Fear, Suffering...and Happiness
What is the nature of fear? What do we fear most, and why? And what's the deal with suffering, anyway? What sort of benevolent Infinity would make us routinely put up with all manner of pain and aggravation? Why can't we all just be happy all of the time?
These are the most pressing existential questions I can think of. Death is, of course, the primal terror of all living beings. Ask a biologist and they'll tell you fear is an expression of the 'fight or flight' survival reflex present in all animals. But the evolution of reason has altered our understanding of Nature (in ourselves and in our external environment), and presented us with fears extending beyond simply death - where did we come from, how is it that we are alive and aware, and what will happen to that awareness when we inevitably die? Regardless of their position in life, most people like being alive and self-aware, and enjoy having an identity; even if it is highly mutable. We don't want to cease being, but then, the idea of an eternity of being (especially in a single form) is somehow equally
terrifying.
Are animals aware of the inevitability of death? Or do they simply flee from immediate danger, unaware of the link between being caught and killed, and unable to contemplate their own demise; from old age if nothing else? Is death such a terrible thing, that Nature causes us to flee from it as from some horrible monster?
Yet, we have invented a myriad of constructs that contradict this instinct - that tell us death is not to be feared, that there is life beyond life, and that death is only ever a transition to another form of it, in an infinite cycle of being moving through forms and creating new ones through them. Being fruitful and multiplying, so to speak.
Whatever the truth may be, experience, logic and instinct tell us that everything that has a beginning must inevitably end. So to me there seems to be only a few possible explanations to 'what happens?' when we die:
1) If we possess being beyond a physical form, and retain our individuality, then each individual must have either always existed, or their non-physical form had a beginning of its own. If we have always existed, then our core identity never changes, and never will; because if it does, then it can be said that the original being no longer exists - it has changed into something different from the original design. In that case, each individual being is essentially recycled throughout existence, the same actor filling various parts in a never-ending play - imprisoned in flux between physical and non-physical forms...forever.
2) The other possibility is that our individual consciousness did, in fact, have a beginning. In this case, what happens when it inevitably has an end? This is our ultimate fear - not the death of a mere body, but the death of individuality. That I will no longer be me...that I will cease, and never exist again. In one scenario, we rotate through the cycles of birth and death in various physical and non-physical forms a great many times, before our being finally releases its primary form and returns to its origin state of unity with Infinity. Many Eastern mystical traditions refer to this as the final escape from the wheel of Karma. In another scenario, our consciousness had its start in this life alone - and when we die...that's it.
Both of these options are rather terrifying in their finality. Anything would seem preferable to either, yet there exists suffering so intense that it provokes some to end their physical lives prematurely, and to venture into the Great Unknown on the premise that anything must be preferable to that suffering, overriding even the basic animal instinct for self-preservation. So surely, ceasing to be (in any sense) isn't necessarily a bad thing. We can all conceive of conditions under which we would wish to die, regardless of our ignorance of what lies Beyond. So perhaps, just perhaps, the second answer isn't actually a bad one.
Don't get me wrong - I can easily conceive of living through many, many incarnations (physical and otherwise) before getting tired of my individual existence; but after several trillion years (or more, who knows) I can also easily imagine getting tired of a cyclical system that never ends; but is always in flux. ..But if this is actually the one and only life we'll ever have...then we'll simply be returning to our origin that much sooner. It's going to happen, either way. So a question arises concerning the nature of becoming One - what sort of experience is that? Is there any coming back from it, and would we want to? Do these questions even make sense in that context? I do not know. But we all find out someday, I suppose.
Yet that's a copout. I conceive of the Infinite as containing all perfection, and transcending it; and certainly the most evident of perfections I can readily examine is the principle of pleasure. I can experience it in the confines of this individual physical form, and I observe that other forms do as well; also that there are degrees in which it is more or less perfect. The most potent pleasures I perceive to be the most perfect, and the mildest forms I perceive as somewhat less perfect than the more potent ones. Suffering in any degree, physical or otherwise, is met with distress, and attempts to escape it ensue - through distraction, deflection, intoxication or medication. So becoming One has to be the most potent, intense, pleasurable experience imaginable...unimaginable, in fact. Better than sex, which could actually be seen as a pale physical imitation of it.
Because there's all those other perfections rolled up in there, too - perfect wisdom, perfect compassion, perfect love, etc etc. So becoming One with the epitome of all perfection isn't actually something to be afraid of, after all. It's a journey all us Forms are on together, always evolving and refining ourselves until at last we become completely perfect; and in so doing, cease to be individual forms and merge back into Oneness.
So in a sense, the Infinite takes itself apart in an infinite number of ways and puts itself back together in an infinite number of ways over the course of eternity, which must be the ultimate enjoyment; since a Supreme Being would be able to know and create perfection in this respect. So it would never get bored, or frustrated, or upset, or unhappy, or lonely...these are all things we perceive as imperfections, thus it would not possess them; but rather their perfected counterparts - excitement, interest, pleasure, compassion, happiness, and unity.
Which raises the question: how come we have to endure suffering, then? And just where did it come from and where does it exist if not from within God? In short - if God is perfect positivity, then why do bad things happen? I would suggest another premise: that there can be perfection of negativity, as well. There is no connotation of 'good' or 'evil' to the poles of a magnet. The negative is drawn toward the positive, and vice versa. This metaphor could also be applied successfully to the dichotomy between Oneness and the individual I. Perhaps, then, the evolutionary spawning of new forms and their return to Oneness is just that - the creation of a negative (a mirror image) and its attraction to the positive that results in its inevitable perfection and return to the positive (Oneness).
Imperfection: • the state of being faulty or incomplete.
Perfection: • the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects
• a person or thing perceived as the embodiment of a condition, state, or quality
• the action or process of improving something until it is faultless or as faultless as possible
These are the most pressing existential questions I can think of. Death is, of course, the primal terror of all living beings. Ask a biologist and they'll tell you fear is an expression of the 'fight or flight' survival reflex present in all animals. But the evolution of reason has altered our understanding of Nature (in ourselves and in our external environment), and presented us with fears extending beyond simply death - where did we come from, how is it that we are alive and aware, and what will happen to that awareness when we inevitably die? Regardless of their position in life, most people like being alive and self-aware, and enjoy having an identity; even if it is highly mutable. We don't want to cease being, but then, the idea of an eternity of being (especially in a single form) is somehow equally
terrifying.
Are animals aware of the inevitability of death? Or do they simply flee from immediate danger, unaware of the link between being caught and killed, and unable to contemplate their own demise; from old age if nothing else? Is death such a terrible thing, that Nature causes us to flee from it as from some horrible monster?
Yet, we have invented a myriad of constructs that contradict this instinct - that tell us death is not to be feared, that there is life beyond life, and that death is only ever a transition to another form of it, in an infinite cycle of being moving through forms and creating new ones through them. Being fruitful and multiplying, so to speak.
Whatever the truth may be, experience, logic and instinct tell us that everything that has a beginning must inevitably end. So to me there seems to be only a few possible explanations to 'what happens?' when we die:
1) If we possess being beyond a physical form, and retain our individuality, then each individual must have either always existed, or their non-physical form had a beginning of its own. If we have always existed, then our core identity never changes, and never will; because if it does, then it can be said that the original being no longer exists - it has changed into something different from the original design. In that case, each individual being is essentially recycled throughout existence, the same actor filling various parts in a never-ending play - imprisoned in flux between physical and non-physical forms...forever.
2) The other possibility is that our individual consciousness did, in fact, have a beginning. In this case, what happens when it inevitably has an end? This is our ultimate fear - not the death of a mere body, but the death of individuality. That I will no longer be me...that I will cease, and never exist again. In one scenario, we rotate through the cycles of birth and death in various physical and non-physical forms a great many times, before our being finally releases its primary form and returns to its origin state of unity with Infinity. Many Eastern mystical traditions refer to this as the final escape from the wheel of Karma. In another scenario, our consciousness had its start in this life alone - and when we die...that's it.
Both of these options are rather terrifying in their finality. Anything would seem preferable to either, yet there exists suffering so intense that it provokes some to end their physical lives prematurely, and to venture into the Great Unknown on the premise that anything must be preferable to that suffering, overriding even the basic animal instinct for self-preservation. So surely, ceasing to be (in any sense) isn't necessarily a bad thing. We can all conceive of conditions under which we would wish to die, regardless of our ignorance of what lies Beyond. So perhaps, just perhaps, the second answer isn't actually a bad one.
Don't get me wrong - I can easily conceive of living through many, many incarnations (physical and otherwise) before getting tired of my individual existence; but after several trillion years (or more, who knows) I can also easily imagine getting tired of a cyclical system that never ends; but is always in flux. ..But if this is actually the one and only life we'll ever have...then we'll simply be returning to our origin that much sooner. It's going to happen, either way. So a question arises concerning the nature of becoming One - what sort of experience is that? Is there any coming back from it, and would we want to? Do these questions even make sense in that context? I do not know. But we all find out someday, I suppose.
Yet that's a copout. I conceive of the Infinite as containing all perfection, and transcending it; and certainly the most evident of perfections I can readily examine is the principle of pleasure. I can experience it in the confines of this individual physical form, and I observe that other forms do as well; also that there are degrees in which it is more or less perfect. The most potent pleasures I perceive to be the most perfect, and the mildest forms I perceive as somewhat less perfect than the more potent ones. Suffering in any degree, physical or otherwise, is met with distress, and attempts to escape it ensue - through distraction, deflection, intoxication or medication. So becoming One has to be the most potent, intense, pleasurable experience imaginable...unimaginable, in fact. Better than sex, which could actually be seen as a pale physical imitation of it.
Because there's all those other perfections rolled up in there, too - perfect wisdom, perfect compassion, perfect love, etc etc. So becoming One with the epitome of all perfection isn't actually something to be afraid of, after all. It's a journey all us Forms are on together, always evolving and refining ourselves until at last we become completely perfect; and in so doing, cease to be individual forms and merge back into Oneness.
So in a sense, the Infinite takes itself apart in an infinite number of ways and puts itself back together in an infinite number of ways over the course of eternity, which must be the ultimate enjoyment; since a Supreme Being would be able to know and create perfection in this respect. So it would never get bored, or frustrated, or upset, or unhappy, or lonely...these are all things we perceive as imperfections, thus it would not possess them; but rather their perfected counterparts - excitement, interest, pleasure, compassion, happiness, and unity.
Which raises the question: how come we have to endure suffering, then? And just where did it come from and where does it exist if not from within God? In short - if God is perfect positivity, then why do bad things happen? I would suggest another premise: that there can be perfection of negativity, as well. There is no connotation of 'good' or 'evil' to the poles of a magnet. The negative is drawn toward the positive, and vice versa. This metaphor could also be applied successfully to the dichotomy between Oneness and the individual I. Perhaps, then, the evolutionary spawning of new forms and their return to Oneness is just that - the creation of a negative (a mirror image) and its attraction to the positive that results in its inevitable perfection and return to the positive (Oneness).
Imperfection: • the state of being faulty or incomplete.
Perfection: • the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects
• a person or thing perceived as the embodiment of a condition, state, or quality
• the action or process of improving something until it is faultless or as faultless as possible
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