via Jeff Foster ..::”WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE?

I often get asked about death.
What happens when we die? And more importantly, who is it that dies?
Do we live on after death?
Oh, I have heard all the theories and rumours. Reincarnation. Multiple dimensions. Heavenly realms. Transformations. Multiple rebirths. It all sounds so… exciting!
I used to believe in all of this, yes. My visions of “what happens when we die” provided comfort, reduced anxiety, gave me something to look forward to when life was tough, and my heart was broken, and this world seemed too much, or too little, and I wanted certainty – and hope – so badly.
Then the awakening came, and I could no longer believe, or hold to any kind of certainty. Ever.
And death became what it always was. A great Nothing. The absolute Mystery of all mysteries. Absolute Rest beyond rest.

And all my concepts of death collapsed, and along with them, all my stories about the afterlife, and beyond, and beyond…
I plunged into terrible, wonderful, utterly shattering Not Knowing. The ground fell away. There was nothing to hold onto anymore. Not even my own beliefs. I was helpless and homeless in the face of the vastness. It was a death during life, for sure.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE
People assume that because I’m a “spiritual person” I believe in reincarnation and past lives and multiple dimensions.
Utterly not.

What is death?

Yes, we have our beliefs, concepts, ideas, mythologies, dogmas about it, for sure. Our religions paint wonderful or horrifying pictures of the afterlife. Some people claim to have had “near-death” experiences (and I would add that living itself is the ultimate “near-death” experience!). Some claim to have died and come back to tell the tale. Some say they are 100% certain about the details of their past lives, or have received messages and visions of their future lives.
Well, we believe what we believe, don’t we? Or what we need to believe. We know what we know. We are certain about what we are certain about. Our world is as real as we are. The mind is infinitely creative. We seek our home in thought and its futures. We try to rest in our own ideas.
And yet, and yet, everything ultimately hinges on the question

“Who Am I?”

What is it, in fact, that dies?
Is death an experience like any other?
These questions will disturb and liberate you, when you give yourself to them fully, and accept no second-hand answers.
Is what we call “death” the collapse of the very experiencing structure I take to be myself? Is death the collapse of all that is known, including all that

I know about death?

Is death the “end of me”, and where did “I” begin, anyway?
As long as there is identification with an individual “I”, a “me”, a “self”, there will be a belief in my death, my rebirth, my reincarnation, my past lives, my future multi-dimensional self, my continued existence.
But, when the experiencer collapses, can any of this ever be experienced by you?
Do you have any way of knowing what you’re experiencing, until thought tells you what it is?
Can you experience a flower without naming it, without remembering flowers, without reference to anything in the mind?
Death may just be the end of all experience, the end of experiencing, the collapse of the known and unknown.
This is utterly inconceivable. Please, do not try. It will drive you to near-madness.
Of course, life will go on. The body will rot and turn to fertiliser, fuel for more life. From your hands, no longer yours, trees will grow. From your feet, great mountain ranges. From your eyeballs, unspeakable sunsets. From your heart, all the joys and sorrows of this astonishing dream world. Children will be born, live their lives, and die.
The cycle of life will go on without “you”. Decades, centuries, millennia will pass in the blink of an eye. The sun will cool, and perhaps the Universe itself will end. Those who love you will hold you in their hearts and memories for many generations.
But will you be there to experience any of it?
Death is the ultimate invitation into Not Knowing, into the preciousness of the present moment.
Death may be 100% different to what you had predicted, or planned, or hoped for, or expected, or been led to believe in your brilliant visions.
Death may humble all your hopes and dreams, including those of rebirth and reincarnation.
Death may reduce you to nothing at all, and then reduce the “nothing at all” itself to something un-experienceable by you, and beyond even that, and words collapse here…
Death is perhaps not something that happens at the “end of life”.
Death is here, now, is it not? Look! Death is not an event, but a possibility, in every moment. At the core of your very self, of all you take to be “you”, a terrible and wonderful Not Knowing, a Mystery prior to anything you could dream, an utter wonder and awe at creation itself.
You taste it in moments of utter humility, the groundless ground of all things.
It comes in the middle of the night sometimes, and makes you question all you hold dear.
It is at the core of all your anxiety, all your rage, all your grief.
It smiles at your dogmas, your religions, your most cherished beliefs, all your achievements and notions of self.
It rumbles underneath all things, it does, known and doubted.
It holds you as you weep, loves you in your brokenness, cherishes you in your utter failure.
It kisses you as the body rots, bears the unbearable with you.
It will never abandon you.
In that sense it is “deathless”.
What happens when we die, then?
The wave falls back into the ocean, and does not “become one” with it, for it was never separate from it, and so nothing happens at all from the perspective of life.
The word “happen” is the misunderstanding.
The body ceases to function. The heart stops. The last long breath.
Thoughts fall away, sensations. Dreams, fantasies, hopes and fears, death eats them all.
The notion of time itself. Gone.
Space, gone.
Suffering, and the quest to end suffering. Gone.
You as you know yourself and as you experience yourself. Gone, all gone.
All your ideas about “what happens upon death”. Gone, all gone.
Or “after death”. Gone, all gone.

There is no “after death”, when you truly deconstruct the self.
Oh, my love, can’t you see, death is not something that could ever happen to you, not something you could ever “experience”, and therefore “after death” is even more impossible for you?
So celebrate life, my love!
Live. This may be your only chance!
Fall to your knees now. Kiss the grass. Weep at every fucking sunrise.
Lie on the beach under the pink sky and give yourself to the evening.
When your heart breaks, bow to it as if it were God because it is.
Cherish the ordinary moments. There may be no other realms but this one.
If this depresses and angers you, maybe you need to grieve, grieve, grieve your way into the Mystery.
It will break you but free you from yourself.
If no next life is coming, and death/after-death is not experience-able through a non-existent self, then this, here, now, this moment – this is the gift, this is the heavenly realm you were always seeking, this is the afterlife, this is the longed-for utopia, and at the deepest core of your very being, you are utterly safe, and you have always known it, and death cannot happen to you when you are the very nature of death itself. Just look into the eyes of a newborn baby, without assumptions, without time, without hope, and you will receive all the answers, right there in the burning core of the “I Don’t Know”.
– Jeff Foster

..::” What we resist persists, what we experience, disappears.

[paradox]

~ Carl Jung :: Psychiatrist … born in 1875 … Switzerland

..::” Anyone can avoid the so-called “spiritual bypass” by not denying and judging, but Peacefully “Being With” whatever emotion comes up in your life…

Listen to Emma’s Heart speaking gently to your Heart…