Die before you die
~Muhammad
Spinoza wrote:
"A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life". (Ethics, IV, proposition 67) Yet while I meditate on life, say holding a newborn baby or gazing at the full moon or into my lovers' eyes, I ache. My joy is cradled in a heart that is breaking, like laughter in bruised ribs, and it hurts to know that the seed of life is also the birth of death, and that I’ll eventually be separated from everything and everyone I love.
Most people try not to think about that or, when they are faced with death or loss in their lives, respond by defending against distress, investing energy into overcoming it as an obstacle to their well-being. The psychotherapeutic environment is useful in that regard. By providing the scaffolding necessary for restoration or renovation, it enables the self to buttress itself against situational distress, promoting healing enough to move on.
But the truth is: we all move on to dying eventually, and the root of distress is fundamentally existential, not psychological. It is because we are human beings, not because I am this or that person in this or that situation, that I suffer.
Psychotherapy does not deal with human suffering as an existential reality. Spirituality does, or tries to. (So does philosophy, though some would argue that conceptual thought is existentially challenged.) It is not that psychotherapy and spirituality (or philosophy) are incompatible, but they do have different goals and move in different directions. Psychotherapy moves in the direction of the historical self, the hero of my life story whose goal is self-preservation. Spirituality moves in the direction of what eludes the narrative but, paradoxically, survives the story: the unborn self or, perhaps, the self that is “reborn” and enjoys Spinoza's meditation sub specie aeternitatis.
Spiritual teachers will tell you that you cannot will this rebirth but, yet, you have to die, allowing the process of dying itself to transform you like saprotrophs transform decaying material into fertile soil. Conditions must be right, but otherwise, you just sit there…
Letting go of one's old life can be quite scary, causing anger and painful, but necessary in order to be reborn. Thank you, I like what you have written. Pauline
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that psychotherapy and spirituality (or philosophy) run in parallel to each other, rather than off in different directions.
ReplyDeleteI think one opens the door to the other
ReplyDeleteBeautifully said.
ReplyDeleteA squirrel ran in front of the car last weekend and was squished in a split second. Both my husband and I, in our 50s are experiencing many changes in our bodies. I can taste death and it is making life more and more sacred.
Teaching medical students yesterday, I was energized by their fresh eyes and could feel the contrast in our natures as a consequence of the inverse levels of experience and freshness. What a treasure to be able to live and see these changes!!
Die before you die
ReplyDelete~Muhammad
The very pain is the love we have for all of those who will die. Suffering is the existential and experimental expression of love.
Into your eyes, Me see myself,
Into your words, Me see my heart,
Me see Thou!
Me am Thou!
‘I’ fades away,
Autumnal leaves falling,
Our nakedness revealing themselves,
Naked, we meet,
Vulnerable, we celebrate.
Life is pain,
The face of the impossible,
Who will survive?
No one walks, the hero is dead.
A narrative is sight seen,
History is a story,
My life, your life,
Unexpectedly sightseeing a seer, a seen or scene, I and you, a person and a context,
Dancing together, to unite what has never been separated.
Roots reaching deeply into the darkest fertile soil,
To satisfy the thirst for Thou,
A single drop of Thou,
Thy will be done!
Though he fall into the Blossoming Flame
ReplyDeleteAnd feel the Burning Flesh and feel Desire
In his Howl of Agony and Shame
The Wise will hear the Voice of Someone Higher
This World must burn—Desire for Beauty rage
Love spares neither Flawed nor Perfect Mind
The Fool, the Rogue, the Sot, the Sage
Love burns to leave one ash behind
He will—He will breathe deeper than he can
From far beneath him lift his gaze above
Look! Now here is a wise, wise man
But burnt................
............... I am alone the flame of love.
Death is indeed a departure, a farewell, a separation from everyone and everything I love. Undeniably so. But is it not at the same time the removal of all separations? Is it not in a way becoming infinitely more intimate with the whole universe than we have ever been capable of while living? And in the actual moment of our death it is maybe death itself that is dying?
ReplyDeleteThank you all for sharing your comments and insights.
ReplyDeleteMay Anonymous's "I" fade away.
May Omniadeo's Love burn.
May Guus's death die.