A conversation with death

                               By Jimmy Henderson 

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    Hons (phil) PH.D(psychology) 

   It was early in the morning when I imagined myself approaching the Angel of Death and beginning to question him. ‘Sir’, I said, ‘I really need to ask you a number of important questions, perhaps you can help me’. ‘Are you really able to swallow up complete human lives, the collective history of mankind, so many memories and a level of self-consciousness which has evolved over millions of years?’ ‘Are we really supposed to accept that we are born, and live, love and laugh merely to pass away forever into some sort of oblivion?’

   ‘I suppose it depends on what you mean by oblivion’, he said.

   I told him that it seemed unreasonable to suppose that a highly-developed principle such as Life, evolving in different forms for millions of years, eventually expressing in a sentient human being, would simply allow itself to be extinguished forever in a few short decades. ‘I mean’, I said to him, ‘would you willingly participate in any drama that you knew was ill-fated and would leave you with nowhere to go?’ ‘Is it logical for an evolving process such as Life to continue along a route that will lead it to a point of nothingness?’

   He laughed. ‘Are you not confusing your own mortality with the universal process of life?’ he said.

    ‘That is my point exactly’, I replied, ‘A universal process’. ‘People die, but life continues’. ‘Is Life therefore not eternal?’

   I was not making much progress, but I continued to argue the point. My peace of mind was at stake and it was too important for me not to use this opportunity to speak directly to him. 

   ‘And what of evolution?’ I asked him.

   ‘What of it?’ he replied.

   ‘Why would the many forms of Life continue to evolve at all, if it was all destined to end abruptly?’

   He laughed and said that I had a good point! But then he quietly continued by saying, ‘Perhaps, like you, Life simply does not know what Death is and stupidly stumbles on producing human beings for no real reason at all’.

   ‘That is not logical’, I said, ‘We know that life develops in its many forms’. ‘It simply doesn’t make sense that Life would evolve towards a point where it would eventually cease to be’.

   ‘Do you doubt that you die?’ He asked.

   ‘Death is not my concern’, I said to him, ‘the question is whether it all ends at death’. ‘Do I really fall off the edge of the universe into a black hole with the power to swallow up space, time and my own memory of myself?’

   What happens to that memory, our identity?’ I asked. ‘If death is able to dissolve our knowledge of ourselves, how is it that we are now, at all times, still able to remember who and what we are, as a child, an adult, during sleep, when dreaming and once we awaken again?’

   He smiled, but did not reply, so I continued.

   ‘And if we are still evolving’, I said, ‘as we are led to believe, then we are at present still less than perfect?’

   ‘That does make sense’, he said.

   ‘Then surely we have, sometime in the future, still to be perfected, otherwise all talk of development would be pointless?’ I replied.

   ‘Once again you confuse yourself as an individual, with the larger process of Life’. ‘It is the process that renews itself’, the angel replied.

   ‘If the process is continually renewing itself’, I said, ‘then it must be eternal’.  ‘And if life is eternal, surely I still can still continue to exist in some way or other?’

   I now began to question the mystery even more deeply, reaching into the very structure of the human mind and the processes underlying our thoughts, for that one self-evident truth that would prove, beyond any doubt, that our consciousness continues after death, something that we have missed, in its fleeting moment of truth. The philosopher Descartes had followed this same path many centuries ago, deducing our very real existence from a single realisation, ‘I think, therefore I am’.

   ‘Perhaps’, I surmised, ‘I could build on this and prove to myself, ‘I am self-aware, therefore I must continue to exist after death’. With this thought, I faced up to the angel of Death once again.

   ‘In our understanding of science’, I said to him, ‘it is a proven fact that a lamp will not light up unless the entire circuit is complete.’

   He nodded.

   ‘Likewise, could we, as human beings, have ever reached a point of self-awareness if our consciousness were not part of a completed circuit or eternal cycle?’

‘Explain yourself further.’ he replied.

   ‘Would not the permanent ending of our consciousness at death have rendered our present state of self-awareness impossible?’ I said. ‘Surely our present self-awareness must be linked to some future continuity, the completion of a circuit of consciousness which enables us to look forward and backwards in continuous self-reflection?’ ‘And is this self-reflection not our present self-awareness?’

   At first he was very quiet. Then he asked a question;

   ‘If your Life continues’ he said, ‘what would be my role as the angel of Death?’

   ‘Perhaps you are a facilitator!’ I retorted.

    He liked that remark and laughed out loud.

   I continued. ‘Perhaps your purpose is to guide us into this eternal, more perfected form of Life?’

   He challenged me. ‘And what is this more perfect form of Life of which you speak?’

‘During sleep I dream, and my consciousness remains intact’, I replied, ‘will I not dream after death?’

   ‘Perhaps this life is the dream’, he said. ‘Do you like to dream?’

   ‘If I were to dream after death’, I said, ‘then I would have to be alive in some way, for in order to dream we must still exist’.

   He did not reply

   What then, is death?’ I said, ‘The end of one dream or the beginning of a new one?’

   He left without answering.