Life and Death

   The fret over death is a universal worry. It crosses all boundaries, sects, religions, races, and beliefs. The fear of death is probably the number one underlying reason for all other fears. The fear of loneliness, nothingness, and helplessness, all, more or less, stem from the fear of death itself.

But what is death? For the pragmatist death is basically the cessation of all bodily functions. When heart and breathing stop and there are no brain waves, the individual is usually said to be dead. What happens after that is fodder for much debate. But let's not be pragmatic.  Let's delve deeper into the question of death by looking at the other side of the coin.

What better way to look at death than to look at life? When a flower blooms it is saying, "Look, I am over here. Don't I smell and look nice?" And when its egg is fertilized by a male flower's pollen grain, a seed is produced. Basically you might say that the life of the flower is over. It has lost its bodily function and has wasted away.

The seed falls to the ground and stays dormant until the right conditions present themselves. Stems, leaves, and roots begin to sprout. The seed is no longer a seed, its life is over. A young plant slowly grows into a mature plant producing flowers. Botanists call this process the life cycle of the plant.

Where is your physical body in the cycle of life? Just because the body stops functioning doesn't mean that you are dead. You, the true you, sprouts into something new and different. There is no end to the cycle. Don't worry and don't fret. Life is not over just because the body wastes away.