Heart-pounding fear of death, I'm afraid of death, pretty afraid. Options

Sometimes when I'm not really doing anything my mind wanders, and sometimes it wanders and thinks about death. When I do think about it, it horrifies me, even though I’m very young (19 years old). The thing is, I believe in an afterlife. Not a traditional Christian-like heaven, but I do believe as humans our souls are immortal and death is a transition from the body to an eternal state – being one with nature/the universe.

But this insecure feeling has been with me ever since my godfather died when I was a boy. Sometimes the thought crosses my mind: what if I’m wrong? What if nothing happens, what if it’s simply the end? I recall skeptics saying how religion is simply a way human beings make death easier – since we are the only species aware of our impending doom. And I think of what it would be like to be nothing. Then I imagine what this would be like, and what I picture is probably worse than death itself. I imagine it as a state of consciousness without being conscious. You see, hear, feel, taste, smell absolutely nothing, it’s as if your mind is trapped within a vacuum. Everywhere you look – there is nothing, you would exist in a place of non-existence. When I think about this, my heart begins to pound very heard, I have to breath faster, deeper, and sometimes I even sweat.

I have never seen a ghost, or ever had a supernatural experience, or an experience where I felt like an omnipresent force was protecting me. I feel like this is my fault, that I haven’t been paying enough attention to the spiritual world – and that’s why I don’t have personal proof of its existence. This adds to my fear and doubt of life-after-death.

Then more thoughts quickly follow in which I convince myself that I’m wrong, and there must be an afterlife, and I begin to calm down.

But I wonder – does anyone else ever have these moments of doubt? Do these moments signify that I do not truly believe in what I believe in? And well, I dunno… What should I do? I believe there is a spiritual world, but the critical side of me wants proof – it wants to see a ghost, have an astral experience, invoke a spirit, etc.

If this isn’t the correct forum for this topic, please move it. This is the first time I have discussed this with anyone, so I’m looking for empathetic advice.

Thank you,
Dennis

a common weakness amongst non magickal people.
Or with people just beginning on the path.
don't get me wrong, this is not an insult, most go trough this.

You my friend are not afraid of death, you are attached to life, addicted to your body. The thought of losing physical life scares you enourmously. You know death will come, you know you will lose it, and it terrifies you.

You must let go of your attachement to life. It shouldn't matter if there is an afterlife or not. it should not matter if you cease to exist entirely.
becouse you are attached, and desire your omn existance you fear death. If you become unattached to life, if you do not feac death, then you can be fearless.

this is easyer said than done, but i have no fear of death anymore.

You have awoken to your mortality. I remember when I realsed that I was going to die, and it scared the shit out of me for a short while. I will concur with the above comments regarding attachments.

On a practical level, your life is finite so use your time wisely.

The deal with death is that it shouldn't be fearful. You should realize that on death, the consciousness that is bound to time and space will disappear, and one second is equivalent to millions of years. So in practice, when you die, almost simultaneously the whole world is consumed by the end of time (or at least separate objects in space). It's going to be a blast, literally.

What you should still be concerned about (as mediocracy said) is whether you can fit enough life into the time you've got. It's not too late to start today :-).

becouse you are attached, and desire your omn existance you fear death. If you become unattached to life, if you do not feac death, then you can be fearless.

Thank you! That definately makes a lot of sense, and makes me feel better.

On a practical level, your life is finite so use your time wisely.

So, you don't believe there's anything happening after we die? But, I wonder, wouldn't some sort of belief in spirits and after-life be necessary to also believe in magick? Do you believe magic is a product of our minds and nothing more? (I am not trying to insult, I am simply curious)

if you are searching for evidence of magick,spirits or "other side" you dont have to look further than your room ...notice that you are sorounded by materialised dreams and ideas born out of wedlock with spirits -or simply litle lightning elementals plying around in your head....do you wish luck to anyone? ...or ill? ....does your blanket protect you at night? ...do you try to use the force? ...does your tv work better when u talk nice to it or if u get realy angry .....maybe its enough to belive in death -i would be afraid of it too if i had dumped it on a prom night... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happydance.gif)

So, you don't believe there's anything happening after we die? But, I wonder, wouldn't some sort of belief in spirits and after-life be necessary to also believe in magick? Do you believe magic is a product of our minds and nothing more? (I am not trying to insult, I am simply curious)

I have seen no evidence to support the hypothesis that any form of after life exists.
I have seen no evidence to support the hyposthesis that any kind of spirits etc exist.
I have seen evidence to support the hypothesis that this depends on your reality tunnel, basically 'what the thinker thinks, the prover proves'.

I could, of course, be wrong. I do not intend to start living my life on the off-chance that things I have seen no evidence exist actually exist.

Believing is irrelevant to becoming fearless of death.

Belief is what children need to comfort themselves in such matters.

I don't care what there is after death, its not that i do not believe...
I believe that it is a waste of time believing in something like that. Becouse it does not provide anything usefull.

I live in the moment, thinking about things like te afterlife or fearing death is not part of this moment. And even if i were to face death, it would not bother me, becouse i do not care wheter i live or die.

Don't get me wrong, i enjoy every step i take in this life, but that does not mean that i need it. And i will fight of death if i need to, but i do not fear it.

Any human being who is born on earth dies some day. So one should not worry about death. IMHO.

Wise words Zarina

death isn't that bad. been there, done that. it scared my parents.

the thing you describe about being concious yet unable to interact or even react to the surrounding sounds more like being in coma. everything is dark, you hear your family in the distance yet you can't move a muscle. not even twitch one muscle in your lips to show that you're hearing them. being that paralysed is a cause for fear, at least i can understand that it probably would be.

everyone dies and leaves their physical body. are you truly affraid of death? or just the idea of moving on and leaving things behind, because you got to attached to them? is the trust in your own faith that weak that anyone can convince you otherwise?

best thing is not to worry about such things as life or death. learn what you want to learn , do what you want to do as long as it makes you feel good and you'll be just fine. the truth reveal itself to you when it is time, just be openminded enough in order to allow it to manifest in your life.

...after few near death experiences i truly thought that i do not fear death
but having out of body experience frightened me alot
...it seems to me that fears grow out of our basic instincts andits all
part of the lower self we must grow out of

I've had many after-death experiences.
Were they real? I don't truthfully know.
Then again, how do I know that I won't wake up in five minutes, and my whole life has been a dream?
I choose to believe that they were real, as I have no other alternative belief that makes more sense to me than what I went through.
I wanted answers, and I got them. Now I have a strong belief, not in survival after death, as survival is a thing of the body and the body does die, but I do believe I will continue to 'be' after the event.
Terminology can make these things very confusing, so I'm attempting to make this as clear as I can, avoiding terms like 'afterLIFE', 'LIFE after death', and so on. Even 'existence', and 'being' can be misleading, but being is the term closest for the state I experienced when out there/here.
There is an obvious difference between a living body and a dead one, and I won't patronise anyone by going into details about the differences, but something has gone from the living body which has allowed it to become re-absorbed into the environment from which it came.
In this universe, nothing is ever destroyed, it just changes form.
There is rumoured to be evidence to suggest that there is a difference in weight between a body alive, and the same body when dead.
I am in this body now, but I won't be when it dies, so where will I be?
If I were a driver, and my vehicle broke down beyond repair, I would have to leave it behind until I could get my self a new one, and continue my journey.
I am the driver of this body, and when it reaches a condition whereby it can no longer function as a vehicle for my self to inhabit, I will have no other choice but to leave it behind, and maybe at some point acquire a new one.
In the interim period, I believe I will be reunited with my Ancestors when this sensory environment fades along with the senses that percieve it.
Then, it's party time.
Not that I am not with them now, it's just that being hard wired into this sensory organism makes it difficult to always be aware of the other side of being.
Our lack of sufficient education in these matters doesn't help.
Sometimes cracks appear and we get a glimpse of another side.
All I had to do was ask....well, plead with every ounce of my being once I had got myself into the correct state of mind (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bigwink.gif)
I experienced every being as an infinitely small, but infinitely bright pinpoint of light, emanating a joy, and love of such magnitude, that I couldn't handle it.
I had a sort of mental breakdown aterwards, but thankfully managed to keep it a secret, as I didn't want to end up in some kind of mental institution.
So I went a bit bonkers, but still had enough of a grip on 'normal' behaviour to pull me through.
I'm not trying to TELL anyone what to believe, I'm simply trying to give an account of my experience, how I made sense of it all, and my subsequent beliefs.
In the end, I agree with most of what has been said above.
Generally try not to worry too much about it as we have a life to lead, but if we believe anything about death, we might as well believe something positive, as no-one really knows for sure what's in store after the end, and what's the point in thinking negatively?
Even if we do wink out into oblivion afterwards, why make the short time we have here miserable and all screwed up on account of this?
This is turning into a bit of an epic, so I'll end with a phrase well known to some of us.
'Every man and every woman is a star.' A.C./Aiwaz
Yours in light and darkness.
Steve. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/922.gif)

This post has been edited by Sicksicksicks: Apr 8 2006, 09:13 PM

The first time that I had an Out of Body Experience I learned that there is more to me than flesh and blood and bone. You can take my word for it, but there are others who say that there is no life after death. Who do you believe? Perhaps you will have a personal experience that convinces you sometime. I know there is life after death; I don't just believe, I know. But it is something that has to be experienced to know for sure. Even though I've had experiences that showed me that we are not just our bodies, but immortal spirits, I still fear dying. It is an animal fear that is part of our bodies, our nervous systems.
Its like fearing pain. In any case, dying often involves pain. Sometimes dying, or being dead, is easier than living. I worked in a hospice for 2 or 3 years. Its tough on those around the terminally ill as well. I would get attached to someone and then 2 or 3 months later they were gone. I had to go through regular counselling, but it was educational. I don't know exactly what happens when you die, at least not from a first person perspective, but I noticed a couple of things. I feel energy so this is from the energetic standpoint. They seem to conserve or horde energy towards the end. I have the idea that dying requires a certain amount of qi or energy. At the moment of death, there is a great release of energy. What is left afterwards isn't a person, just a shell.

I agree totally with the above.
I also know, as far as I can, but I use the word 'believe' for the sake of argument.
Like, I 'know', as much as I know I'm alive and I inhabit this material body in the material world, but like I said in my previous post, 'I may wake up .......etc.'
What you say about the energy, also ties in with some of the Magickal theory.
I wasn't going to write about this at first, as this forum is accessible to everyone, but as it appears somewhere else on this forum, I may as well mention it.
In certain rituals of a darker nature, the sacrifice of living organisms gives off a tremendous amount of energy, which is used by the less scrupulous to achieve whatever dubious ends they have in mind.
Be it upon their own Karma to use these methods.
If I use any life energy, I would prefer to use my own blood or sexual energies, which are plenty strong enough for my requirements.
Anyway, I'm drifting off the subject here, so I'll stop now before the powers that be rap my knuckles.
In light and darkness,
Steve.

Heart-pounding fear of death, I'm afraid of death, pretty afraid.

Ok. This might be all hot air, now -- because I am alive now and not anticipating a sudden death. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

BUT...

Death is nothing really except from moving from one part to another in the room of your existence.

What is maybe the unnerving thing about death, is the FEAR of the unknown. But, if you stop and consider death fully and without revulsion or fear, it is all really very easy. Firstly you must stop fearing the word death. A good death is just as important as a good life. If you live a good life with no regrets and nothing to besmirch your conscience, then IMO you have nothing to worry about.

Maybe your biggest enemy on the Day of Judgement is oneself, and rather than risk the penalty meted out by that severe moderator (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sculacciata.gif) one should live an honest, fair and decent life.

I agree, yet again.
We have been conditioned to fear death all our lives (Hmmm!), but there are some cultures who celebrate it, and as you say, a clear conscience can make a hell (Hmmm!) of a difference when the big moment comes.
We can spend our lives ripping other people off etc..., in order to make our own lives more comfortable but when it comes to that final crunch, we go out as we came in, i.e. with nothing, and a clearer conscience can make the process a bit smoother.
I reckon that's what Christians are on about when they say 'repent' and all that.
Even after all my experiences, which have mainly been positive, I still have no desire to pop off just yet but when I do I think I'll have something good to look forward to, and if I'm wrong, and I just wink out of existence, I won't know about it anyway.
There is a great deal more evidence in my opinion to suggest that there is some form of continued state of being after death than there is to suggest otherwise, so I think it wise to get my spiritual affairs in order whilst I'm alive, and though I can lie to everyone else 'til I'm blue in the face, I can't lie to myself in the end.
Here endeth sermon sicksicksicks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/922.gif)