There’s no way around it. This bag of protoplasm, with all its holes, hairs, excretions, and smells is who we think are. Our identification with this biological blob is so strong that it is almost pointless to argue against it. When it is born, we are born, and when it dies, we die.

This is nonsense, and we know it. On top of that everyone we admire tells us that this type of identification with our physical bodies is nonsense. Even those who swear to God that they are Atheists eventually come around to understanding that there are forces in the Universe that lurk mysteriously disembodied.

And yet…

The bug splattered on our windshield is dead and gone. The poor little kitten squashed flat as a pancake on the road is dead and gone. Grandma laid out in her coffin is dead and gone. Yeah, we might tell ourselves stories about their heavenly journey (excepting the bug of course), about their being in a “better place”, and so on, but we know these are just stories. There is no Jerusalem on the hill with streets paved with gold. There is no Big Rock Candy Mountain with “lemonade springs where the bluebird sings”. There just ain’t and we know it. 

 

And yet…

“Nan Yar?” Ramana Maharhi asks. “Who am I?” Does the ‘I’ die when we die? Is the ‘I’ that is ‘me’ lost forever when my body slips and bashes its head against the rocks far below?

Before I succumb to the embarrassment of admitting to you that I don’t know, or making something up so that I am assured of your continued admiration of my great wisdom and knowledge, I need to ask “Why do you want to know?”

Is it Fear, Ego, Fear, the Need to Control, Fear, Distraction (from what I wonder?), or Fear?

“Nan Yar?” Answer me that and I will tell you everything you want to know about death and dying.

In the meantime, let’s look around us and delve into that amazing guide book that surrounds us in every moment, never leaving us alone.

Do the birds, animals, trees and fishes ask what happens when they die? No, it seems that they’re too involved with eating, sleeping, procreating, and dealing with the aftermath of procreation. They are not dumber than we are. Just more involved in their day. They surpass all of our other abilities, and so why would they fail at wisdom? Maybe, just maybe they know who they are. Maybe “Nan Yar?” is a conversational dead-end for them. Maybe, just maybe they don’t care about what happens when they die. It’s not because they are too stupid to care, but because they are sufficiently evolved spiritually not to be bothered by much of anything that isn’t happening to them in the present moment.

Humans are wrapped in mysteries, which trail behind them as they make their way through their lives. Look at that person walking towards you. Yes, both of you are in the coffee isle at the grocery store, but you haven’t a clue about why they are there, how they got there, where they live or what their name is. Through quiet observation you might end up knowing if they prefer instant coffee to whole bean, but even then they might be picking something up for their aunt because they don’t drink coffee because it makes their bowels irritable, and since diverticulitis runs in their family they have to be careful.

Even your spouse, your mother, your children are shrouded in mystery. You sit across the dinner table from these human beings that captured your attention for years, maybe decades, and yet they remain unknown and unknowable. Which one has cancer in them right now? She didn’t touch her peas. Shouldn’t he be drinking more water? Nobody touched the salad!

Death holds that same kind of mystery. It hangs around us as the inevitable consequence of our being in a body, unknown and unknowable.

And yet…

If we only knew who “I am” then all these mysteries would dissolve as inconsequential. The answers would still be interesting and informative but they would lose their tinge of fear and odor of distraction. These erstwhile mysteries would be of the same weight and importance as the questions “What’s for dinner?” and “Is it still raining?”.

But until we seriously address “Nan Yar”, we need to hedge our bets, and that is where organized religion steps in. A popular tee-shirt among my fundamentalist Christian friends reads “How much can I get away with and still make it to Heaven?” My Buddhist friends have hedged their bets by managing to get a perpetual “Get Out of Jail Free” card by means of self-interested machinations of the concept of reincarnation. Islam will condemn you for murdering one of your own, but killing for God merits you an automatic seat in Paradise. What do Jews do, I wonder? Oh yes, they make up laws restricting their behavior and diet only to break them as they see fit.

And so on.

They all meet God in the grocery isle, and paint a picture of an instant coffee buyer with digestive problems and go with it, one hundred percent. As a result, through the millennia, millions and billions of tons of treasure has been garnered and used for the erection of temples, churches, mosques, and stupas for the comfort of priests, rabbis, and mullahs, on the off-chance that they might actually know the unknowable. It’s a great and highly successful business being the bookie for the after-life, because no-one can prove them wrong. Never mind that no-one has ever proven them right. Charisma, power, and overwhelming wealth fixed that little problem quite easily.

And yet…

I have been visited by the spirits of dear ones who had shed their earthly robes. In fact one dear one saved my life through a direct physical intervention. There is no doubt in my mind. The experience was as real as drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. If it wasn’t for the actions of a human being that had ‘died’ thirty years before, I would not be here today, haranguing you to get a grip on who you are and what you know to be true.

But my stories and experiences are not yours, and by no means are you to create a set of beliefs and understandings based on experiences that are not your own. If maintaining your integrity is important to you, it can’t be any other way. And you will have to endure the itch of the mystery, embrace the mystery, and allow the mystery to be unknown and unknowable.

Like it or not, the answer to “Nan Yar?” is important. At the very least looking for the answer to it will take your mind off of your troubles and the potential disaster you imagine your life could become both here and in the here-after.

It is important to honor and respect the countless moments of ecstasy that led to the millions of couplings of sperm and egg that finally resulted in you. In that way, you are your ancestors. Your DNA, habits, tics, mental faculties and bodily appearance all support this. And if you can accept the paradox that this manifestation of your ancestors is you and not you, you are on your way to enlightenment.

We so desperately want to know what happens after our hearts tick their last tock, and yet we hate ghosts. Now there’s a paradox for you. You would think ….

There’s no way around it. This bag of protoplasm, with all its holes, hairs, excretions, and smells is who we think are. Our identification with this biological blob is so strong that it is almost pointless to argue against it. When it is born, we are born, and when it dies, we die.

This is nonsense, and we know it. On top of that everyone we admire tells us that this type of identification with our physical bodies is nonsense. Even those who swear to God that they are Atheists eventually come around to understanding that there are forces in the Universe that lurk mysteriously disembodied.

And yet…

The bug splattered on our windshield is dead and gone. The poor little kitten squashed flat as a pancake on the road is dead and gone. Grandma laid out in her coffin is dead and gone. Yeah, we might tell ourselves stories about their heavenly journey (excepting the bug of course), about their being in a “better place”, and so on, but we know these are just stories. There is no Jerusalem on the hill with streets paved with gold. There is no Big Rock Candy Mountain with “lemonade springs where the bluebird sings”. There just ain’t and we know it.

And yet…

“Nan Yar?” Ramana Maharhi asks. “Who am I?” Does the ‘I’ die when we die? Is the ‘I’ that is ‘me’ lost forever when my body slips and bashes its head against the rocks far below?

Before I succumb to the embarrassment of admitting to you that I don’t know, or making something up so that I am assured of your continued admiration of my great wisdom and knowledge, I need to ask “Why do you want to know?”

Is it Fear, Ego, Fear, the Need to Control, Fear, Distraction (from what I wonder?), or Fear?

“Nan Yar?” Answer me that and I will tell you everything you want to know about death and dying.

In the meantime, let’s look around us and delve into that amazing guide book that surrounds us in every moment, never leaving us alone.

Do the birds, animals, trees and fishes ask what happens when they die? No, it seems that they’re too involved with eating, sleeping, procreating, and dealing with the aftermath of procreation. They are not dumber than we are. Just more involved in their day. They surpass all of our other abilities, and so why would they fail at wisdom? Maybe, just maybe they know who they are. Maybe “Nan Yar?” is a conversational dead-end for them. Maybe, just maybe they don’t care about what happens when they die. It’s not because they are too stupid to care, but because they are sufficiently evolved spiritually not to be bothered by much of anything that isn’t happening to them in the present moment.

Humans are wrapped in mysteries, which trail behind them as they make their way through their lives. Look at that person walking towards you. Yes, both of you are in the coffee isle at the grocery store, but you haven’t a clue about why they are there, how they got there, where they live or what their name is. Through quiet observation you might end up knowing if they prefer instant coffee to whole bean, but even then they might be picking something up for their aunt because they don’t drink coffee because it makes their bowels irritable, and since diverticulitis runs in their family they have to be careful.

Even your spouse, your mother, your children are shrouded in mystery. You sit across the dinner table from these human beings that captured your attention for years, maybe decades, and yet they remain unknown and unknowable. Which one has cancer in them right now? She didn’t touch her peas. Shouldn’t he be drinking more water? Nobody touched the salad!

Death holds that same kind of mystery. It hangs around us as the inevitable consequence of our being in a body, unknown and unknowable.

And yet…

If we only knew who “I am” then all these mysteries would dissolve as inconsequential. The answers would still be interesting and informative but they would lose their tinge of fear and odor of distraction. These erstwhile mysteries would be of the same weight and importance as the questions “What’s for dinner?” and “Is it still raining?”.

But until we seriously address “Nan Yar”, we need to hedge our bets, and that is where organized religion steps in. A popular tee-shirt among my fundamentalist Christian friends reads “How much can I get away with and still make it to Heaven?” My Buddhist friends have hedged their bets by managing to get a perpetual “Get Out of Jail Free” card by means of self-interested machinations of the concept of reincarnation. Islam will condemn you for murdering one of your own, but killing for God merits you an automatic seat in Paradise. What do Jews do, I wonder? Oh yes, they make up laws restricting their behavior and diet only to break them as they see fit.

And so on.

They all meet God in the grocery isle, and paint a picture of an instant coffee buyer with digestive problems and go with it, one hundred percent. As a result, through the millennia, millions and billions of tons of treasure has been garnered and used for the erection of temples, churches, mosques, and stupas for the comfort of priests, rabbis, and mullahs, on the off-chance that they might actually know the unknowable. It’s a great and highly successful business being the bookie for the after-life, because no-one can prove them wrong. Never mind that no-one has ever proven them right. Charisma, power, and overwhelming wealth fixed that little problem quite easily.

And yet…

I have been visited by the spirits of dear ones who had shed their earthly robes. In fact one dear one saved my life through a direct physical intervention. There is no doubt in my mind. The experience was as real as drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. If it wasn’t for the actions of a human being that had ‘died’ thirty years before, I would not be here today, haranguing you to get a grip on who you are and what you know to be true.

But my stories and experiences are not yours, and by no means are you to create a set of beliefs and understandings based on experiences that are not your own. If maintaining your integrity is important to you, it can’t be any other way. And you will have to endure the itch of the mystery, embrace the mystery, and allow the mystery to be unknown and unknowable.

Like it or not, the answer to “Nan Yar?” is important. At the very least looking for the answer to it will take your mind off of your troubles and the potential disaster you imagine your life could become both here and in the here-after.

It is important to honor and respect the countless moments of ecstasy that led to the millions of couplings of sperm and egg that finally resulted in you. In that way, you are your ancestors. Your DNA, habits, tics, mental faculties and bodily appearance all support this. And if you can accept the paradox that this manifestation of your ancestors is you and not you, you are on your way to enlightenment.

We so desperately want to know what happens after our hearts tick their last tock, and yet we hate ghosts. Now there’s a paradox for you. You would think ….