I was singing Easter mass with the choir today. Listening to the priest saying the ritual words and prayers, it struck me that the entire religious framework is centered around the concept of death, and specifically in my culture, its denial.
And then it hit me: the basis of religion is ‘angst’, i.e. the fear of losing life. Krishnamurti is right when he said that in the end it all comes down to our fear of death. We can invent entire systems and theories about life and death, but they are all screens we put up to hide our existential fear.
So, I guess that if we should be doing anything in this life at all, it is learning to accept the natural cycles of growth and decay - and most of all the ultimate total decay - as equally inherent to nature. It would likely bring that peace everyone keeps talking about…
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