Death

Death is something we avoid because we are most scared of the unknown. Developing a deeper connection to it, like practicing postures like Shavasana in yoga, may help foster this relationship. I, like many of us, have had encounters with death. Mine took place in Afghanistan every day. Every day, I had to understand that the next step could be my last, and it woke me up to the reality of how close death was to us. However, when I returned, I was told to forget this feeling and that it was an extreme circumstance. In Western society, we hide death away in nursing homes, hospitals, and funeral homes. It is a celebration of passing over to the next journey in the East. It does come with some sadness because of the attachments we have as humans to our loved ones. And as Western culture spreads and evolves, this becomes the central fixation with our relationship to death. 

Meditation also provides an opportunity to get closer to death. We get to dive into the darkness of our minds. The stillness achieved through meditation must be like the moments before passing on to become that universal energy we all try to define. For many of us, meditations are uncomfortable. We are left with ourselves and the thoughts and ideas that fill our minds during meditation. We attach so much to them, and realizing we aren’t any of them is scary; we are nothingness. This existence is a pure symptom of when your mother and father mated with each other, nothing more, nothing less. This, too, will pass just like that moment in time, and we will return to all this as a simple happening in the Universe.