The trauma of death in western society is that we see it as failure, as a tragedy when the truth is that in most cases it’s natural, a product of aging and illness.

The best way to deal with death is to look it in the eye and face it now so when your time comes, you’ll be ready and accept it freely and calmly.

The paradox of death is that everywhere we make it seem like a solemn, otherwordly event where the soul will go to heaven as with our funeral processions and massive streams of graveyards everywhere but on another level, invisibility and indifference are creeping in.

People are now getting cremated, there are less grand, dramatic funerals these days and overall, we simply act as though death doesn’t exist and go right on living, in denial until our time comes then we lose consciousness and the world continues on.

Death is very simple to an enlightened mind. Our culture generally tells us that life is good, death is bad but the truth is that death is a part of life, you will die so accept it now and when the reaper comes calling, welcome him and embrace him, especially if you've made it to the natural twilight of life, 70 or more years.

Death is no more traumatic than taking off an old coat. You've gone as far as you can go in this life now you have to release yourself and go to meet your God.

Death is poised midway between morbid fear and a trust in God for most of us. We fear a termination of our human consciousness but hope that God will be there to welcome us into Heaven when we cross over into that alleged, etheral other side.

Is it true? Nobody really knows except for the people who claim to have had incredible supernatural experiences but who of them can you believe?

I listened to Danion Brinkley enough on Coast-to-Coast Late Night Radio but in an unguarded moment, he has admitted that the spiritual feeling he got with his near-death experience has faded away.

I basically watched my mother deteriorate right before my eyes. How sad is that? What exactly can I do? Cry and destroy my life too or say she’s 83 years old. It’s a gift to make it to 83.
Then I talk to my sister and we talk about death. I hate thinking about it and talking about it.

I hope I live to 80 in good health then I fall asleep some night and pass peacefully without pain or the consciousness of knowing I will die in an hour or so.

Most of us intuitively know when our time is coming due to either illness or old age. We get our affairs in order, do our confessions to God and say good-bye to our loved ones.

Most of us don’t want to talk about death and prefer to live in denial around dying people, pretending they’re not dying when everybody knows they are.

We’re so in denial about it that we often don’t want to draft up wills, plan our estates or help our parents do it because it seems so painful.

Even though we generally go to hospitals to get better, most people agree that the hospital is the worst place to die.

If you know you’re going to die, many people are now opting to go home to be in a private setting with their family and friends.

Much of our fear comes from the fear of death, the fear that the most important thing to us will cease to exist forevermore, namely ourselves as consciousness so we create all kinds of gods and New Age phenomena to deal with this emptiness.

Dystovesky, the great Russian intellectual was once tied up to a firing squad ready to be shot when they got the order in the nick of time that he was to be pardoned but he never forgot that experience which drastically influenced his writings for the rest of his life.

The fear of death is probably the most incredibly overwhelming fear for just about everybody on the planet.