Mark Dohle
Well-Known Member
Addictions, anxiety, intelligence and the NDE
There is a saying “talk is cheap” and it is very true. For me to talk of ‘trusting God’ no matter how bleak things get is easy to expand on, but not so easy when I am in the midst of some inner turmoil, or worse, an inner void. While it is true that suffering of any kind can be a wake-up call, it can also be a lure that leads to further estrangement from reality by seeking escape in that which will only make things worse.
Food, overwork, shopping, isolation, and of course, sex, drinking, and drugging can give some relief to the inner gnawing that is the state of most human beings, at least some of the time, for many it is much of the time or all of it. Self-awareness of the type that humans possess comes with a heavy price. The release of inner tension through some form of escape does not help, for our problems are deeper than what our instincts draw or drive us to. While I believe that it is the “one thing” that we need, that “one thing” is not our addictions, compulsions and other forms of escape that can drain our lives of all real color, joy, or contentment.
Anxiety is a part of life since on some level we know that everything can be taken away from us in an instant. We read about it every day in the papers, see it on the internet and our movies and television programming is often filled with the instability of reality. If any of us live long enough, we will lose everyone in our lives that we loved when young…family, friends, everyone. Accidents, wars and diseases can strike at any time, so it is no wonder that we have problems dealing with reality.
We don’t just live in trees; groom each other, mate, gather food and make a shelter for the night in the forest. No, we have levels of self-awareness that seem to be missing in our brother/sister residents of this world. We ponder, develop philosophy, and music, we dance, sing and have a deep sense of the transcendent in our lives. We age and we know what is going on, it is the slow process towards death; often a painful one. It is this that sets us apart and it is this that is our glory and as well as our cross.
We have cats here that live outside our retreat house. I am not a cat person, and would never want to own one, but all in all, they are beautiful creatures. Some of our neighbors come and feed them. They also catch them, have them neutered, vaccinated and then return them here. They eat, play, sleep, fight, and mate (well before they are caught and fixed). Because they do not fear us, though they are not tame, they can relax here and let those who feed them come close. They have a good life, a pleasant existence, but I don’t envy them, because for a human such a life would be unbearable. Though for a cat, it is perfect. I know that cats have awareness and an intelligence that is different than mine. I would not say they are inferior to humans; they are perfect as cats, why would they want to be more? They don’t fret over existence, don’t question why they are here, nor do they ponder on what happens after death. As far as I can see, they don’t understand death, though they seek to survive at any cost, just as plants and insects do. They have the gift of being bound by their instinct. It saves them a lot of trouble. They are not burdened with the questions that humans ponder, they are one with nature and perhaps they are in paradise.
The freedom that we possess as humans is often the cause of our deep suffering. We are more than being about mere survival. We seek answers to deep questions. These inquiries are asked anew by each generation. Our religions and philosophies seek to answer these probing issues and when they fail to answer they die and new ones come into being. We are restless, uprooted, fearful, brave, loving, and hateful, both good and evil….and death bites at our heels. Our lives are swift, over before we can blink once, or so it seems as we age, and the years seem to speed up with each passing year.
Our addictions can help for a while, then they start to impact on the lives of others and that leads to deterioration in our own lives. We can seek to assuage the pain by seeking avenues of escape, or self-medication, but in the end, they all become just another problem that needs to be dealt with. Our addictions kill us on many levels. They can destroy our primary relationships. Then we lose our friends, our health, and our jobs in many cases, and then many die alone and estranged from just about everyone. It can be overwork, many sacrifice everything for their career, letting family and friends go, to climb up the ladder of so-called success. It is a long list of the things we can do to escape pain and in that, only deepen and spread it around.
Why do we have to go through all of this? It does not always help to become preachy, for most people have heard it all. I do believe that something is going on in today’s world that is seeking to get our attention. It is the study of the NDE. Millions have had them, and many are now talking about them. Scientists, doctors, and philosophers are studying them, and their findings are being read by more and more people. All of the theories that have been presented to discount the NDE have been answered and found wanting. So, we still have a common human experience that is telling us something important about our lives. It is of course our medical technology that is allowing this to become a widespread occurrence.
It is a turnaround, a spinning on its head many of our values that today are causing so many problems. Why are we here for? In a book, I am now reading it tells the story of a man who was an arms dealer. He had an NDE experience with a ‘life review’. In the review, he experienced the pain of those who died from being killed by those who brought his weapons. He also experienced the pain of family members loved ones and friends who suffered from the loss of those killed…I can’t imagine what that was like! He is now working in Hospice, seeking to comfort the dying. Perhaps this tells us something about what our lives are about. In other words we are responsible for each other, how we treat each other, and because of our oneness, we are in a sense ‘each other’. This brings to light the saying of Jesus: “whatever you did to the least, you did to me”.
The NDE seems to state that death is not an escape from existence, or from responsibility for our lives and actions. Is that just another burden? Well yes and no, depends on how it is looked at, and integrated into life and how it changes one's perspective of other people. – BrMD