An Atheist Talks About Death to His Chidren-Pt.2

The second part of my answer addresses the fear many people have of personal extinction. There are a couple of ways to go about this. The first is to simply try and imagine what it must have been like before you were born. Of course as soon as you try this, you immediately run into a wall. Why? Because you can’t imagine ‘nothing’, since imagining has to do with ‘images’, and images always represent ‘something’...even if that something is a blank wall. However, you CAN approach a feeling for that place before birth (bb) through a sort of negative appraisal. Just imagine anything that place might possibly connote, then assign a negative value.

Is bb a happy place?
No.
Is bb a sad place?
No.
Is bb a fearful place?
No.
Is bb populated by bunny rabbits?
No.
Is bb populated by man eating tigers?
No.
etc...

Go deep enough into this, and you’ll begin to feel extremely neutral about the bb space. It might not make you particularly happy. On the other hand, you just might begin to feel this profound sensation of relief washing over you. Like when you’re having a dream that you’ve gone to school, and forgotten to put your pants on. Or you totally spaced that big final exam, and what the heck are your parents going to say when you tell them you’ve flunked out? And right in the middle of one colossal anxiety attack, you suddenly wake up, and find yourself in bed, safe and warm, and you remember you graduated highschool 25 years ago...hehehe! Relief from anxiety is often its own reward, and the fear of death is all about anxiety, after all.

Now, leap forward to the end of your life. You lie down, close your eyes, and...what? Absolutely nothing! Try to imagine the best sleep you’ve ever had, or might ever have. Undisturbed by nightmares, or fits of waking because of all those unresolved problems you have to face the next day. A perfect sleep. The kind of sleep so good, that when the alarm goes off and you remember it’s Saturday and you have nowhere else you have to be, you roll right over and go back to sleep again with a big smile on your face. Unaware of environment. Unaware of self. You’ve simply disappeared into your own sleep, so deeply that when you went, the whole universe went with you. For in truth, when the subjective self closes its eyes in finality, all the world goes with him/her. Time and space go as well. In fact, it goes even deeper than that. When you finally surrender to this deepest of all rests, it will be as if nothing ever were. In death, all of existence becomes weightless. Careless. Anxiety free for ever and ever and ever. The end of life is the true heaven. It is the philosophic reality behind the Buddhists’ nirvana, like a candle flame which, in being blown out, embraces the music of perfect silence, and eternal rest from all labour. I like to call this place ‘Negative Bliss’. It is the absence of everything that ever bothered you, or scared you, or made you wish things were different than they were. It is the place where all suffering is extinguished, forever and ever.

There is nothing wrong with death. It is the natural ending of all things. The inevitable dissolution of form, where a roiling river feeds into an infinite, tranquil sea. Breathe in. Hold that breath. Feel the tension, there under the ribcage? Hold it until it hurts a little. Now, breathe out. Imagine that breath is you, rejoining the atmosphere from whence you came. This is death. Nothing more.

I think I might have a little more to say about this. Not sure yet. Stay tuned for Pt. 3...maybe.