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Death is Inevitable? Marcus Aurellius - Meditations
Hi Lucio,
i didnt understand in the practical sense what the part where you talk about death is inevitable in your summary of marcus aurellius' meditations book. Could you explain this in a practical sense in terms of how this can be understood in the 21st century? Below i have pasted the part i am talking about:
Death Is Inevitable
Dying is a normal part of life.
It’s the logos that decides when and where you will die, and there is nothing you can do about it.
And there is also nothing to be sad about it, because it’s a transformation more than an end.
When we die the logos that is part of us re-joins with the greater logos. From the greater logos, it might rejoin a new form of life in an endless cycle that moves the world forward.
tHey R.,
Well, to be 100% sure we should ask Marcus Aurelius what exactly he meant by that.
But to me, it sounded like he was talking about something that later became a staple of many religions and spiritual movements.
Such as, that we are all part of the same force / matter / supra-organism / logos, call it however you want, but that something that is eternal and where all life originates from, and where eventually it always goes back to.
If you read Tolle or many other contemporary spiritual teachers, they say similar things.
Tolle proposes that with meditation, we seek to go back to that state where it's not anymore about "us" as a separate entity, but where we merge again with that eternal force.
Some spiritual teachers who promoted LSD, like Timothy Leary, also talked about something similar with "ego loss" (or ego death / ego dissolution), such as that state where you stop feeling like you are a separate entity.
Tolle quotes Jesus Christ in a particularly beautiful line to express that feeling:
Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up a stone and you will find me there.
That's Jesus talking about God: God is everywhere, permeating everything.
When you die, you go back to that eternal state that is in all things.
That's how I interpreted Aurelius.
