Process of Choosing to Die

April 5, 2005

Q. I would like some comments on the process of choosing to die. It's not a process I've witnessed often, but in some cases the process has been very clear. On the other hand, I've known people who sit there and wish for it for twenty years and it doesn't happen, so apparently there's a disconnect between their desire and the actual process.

A. There are several factors at work here. Some of it has to do with the difference between the hominid ape and the eternal Essence, and because of this particular dichotomy, often there are unexpected aspects to the dying process. Of course it helps if there is recognition of the Sixth -- and, for that matter, the Seventh Monad -- and the more validation that is achieved of Sixth Monad, the more readily the transit may be undertaken. However, when Sixth Monad is "elusive" or somewhat inaccessible due to incomplete previous Monads, then the natural tendency of the hominid ape, which is an equally valid component of the living process of fragments, tends to hang on until the basic biological systems in fact break down.

While there is no "right" or "wrong" in this process, we would think that the greater the understanding of the issues at hand, the likelier the fragment is to move beyond the intrinsic hominid ape perception of finality to a recognition of the validity of the continuum. That continuum, of course, is intrinsic to making the last stage of any given life a statement of totality. Of course, all fragments are free to choose any manner of assessing and approaching death except of course avoiding it, for by the very nature of the physical plane, bodies are finite.

It might not be inappropriate, should you choose to do so, to compare the lives and expectations of those who have had obvious choices of departure and those who have failed to achieve that -- not that the failure is in and of itself negative, but it does indeed tend to cause a more difficult exit than when the exit is perceived as an appropriate closure. Those fragments who are willing to die not as "noble sacrifice" or as "expiation" but as in fact the nature of life itself will find that as validation occurs, the need of the body can be made to accommodate Essence without conflict or "despair". Such choices are not easily defined, but they maybe perceived in the attitude of the fragment approaching the moment, and of course, for many fragments the transition from life to death is the first and only time that that particular personality will be able to perceive the immensity of Essence itself.