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Docta Ignorantia XXXIX Two Deaths There are two deaths. The first is the death of the ego. The second is the death of the body. Of these, the first is momentous and the second trivial. When people are afraid of death, they are really afraid of the first death, not the second. The first death is frightening and unusual. The second is commonplace and expected. Therefore, any fear associated with the second death is merely trivial. Fear associated with the first death is so momentous as to repel most from even approaching it voluntarily. Most people end their earthly careers never having undergone the first death, never having gotten their ego under control. Ego screams to them that its death or even modest abatement is total obliteration of the personality and this assertion, which is interior and unanswerable by reason, triggers the momentous fear. Of course, it is all untrue, but ego screams loudly enough to make many think that it is. When such people approach the death of the body, they have not undergone the death of the ego and this thing which is really trivial can appear to them as the obliteration of the self, as stupendously depressing. They think they are responding to the death of the body, but really they are responding to the death of the ego. This confusion also infuses care givers. On the cross, Jesus underwent death of the ego. He underwent bodily death many years later, while a resident near Srinagar, Kashmir. His first death was the important one, as it is for all aspirants. His first death is the primal exemplar of piety and therefore the crucial teaching of the church. It was the unique one. Everyone undergoes death of the body. But only the great ones undergo death of the ego. Their experience with this rare and necessary experience is the ultimate paradigm for spirituality then, now and always. Spirituality is crucifixion of the ego, its death and resurrection remade the same but under the control of Grace. In effect, spirituality is ego-less-ness. Emotionally and intellectually, this works out to the experience called at-one-ment, or, beatification. The path leads inexorably through this narrow, uncomfortable and, for most, terrifying defile of the first death, the death of the ego. Who undergoes this death, has nothing to fear from and no fear of the second.
Adwaitha Hermitage
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