DEATH
Necessity
of Death
Death is necessary
in this narrow world of ours. Despite the appearance that it is a harbinger
of misfortune and grief, yet it is needed for human happiness.Our globe
cannot conceivably hold the offspring of mankind if the harvester Death
was not ever at work in the vast field of human life, mowing down the
rotating crops as they mature. There are indeed limits to the numbers
which this earth is capable of supporting.
As long as we live
in the limited space here below, there is no withdrawal from the busy
world of earthly affairs. The world is too narrow to allow for the segregation
of different generations.Imagine eternal existence in the flesh! Even
granting a body continual health, could everlasting happiness be captured
in a life within the bonds of earthly space? As generation after generation
rises around a person, will they not wish to withdraw from a society of
younger minds who view the uses of the world from a different perspective?
The purpose of the Creator always extends to the realization of a goal
beyond death.
The
Dread of Death
People
love life. Even those who, in a rebellious mood, argue that they wish
they had never been born, yet love life. The regenerating person does
not feel the dread of death so much, for they do not love the world for
the sake of self; and when death impends - unless their physical disease
affects their thinking or they are concerned for their family - their
thoughts are mostly about eternal life. Those who are led by the love
of self rarely show piety in the face of death, although the worldly-wise
often manifest a spurious death-bed repentance.
Irrespective of a
person's character, they may dread the pain which, in many diseases, seem
to attend the demise of the body. But it is doubtful whether there is
any pain connected with the actual death. Death is but the "twin sister
of sleep." Consciousness ceases in the body before the heart stops: and
until the heart has ceased functioning, death is not complete.
The
Physiology behind Death
It is of importance
to know what is involved in the death of the body. Ancient writings describe
it as a process by which the spirit is released. The general teaching
is that the conjunction of the body with the spirit depends on the motions
of the heart and the lungs of the body being conjoined with the corresponding
pulsations and animation of the spirit. For the spirit also has a body
with a pulse and respiration. Death occurs when, from any kind of disease
or accident, the body comes into such a state as to be unable to act in
unison with its spirit and carry out its behests. What is called Death
occurs when the vital motions of the lungs and the heart cease and the
correspondence with the activities of the spirit's heart and the spirit's
lungs is broken.
Death occurs from
below - the forms or connections which first dissolve are the most external
- those of the red blood. And life in the body depends on the circulation
which supplies the tissues with vital heat. Physiology takes account of
the fact that in organic bodies heat is being maintained in calculable
degrees of temperature and amounts of energy, through the consumption
of oxygen by the tissues. When the heart stops and the body grows cold
- which differs as to time according to the fatal disease - the bond between
the spirit and the material body is dissolved..
Death occurs when
the two vital motions, the respiration of the lungs and the beating of
the heart, cease, and the body, deprived of the life of the spirit, grows
cold and begins to decay. But until the heart's motion is entirely stopped
the spirit continues in the body for a short time. And even after
the body is apparently cold, life may with some persist as conscious thinking.
The spirit can of course not have any sensation of its natural environment
- since respiration has stopped - nor can it move even a particle of the
gross matter of the body. The spirit, though definitely severed from the
body, may still abide in it, which eventually "recedes" as a cutis-like
covering.
