As I have gotten older, coming to terms with death has become more important. I was raised in a Christian family and so death was always associated with the concept of heaven and hell. Therefore, it was mission critical that I end up in heaven and not in hell. The solution was to accept Christ as my Lord and Savior, effectively getting my passport stamped for eternity, which I sensibly and faithfully did. However, in this last year of my life, I started to question this belief system. Prostate cancer and clinical depression were signs that I was not doing well internally, and perhaps in choosing the Christian, ‘life after death’ sale’s pitch, I had inadvertently signed up for ‘death after life’.
Martha Beck in The Way of Integrity reminds us of the powerful effect of culture in determining human thinking, feeling, behavior and destiny. Whilst death has been around since the beginning of time, our relationship with it has been largely shaped by prevailing cultural beliefs and religious practices. Having seen the degree to which my own understanding of death was determined by Christianity, I am now of the view that if we aren’t careful, death comes prematurely, after life. What I mean is, the minute I developed the firm conviction that there is life after death I may have started to die, because my relationship with death was then sealed in this belief and I didn’t really have to worry or think about death ever again.
Fortunately, as REM’s lyrics in ‘Losing My Religion’ go, ‘Oh, life is bigger. It’s bigger than you, and you are not me’, and I was able to extricate myself from the limiting cage of my conditioning. I think the recent worldwide pandemic exposed us all to the reality of death in a way that should awaken us from our slumber. In my process, I came to understand that I really couldn’t know anything absolutely for sure, and that was okay. If I couldn’t be sure about life after death, then the vice-grip of death after life was also loosed upon me. It was the key to my own liberation struggle, and the opportunity for a new and evolving relationship with death and therefore life. If you are feeling stuck in a living death, it may be time to reconsider what you believe about life after death.
As I was mowing the lawn the other day, the thought occurred that believing in life after death might help a person die, but it may not help a person truly live. I am sure all other creatures live without a perception of an after-life focusing instinctively on the present moment, whilst we human beings have found it necessary to contemplate an after-life which may be the very obstacle to living fully in the here and now. If you would like to explore how your own mental constructs may be holding you back from living your own life, please contact me – psychologist in Fourways.