Quotes About Death

The fear of death

"Knowledge will take you beyond your fears and your preferences because all preferences are based on fear—the fear of not having, the fear of being wrong, the fear of losing, the fear of death."

"The source of all fear is the belief that you are temporary, that death awaits you and that everything you value and everything that is meaningful to you can be taken away at any moment."

"The fear of death is a very pervasive fear… It is the great price of consciousness. And with the fear of death is the loss of peace and equanimity…This is the great price of being conscious of one’s future… This is the burden of the awareness of life and death. It is the price one pays for having a greater consciousness in a world of change. It is the difficulty an eternal being must face in living in a temporary reality."

"Part of the suffering of being in the world is in living a physical life where death and harm are very present and possible." "You have come into the world to fulfill a purpose. It is that purpose that redeems you. It is that service that restores to you the memory and the sense of your Ancient Home. It is this purpose and this awareness that dispels and weakens the weight of the world on you. Then, if you are a success, death is looked at very differently. It is still an anxiety-provoking event, certainly. 'Oh, my God, what will happen? Oh, my God, I’m not going to be here any more. Oh, my God, what will remain? What will happen? What will be next?' But in your heart there is a sense of completion and relief. 'It is ok. I’m ready to move on. I have done what I came here to do to the best of my ability. I’m not sure what I did, but I did something and it feels right and I think I’m ready to go on to the next thing.' It’s a natural progression, you see."

"The pursuit of that which endures is very different from the pursuit of that which merely stimulates or excites. As you seek for that which endures, you realize that you endure with it, and the fear of death begins to leave you. You begin to value different things."

"As your identity becomes founded in Knowledge and not merely on ideas, speculation or beliefs, you will begin to experience the permanence and security that only Knowledge can bestow. As you realize that your true life is changeless, then you will feel free to allow it to express itself in changing circumstances. Here you will escape all fear of death and destruction."

Death, decay and renewal

"The Way of Knowledge is about the restoration and rejuvenation of the mind.... You are simply allowing your mind to renew itself and to let old thoughts die so that new thoughts can be born. This allows a natural process of death, decay and renewal to take place within your mind."

Relationships awaiting beyond death

“When you leave this life, when your body passes away, it is not like you disappear and go somewhere else. You just awaken to what has always been there. There are those who sent you into the world, waiting to greet you. And there is the Presence, the magnificent Presence. You did not journey from one place to another to experience this. It was always there.”

"Increasingly, you will have a sense that there is a presence, an intelligence, on the other side. In fact, you will have the experience that there is a great group assisting you and cheering for you. This will ease and eventually eliminate your fear of death because you will see that your Spiritual Family is waiting there."

"When you leave the world, you go home to your Spiritual Family. You go home to inherent reality, with either your mission completed or your mission left undone."

“Thus it is when you are complete in this life, you will leave, but you will not leave alone, for in your heart you will embrace the memory, the presence and the reality of all those whom you have touched and who have touched you, and there will not be any spot or residue, not even any hint of unforgiveness that will remain behind you to spoil your gift and your giving.”

Other excerpts

"It is when you stop meeting challenges that your life begins to wane and that the process of death begins for you. Whenever you stop meeting challenges, you begin to die. As long as you meet challenges, you will exert life, you will stimulate life and you will have life."

"Knowledge is not confined by changing circumstances. It does not have the fallibility of the intellect. It is not threatened by death and destruction."

"You should know that no one is ever condemned to death in the name of religion. God has never given prescriptions for this, in any form, in any tradition. If you see this written in religious texts, it is because it has been added by people. It has been invented. It is a human invention. God never prescribes death as a punishment under any circumstances. So if it is prescribed, it is done not with God’s blessing. Whatever justification is given for capital punishment, it is given by people and not by God. That must be clearly understood, and the fact that it is not clearly understood gives rise to much confusion and much misinterpretation of what religion is and what it is for and what it is here to promote… To claim death or physical abuse or punishment in the name of God is an abomination. It is a violation. It is a misunderstanding and misuse of religion. And there are no exceptions to this. No matter how grievous a person’s errors, no matter how different a person’s view might be, capital punishment and physical abuse are never allowed in the name of God. It is untrue fundamentally. It is inherently wrong. It is an abomination."

"You have come from death to here. Death is both the beginning and an ending, but it is only a stage of your great existence and your great service to life."

"All of your worldly possessions, your physical body, the significance of your name and the glory of whatever fame you establish for yourself are all given up when you leave here."

“Life without God is extremely complicated and terribly fearful. It is always beset by anxiety and the threat of annihilation.”

"People who are not satisfied with the normal range of things ask very great questions that other people may find foolish or unnecessary, such as “What is the meaning of my life? Is there life beyond death of the body? What is the purpose of my life, if it has a purpose at all?”These things can only be known in hindsight. At the end of your life, you’ll look back and see what has transpired.Then you will have a much more substantial view of your life’s purpose than someone who is looking into the future and trying to speculate."

Further Study

• Relationships & Higher Purpose, Chapter 14: Completing Relationships (section: How do you complete a relationship when someone dies?)
• What Happens After Death (July 11, 2008)

See also

Judgment Day