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On Death

This apocalyptic year of the pandemic, along with being bestowed with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and chronic back pain, certainly helps keep the awareness of death constant.

S/He is always leering at me over my shoulder, keeping tabs on how I go about my day.\\xa0 Will I do something stupid? Will I eat something beyond my digestive ability?

After all these years of preparing for and contemplating death, I\\u2019ve come to an incomplete acceptance that death is a door to the next round of life.\\xa0

Rumi says, \\u201cThis place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.\\u201d

We fear separation, change, we abhor letting everything we know and love disappear. When we stare into the vast and endless depth of the unknown, we shrink at the lack of confirmation or echoes. No data, no facts, just endless reams of religious dogma and spiritualist fog. The dead seem to be gone for good, except for the astounding and continuous\\xa0 stories of ghosts across the centuries and all countries.

We grieve when someone dies, and yet we may also be secretly grieving for ourselves. We have our own mini-funerals when we are in the presence of the dead. The proximity of death closes in on us like tides and waves. A little closer when we are reminded, a little further when we choose to forget.

As human beings, we bond with our family, friends and mates. It is like a silver cord connects us to each other, and when that person dies, it feels like that cord is cut. That severing causes pain. Maybe that is what hurts. Perhaps there is much we do not know about this transformation. We are embedded in a\\xa0 true mystery.

We each have to arrive at an attitude towards this Great Secret, to develop a healthy relationship with death. Just as with any other relationship, there are good and appropriate models of what constitutes a\\xa0 wholesome connection. And part of this attitude may entail getting a better handle on how to deal with life. For me, when I am okay knowing death is behind everything, I feel much more gratitude towards the simple and beautiful attributes as breathing, trees, air, water\\u2026 Moments of joy just looking up at the clouds, the stars, and down on the ground and contemplating this massive ball of rock and ocean hurtling through space, protecting us from all forms of radiation so we can enjoy this ride here on the outer reaches of the galaxy, spinning around a star. What a concept!

Perhaps part of this reflection on physical termination is both to learn how to embrace it and move forward knowing that the universe is not vindictive nor meaningless. It also helps to deepen our connection with others, knowing that nothing is permanent, and to bathe in the blessings that each moment brings us.\\xa0

I\\u2019ve talked about paradoxes before. Perhaps, as Khalil Gibran poses in this poem, that this is where the final paradox is resolved:

On Death

You would know the secret of death.
\\xa0But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
\\xa0The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
\\xa0If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
\\xa0For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of y

Salaam Alaykum, murids, seekers, curious and interested listeners,

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