WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:06.700 There really isn't anything radically wrong with being sick or 2 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:16.079 with dying. Who said you're supposed to survive? Who gave 3 00:00:16.120 --> 00:00:18.960 you the idea that it's a gas to go on 4 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:23.199 and on and on? And we can't say that it's 5 00:00:23.250 --> 00:00:25.800 a good thing for everything to go on living from 6 00:00:25.820 --> 00:00:29.129 the very simple demonstration that if we enable everybody to 7 00:00:29.149 --> 00:00:35.000 go on living, we overcrowd ourselves, that we're like an 8 00:00:35.079 --> 00:00:44.429 unpruned tree. And so, therefore, one person who dies in 9 00:00:44.469 --> 00:00:48.289 a way is honorable because he's making room for others. 10 00:00:52.670 --> 00:00:55.829 And the panic that all life everywhere must be saved 11 00:00:57.780 --> 00:01:01.520 although each one of us individually will naturally appreciate it 12 00:01:01.859 --> 00:01:07.799 when anybody saves our life. If we apply that case, 13 00:01:07.840 --> 00:01:10.739 you see, all around, we can see that it's not workable. 14 00:01:15.019 --> 00:01:19.299 We can also look further into it and see that 15 00:01:19.459 --> 00:01:26.810 if our death could be indefinitely postponed, we would not 16 00:01:27.269 --> 00:01:34.010 actually go on postponing it indefinitely. Because after a certain 17 00:01:34.049 --> 00:01:38.030 point we would realize that that isn't the way in 18 00:01:38.069 --> 00:01:41.709 which we wanted to survive. Why else would we have children? 19 00:01:46.049 --> 00:01:56.980 Because children arrange for us to survive in another way. by, 20 00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:02.400 as it were, passing on a torch so that you 21 00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:05.920 don't have to carry it all the time. There comes 22 00:02:05.980 --> 00:02:08.840 a point where you can give it up and say, 23 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:15.500 now you work. It's a far more amusing arrangement for 24 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:21.889 nature to continue the process of life through different individuals 25 00:02:22.409 --> 00:02:26.270 than it is always with the same individual because as 26 00:02:26.370 --> 00:02:32.409 each new individual approaches life life is renewed and one 27 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:37.250 remembers how fascinating the most ordinary everyday things are to 28 00:02:37.289 --> 00:02:42.250 a child because they see them all as marvelous because 29 00:02:42.289 --> 00:02:44.030 they see them all in a way that is not 30 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:49.379 related to survival and profit when we get to thinking 31 00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:53.120 of everything in terms of survival and profit value as 32 00:02:53.180 --> 00:02:58.830 we do then the shapes of scratches on the floor 33 00:02:59.590 --> 00:03:04.280 cease to have magic. And most things, in fact, cease 34 00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:10.719 to have magic. So therefore, in the course of nature, 35 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:14.460 once we have ceased to see magic in the world anymore, 36 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:18.969 we are no longer fulfilling nature's game of being aware 37 00:03:19.030 --> 00:03:24.090 of itself. There's no point in it anymore. And so 38 00:03:24.129 --> 00:03:28.050 we die. And so something else comes to birth which 39 00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:34.090 gets an entirely new view. And so nature's self-awareness is 40 00:03:34.150 --> 00:03:40.110 a game worth the candle. It is not therefore natural 41 00:03:40.289 --> 00:03:45.879 for us to wish to prolong life indefinitely. But we 42 00:03:45.939 --> 00:03:50.599 live in a culture where it has been rubbed into 43 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:54.639 us in every conceivable way that to die is a 44 00:03:54.680 --> 00:04:02.759 terrible thing And that is a tremendous disease from which 45 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:06.599 our culture in particular suffers. And we notice it firstly 46 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:09.319 in the way in which death is swept under the carpet. 47 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:14.370 This is one of the major problems in hospital work. 48 00:04:16.889 --> 00:04:23.689 When a family conspires with the doctor to keep from 49 00:04:23.769 --> 00:04:30.379 grandmother the knowledge that she is dying, Grandmother suspects that 50 00:04:30.439 --> 00:04:36.370 she is dying, but probably doesn't really want to know 51 00:04:36.410 --> 00:04:40.509 for sure. And her family talk with her in such 52 00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:44.610 a way as to say, well, you'll probably be getting 53 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:46.550 all right in a few weeks. Won't it be nice 54 00:04:46.569 --> 00:04:48.170 to be able to do this, that and the other? 55 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:52.579 Because they have this funny feeling that it's important to 56 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:59.470 build up courage and hope. And so they become liars 57 00:05:00.350 --> 00:05:05.050 and a mutual mistrust develops because once you are playing 58 00:05:05.069 --> 00:05:07.149 the game on that level you tend to play the 59 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:14.839 mistrust on other levels. And so the person is left 60 00:05:14.899 --> 00:05:25.589 to die alone suddenly unprepared and doped up to the 61 00:05:25.629 --> 00:05:37.930 point where death hardly happens. And there is no derivation 62 00:05:37.990 --> 00:05:43.470 from it of the peculiar spiritual experience that can come 63 00:05:43.509 --> 00:05:49.800 with death. So, you see, this is always the opportunity 64 00:05:49.860 --> 00:05:57.519 presented by death. that if one can go into death 65 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:05.839 with eyes open to give up before you die, this 66 00:06:05.939 --> 00:06:09.639 extraordinary thing can happen to you. So that from your 67 00:06:09.699 --> 00:06:13.740 standpoint in that position at that time, you would say, 68 00:06:13.759 --> 00:06:17.240 I wouldn't have missed that opportunity for the world. Now 69 00:06:17.339 --> 00:06:20.740 I understand why we die. The reason we die is 70 00:06:20.779 --> 00:06:23.579 to give us the opportunity to understand what life's all about. 71 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:29.459 by letting go, because then we come to a situation 72 00:06:29.500 --> 00:06:32.879 that the ego can't deal with. When we are no 73 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:37.230 longer hypnotized by that, then our natural consciousness can see 74 00:06:37.259 --> 00:06:43.370 clearly what all this universe is for. So, therefore, we 75 00:06:43.410 --> 00:06:49.589 have missed this golden opportunity by institutionalizing death out of 76 00:06:49.610 --> 00:07:00.240 the way, instead of having a socially understood acceptance of 77 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:09.180 death and rejoicing in death. So it follows from that, 78 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:13.250 you see, that if any one of us could at 79 00:07:13.290 --> 00:07:24.649 this moment be as one about to die, genuinely and honestly, 80 00:07:27.079 --> 00:07:34.750 we would understand the mystery of life. Because death is, 81 00:07:35.730 --> 00:07:41.990 in a certain sense, the source of life. Just as 82 00:07:42.069 --> 00:07:44.649 we see in nature, when the leaves fall from the trees, 83 00:07:44.730 --> 00:07:48.310 they mold and rot, and this supplies humus, from which 84 00:07:48.790 --> 00:07:52.889 more plants can grow. It's a cycle like that. But 85 00:07:52.949 --> 00:07:57.230 in every way, symbolic and otherwise, human beings... try to 86 00:07:57.410 --> 00:08:01.949 stop that cycle. Unamuno said, human beings are the only 87 00:08:02.009 --> 00:08:07.970 species that hoard their dead. And therefore, with the ghastly 88 00:08:08.129 --> 00:08:13.379 art of the mortician, we try to make the body 89 00:08:13.509 --> 00:08:18.500 unpalatable to the worms, and so to stop life, as 90 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:22.019 if to be eaten in due course were an indignity 91 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:25.829 to the human being. whereas we eat everything else and 92 00:08:25.850 --> 00:08:31.620 we give nothing back. So that is a kind of 93 00:08:31.649 --> 00:08:36.159 a social symptom of our profound disorientation with respect to death.