Death as an Advisor

We all can get into a zone, where we feel like we'll just live forever; we take life for granted. When we take life for granted, we can make some pretty bad mistakes, and our lives meander around because they're not worth much too us, or we don't take it seriously.

That's why I use death as an advisor. He is standing over me, waiting to tap me on the shoulder, waiting to let me know it's time to go home. We all have death waiting for us; we don't like to think about that as a culture. "Let's think about happier things." Our avoidance of death has fooled us into thinking we have all the time in the world.

When I am making a difficult decision, I envision Death there, grim reaper style, standing next to me. In the shadow of your own death, you have the perspective necessary to take into account your highest priorities. Basing your life around your highest priorities is key to finding happiness in this world. With Death as my advisor, I will not get in the car and drive drunk, or yell at my wife for something petty - if I died then, is that how I want to leave this world? Yelling insults?

It arouses in me a deep sense of who I am as a person, it arouses honor and courage, and enables me to think clearly about what my priorities really are, what really matters in my life.

It seems morbid from the outside, but as a tool towards making wise decisions in life, I've found it to be pretty valuable.

All our days are numbered. I have no control over when I will die. What I do have control over, is what I do with my time while I am still here.

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


Isn't the grim reaper associated with Saturn which itself represents time.

Arthur Schopenhauer said exactly what you are saying. We live as if we are immortal. That is what makes us strive and spend our best years studying to get a degree, etc. If we thought about death , we would do nothing.

But you're right to befriend death as he is truly the expert on time (or time management if you will)

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


As my Dad told me when I was a young boy, "We are all born to die, it's the journey in between that matters."

Oddly enough I've used much the same philosophy as you as I've lived and learned through this journey. Death seems to be running around my family lately and tapping a lot of shoulders.

But nonetheless...I'm still a happy jackass.

So I just wrote this big reply which took me 45 minutes and somehow managed to let the page go back and lost all my material.

Anyhow, I'll just rewrite the most important part:

If I have the opportunity to die in full awareness I'm dying what will be the last things I'll think of?

Will it be my career?

Will it be the fact I've worked so many hours and days?

Will it be the money I've gained throughout my life?

Will it be the cars I've bought?

To shorten it up: Any material wealth I've gained?


I don't think so.


What I'll think about is the development of my inner self. Love. Compassion. Forgiveness. The fact I've tried to live life as a good person. The little unexpected things of life that made it so beautiful. Music. Art. ...

The beauty of it all. That's what I live for.

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


I get what your saying I think, and I keep such spirits as advisors as well.

I don't think the path is so narrow that there are no advisor's along the way, whatever one might want to call them.

I feed several colonies of crows regularly if you catch a drift.

Cheers , thanks for your words I enjoyed the read.

All the best to you and your on the season....

reply to post by Staafke


I had a vision come up from the depths about existence after death. I don't know if its true, but its an interesting idea:

What if after you die, you can remember the important things in life vividly, like the relationships we had, and the emotional aspect; but the material things in this world were almost black, a ghost of themselves, because they are not of the spiritual world, they are only of this waking world. You would be struggling to remember the blurry details of things no longer real. The money is gone. The property is gone. Just left with the vivid memories of the relationships.

Imagine the life of someone who prioritizes money and power, while in his relationships with others he is brutal. King of the Mountain while alive, dead with only his memories of brutality. And think about the person who prioritizes relationships, love, sharing, kindness, and doesn't care that much for material things; in the afterlife, they would have vibrant memories of life, and a beautiful story filled with meaning.

Treespeaker
reply to post by TwoTonTommy

 

I get what your saying I think, and I keep such spirits as advisors as well.

I don't think the path is so narrow that there are no advisor's along the way, whatever one might want to call them.

I feed several colonies of crows regularly if you catch a drift.

Cheers , thanks for your words I enjoyed the read.

All the best to you and your on the season....

I agree. There are advisors all around if one knows how to listen and look.
Happy Holidays, and see you 'round the fountain...

"Let it be known... There is a fountain... That was not made.... By the hands of men"

I have made bad mistakes in my life some which will haunt me for rest of my days, and all because I wasmt listening to death as my adviser when making decisions. instead pre occupied with some other trivial crap at work etc

AthlonSavage
I have made bad mistakes in my life some which will haunt me for rest of my days, and all because I wasmt listening to death as my adviser when making decisions. instead pre occupied with some other trivial crap at work etc

I myself spent some time making nothing but bad decisions it seems. Ultimately we have to move on from the past, and if we can make better decisions in the future, we can light up the darkness a little.

reply to post by TwoTonTommy

Nice one. Although I'm not a believer in the after life per se, this post of yours gave me chills. I wonder if there's a common shared knowledge. So not a fully afterlife, but a newborn with collective memories. It strikes me every time I see some children's drawings. You see the craziest things in them. And some times it makes me wonder: how do they know?

TwoTonTommy
reply to post by Staafke

 

I had a vision come up from the depths about existence after death. I don't know if its true, but its an interesting idea:

What if after you die, you can remember the important things in life vividly, like the relationships we had, and the emotional aspect; but the material things in this world were almost black, a ghost of themselves, because they are not of the spiritual world, they are only of this waking world. You would be struggling to remember the blurry details of things no longer real. The money is gone. The property is gone. Just left with the vivid memories of the relationships.

Imagine the life of someone who prioritizes money and power, while in his relationships with others he is brutal. King of the Mountain while alive, dead with only his memories of brutality. And think about the person who prioritizes relationships, love, sharing, kindness, and doesn't care that much for material things; in the afterlife, they would have vibrant memories of life, and a beautiful story filled with meaning.

edit on 12/19/2013 by TwoTonTommy because: grammar

Caution. Waxing philosophic.

Sometimes I swim in my local river. Usually I am alone. While swimming upstream I philosophize about this kind of thing. I explore submerged rocks and boulders. I think that out of the how many now, seven billion, eight?, people on our planet, how many have ever had a set of goggles and a snorkel and the time and opportunity and will to swim and explore as I do. In all the rivers,,,,,, thousands maybe?. But in my river, hundreds? maybe, probably not. In my favorite swimming holes?

In my ten years swimming several swimming holes,none. Just me. I have found cathedrals of rock, underwater. Holes big enough to swim through, submerged and up river where few ever go. Little stones in slightly larger basins that have carved out the rock over a million years and no one else has seen it but me.

So I swim and record. Not with a camera but with my being. As you suggest above, maybe there is stuff we take with us and stuff we don't. So I record for my own memories and that possibility that these are experiences that I might carry on into the next life. Or maybe am uploading to the larger existence as I swim along. And maybe, just maybe the time will come(or out of time will come) opportunities to share or recreate these experiences for others who never had the chance as we find ourselves so far along the line of existence that small remembrances such as these will be cherished and fondly recalled of our short time on this little gem of a world.

TerryMcGuire
reply to post by Staafke

 

Caution. Waxing philosophic.

Sometimes I swim in my local river. Usually I am alone. While swimming upstream I philosophize about this kind of thing. I explore submerged rocks and boulders. I think that out of the how many now, seven billion, eight?, people on our planet, how many have ever had a set of goggles and a snorkel and the time and opportunity and will to swim and explore as I do. In all the rivers,,,,,, thousands maybe?. But in my river, hundreds? maybe, probably not. In my favorite swimming holes?

In my ten years swimming several swimming holes,none. Just me. I have found cathedrals of rock, underwater. Holes big enough to swim through, submerged and up river where few ever go. Little stones in slightly larger basins that have carved out the rock over a million years and no one else has seen it but me.

So I swim and record. Not with a camera but with my being. As you suggest above, maybe there is stuff we take with us and stuff we don't. So I record for my own memories and that possibility that these are experiences that I might carry on into the next life. Or maybe am uploading to the larger existence as I swim along. And maybe, just maybe the time will come(or out of time will come) opportunities to share or recreate these experiences for others who never had the chance as we find ourselves so far along the line of existence that small remembrances such as these will be cherished and fondly recalled of our short time on this little gem of a world.

Yeah, I've often been some amazing place having an amazing experience, and just thinking, "I am the only one that's ever been here doing this." We all have unique experiences, and I wonder how much gets "recorded" on the akashic record if some such thing exists - the holographic plate that holds the story of all our lives. How much story gets recorded? What will we remember when we die? Its an interesting question, and we will all definitely get the answer to it someday.

I'm actually looking forward to find out some answers. I'm kind of just realizing that, that the door of death shouldn't be painted black with pictures of skulls and crossbones, but painted white with a "!!!" which means "Eureka! Now I finally know!"

Maybe we should bring that into our funerals, some joy that the person you love finally has all the answers to what life is about, what the afterlife is like, what really matters... all baffling questions for us "living" souls.

i suppose if living in fear of death works for you, so be it. i myself do not fear death, nor anything else and that works for me, as we each have our own path to travel.. cheers

OceanSpray
i suppose if living in fear of death works for you, so be it. i myself do not fear death, nor anything else and that works for me, as we each have our own path to travel.. cheers

I wouldn't classify it as living "in fear of death". More just an awareness that our time here is short. I am not afraid of death. But I want to live, and I do respect that life is short.

TwoTonTommy

OceanSpray
i suppose if living in fear of death works for you, so be it. i myself do not fear death, nor anything else and that works for me, as we each have our own path to travel.. cheers

I wouldn't classify it as living "in fear of death". More just an awareness that our time here is short. I am not afraid of death. But I want to live, and I do respect that life is short.

in your words "I will not get in the car and drive drunk, or yell at my wife for something petty - if I died then, is that how I want to leave this world? Yelling insults?"

that is called a fear, a fear of dieing and leaving this world in that state of mind and remembrance. i do not view my "time" as short and this lifetime, like the rest, are just another day to me. i live without fear of anything, including how i spoke before dieing this time, and i still remain grateful for every thing i have, i need not a motivation such as this. that's not to say it's not a productive way of achieving what you desire for the moment, nor that there is anything wrong with what you choose.

i support everyone who tries to be a better human being, as long as their way harms no one else, i applaud it.

reply to post by TwoTonTommy

I'm actually looking forward to find out some answers. I'm kind of just realizing that, that the door of death shouldn't be painted black with pictures of skulls and crossbones, but painted white with a "!!!" which means "Eureka! Now I finally know!"

When I was ten, my grandfather died. He lived with us at the time so his was the first death I knew of. I asked my mother about where he was now and she replied that where ever he was now, all his questions were answered. This stayed with me.
But the BIG question that came to me at the time was, "what could all these questions be that my grandfather was asking that could only be answered after death. So I asked my mother the only important question I could think of at the time. Her reply to this was "Of course there are toilets in heaven Terry. If you want a toilet in heaven, you can have a toilet in heaven.

So I set on a course of trying to formulate those BIG questions. Couldn't get to heaven some day and only want to know where the john was. So I started finding questions to ask. The older I got though, I began finding that many of my questions were being answered along the way. Not from teachers or priests, though certainly there was influence from these quarters, but more from questions that simmered inside and eventually came together with other questions an experiences of my on-going life.

Now many many years later, I find that as I look around the corner, I actually would prefer to not have all those unanswered questions that I still hold to be answered. More is a hope that the next situation in which I find myself will allow me to continue finding questions to which experience and growth is the answer.