# Is This The Reason We Are Afraid Of Death!



## drkhalsa (Oct 9, 2005)

*Death & Life*

You cannot be frightened of the unknown because you do not know what the unknown is and so there is nothing to be afraid of. Death is a word, and it is the word, the image, that creates fear. So can you look at death without the image of death? As long as the image exists from which springs thought, thought must always create fear. Then you either rationalize your fear of death and build a risistance against the inevitable or you invent innumerable beliefs to protect you from the fear of death. Hence there is a gap between you and the thing of which you are afraid. In this time-space interval there must be conflict which is fear, anxiety and self-pity. Thought, which breeds the fear of death, says, 'Let's postpone it, let's avoid it, keep it as far away as possible, let's not think about it'- but you _are _thinking about it. When you say, 'I won't think about it', you have already thought out how to avoid it. You are frightened of death because you have postponed it.

We have separated living from dying, and the interval between the living and the dying is fear. That interval, that time, is created by fear. Living is our daily torture, daily insult, sorrow and confusion, with occasional opening of a window over enchanted seas. That is what we call living, and we are afraid to die, which is to end this misery. We would rather cling to the known than face the unknown - the known being our house, our furniture, our family, our character, our work, our knowledge, our fame, our loneliness, our gods - that little thing that moves around incessantly within itself with its own limited pattern of embittered existence. 

We think that living is always in the present and that dying is something that awaits us at a distant time. But we have never questioned whether this battle of everyday life is living at all. We want to know the truth about reincarnation, we want proof of the survival of the soul, we listen to the assertion of clairvoyants and to the conclusions of psychical research, but we never ask, _never_, how to live - to live with delight, with enchantment, with beauty every day. We have accepted life as it is with all its agony and despair and have got used to it, and think of death as something to be carefully avoided. But death is extraordinarily like the life we know how to live. You cannot live without dying. You cannot live if you do not die psychologically every minute. This is not an intellectual paradox. To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is. 

Most of us are frightened of dying because we don't know what it means to live. We don't know how to live, therefore we don't know how to die. As long as we are frightened of life we shall be frightened of death. The man who is not frightened of life is not frightened of being completely insecure for he understands that inwardly, psychologically, there is no security. When there is no security there is an endless movement and then life and death are the same. The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love, is not frightened of death because to love is to die. 

p. 75-77, Krishnamurti, Freedom from the known, 1969


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## Anoop (Apr 10, 2006)

drkhalsa said:
			
		

> *Death & Life*
> 
> You cannot be frightened of the unknown because you do not know what the unknown is and so there is nothing to be afraid of. Death is a word, and it is the word, the image, that creates fear. So can you look at death without the image of death? As long as the image exists from which springs thought, thought must always create fear. Then you either rationalize your fear of death and build a risistance against the inevitable or you invent innumerable beliefs to protect you from the fear of death. Hence there is a gap between you and the thing of which you are afraid. In this time-space interval there must be conflict which is fear, anxiety and self-pity. Thought, which breeds the fear of death, says, 'Let's postpone it, let's avoid it, keep it as far away as possible, let's not think about it'- but you _are _thinking about it. When you say, 'I won't think about it', you have already thought out how to avoid it. You are frightened of death because you have postponed it.
> 
> ...


 
Drkhalsa ji, exactly right. We are afraid to die because we are afraid to live. We are confused. We always think about things which are not necessary, and we always avoid the things that we should appreciate. We should appreciate death and life. Where were we before we had been born? We were dead? Ofcourse we were, but we cant remember how it was like. I was actually god. 

People cry over family deaths, Dr do you think that is necessary?


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## drkhalsa (Apr 11, 2006)

Dear Anoop

As a Dr I would ssay that answer to your question is yes 

For someone who is living every emotionally attached materialistic life it becomes a neccesary to cry as this is grieving process and it help mould your emotions at such an event which invarably shake people from inside

But also if yiu can understan dthe true meaning of life or you started looking for it then  event of witnessing death just become a bright chance to unerstand the life in real sense 

The same opputunity was used by Buddha( founder of budhism) and it led him to start doing  mediation 

So the answer really depend upon the internal state of man in the question



Jatinder Singh


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## Lionchild (Apr 12, 2006)

drkhalsa said:
			
		

> Dear Anoop
> 
> As a Dr I would ssay that answer to your question is yes
> 
> ...



Well we cannot get to atached to money/success... cause these thigns come and go, and your life is too precious and short to work for these false pleasures.

I get sad when i hear of sikh parents working so hard to get money and stuff that they leave their children to be grown up with gangs, other kids, and television.

Fear death of the mind... and not death of the body!


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## Amarpal (Apr 13, 2006)

Dear drkhalsa Ji,

You have quoted from krishnamurthy

'You cannot be frightened of the unknown because you do not know what the unknown is and so there is nothing to be afraid of'.

he is asking people not to be afraid of the unknown.

the truth is that we are afraid of the unknown.

Why children are afraid of stepping out in darkness during night. It is only because the child does not know what is there.

We are afraid of the unknown. This is my view.

With love and resoect for all.

Amarpal Singh


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## drkhalsa (Apr 13, 2006)

Dear Amarpal ji

You are right in a sense that we all are afraid of unknown 

But still Agree with Krishnamurti because I think that this Could be our conditioning that we should approch unkwon with caution and in the process we have conditioning to be afraid of unknown 

While in real world we try to identify with the known avoiding unkown because just living with the known gives us sense of security 
I personaly think that in actuall every thing is unknown to man each and every moment in life is unkown to human consciousness as each and every moment in human life is so unique to be known by man 

So every moment in life that still has to come is unkwon and we label it using our memory/conditioning  to be pleasant or unpleasant 
Similarly death is also a moment in our life for which we have been heavily conditioned so it really seams dreadful



Jatinder Singh


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## Hai_Bhi_Sach (Jan 24, 2007)

> Fear death of the mind... and not death of the body!


 
ha ha ha 
It is the MIND that fears death. We exist because of our mind. Mind has an identity "I" that it does not want to loose. Do not chase your own tail.


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## devakumarc (Mar 8, 2007)

Even though death occurs once, its agents such as aging, worry and disease are always at work. Metaphysically, change is permanent. Once we accept this altruism, we would lead a better life. In such an awakened state, fear about death may not matter.


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## simpy (Mar 8, 2007)

devakumarc said:


> Even though death occurs once, its agents such as aging, worry and disease are always at work. Metaphysically, change is permanent. Once we accept this altruism, we would lead a better life. In such an awakened state, fear about death may not matter.


 

*Respected Dev Ji, aging  is always at work, understandable- what about 'worry'*

*Worry is  mind's creation. God is Carefree. *





*forgive me please*


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## Astroboy (Jan 29, 2008)

Lionchild said:


> Fear death of the mind... and not death of the body!


 
Hmmm.... brilliant thinking !!!


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