The Final Exam
My mother was a math teacher for over 40 years. Besides her mothertalk she spoke German and
French. She read a lot, mostly classic
literature. Just couple months before she died she spent significant time
solving math problems. And yet, she was so afraid of death.
In May 2014 she was diagnosed with liver cancer. Doctor told her the sad news in a
blunt and an unprofessional way. She was not ready to accept her illness and soon
after she fell in a deep depression and she could not go through her day
without Benzedine better known as Valium.
She was terrified by knowledge that her time has come to the end.
I went to Serbia in August that same year. It was painful for me to watch her
suffering. I tried to explain her things about life and death but she did not
listen me. She asked me did I joined some cult or do I belong to some weird
sect?
Justa night before I went back to Toronto I asked her, when she worked as a math
teacher did she noticed who of students is most afraid of the exam. She told
me the ones who are not prepared for the exam, who do not know the subject
well. Then I told her: "You see mom, you do not know subject well, you have no
clue Who you are, you are not prepared well, that's why you are afraid of death."
She died in January 2015 in the age of 72.
I think you are or you will be in the same position as my mom once was. You
don't know the subject of life (and death) very well. Only self
knowledge conquers fear of death. And self knowledge is the understanding of
who-you-are!
You have forgot who-you-are. You are living with a wrong notion that you are a body with the
thoughts and feelings, that you are a name with an ID card.
I did not blame my mother for her ignorance and I don't condemn you for your
failure to understand things as they are. Truth is wonderful but terrifying.
Many forces on this planet are working against your understanding.
What greater brutality can be inflicted on anyone than to erase or deny the spiritual awareness, identity, ability, and memory that is the essence of oneself? ~ Lawrence R. Spencer
Your life directly depends from your belief, the idea of who-you-are. Not paying attention to
that is mistake. You are setting up hopes,
expectations and dreams measuring events as a success or failure. By getting
older you are becoming, more and more, covetous, greedy and coward. The crux of the
matter on which the fear of death rests is your suggestibility,
complacency and tendency to wishful thinking.
The fear of death is not a moralistic punishment for the fall as a human,
it is a natural consequence of a state of ignorant being.
You end up dying a slow death on the inside.
And you know, it's not just that it's a terrible way to live: it's not really life at all. It's not something you choose, it's what you get when you don't choose. We just marched ourselves into these damned idiotic, impossible lives without ever stopping to think about what we were doing.
High school, college, post-grad and then straight into the workforce. Get married. have a kid, borrow money, buy a house. fill it with junk. have another kid, borrow more money. bigger house, more junk.
It's completely insane, but that's how everyone I know lived.
~ Jed McKenna
If you want to realize who you are, you must devote your life to It. Otherwise,
what is the use of life?
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