Memento Mori

Why are you wasting your days

Striving for fortune and for fame

For war and for gain

For humiliation and for shame

Isn’t a lifetime enough for you

To get out and see the sun

For man is something to be overcome

Or so said the german one

Blessed be the poor for they inherit the kingdom of god

Blessed be the meek for they shall have all but none

Blessed be all who may transcend

And acknowledge the reality of the sun

Rise up sons of man and walk towards the light

The infinite providence and the clairvoyant sight

But first you men ought to believe

That death is the only release

Remember death. Remember the decay of the body. Remember the release of the soul. Remember the truest of all truths. Remember the beauty of death.

I was long wondering about the reason why the self help isle in the library is littered with books about how to live but none is concerned about how to die. Isn’t death just as real or maybe even more? For the weak-minded, it is indeed not.

The art of dying lies in the concept of dying before death. A voluntary death. And this is a very important concept because some of the knowledge concerning the fabric of the very reality we exist in can only be comprehended by dying.. By killing the “I” by one’s own hand. Isn’t that what happens when we physically die? All the world’s spiritual teachings concern themselves after all with that concept. The voluntary death. By killing one’s “I”, the self is lost in the beauty of the cosmos, in the reality that lies beyond and can’t be explained by any of the modern sciences. After experiencing these revelations oneself, one becomes a new being. An enlightened being who can truly see beyond. This egoless being would be full of love for all humanity, would be the holder of the torch of virtues, would help others attain what is good while striving for the good himself.

How does one kill himself before death then? There are quite a few ways to do so and they keywords are self-discipline, willpower and correct mindset. First one needs to understand why he is doing that thing and not another, i.e. why is he killing his “I”. He should internalize the concept and make it a reality and a goal to be attained. That all the world's pains lies in that very letter. Then comes the techniques of having the willpower to pull the trigger one step closer day by day, of training the mind just like any other kind of training. Training the mind to withstand the pains that one would be going through in this step. And finally cultivating the self-discipline to maintain that state and allow for regeneration to happen. Regeneration of definitions, of virtues, of correct views and of correct actions. When the goal is attained, nothing would ever be the same again.

Only when one achieves the first death is he ready to embrace the second one. But unlike most of other people who die everyday he would die a human being who realized the comprehensiveness of his soul and overcome his own humanity. Friedrich Nietzsche once said in “Thus spoke Zarathustra”: I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?

Memento Mori. Contemplate.