We are afraid of many things. And each
one of us has his own particular fears and anxieties, which vary
greatly from person to person. But there is one fear which is universal,
which often increases as we grow older. It can weigh on us as a
constant burden and can create a great disturbance. This is the
fear of Death.
The question which we have therefore
selected for this month is:
How to overcome the Fear of Death?
This is a question of vital importance
for most of us. The Mother has dealt with it in a detailed yet simpler
manner. She has explained several methods and it is for each one
of us to choose the one which is most suitable. We can do nothing
better than to give here the entire article of the Mother.
"Generally speaking, perhaps
the greatest obstacle in the way of man's progress is fear, a
fear that is many-sided, multiform, self-contradictory, illogical,
unreasoning and often unreasonable. Of all fears the most subtle
and the most tenacious is the fear of death. It is deeply rooted
in the subconscient and it is not easy to dislodge. It is obviously
made up of several interwoven elements: the spirit of conservatism
and the concern for self-preservation so as to ensure the continuity
of consciousness, the recoil before the unknown, the uneasiness
caused by the unexpected and the unforeseeable, and perhaps, behind
all that, hidden in the depths of the cells, the instinct that
death is not inevitable and that, if certain conditions are fulfilled,
it can be conquered; although, as a matter of fact, fear in itself
is one of the greatest obstacles to that conquest. For one cannot
conquer what one fears, and one who fears death has already been
conquered by it.
The indispensable Psychological
Basis
How can one overcome this fear? Several
methods can be used for this purpose. But first of all, a few
fundamental notions are needed to help us in our endeavour. The
first and most important point is to know that life is one and
immortal. Only the forms are countless, fleeting and brittle.
This knowledge must be securely and permanently established in
the mind and one must identify one's consciousness as far as possible
with the eternal life that is independent of every form, but which
manifests in all forms. This gives the indispensable psychological
basis with which to confront the problem, for the problem remains.
Even if the inner being is enlightened enough to be above all
fear, the fear still remains hidden in the cells of the body,
obscure, spontaneous, beyond the reach of reason, usually almost
unconscious. It is in these obscure depths that one must find
it out, seize hold of it and cast upon it the light of knowledge
and certitude.
Thus life does not die, but the form
is dissolved, and it is this dissolution that the physical consciousness
dreads. And yet the form is constantly changing and in essence
there is nothing to prevent this change from being progressive.
Only this progressive change could make death no longer inevitable,
but it is very difficult to achieve and demands conditions that
very few people are able to fulfil. Thus the method to be followed
in order to overcome the fear of death will differ according to
the nature of the case and the state of the consciousness. These
methods can be classified into four principal kinds, although
each one includes a large number of varieties; in fact, each individual
must develop his own system.
The Method of Reason
The first method appeals to the reason.
One can say that in the present state of the world, death is inevitable;
a body that has taken birth will necessarily die one day or another,
and in almost every case death comes when it must: one can neither
hasten nor delay its hour. Someone who craves for it may have
to wait very long to obtain it and someone who dreads it may suddenly
be struck down in spite of all the precautions he has taken. The
hour of death seems therefore to be inexorably fixed, except for
a very few individuals who possess powers that the human race
in general does not command. Reason teaches us that it is absurd
to fear something that one cannot avoid. The only thing to do
is to accept the idea of death and quietly do the best one can
from day to day, from hour to hour, without worrying about what
is going to happen. This process is very effective when it is
used by intellectuals who are accustomed to act according to the
laws of reason; but it would be less successful for emotional
people who live in their feelings and let themselves be ruled
by them.
The Method of Inner Seeking
No doubt, these people should have
recourse to the second method, the method of inner seeking. Beyond
all the emotions, in the silent and tranquil depths of our being,
there is a light shining constantly, the light of the psychic
consciousness. Go in search of this light, concentrate on it;
it is within you. With a persevering will you are sure to find
it and as soon as you enter into it, you awake to the sense of
immortality. You have always lived, you will always live; you
become wholly independent of your body; your conscious existence
does not depend on it; and this body is only one of the transient
forms through which you have manifested. Death is no longer an
extinction, it is only a transition. All fear instantly vanishes
and you walk through life with the calm certitude of a free man.
The Path of Faith
The third method is for those who
have faith in a God, their god, and who have given themselves
to him. They belong to him integrally; all the events of their
lives are an expression of the divine will and they accept them
not merely with calm submission but with gratitude, for they are
convinced that whatever happens to them is always for their own
good. They have a mystic trust in their God and in their personal
relationship with him. They have made an absolute surrender of
their will to his and feel his unvarying love and protection,
wholly independent of the accidents of life and death. They have
the constant experience of lying at the feet of their Beloved
in an absolute self-surrender or of being cradled in his arms
and enjoying a perfect security. There is no longer any room in
their consciousness for fear, anxiety or torment; all that has
been replaced by a calm and delightful bliss.
But not everyone has the good fortune
of being a mystic.
The Way of the Warrior
Finally there are those who are born
warriors. They cannot accept life as it is and they feel pulsating
within them their right to immortality, an integral and earthly
immortality. They possess a kind of intuitive knowledge that death
is nothing but a bad habit; they seem to be born with the resolution
to conquer it. But this conquest entails a desperate combat against
an army of fierce and subtle assailants, a combat that has to
be fought constantly, almost at every minute. Only one who has
an indomitable spirit should attempt it. The battle has many fronts;
it is waged on several planes that intermingle and complement
each other.
The first battle to be fought is
already formidable: it is the mental battle against a collective
suggestion that is massive, overwhelming, compelling, a suggestion
based on thousands of years of experience, on a law of Nature
that does not yet seem to have had any exception. It translates
itself into this stubborn assertion: it has always been so, it
cannot be any different; death is inevitable and it is madness
to hope that it can be anything else. The concert is unanimous
and till now even the most advanced scientist has hardly dared
to sound a discordant note, a hope for the future. As for the
religions, most of them have based their power of action on the
fact of death and they assert that God wanted man to die since
he created him mortal. Many of them make death a deliverance,
a liberation, sometimes even a reward. Their injunction is: submit
to the will of the Highest, accept without revolt the idea of
death and you shall have peace and happiness. In spite of all
this, the mind must remain unshakable in its conviction and sustain
an unbending will. But for one, who has resolved to conquer death,
all these suggestions have no effect and cannot affect his certitude,
which is based on a profound revelation.
The second battle is the battle of
the feelings, the fight against attachment to everything one has
created, everything one has loved. By assiduous labour, sometimes
at the cost of great efforts, you have built up a home, a career,
a social, literary, artistic, scientific or political work, you
have formed an environment with yourself at the centre and you
depend on it at least as much as it depends on you. You are surrounded
by a group of people, relatives, friends, helpers, and when you
think of your life, they occupy almost as great a place as yourself
in your thought, so much so that if they were to be suddenly taken
away from you, you would feel lost, as if a very important part
of your being had disappeared.
It is not a matter of giving up all
these things, since they make up, at least to a great extent,
the aim and purpose of your existence. But you must give up all
attachment to these things, so that you may feel capable of living
without them, or rather so that you may be ready, if they leave
you, to rebuild a new life for yourself, in new circumstances,
and to do this indefinitely, for such is the consequence of immortality.
This state may be defined in this way: to be able to organise
and carry out everything with utmost care and attention and yet
remain free from all desire and attachment, for if you wish to
escape death, you must not be bound by anything that will perish.
After the feelings come the sensations.
Here the fight is pitiless and the adversaries formidable. They
can sense the slightest weakness and strike where you are defenseless.
The victories you win are only fleeting and the same battles are
repeated indefinitely. The enemy whom you thought you had defeated
rises up again and again to strike you. You must have a strongly
tempered character, an untiring endurance to be able to withstand
every defeat, every rebuff, every denial, every discouragement
and the immense weariness of finding yourself always in contradiction
with daily experience and earthly events.
We come now to the most terrible
battle of all, the physical battle which is fought in the body;
for it goes on without respite or truce. It begins at birth and
can end only with the defeat of one of the two combatants: the
force of transformation and the force of disintegration. I say
at birth, for in fact the two movements are in conflict from the
very moment one comes into the world, although the conflict becomes
conscious and deliberate only much later. For every indisposition,
every illness, every malformation, even accidents, are the result
of the action of the force of disintegration, just as growth,
harmonious development, resistance to attack, recovery from illness,
every return to the normal functioning, every progressive improvement,
are due to the action of the force of transformation. Later on,
with the development of the consciousness, when the fight becomes
deliberate, it changes into a frantic race between the two opposite
and rival movements, a race to see which one will reach its goal
first, transformation or death. This means a ceaseless effort,
a constant concentration to call down the regenerating force and
to increase the receptivity of the cells to this force, to fight
step by step, from point to point against the devastating action
of the forces of destruction and decline, to tear out of its grasp
everything that is capable of responding to the ascending urge,
to enlighten, purify and stabilise. It is an obscure and obstinate
struggle, most often without any apparent result or any external
sign of the partial victories that have been won and are ever
uncertain - for the work that has been done always seems to need
to be redone; each step forward is most often made at the cost
of a setback elsewhere and what has been done one day can be undone
the next. Indeed, the victory can be sure and lasting only when
it is total. And all that takes time, much time, and the years
pass by inexorably, increasing the strength of the adverse forces.
All this time the consciousness stands
like a sentinel in a trench: you must hold on, hold on at all
costs, without a quiver of fear or a slackening of vigilance,
keeping an unshakable faith in the mission to be accomplished
and in the help from above which inspires and sustains you. For
the victory will go to the most enduring.
The Way of the Initiate
There is yet another way to conquer
the fear of death, but it is within the reach of so few that it
is mentioned here only as a matter of information. It is to enter
into the domain of death deliberately and consciously while one
is still alive, and then to return from this region and re-enter
the physical body, resuming the course of material existence with
full knowledge. But for that one must be an initiate."
- The Mother
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