Death and Love

Chris:  Need that concept of death have the ideas of love attached to it?

Tony: No, but that is what I felt. Maybe it is our definition of what we think of as love. Also, I did understand that I was looking at, or experiencing what arose, out of my own limited human awareness. The experience was interpreted into my own human terms. All I have is my vocabulary and my range of experience. But it did feel like a love beyond what I could understand. It felt like an enormous self giving.

Chris: And that enormous self giving in scientific or, physics terms, is what?

Tony: Well, we can look at from all sorts of perspectives. I don’t think any of them are false. We can look at the universe in a purely analytical sense; we can look at it from the point of view of an investigative science; we can look at it from an artistic point of view; we can look at it as a chemical or energetic event; we can look at it with the sense of awe or wonder; we can look at it from the point of view of geometry or mathematics, we can approach it or relate out of feelings of love.

Some people who have a full grasp of, or an eye for mathematics and geometry, explain our solar system in ways that are quite incredible. They can demonstrate patterns and interrelationships between the planets that are of such wonder, order and symmetry, that it leaves us realising that an amazing art and wisdom is embodied in every tiny aspect of the universe and ourselves.

So I believe that if we look as closely at the universe as mathematicians have, we also find that embodied in every tiny part of it is what I have called love. Taking an overall view of life on earth and interrelationships of the species in the food chain, it seems to me that life is constantly giving itself to itself in that act of giving.

So coming back to the theme of death in life, I do feel that this is a huge lesson for us to learn as human beings. And something I didn’t say about that last enormous projection of love, the incredible emanation in the death throes, is that I believe the human race met that emanation of love very fully 2000 years ago. I want to say that my experience of the radiated love in the death throes I can only describe as being akin to a parent’s feelings at their death, and their doing all they can to care for their children in those last moments. Almost like saying, “What can I leave with you to help you?”

Our name in the West for that Comforter that was left is Christ. I don’t know if there was a historical Christ, because humans tend to project outwardly what they sense inwardly. It is innate in us to give an outer form to, or to see as something outside of ourselves, what we sense within ourselves of any wonder. So I can see the possibility that humans gave an outer form to what we call Christ. Just as we have given an outer form to what we call the devil.

It is difficult for us to claim as a part of ourselves something of such wonder. So we tend to put it outside of us so that it is not too near. Then it doesn’t make us feel small and baby like in our own growth. We often cannot bear to see what we call the Christ as our own personal potential that we are constantly crucifying, denying, and washing our hands of. Nevertheless, we have that embodied in one of our world religions.

What I saw was that the Big Bang utterly shattered the existence of what had been before. That ocean of energy and consciousness destroyed itself so beings such as ourselves might exist. And then, as it died, at the very last moments of its death, it shot out something to penetrate all that was coming into being. It radiated love. It gave us love as its parting gift so that if any beings got lost, if they were troubled or overcome in their experience of growth, they could reach out for that love and be helped. They could touch the love, the heart and soul of which was self giving.

The death of that being also meant that every particle of the universe and what has arisen out of its death is the very substance of that great creative being and its act of self giving. There is nothing in the universe that is not the body, the broken and fragmented body, of that being. Every tiny fragment of our earth, of our bodies, of our universe, is the essence of that being. Every tiny speck of the universe is a seed that has the potential of that being within it. There is nothing that is not that being and a seed of that being. The potential to know that is within each of us. It is within each of us to be that wonder. We can grow and realise we are the children of that.

That is what I see as the beginning of things, the origin of our universe and ourselves. But I was also shown that our corner, our small part of the universe, has certain qualities that maybe other parts do not. One of them, especially in regard to ourselves, is the shortness of life. We are tiny, short lived, biological creatures that have emerged out of the amazing processes of this world in its interplay with the cosmos. We can see ourselves in one sense as little bags of shit. We can be thought of as little digestive reproducing bags. But because of that potential in us, there has always been a possibility of more in human life. As this species we have managed to emerge beyond the other living forms of this earth. We have developed complex language and enormous curiosity and creativity. But the shortness of our life is a big factor in our experience of ourselves. I was shown that this shortness of life is really important for us. This because an essential part of the mystery of the universe is death. Therefore death is an enormous key to understanding the universe and life. Understanding death means that we become capable of letting go of ourselves, of delivering ourselves, of being able to give ourselves away to the mystery underlying our existence. The importance of this is because, if what has been said above is correct, then death is at the very centre of the mystery of life. It is at the foundation of our physical being. It is behind the urge that leads parents to a sort of death in giving themselves to the new being that emerges, to parents giving of themselves to their offspring. The sun gives of itself as it is dying. Through its dying life can exist on earth. This is part and parcel of the processes out of which our universe has emerged.

Chris: Just one of our world religions?

Tony: Well it is there in the others, but often not as clearly stated. For instance the Indians call it Krishna. And Christianity itself cannot be thought of as a stand-alone religion. It emerged out of what had existed before it. The area of the world in which it arose was a crossroads between East and West, and Christianity in many ways appears to be a synthesis of what existed before it.

See Journeying Beyond Dreams and Death