What is Death?

Death is extremely unsettling to think about or consider.

Why?

Indeed biological death appears to be a crucial component for life as each of our body cells are programed to die in order for new cells to come into being and for life to continue in a process known as apoptosis. If a cell doesn’t kill itself then cancer may develop and kill the entire organism. So from this perspective death is a natural part of life. In fact, life depends on death to continue. So biologically, death is an integral part of life.

Indeed anything that is born, must surely die as, again, this is a natural part of life. Anything that has a beginning must also have an ending. But our culture completely shuns and unacknowledges death except to say “avoid it at all costs and for as long as you can”. So we are completely ignoring one half of life itself. And since life is really an undivided whole, if you ignore any part of it you ignore it all.

For this discussion, we would like to consider what it means to die for us as “thinking” beings since this is what causes us the greatest stress, anxiety, and fear.

It appears to be because it’s the end of “the known”. The end of “knowing”. The end of “the knower”, the “one who knows”, the possessor of knowledge. The “one who knows” taking the form of the thought “I” and “not I”.

And so it would appear that death is the end of end of the possessor of knowledge, or the ending of “I” (and “not” because the two really go together).

The unknown is extremely difficult to consider.

Why?

“I” appears to be the constant process of “recording”, “recollecting/remembering”, “comparison/judgement” etc., which appears to be the constant process of mental accumulation.

So death would appear to be the ending of this process, the ending of the recording and the accumulation of the known, the ending of the mental objectification/mental image making/fabricating/constructing the “I”.

So we appear to be stuck in the constant thought-form/state of desire as “I want to remain existing/alive To continue forever and ever.”

So this is being stuck in a constant state of “I want…”, or constant state of desire, intern also creates a corresponding state of fear. To know and understand the nature of fear is the beginning of freedom.

Is any of this true?

Please examine this for yourself without any motive, for if you have a motive it will dictate the answer.

J.Krishnamurti on “what does it mean to die?” and “what is death?”: