The sun sets. The moon sets. But they are not gone.
PERSONAL REFLECTION:
In Rumi’s words death is unveiled to us as a construct of the world and not of a loving God. Man has created this primary reverie from which the illusions of death stem. Perhaps we have created the popular construct of death in order to explain life because if life is one side of the coin there has to be a death side. The Course in Miracles discusses “Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?” We must ask ourselves what kind of God would create a world that all things in it are born only to die?
From our youth many of us are nurtured to believe the way of life and death is “the way of nature.” To many it is the fixed bookend to birth. It would be an awkward God that suggests this is our purpose here on Earth. If God created death in this popular thought how is it possible to think of God as a loving God. Is God so fickle that if he doesn’t care to help you out at a given time, you are left to your own devices? If God were so interested in manipulating us as puppets holding a certain ending over our heads, that would make “death” life’s symbol. Life depicted as a battleground of contradictions calls for distress and often war. “Where there is death is peace impossible.” further explains the Course in Miracles.
Death and fear of God and life becomes synonymous. What if death was not the sorrowful, dark, and scary truth it is made out to be? What if the shining Sun was the symbol of death? What if the truth is that fear is a construct of man? Death can no longer deny life and God is a god of Love, not one of fear. In order to explain life and death in simple terms many choose to compromise instead of accepting the fact that God did not make death because he did not make fear. If we only choose to see life as a body, then death would truly be real. In the real world versus the world of illusions, a loving God would not create death just to have bodies die. That would mean that God was not loving. In today’s modern view of death God comes across not as the Father or Creator, but Destroyer and Avenger. So in a way, in death all illusions are born. Sometimes it seems like people cling to death as if they were born to it, and without the idea of death there is no world. The Course in Miracles concludes that “God is, and in Him all created things must be eternal.”
In conclusion, the Course in Miracles states, “Teacher of God, your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no compromise in which death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let attack conceal the truth from you. What seems to die has but been misperceived and carried to illusion. Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the “reality” of any changing form. Truth neither moves nor wavers nor sinks down to death and dissolution. And what is the end of death? Nothing but this; the realization that the Son of God is guiltless now and forever. Nothing but this. But do not let yourself forget it is not less than this.”
As Rumi points out, “Death has nothing to do with going away,” and the Course in Miracles teaches us to look at death with fresh eyes, and to not follow the way of the ego, illusions, and that the Son of God is guiltless now and forever.
–EJA