Personal Death Concepts

This is an assignment required for my psychology class which asked 10 specific questions such as why was I born, what is the meaning of death in general, do you feel fear or anxiety  over your own death, and does contemplating death case you to live differently, etc.

Lauren Ide

PSY 156 Understanding Death and Dying

Professor Newell

Fall 2010

I believe that I was born to learn, to grow, to experience physical sensations, and to fulfill a purpose.  In my personal belief system my Spirit, my unique and perpetual essence, made a conscious choice to be born to my parents during this time and place in order to interact with specific people and to have specific experiences.   This belief extends to my understanding of the meaning of life in general: to have experiences, to gain knowledge and perspective, and to create.  I know that I am here to experience the rush of adrenaline-laced thrill, the agony of heart-wrenching grief, and the elation of new and lasting love.  Emotions and sensations don’t necessarily need to be understood only allowed and experienced.

During periods of introspection I have come to some understanding of my life’s purpose.  With the above stated belief of experience and a general meaning of life, I also believe it is my responsibility to seek specific experiences that call to me as well as to peacefully allow experiences that are out of my control.  I have gained an awareness of the personal satisfaction I receive when I am in service to my concept of higher power and to others.  Helping others by creating a sense of safety, mutual understanding, and kindness fills my heart with joy.  With practice I have also learned that I am also fulfilled when I create a similar healing environment for myself. I know that along with life’s purpose to simply BE, it is my path to engage in compassionate service to God, Goddess, and Universe.

Death is a transition to a difference plane of existence.  It is, and that is it’s meaning.  It is easy to see examples of transition in the world around us: winter giving way to the new life of spring is just as important to the seasonal year as the apparent “death” of vegetation during the dark winter months.  Although many who find death uncomfortable may often misunderstand this idea, death is a normal and healthy consequence of life.  The Spirit’s experience of death and the transition to the next plane is an important part of the collection of experiences in this life.

While I believe that my death will, like all deaths, have a ripple effect that will affect my loved ones and those close to them, my death will have the most meaning to me.  In keeping with my belief system of gaining experiences, my personal death experience may or not be the most important or memorable opportunity to gain perspective.  I wish a conscious death, one with awareness understanding of each phase of this “greatest transition.”

I hold a strong belief that what makes us “us” is a Spirit, an ethereal energy that resides here on this plane and in this “body suit” temporarily before moving on to what’s next.  All things are impermanent, including this physical body and this life.  Impermanent too is the experience of the Spirit in the next plane.  I believe that for a time the “I” that is me will cease to exist as I become one with the Divine.  After an indeterminate amount of time, because time isn’t linear only our perception of it is, then my Spirit will most likely again choose to be reborn into another body and another time and place to continue to grow, learn and experience.

I live with chronic illness and it happens to be the exact same diagnosis that my mom had, who passed at ago 56.  Because of this, as well as my own desire to connect with Spirit, I’ve spent a great deal of time studying my own anxieties and concerns about the deaths of my loved ones as well as time in self-examination about my own death experience. With my strong spiritual belief in Divine order and meaning, I have alleviated much of my anxiety.  I believe that there are reasons for everything and even though I may never know or understand what those reasons are, I am comfortable knowing that there is a greater purpose.  I do still have some discomfort and anxiety around the idea of a quick end such as a car accident or other violent death, but I work with the idea that whatever my experience is, then that is what is supposed to be.  I honestly don’t know how to make it through my day without the idea that there is a power greater than myself supporting me and guiding me towards my purpose and for the Highest Good. 

I was raised Roman Catholic, baptized, communed, and confirmed, although materialist science was also taught in my childhood home.  A perfect example was when my mom explained to me that I couldn’t take the Bible too literally and even though it states that the earth was created in 6 days (Genesis 1:1-31), that each of those “days” could mean an epoch or an era.  She would then use this as a teaching opportunity to explain geology or pre-history.  Today I understand the power in ritual, chanting and mantras, prayer, incense, etc, but I choose to use those tools to focus my consciousness and to connect to the Divine Source without a prescribed set of dogmatic beliefs.  I believe it is more important to have a personal and intimate connection to God/Goddess/Universe that feels true in my heart than to behave according to the rules of human intercessors.  

The experience of introspection and contemplation throughout my lifetime has led me to make different choices than I would have if I had continued with the same belief system as my family of origin.  I learn and practice present-focus, I live in the now and I do it right here, because it is only the present that matters.  While I have held these beliefs for many years, my active daily practice has improved since I received a diagnosis earlier this year that is not immediately life threatening but is life shortening.  Every moment and every action matters, every word I speak holds weight and power, and since I don’t know if I will have a chance to right a wrong, I make every effort to do it right the first time.  I make choices that others might view as risky, and I do it because I place a high value on having the experience, on surviving or completing a task or an ordeal.  I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, I ride a motorcycle, I am working on my Bachelor’s Degree and next year I’m moving to San Francisco to live near the ocean.  I don’t intend to wait for a physician to tell me I have limited time in this body to change my ways of living and interacting or to do something I’ve always wanted to do.  I already know that time is limited so I’m doing it now.  And if I don’t get to it this time around, time is also infinite so I know I’ll have another chance on my next turn around the wheel.

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things that we did not do that is inconsolable.”  Sidney J. Harris

The Spirituality of Science

It's been a battle among humans, for a very long time, trying to get this picture of God into a place that is pleasing for them. And the debate about "Is it evolution? Is it creation? Is it God-inspired, or is it scientifically inspired…?" And we say, why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't everything that is wrapped up in science and vibration be the true essence of that which you call God? It is all one and the same.--- Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Chicago, IL on Saturday, September 18th, 2004 #405
Our Love,
Jerry and Esther


I love this quote.  I love receiving such inspiration in my inbox every morning.

I have said several times since I started back to school studying the sciences that the more I learn the more it strengthens my spirituality.  I love anatomy and physiology.   The levels of organization, body mechanics fascinate me.  The muscular system, a body stripped of it's integument (skin) is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.  When I studied general biology, with a broad but perhaps less passionate interest, I was awed by the cell.  The other students were bored learning about the RER, and the SER, and the Golgi Complex...but I was lost in mental reverie and considering cellular consciousness theory.  And mitochondria, damn, there's a WAY cool organelle...a possible early cellular parasite with it's own DNA separate from ours, and functions within each and every cell that we could not live without. 
Now that I am learning basic Chemisty, I am fascinated by the organization of the periodic table.  That each element has a number of protons in the nucleus and that they are numerically sequential, and in the shape of a snake winding it's way around periods and groups, both of which have correlations to numbers of electrons, ability to form bonds, and other predictable qualities simply because of the placement in the natural order. 

Simply put, I believe that the study of science, of our natural world and how it is constructed, created, organized, and how it functions, IS the study of God. 

When an atheist scientist works without an understanding of the Light, or when a Spiritualist is without a basic grasp of science....I feel a little sadness that those folks might be missing a bigger picture.    At least when a person has one or the other, it could be said that they are serving Universe in their own way.   But I like having what I perceive to be both.

And to speak to the first sentence above, about "getting a picture of God into a place that is pleasing for them," yes, I do this.  Very much so.  I am a visual person in my learning and in my expression.  I often attempt to visualize my personal god-concept, and every time I fall short.  I choose, instead, to make use of which ever diety feels right at the moment.  Sometimes I feel a green Goddess like Briget or Rhiannon, sometimes I see a white Blessed Mother, sometimes it's Tara, perhaps Saraswati, and for many years I saw Quan-yin.  Some days I see rainbow swirls and fractals, somedays it's Hanuman or Murugan, sometimes it's my bare feet in grass, my hands touching a tree, and when I am fortunate enough to be on the coast, my feet in the ocean tides, my arms thrown wide, face to the setting sun....and some times I see god in blood, pain, and tears at the end of a needle.

I see the Divine in each of us.  When someone offers me a kindness, I give thanks.  When my cat, Switch decides he needs to be on top of whatever I am doing, I give thanks.  When I am on my bike and I feel like we are ONE, I give thanks.  When I am filled by a phallus with a sense of completeness, I give thanks. When I feel joy and fulfillment from my studies or my work....ALL of these concepts and experiences are God, Goddess, Source, Creator, Universe. 

I am Blessed. 

And so are YOU.