I consider any person who is capable of admitting that they have a fear of death, as being a step closer to wisdom.
For how can you not fear the unknown, unless or until the unknown reveals itself (upon death) as nonthreatening?
I consider any person who is capable of consciously facing their fear of death, as having a fuller quality of life.
For how can you hold back the inevitability of death by not facing your fear and still fully live?
To be a person who has taken a step closer to wisdom, by admitting that they fear death AND also faced their fear of death to reveal a fuller quality of life is a rare bread, it seems. Even rarer is the person who admits that they fear life and consciously walks into every aspect of life that is unknown.
The only people who don't fear death are:
1. People who believe they have the knowledge about what will happen after death (therefore, overlaying their fear of death with a belief and as a result not experiencing their fear as having any existence).
2. People who have unknown every aspect of life, and therefore, have seen that there is no death (just another aspect of the mysterious life).
The fear of death (which is there in almost everybody on this planet, either consciously or unconsciously, since nobody who is living has known directly what death is) is linked to the fear of life.
In other words, the fear of death and the fear of life are the same one movement, appearing as two different subjects of experience. As a collective humanity, we all have these fears of 'both' death and life, but we're mostly ignorant to the fears we have of life itself and life experiences (in the same way, we fear death, but may not experience it due to the overlay of belief). We truly feel that we know what life is, who we are in it, who others are in it, why life is here, what can and what can't happen in life, and what everything we experience in life is.
Needless to say, we're comfortable with our knowledge about what life is and everything we experience in it. This seems to be what knowledge does; it gives the mirage of comfort through ignorance. The comfort of life, and every aspect of life that feels comfortable, comes in the form of believing in knowledge and we mistake this for the fullest quality that life has to offer.
When wisdom unfolds, it happens through the unlearning of false knowledge. Knowledge has the power to convince us that we have wisdom. Yet, every aspect of wisdom unfolds, only when one unlearns any aspect of some knowledge they were taught by cultural conditioning. This unlearning lands one in a place of mystery, in which reveals itself as wisdom. Wisdom doesn't refer to knowledge applied, wisdom refers to the unhooking release of knowledge. All wisdom of this flavor (true wisdom) is not something known, it's mysterious, but words that sound like knowledge (which is really only pure wisdom) flow from this mysterious unknown place, if and when an aspect of cultural conditioning is seen through as false knowledge.
All cultural conditioning appears to be a type of artificial learned knowledge. This artificial knowledge is usually believed to be knowledge that we learn from our direct experiences of life. However, more times than not, our direct experiences are filtered through cultural conditioning. This filter, greatly limits the informational data of what we're experiencing, and as a result, we're left with artificial knowledge. Cultural conditioning is based on second-hand knowledge and unquestioned assumptions. Furthermore, cultural conditioning refers to habits and thought processes that we develop due to the society that we live in.
All aspects of life are unknown except through the false overlay of cultural conditioning. Hence, if we don't fear life and feel quite comfortable with life, we're likely ignorant to our fears and it's this ignorance to these fears that cause us to be defensive towards others, protective of self-images and beliefs, controlling of others or our surrounding environment with fear -force - guilt - or shame, projecting shadows of unmet qualities in ourselves, resistance to life, setting expectations on life, unclear about the difference between observable facts and probabilities or opinion, etc...
We don't want to consciously question our assumptions or unlearn our cultural knowledge because every aspect of it feels like reality (if and when an aspect doesn't hold true on the feeling level of what reality is, that aspect drops away). Therefore, anybody or any idea that invites us outside the scope of the life that we call reality (and feel comfortable in), will feel like a threat to the only reality we know. This reality, that is built on false comfort, may not feel pleasant all the time, but it's our only familiar norm. In this familiar sense of what we call 'normality'; we feel comfortable with the normal reality of false comfort. Hence, we will hold our grasp upon these normalities as if it's the only reality that life has to offer.
However, though it may feel uncomfortable and scary to consciously walk into the unknown (which is what life is and all aspects of it), it's not the unknowns themselves that are scary. It's all the things we do to keep from having to face our fears of the unknown, that cause the scary feelings. The scary feelings, are feelings produced by not wanting to be found out by others, or not wanting to become conscious to the fact that we are deceiving our own selves. Scary feelings which we innocently cover up with the ignorance of normality, as to not feel the fears as scary, but instead to only feel comfortable with what we were taught to be 'everyday normal life', 'the reality of daily business as usual' or 'the humdrum mundane existence'.
Nevertheless, if and when one dives into any aspect of the unknown, the unknown is seen to only be mysterious. And as children we can remember that mysteries are fun to investigate and play in, mysteries are quite curious and miraculous. Though the mysteries are never solved, they are miracles that make you wonder, they are interesting phenomenons, they are welcomed; and this is where true comfort comes from. True comfort reveals a different kind of quality, a fuller quality.
Life stopped being an unknown beautiful mysterious phenomenon, the moment we traded the mystery for knowledge. Unknow every aspect of life, until the mysterious essence of that aspect is revealed, this is the secret to a fuller quality of life. The more you unknow, the fuller life will reveal itself to be.
Facing the fear of death is only one aspect of how fear arises (but it's the main one). You can also face all your fears by understanding what fears are, how and why all fears are created in the mind.
For how can you not fear the unknown, unless or until the unknown reveals itself (upon death) as nonthreatening?
I consider any person who is capable of consciously facing their fear of death, as having a fuller quality of life.
For how can you hold back the inevitability of death by not facing your fear and still fully live?
To be a person who has taken a step closer to wisdom, by admitting that they fear death AND also faced their fear of death to reveal a fuller quality of life is a rare bread, it seems. Even rarer is the person who admits that they fear life and consciously walks into every aspect of life that is unknown.
The only people who don't fear death are:
1. People who believe they have the knowledge about what will happen after death (therefore, overlaying their fear of death with a belief and as a result not experiencing their fear as having any existence).
2. People who have unknown every aspect of life, and therefore, have seen that there is no death (just another aspect of the mysterious life).
In other words, the fear of death and the fear of life are the same one movement, appearing as two different subjects of experience. As a collective humanity, we all have these fears of 'both' death and life, but we're mostly ignorant to the fears we have of life itself and life experiences (in the same way, we fear death, but may not experience it due to the overlay of belief). We truly feel that we know what life is, who we are in it, who others are in it, why life is here, what can and what can't happen in life, and what everything we experience in life is.
Needless to say, we're comfortable with our knowledge about what life is and everything we experience in it. This seems to be what knowledge does; it gives the mirage of comfort through ignorance. The comfort of life, and every aspect of life that feels comfortable, comes in the form of believing in knowledge and we mistake this for the fullest quality that life has to offer.
When wisdom unfolds, it happens through the unlearning of false knowledge. Knowledge has the power to convince us that we have wisdom. Yet, every aspect of wisdom unfolds, only when one unlearns any aspect of some knowledge they were taught by cultural conditioning. This unlearning lands one in a place of mystery, in which reveals itself as wisdom. Wisdom doesn't refer to knowledge applied, wisdom refers to the unhooking release of knowledge. All wisdom of this flavor (true wisdom) is not something known, it's mysterious, but words that sound like knowledge (which is really only pure wisdom) flow from this mysterious unknown place, if and when an aspect of cultural conditioning is seen through as false knowledge.
All cultural conditioning appears to be a type of artificial learned knowledge. This artificial knowledge is usually believed to be knowledge that we learn from our direct experiences of life. However, more times than not, our direct experiences are filtered through cultural conditioning. This filter, greatly limits the informational data of what we're experiencing, and as a result, we're left with artificial knowledge. Cultural conditioning is based on second-hand knowledge and unquestioned assumptions. Furthermore, cultural conditioning refers to habits and thought processes that we develop due to the society that we live in.
All aspects of life are unknown except through the false overlay of cultural conditioning. Hence, if we don't fear life and feel quite comfortable with life, we're likely ignorant to our fears and it's this ignorance to these fears that cause us to be defensive towards others, protective of self-images and beliefs, controlling of others or our surrounding environment with fear -force - guilt - or shame, projecting shadows of unmet qualities in ourselves, resistance to life, setting expectations on life, unclear about the difference between observable facts and probabilities or opinion, etc...
We don't want to consciously question our assumptions or unlearn our cultural knowledge because every aspect of it feels like reality (if and when an aspect doesn't hold true on the feeling level of what reality is, that aspect drops away). Therefore, anybody or any idea that invites us outside the scope of the life that we call reality (and feel comfortable in), will feel like a threat to the only reality we know. This reality, that is built on false comfort, may not feel pleasant all the time, but it's our only familiar norm. In this familiar sense of what we call 'normality'; we feel comfortable with the normal reality of false comfort. Hence, we will hold our grasp upon these normalities as if it's the only reality that life has to offer.
However, though it may feel uncomfortable and scary to consciously walk into the unknown (which is what life is and all aspects of it), it's not the unknowns themselves that are scary. It's all the things we do to keep from having to face our fears of the unknown, that cause the scary feelings. The scary feelings, are feelings produced by not wanting to be found out by others, or not wanting to become conscious to the fact that we are deceiving our own selves. Scary feelings which we innocently cover up with the ignorance of normality, as to not feel the fears as scary, but instead to only feel comfortable with what we were taught to be 'everyday normal life', 'the reality of daily business as usual' or 'the humdrum mundane existence'.
Nevertheless, if and when one dives into any aspect of the unknown, the unknown is seen to only be mysterious. And as children we can remember that mysteries are fun to investigate and play in, mysteries are quite curious and miraculous. Though the mysteries are never solved, they are miracles that make you wonder, they are interesting phenomenons, they are welcomed; and this is where true comfort comes from. True comfort reveals a different kind of quality, a fuller quality.
Life stopped being an unknown beautiful mysterious phenomenon, the moment we traded the mystery for knowledge. Unknow every aspect of life, until the mysterious essence of that aspect is revealed, this is the secret to a fuller quality of life. The more you unknow, the fuller life will reveal itself to be.
Facing the fear of death is only one aspect of how fear arises (but it's the main one). You can also face all your fears by understanding what fears are, how and why all fears are created in the mind.
