of since about one year, because it couldn't walk, died. Yesterday I thought about to bring the duck to the vet that he could operate the duck to fix the leg. I buried Isidor and was very sad. Yesterday some body had given me a bird, similar as a pigeon, that was hurt and couldn't fly. I wanted to take care of it and put it in a cage. Today the bird was very week and was cold, so I took it out and warmed it on my chest laying down. It died on my chest when I was meditating and giving energy to it. I went into the forest and buried this bird together with Isidor the duck. I was really sad. Walking back I saw a rotten book laying on the ground. I picked it up. The pages were all stuck together. I opened it forcing it. It was a spanish book and I read on the open page: "La muerte es una ilusiòn." (Death is an illusion.) My sadness was a bit lighter, but now the question appeared: If death is an illusion, how can I realize this truth? How can I understand this?
Can somebody explain this to me?
That I found this rotten book, sounds like an invented story, but it is true. Things like this has happened before to me. How this is possible is another question...
I appreciate your serious answer. Thank you!
Rahmona Ramos
Generalist@: Thank you for your writing, you put a lot of effort into it and I appreciate this. The fact that you write such a long answer helps me more than the content. I can't help it: Buddhism and the ideas expressed I like as it substitutes part of the materialistic concepts, but I can't identify with it, maybe because it still feels 'intellectual' to me. More touched me your personal story and it lightened me up some how.
I see that I need to go my own way and work on it. Thank you showing me that you take care...
Livestium@: What I realize now, when reading your answer, is that all those words does not touch me. I guess this comes because I can't use my mind to get back my emotions into balance. Words sound abstract and cold. I watched the video and it was similar: The pictures are very beautiful, but not going together with the voice and the content of the speaker. His energy does not talk to me.
That seems to be essential: What has a greater calming and balancing effect is the energy that comes through. I sense this energy as *love* and that is probably the only that really can *heal*.
I see now that I am sad because my love I gave and felt to these animals was cut and the love that came back from them. I was left alone in a void and now this is filled up again by receiving the attention from others they are trying to get me out of my sadness. It works some how, the words seem to be secondary. It is not yet quite clear, I sense the creative solution and the healing in it. Thanks!
I will use this space given by Yahoo to express myself. I need this because there is nobody who is willing to listen to me, with other words: Nobody who loves me. Now I see, why I am so extremely sad when these animals left me. Yes, I love nature, that includes all beings. With people it is the most difficult, animals & plants receive without defending themselves. It is obvious that I have the urge to love and the need to receive. So that's why I sense love given through answers here, although these might be just given to confirm themselves in their established way to survive. So it is my need that makes me see things, using what comes to me. (Sorry General&Livestium, please don't take it personally!) Is this now the way to get out of my sadness? To realize my condition and the dependencies coming out of this? I miss Isidor so much because he gave me the opportunity to love without rejecting me? But I do love people. It is just my energy I spread out wherever possible.>>>
> Yesterday I went to town and I use to have some cold drinks with me, because there are a lot of workers all around and the sun is quite hot already. So when I passed some worker who were digging deep into the earth, I invited them for a drink. The foreman, a big, fat guy with an angry face said: "No! I don't want!" I said OK and went on. Some time later I passed again these workers. I stopped and out of my van I pointed to the foreman and said: "Hey, you are far too serious! You obviously need somebody who tickles you!" He looked at me with big eyes and then he had a big smile, really beautiful! I said: "That's much better!" and I went off. In this short moment a transformational change had happened. In this guy and also within myself. At least I can say that I felt good! About this guy, I don't know, but its possible the happening had touched him...
Do you understand what I mean? Don't worry, I don't complain about your answers, these gave me the opportunity to reflect. Thanks!
3 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Rahmona, your question can be answered by giving you philosophical thoughts and concepts from all kind of belief systems, but what you need is a personal transformation and that can't be done by filling up your mind. This is only done by including your whole being with all levels of your existence. This has to be *lived* and only can happen in your daily life, when you relate and respond to whatever shows up, trusting that this is the best that will serve you in your growing and healing process. You know already that this happens and you know that this happens *now*.
Your sadness is an emotional reaction that let you reflect about what is happening and you can realize, that it is caused by your personal conditioning, based on your identifications. In your growing you will go beyond this and you will experience the reality of 'death being an illusion'. Not in your head coming from concepts, as beautiful and sophisticated they might be, but as an alive presence in your *heart*. Then this, your transformed state of being, might be called *love* and this you will beam out through your existence where ever you are. You are living this already, so you know what it means and that this is the answer to your question...
BeiYin
- livestiumLv 61 decade ago
Its far too long an answer to give here Rahmona, but I will try.
Death is the illusion because Death itself does not exist, death is a name and only a name that we use to define that part of life. Life is constant change, there is no beginning and no ends, there is only change.
you sound as if you are in touch with nature, do you notice the cycles of the seasons, the constant change that is everything and that everything is it.
I am it
you are it
they are it
we are it
here is it
there is it
It is the no-thing, it is the source of all things, and all things return to the source just as it does in nature.
Get hold of a book by Alan Watts, its called .....THE BOOK. On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
Or watch this video by Alan Watts on death
- Anonymous1 decade ago
G
Think of the history of knowledge. New discoveries are new because they concern that which was not known before. Yet almost all of us are servants to that which we see and forget that which we cannot.
Life appears and disappears and reappears. The reappearance may be in another form, or place.
Since life is energy, and energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form.
In India life has been considered cyclical. We are here and then not, and then here again. The forms and times and places of the reappearance are determined by the sum causes of our actions.
Over time, this was combined into a set of explanations that were useful to more people than yogis, Brahman priests and wealthy who could afford to study. He taught for 48 years, but had to couch his explanations in terms understandable to the people of the time. Yet, he encoded the essence of his teaching in parables.
After 1100 years, a genius in China condensed these ideas, yet they still required long study by brilliant people.
700 years later a brilliant scholar in Japan distilled these teaching into a seven word formula that expresses the essence of life.
anyone who really cares, and who recites this formula repeatedly will, over time, come to realize the impermanence and cyclical nature of life. That person can use the sadness as a springboard for developing coping tools to help not only himerself, but also others.
I will include a brief summation.
Convert Sorrow Into Happiness
By Generalist
It was always difficult for me to overcome sorrow because of ethnic persecution and an unhappy family situation. Life was always more of a threat than an opportunity and there was little to base confidence on.
The complete collapse of my finances created a rip that let light in. It forced me to examine what I had been doing with my mind and body. Religion had already disgusted me with the cruelty and corruption of the Catholic Church in Austria. I was open to any other suggestions on how to gain in life.
At a SGI-USA meeting, I found out that the method for doing that had all been summarized as Nam Myoho Renge Kyo by the monk Nichiren. He lived in 13th century Japan. Here is the, "just add hot water" version of his doctrine.
1-Everything is always changing, yet, there is a continuity of life and truth. That’s Kyo. It also came to mean vibration, speech, teaching, sutra.
2-Causes produce effects. Sometimes this is not obvious because of time gaps between the cause and the appearance of effects. That’s Renge.
3-Life is both physical and non-physical. That’s Myoho.
4-I needed to organize my mind according to what’s real in order to win. That’s Nam.
I started to recite Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. It took some time to discard my cynicism, even when I got phenomenal results in my life and felt completed. I later found that joining with others enhances the effectiveness and gets me a big source of potential friends.
Source(s):
My own experiences as a result of reciting the formula and working with friends for peace, culture and happiness
