Death, Energy and Cosmos

 

Human psychology on life and death

 

qaid-e-hayāt o band-e-ġham - asl meñ donoñ ek haiñ

 

Taste of Death

 (A text from a friend)

As you know, I am not a very religious person, and as usual I got the news of death of someone on one of my WhatsApp group. Someone commented with the Quranic ayat:

And for few days I kept thinking, why the word "Zaiqa"? Is death sweet or has a specific taste? or does it metaphorically mean that: Death is a good thing for every human?

Don't know my friend. I am crazy. Bewajah baton pe aen waen gor karain..

Unmarked Death

 It took me a long time to realize the burden of the last few lines of  Leo Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich.

And suddenly it became clear to him that what was tormenting him and would not be resolved was suddenly all resolved at once, on two sides, on ten sides, on all sides. He was sorry for them; he had to act so that it would not be painful for them. To deliver them and deliver himself from these sufferings. "How good and how simple," he thought.

{Leo Tolstoy died from pneumonia, aged eighty-two, at the railway station of Astapovo, a remote Russian village, on November 7, 1910. He had left his family home on October 28, in the middle of the night, to die as an unmarked person.

Or, why  Thomas Hardy in The Mayor of Casterbridge quoted: 

 Michael Henchard's Will 

That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, 

or made to grieve on account of me. 

& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. 

& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. 

& that nobody is wished to see my dead body. 

& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. 

& that no flours be planted on my grave. 

& that no man remember me. 

To this I put my name. 

Michael Henchard

Or Ghalib said: 

hue mar ke ham jo rusvā  hue kyuuñ na ġharq-e-dariyā

na  kabhī  janāza  uThtā   na  kahīñ  mazār  hotā

Pets

(An old Middle Eastern saying: Pet horse and dog argue with an angel of death if they come for their master, and they offer their own life to take away. They try their best for their Master's life)

- Copied from the Internet

I was hiking with my dog then; he was part Dalmatian, part Blue healer. It was the middle of the night, and I seemed to have had a heart attack while I was asleep. The sudden pain in my chest almost woke me up, and I entered that rem state as I stood over my body trying to get myself to twitch or something to wake up. In my dream I could feel my body temperature dropping and I was getting cold, my skin started to feel like stone. Suddenly my dog lifted up his head in my dream, cocked his head to the side, and then nudged his nose towards me. There was a ripple-like water where his nose touched, and suddenly, I felt my heart jolt, and it started beating again. The warmth returned to my skin, and I suddenly awoke from my dream. My dog was just sitting there like he was in my dream. Ever since then, I've had this strange ability to sense what animals are trying to say to people sometimes.

Cassie

Cassie was my patient. Cassie died after a year in hospice.

I was holding her hands when she breathed last. This is the moment I crave to have but pray not to have!! - as it is incredibly overwhelming.

I have been to such moments when my Nana, dadi, and father died.

But Cassie was young.

As I held Cassie's hand, she opened her eyes and looked at me but decided not to say a word. I neither had the courage nor knew what to say.

I have always wondered about the last few words in Tolostoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich."

He wanted to say that but was unable to bring it out. 

"Anyhow, why speak? I must act," he thought.

I guess it's better to avoid talking to have a peaceful death.

NDE

An academic who "died" for seven minutes has shared what he saw on 'the other side'. Speaking about the incident, the man, who's been deep into astrophysics PhD studies for 40 years plus, revealed a near-death experience due to a lung hemorrhage in March that resulted in a code blue - medical emergency call.

Through Reddit, he shared his story: "It took the doctors seven minutes to get my heart started again. During that time, I had a stroke due to the lack of oxygen in my brain." Upon gaining back consciousness after two days of a semi-conscious state, he posed the question: "What happened?"

'The actual correlation was something of challenging to comprehend but he got the hang of it eventually, reports the Mirror. His experience during those collapse moments extinguished his dread of death. He quipped: "I'm not scared of dying, not in the least. Afraid of what comes before, sure, but nature makes dying easy."

Further detailing his vision, he noted: "I saw a series of three oval ellipses, one at a time, just suspended in a black space. The ellipses were all upright, as though they were suspended by a string (but they weren't), and they all had a thickness to them, like a ring. On the inner and outer surfaces of the first ellipse, I saw mountains, streams, forests, and clouds.They were beautiful at first, but then they began to sour as their colors took on a yellow tinge. It faded away, and was replaced by a second ellipse that was a hot ring of iron, so hot that pieces of iron were slowly crumbling from it."

He remembered the smell of iron, which he later realized could be the scent of blood, suggesting that his physical surroundings influenced his visions. He continued: "I now take it that this is when I was in cardiac arrest. Suddenly the scene brightened to reveal the third ellipse that was covered with beautiful clouds that were light pink and blue, like from the most beautiful sunrise or sunset. That, I believe, is when my heart started beating again. When I regained consciousness, those three ellipses remained firmly fixed in my memory. When I was told days later about my cardiac arrest and stroke, it all began to make sense to me."

In an attempt to understand his visions, he explained how he had been studying German astronomer Johannes Kepler's Astronomica Nova and trying to comprehend how Kepler determined that the orbits of the planets are ellipses rather than circles. He believes that during his cardiac arrest, this concept was still on his mind, causing him to "latch onto that shape" subconsciously.

"That's all I saw. No tunnel of light or happy deceased family members welcoming me. I think that's dreaming, and dying reflect what happens to be most accessible in your mind during that time. Your mind tells you a story about it. I was never afraid during my ordeal, I was just a dispassionate observer. Amazingly, the only lasting effect of my seven minutes of code blue is a slightly diminished capacity of my short-term memory."

Full article here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/man-who-died-for-7-minutes-shares-insights-from-the-other-side/ar-BB1pGZF4?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=a56e7328a1174879957d701a71d4f436&ei=21

Why?

 Why do so many educated and relatively successful people commit suicide?

Human psychology, emotions, and rationalizations are the hardest things to understand. I doubt any science explains it.

I was disturbed by this news:

"J. Michael Cline, the founder of movie ticket company Fandango, fell to his death from a New York City hotel Tuesday, a law enforcement official confirmed to CNN. The New York Police Department said that around 10 am on Tuesday, the 64-year-old was found with injuries indicating he fell from an elevated height from The Kimberly Hotel, a luxury boutique hotel in midtown Manhattan. Investigators believe he jumped from the 20th floor of the hotel. He was declared dead soon after by emergency medical services."

He was a Harvard MBA graduate who founded many companies.

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/18/business/fandango-founder-death/index.html

A wish

 

The most profound quote

 Over the years, all the quotes I have heard, I have never found more profound than this

“Death is the great equalizer of human beings.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

The Art of Dying

 We all wish that when the time comes, we want to go fast. Here is another perspective:

I always said that when my time came I’d want to go fast. But where’s the fun in that?

A bit lengthy but interesting - Read the article here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/the-art-of-dying-peter-schjeldahl

What happens after we die

 

Life

One of my uncles died last week. He was 92 years old. We made him hospice and let him go peacefully in his bed. One of my cousins said something, which makes sense:

"He lived with grace and died with dignity. Nothing else matters in life".

So true!

A second chance to say Good bye

 I don't want to make it dramatic, but this is an interesting article today on CNN. This is not the first time, this is talked about, but this may be interesting in wake of the COVID pandemic.

"And whenever there is a massive tragedy such as a pandemic, a war or a natural disaster, there is a corresponding surge in reports of people seeing the dead or trying to contact them. The 1918 influenza epidemic sparked a "spiritualism craze" as Americans turned to seances and Ouija boards to contact departed loved ones. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks came a wave of people reporting sightings of and even conversations with those who had been snatched from their lives. When a tsunami struck Japan in 2011, killing at least 20,000 people, so many inhabitants of Ishinomaki reported seeing their loved ones appear that a book and a documentary were made about this city of wandering ghosts."

Article link: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/20/health/supernatural-encounters-pandemic-loved-ones-blake/index.html

On Fear and Death

 

Death - A ritual

 One of my close friends is in a home hospice due to metastatic colon cancer. Unfortunately, diagnosed too late. Despite COVID, I took a flight to go and see him. I was fortunate to spend some quality time with him (we were up till 4 AM for two days). There were many private talks, a lot of private messages for friends he is not in contact with. Together, we laughed browsing Facebook & Whatsapp memes, feel dejected on Pakistani physicians soulless politics, listened to Rafi Sahab songs, and searched girls we knew in college days. We drank a lot of chai made almost every couple of hours by his wife and puffed cigarettes.  

I realized the impending death of a known person is a powerful force for introspection. It makes you let go of many things, forgive many people, and look for forgiveness. He was happy to see me as we both were hard-headed at one point in our lives. We had arguments, and friendship has its ups and downs. When I was leaving, he said a beautiful thing with his usual smile; 

"Bhai, maut bhi aik rasm hi hai jo har insaan ko bilakhir nibhani paRti hai". (Death is also a ritual every human has to go through)

The year 2020, on the bright side, bring a lot of humility for me. I guess it made me relatively more humble and a feel-blessed human being. The return flight was somber. The flight was empty. I didn't even read the book. I quietly sipped some cold water. I am glad I skipped the mindless presidential debate. 

At the moment of death

(A conversation with a COVID-19 patient who survived)

 "You almost died that day. If you remember, you asked me to make sure to inform your family. How did you feel before I put you on a ventilator, and we all knew this might be your last conscious moment?"

"It was interesting. At that given moment, there was a massive surge of acceptance to death. There was no fear. I was even devoid of any faith or religion. I didn't care if God exists. Suppose there is anything after death, well and good. If it is all over, let it be. Interestingly, I was still worried about my youngest child, who is still not grown up. Otherwise, no possession mattered".

Sleep, Death and Correction

"Why do we sleep?"

"It's a correction."

"Hmmm"

"Mother nature has its way of correcting. Sleep is a correction. Death(s) is a correction."

*

A Death on Christmas

One of my patients died today on Christmas day. He was from Lebanon. He was a hospice patient. At his death, he was reciting this Dua. This is the first time I have heard this. Now, thinking back, it is so deep. This is in context to Jesus Christ in the Quran. I wonder if he recited this because of Christmas or if he would have done it irrespective of it. I guess, though recited by Jesus, it implies to every human.

Indeed, he died peacefully.

*