What do you believe happens to and with you when you die?
One of the comforts many find in their faith is that other, holier people can reassure you about the coming afterlife. It's hard to imagine just not being anymore. And don't we hear so often, both from people of great faith and from others with Hallmark sentiments, that our dearly departed are "up there" watching, looking down on the ebb and flow of life, contentedly awaiting their loved ones' joining them. How comforting. (But do they see you when you're...er... doing something in private?)
After years of studying what was to me the philosophy of Buddhism, when traveling in India and Nepal I was confronted with the belief-full practice of the religion of Buddhism. Prayer wheels sending ten thousand prayers up to the heavens. A guaranteed return to life, but in a different form. Will I be back as a near-enlightened soul or as a pig or twig of grass? How comforting and such a merit-badge system of reassignment! Imaginative.
As I've previously shared, my parents' deaths were beautiful, transformative experiences for me. I don't remember ever talking with either of them about their beliefs on what happens when one dies. I guess I just knew that they were, as I am, content to live lives fully and know that we cannot know what may lie beyond.
My saying that what lies beyond is unknowable reflects my desire to be respectful to those who have clear expectations of something else after death. I have become quite content knowing in my heart that what my ego-self identifies as my life will simply be over and gone ---except in the hearts of those who still live and remember me. The Real Me, without face or name, without time or place, meditative me, lucid dreaming me, is present whether "my" embodiment of Real Me=Real Us=Real Everything is here or not.
In this world, and especially our Western culture, death is so feared, it seems to be equated with defeat. Even appearing to be an elder is so feared by so many that plastic surgeons are getting rich on our distorted sense of The Circle of Life.
Learning to lose one's fear of death is liberating in many vital ways. In denying our mortality we deny ourselves full joy in our precious moments of life. It's as if we're gliding up a beautiful parkway but are missing all the scenery because all we can do is stare at the exit signs to see which one might have our name on it.
Isn't it enough, abundantly enough, to know that every deed we do, word we say, and fellow human we love sends ripples into the future. Who you truly are can never die, for you are part of the Human Heart.