Death – Does it Have to Occur?

I know, looking around it seems that everything has it’s cycle. Things are ‘born’, sprout, mature, whither and die…returning to the source from which they came – at least this is how it appears. We are witness every day to people and animals alike passing from these bodily frames into an ‘unknown’ place where many of us find the comfort of religion or spiritual beliefs for understanding. But does death have to occur? Is it really ‘the natural order’ of things, or have we conditioned ourselves over generations to experience such a phenomenon?

Make no mistake, I am clear that I have stepped out onto a ledge by even proposing such a seemingly preposterous suggestion. I mean, who can question the very thing that seems the most obvious to every single being?  Death and gravity seem like the two ‘givens’, right? I can’t help myself.  I study quantum physics. I question everything. I look into the face of that which seems ‘real’ to realize that much of what we have been told and believed, has crumbled into faded history and been replaced by an upgraded version of reality time and again.  What makes death different?

Even science admits that our bodies regenerate themselves continually. After 7 years we have a completely different form than the one we had previously. Other studies have taught us that our cellular make-up is influenced by our thoughts and emotions.  Upon reproduction, cells mimic the pattern of the previous cell – taking with it the often flawed beliefs and feelings we have, generating less-than-perfect new cells. The point is, the possibility exists for us to be continually regenerating healthy cells that do not age. Aging comes into play when we recreate negative belief patterns and dis-ease in new cells. Our ‘new’ cells get birthed with an aged pattern of behavior ingrained in them, birthed with dis-ease gifted to them and this is repeated again and again.

I couldn’t help myself with this musing today, as the word ‘death’ is running through the news. I am well aware of the readers who will immediately rejoice in debunking my theories as ‘un-scientific’, and that’s okay with me. The point of this article is not to convince anyone that death does not exist, that would be silly, but rather to raise the question whether or not we are agreeing with a program that does not have to repeat. In the face of modern science and the understanding that our thoughts contribute to the reality we experience, that emotions can affect our healing rates and where the observer dictates that which is seen, I really wonder how much we perpetuate the ‘unreal?’

In mystical traditions and biblical references, humans used to live for thousands of years. Why not now? What is different between this day and age and the time of say, Moses? I have known people who have brushed up against death within a couple of inches and walked away bigger, healthier, stronger. I myself, have tasted that space which seems to separate these human forms from ‘another realm’ and I wonder if we really need shed these bodies to touch it?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid of death, though I feel like it may be an illusion. The people who I have known who have ‘crossed over’ seem to whisper from hidden spaces a silent giggle that we have not quite figured it out yet. Whenever someone ‘dies’ it seems their consciousness has a sudden awakening in the sphere between this world and where they are and I become aware that they just ‘got it’, though maybe we don’t have to follow the same path to understand. What if we lifted our need to believe in death? What if we suspended it even for a moment to explore what other possibility there may be?

Those who live longer lives say their secret is largely a positive attitude and ‘not believing’ in age. Again, quantum physics enforces the notion that time and space are not actually real – and yet we experience them to the extent we ‘believe’ in them. We have all had moments where time seemed to slip away unnoticed, or the opposite, of time dragging on and on. What if we stopped ‘measuring’ reality. NASA Neuro-physicist Thomas Campbell postulates that it is the very act of measuring something which creates it to be so. If we measure something, we then bring it into space/time, and by sharing the measurement, we make it real for others. This is interesting because he is more than suggesting that prior to measurement, things are not determinable. Therefore, our lives may be the very same way.

I do not wish to disrespect or speak small of those who have lost loved ones or have suffered in anyway due to proximity to someone dying. Instead, I speak to the living. To those of us with the ability to still question the ‘truths’ we live with and embrace every day as reality. I ask those of us who breathe to consider, even for a moment, the possibility of death not having to occur. Laugh if you want, but imagine – dream – not out of wish to side-step death- but out of the wonder of the human mind to stretch the possibilities and see what is there.

If quantum mechanics says that the observer is key in the reality seen…which it is…which we are – this means we have a say in what we experience just because we are observing, as well as experiencing. In a very real way, quantum science is teaching us how to become self-empowered once again. The act of observing your own reality, as if you are on the outside looking in – is a yogic technique, called ‘drashta’, the witness – and now it is a scientific term.

Science has recently observed and documented that particles can change form, in the blink of an eye – shapeshifting – they call it. What if that’s what we can do instead of die? What if we can begin to comprehend the language of the smallest particle to be speaking to the capacity of our own being? The arguments in favor of death are of course, over-population for one. This is assuming we all stay on the same current ‘frequency’ of perceived reality. I don’t know, with time warp travel, occupying mars and stellar communications all in the news and in the laboratories of today’s science, it’s not long people, until reality as we know it is not as we know it any longer. If we are to continue to evolve and grow with science and with the possibilities that present themselves through technology both inner and outer, we must be able to ask these seemingly ‘crazy’ questions.

There are those on this planet right now teaching the philosophies and techniques of ‘immortality’ and the concepts that must exist in order to have a ‘deathless society.’  This is woo-woo talk to some of you, and others of you raise an eye brow, because inside many of us we somehow know there is truth to this.

Someone will ask why this article was published in ‘Science’ and some, why it was published at all.  Why are your thoughts real?

It’s fun to muse and stretch the mind. I would love to hear your intelligent responses to such a thought as this. Death – does it have to occur? And what would the world look like if it didn’t?

(Op-Ed)

Written by: Stasia Bliss

Sources: The Recesses of my Mind; Biology About.com; Science Daily – Observer Affects Reality; Yoga Magazine – The Observer; Live Science & Shapeshifting Particles