I often take a walk through my neighbourhood in Zagreb (Croatian capital) and sometimes my feet take me to the nearby cemetery. So I will share a couple of photos from my last visit and some thoughts connected with them. I love the peace that can be sensed there, in a place where sorrow reigns but hope lurks behind the tombstones. It's a perfect environment for a philosophical and melancholic soul like me. And autumn brings a new shine to that grim place.
As if nature, with trees losing their leaves in sublime beauty, is somehow telling us that letting go is natural and kind of beautiful. After all the Christian cross is a tree (of life and death). The tree has to let go in order to regenerate. Life comes out of death. Life requires sacrifice of the old so that the new can come. The thing which needs to be sacrificed is our ego, our ignorant selfishness. This is the message of the life of Christ:
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it (Lk 9, 24)
Holding onto life is actually a recipe for suffering. Of course, everyone dies in the end (even Jesus and Siddhartha Gautama), so the life referred to here is not biological, it's spiritual. This spiritual core, beyond life and death but conscious of them both, has many names, most used are Christ, Buddha, Atman, Ruach Adonai and Tao. Also, you can call it nature or energy if your are more fond of science. According to our spiritual traditions, this eternal consciousness manifests itself as the universe (Hindu term maya conveys the idea of God hiding himself from himself as the universe in order to play the game of hide and seek; Christian incarnation of God in his Son conveys similar message of uniting spirit with matter - God became man so that man can become God, as Athanasius said) and becomes aware of itself in the human form.
Most of us have lost someone and as we grow older more and more of our companions are getting off from the stage of life. All these departures prepare us for our own departure. What is behind the stage? Are we embraced by the All-Knowing and All-Supporting God manifested as three Persons? Or, is there, like Indian religions hold, a new show, another chance for us on this Earth (or elsewhere in the universe)? I believe all religious representations have some truth in them, but after all, it's a mystery.
So, what is death? I tend to understand it as a way by means of which God/Nature/Universe makes the game more interesting and gives value to it. Life would be boring and lazy as hell if there wasn't death, our great teacher, always whispering behind our shoulder: "Use your time wisely. Love deeply. Pray sincerely. Investigate thoroughly. Dance like no one is watching."
Thanks for reading and commenting!