>From: radams@cerritos.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: More (expletive deleted) About Death
Date: 24 Aug 92 21:53:31 PST
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA
News-Moderator: Approval required for posting to soc.religion.eastern

In article <1992Aug24.080915.22048@qiclab.scn.rain.com>, 
SECBH@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Jack Carroll) writes:

> It seems that all of the religiously oriented netgroups have a
> penchant for high falutin' postings on what death is -- consisting
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^
(have you been watching westerns lately ;-)

> of rehashes of Rev. so-and-so says thus and such, or Father
> or Roshi or Swami or Rabbi or Guru X says this and that.
> 
> Quite puzzling this approach, when death is everywhere - no man nor
> beast escapes.  Certainly there is no lack of raw material to work
> with: our mothers die, our fathers die, our children die, our friends
> die, our neighbors die, our pets die, and unless we are totally out
> of touch we know that we too will die.
> 

Death is what happens to the body and not the soul. Perhaps you think that
you are the body and therefore think you will not survive death. The bodies
of humans or animals do not escape death. The body dies because the life
force withdraws from it when the soul departs from it (or is kicked out).
I know that my body will die (or decompose and be recycled amongst the
elements) but my soul will move on to another dimension as well everyone
else's whether they care to believe it or not.

> Yet we willingly quoth this master and that swami instead
> of hunkering down with death itself.  Why do we skip so easily to
> the airy-fairy talk of next lives, swapping bodies, etc. - which
> never seem to be our first-hand experiences - and ignore the reality
> of death?  

I see no contradiction between dealing with death realistically and hearing
what the masters say about it. Reality is not confined to what is perceived
by the five senses nor are we.

> Death is everywhere and yet we run from it in order to
> find time to read the speculations of strangers.  Or is it possible
> that there are entire netgroups of people passionately concerned
> about the topic but bereft of any personal opportunity to investigate
> it?
> 
I don't run away from death nor towards death. The real death is of the ego
and not of the body and *that* is what we are running from.

> Why the feverish concern at the "grad course level" about what sex
> the dead are reborn as, or what color your bardo is when we seem to
> have no interest in the nitty-gritty of getting dead?  The B.A. level,
> so to speak.
> 
Now, if death is the death of the ego then your question is quite valid. 
When ego is gone, rebirth is gone as both are a dream. Then we are talking 
at the Phd level :-).

> Perhaps at the bottom of my puzzlement is the fact that none of
> those who speak so loftily about post-death seems to have ever
> seen that the stork is attracted to the worms and comes back to get us.
> 
This could be interpreted as a reference to rebirth as long as the baby
feeds worms to the stork who delivers her/him once again ;-) (although it 
would also be an insult to motherhood).  Any other interpretation is again 
mere body-bound pontificating.

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	Roger Adams
	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
	11110 Alondra Blvd                             A Hindu Proverb
        Norwalk, California 90650
	USA        		          292 Dwapara :-)
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