Seth on Death and Dying

[jbseth]

Hi All,

In NOME, Session 801, Seth had some very interesting things to say about death and dying.

Dying is a biological necessity,...

Dying is a spiritual and psychological necessity,...

Inherently, each individual knows that he or she must die physically in order to survive spiritually and psychically.

It is not understood that before life an individual decides to live. [...] Each person born desires to be born. He dies when that desire no longer operates.

[...] human psychology has seldom dealt with the quite active desire for death.

It seems to me that very few people ever talk about this "desire" for death (and I don't mean suicide by this).  Why do you suppose that is?

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-jbseth

[Sena]

The desire for life has been most flaunted, yet human psychology has seldom dealt with the quite active desire for death. In its natural form this is not a morbid, frightened, neurotic, or cowardly attempt to escape life, but a definite, positive, "healthy" acceleration of the desire for survival, in which the individual strongly wants to leave physical life as once the child wanted to leave the parent's home.

(11:44.) I am not speaking here of the desire for suicide, which involves a definite killing of the body by self-deliberate means — often of a violent nature. Ideally this desire for death, however, would simply involve the slowing of the body's processes, the gradual disentanglement of psyche from flesh; or in other instances, according to individual characteristics, a sudden, natural stopping of the body's processes.

jbseth, thanks for this quote. Death is often a taboo subject, so Seth's straight talk here is valuable.

[leidl]

It seems to me that very few people ever talk about this "desire" for death (and I don't mean suicide by this).  Why do you suppose that is?

What an excellent question, jbseth, thank you.  Most of us are quite aware of having a "will to live," but you're right, few talk about the "will to die."  Could it be that most of us never resolve our inner conflicts about death, never become confident that our intuitions about our eternal natures are more than self-delusion, and thus don't consciously feel a peaceful desire for death?

I like the way your quoted excerpt ends: "Left alone, the self and the body are so entwined that the separation would be smooth. The body would automatically follow the wishes of the inner self." 

We spend our lives wrestling with the fears of the body, and high on the list is the fear of death.  But for those who successfully  "sink the mind into the heart" as Rupert Spira says, the fears of the body subside.  Those are the cases where the self and body are one; the body no longer resists.  My guess is that quite a few people do make it to that place, but perhaps not until the final hours of life.  At that point, there is no longer a need to talk about things.  What we know as the exterior world has just become another dream; perhaps an insignificant one, at that.   

[Sena]

We spend our lives wrestling with the fears of the body, and high on the list is the fear of death.  But for those who successfully  "sink the mind into the heart" as Rupert Spira says, the fears of the body subside.

leidel, thanks for introducing us to Rupert Spira. His books are available on Kindle Unlimited (Amazon UK) and I have downloaded "The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter".

[LarryH]

I watched the 2-hour show last night on the last days of John Lennon's life. At age 40, he had come out of self-imposed retirement, picked up his guitar that he hadn't touched for 5 years and started writing and recording music again. He had just released his first album in 5 years. He adored his a 5-year-old son. He was back with Yoko. They talked about hoping to one day become doting grandparents. In a recorded interview on the last day of his life, he talked about hoping to live a long life. That evening, a "fan" shot and killed him.

Seth said that nobody dies who does not want to die.

It is my belief that it is generally not the personality that is aware of such a wish, but the awareness must be at the entity level. Thus, we may be at odds with our own entity. It is understandable that we would generally be ignorant of our pre-life "contract" to perhaps have our lives cut short through an accident, crime, or early illness. That doesn't help the personality much when it happens, though.

Additionally, many elderly people express the wish to die because they have no quality of life and are in pain, yet they linger on for years. I am thinking of two relatives of mine. Again, their wish seems to be at odds with that of their entity. Their lingering may offer important lessons for those around them.

I am thinking also of a friend whose mother told her as a child that she had been a mistake. Her father committed suicide while she was still a child. As an adult, she is depressed and afraid. She was a Seth reader who was hostile to the idea that we "choose" our parents because she could not wrap her head around the idea that she had chosen the parents that she had. I do see her as a highly empathetic, compassionate person who was likely that way because of her upbringing.

John Lennon's death and his "choice" to die had great meaning in many ways, giving emphasis to his late-life messages of peace and love. Thus, his life's purpose was enhanced by his early violent departure. This transcended the personality's conscious wishes and expectations.

It's just unfortunate that we are generally not in touch with such machinations.

[Sena]

Seth said that nobody dies who does not want to die.

It is my belief that it is generally not the personality that is aware of such a wish, but the awareness must be at the entity level.

Larry, I agree that the wish to die may well be unconscious in many instances. Most of those who boarded the planes which crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 would not have had a conscious intention to die. As for a viral illness, the reaction of the patient's own body may make the difference between death and recovery. The reactions of the body may well be influenced by thoughts, fully conscious, semi-conscious, or unconscious.

The desire for life has been most flaunted, yet human psychology has seldom dealt with the quite active desire for death.

This Seth quote in jbseth's original post is rather remarkable. What it suggests is that many people may have a conscious desire for death, but they very rarely talk about it. Many cases of drug addiction may be caused by the desire for death.

[Deb]

John Lennon's death and his "choice" to die had great meaning in many ways, giving emphasis to his late-life messages of peace and love. Thus, his life's purpose was enhanced by his early violent departure.

Wow, so true. The shock and sadness of his death affected people all over the world, and left a big impression. It still tugs at my heart.

As far as the process of us choosing our death, I envision the entity as a whole, but I also envision us individual personalities as being parts of the whole. And while the entity has its own goals, I imagine we as individuals choose our circumstances, parents, challenges and death.

As an adult, she is depressed and afraid. She was a Seth reader who was hostile to the idea that we "choose" our parents because she could not wrap her head around the idea that she had chosen the parents that she had. I do see her as a highly empathetic, compassionate person who was likely that way because of her upbringing.

I think most people have a hard time getting used to the idea that we choose everything before we incarnate into this reality. It took me a while to accept that concept when I first heard it. But I've since learned to look at whatever is going on in my life and ask myself "what am I to learn from this?" I may not be there in the heat of the moment, but eventually get around to it. I had a rough childhood, but at this point I can look at what I went through and see how it shaped me, and wonder if I'd accomplished what was needed.

As far as the will to die... I think we are shamed out of considering that. Society is so anti-death, in that life must be maintained at any cost, that we won't even let ourselves go there. People would be afraid to consider or admit that to themselves.