Performance and Purpose in Dying and Death

First published in 2022 by

Free Association Books

Copyright © 2022 C K Hogan

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Clare Hogan to be identified as the author of this

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the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-91138-373-4

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Foreword

As a perspective of the dying process and the nature of death itself, it is the intention that this book might help us to accept and embrace both as a part of life, and that a shift in perception could alleviate some of the fear, resistance and denial surrounding death. Much has been written about this by spiritual teachers, psychologists, philosophers, and palliative specialists. This book is an entry into the conversation from a viewpoint that is not medical, religious, nor postulating any form of belief system. It is partly a survey of our attitude and resistance to dying and death, and an examination of the options available that could serve as a non-denominational enquiry into an unavoidable eventuality. The principal tenet is that the tools required for this shift in perception and understanding that would allow us to drop the heavy weight of fear and anxiety are to be found within us – we already possess them. It’s a case of knowing where to look and recognising the most direct route for each of us. There is no need to believe anything or anyone; peace lies in the knowing which arises from the validity of our own experience.

From a scientific materialist perspective these ideas may lack the sort of measurable evidence that is usually required. It is suggested that the science of mind and consciousness is the path for scientists and philosophers alike, and is how the single reality that is the source of all experience is to be made apparent. Some eminent scientists, physicists, biologists, and cosmologists are very far along the philosophical path (Bernardo Kastrup, Rupert Sheldrake, Richard Tarnas), and their perception, understanding and sense of purpose in the dying process, and the subsequent experience of consciousness after the body expires, embraces the spirituality of scientific enquiry, and seeks far beyond the confines of the materialist world view.

Art can act as a type of bardo between levels of consciousness but, as Picasso famously said, all art lies, and that includes words. The truth is ineffable, but while we are here, in this form, we still attempt to understand and explain it. We also try to come to terms with the inevitability of death by searching for clues and signs that point out what it might be beyond the physical fact of it. The possible continuation of conscious experience causes intense anxiety for many, even those who believe that there won’t be any, which is probably more in hope than belief. As Xavier Comella said to his friend in When I Was Mortal – Everything Bad Comes Back by Javier Marias,

I’m convinced that consciousness is the source of man’s greatest suffering and there’s no cure for it, no way to blunt it, the only end is death, though even that you can’t be sure of.

It is hoped that some of the signposts in this book will point the way to reducing the tension and suffering surrounding the mystery of death. These will include discussing the paradoxical nature of the divine and the mortal, of science and spirituality and the fear of relief. They will also address the subjects of grief, loss, and attachment with a view to understanding what we believe will be lost both when we die, or when someone close to us dies. Although Buddhism is most often used as an example of spiritual activity, there is no implication that this is the only prism through which we should contemplate issues surrounding dying and death. Because Buddhism is more philosophy than religion and because it doesn’t involve worshipping any concept of god, it can offer a clearer perspective into the realms of spirituality unencumbered by belief systems that can, understandably, cause resistance. In fact, a precept throughout the book is that no belief system is ever required, that an enquiry into personal experience is always more valid. If there is an overall philosophical viewpoint, it is that of perennialism, thereby embracing the truth underlying all spiritual practices and philosophies. (Philosophia Perennis is referred to specifically in chapter 5.)

The consideration of the paradoxes and contradictions in our attitude to and perception of the end of life, the importance that we place on meaning and value together with a much broader and expansive understanding of transformation and conscious awareness, form the performance and purpose of this text on dying and death.

CHAPTER 1

Denial

The denial of death creates a sense of immortality, but a sense of it that we are neither prepared to confront nor defend. The truth is that we are immortal, and that death is illusory; deliberate and conscious denial of death is the understanding of what dies and what does not. The opposite of death is not life, which has no opposite; it just is, and this is-ness is unassailable and constant. Birth is the other side of death and birth is cyclic and regenerative. Birth and death occur in a multitude of guises in our daily lives. The pattern of waking, activity and sleeping is universal, not only in human beings, but in the cosmos, in the macrocosm and the microcosm. Death is frequently referred to as sleep in the language we often use to soften its impact and to make it more acceptable – pets are put to sleep rather than killed, and the phrase ‘rest in peace’ can be viewed as absurd if a belief in the end of consciousness is held. Sexual intercourse is another example of ‘arising, abiding and cessation’ and is referred to as ‘le petit mort.’ Little deaths happen on many levels everywhere, and to notice the rise and fall of existence in as many forms as we are capable of grasping is to heighten our awareness of the transitory nature of death and of the potentially joyful role that it could play in life.

Consciousness

You cannot lose consciousness because it is, in essence, who you are. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are… When forms around you die or death approaches, your sense of Beingness, of I Am, is freed from its entanglement with form: Spirit is released from its imprisonment in matter. ¹

In The Alchemy of Performance Anxiety,² I explored the idea that if the act of performance was viewed from an altered perspective arising from the insights and suggestions developed in the book, then the experience of a focused, authentic, and communicative performance would be enhanced at many levels and could certainly be free from debilitating anxiety:

One of the principal causes of fearing death is the unknown. But a stronger cause is the fear of complete isolation. Now, you wouldn’t know you were in complete isolation unless you were conscious of being so, and many people believe that consciousness ends with the physical body. For those people, fear of death is non-sensical, yet they still have it. Furthermore, what is so dreadful about being alone? I suggest that the fear of isolation and all the associated ‘causes’ (rejection, judgement, criticism, failure) stem from lack of consciousness – deliberate, self-aware, internal consciousness. The experience of suddenly being you, all on your own with the expectation of accomplished artistic endeavour, can be overwhelming if you don’t know who you are.

What, then, is consciousness? It is that which knows the experience of being; it is aware of itself and from this awareness imagination arises, and what we call ‘matter’. As argued by Michael Bradford in Consciousness: The New Paradigm (The Institute for Consciousness Research, 2017),³ it has an independent existence of its own and can enable the existence of physical form and therefore must be regarded as more ‘real’ than matter. As far back as 1890, William James said ‘If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some shape must have been present at the very origin of things. Accordingly, we find that the more clear-sighted evolutionary philosophers are beginning to posit it there.’ One hundred and twenty-five years later:

To begin with, we need to define more precisely what we mean by the word ‘consciousness’. Although everybody has an intuitive understanding of it, the word itself is often overloaded with metaphysical assumptions. A materialist might define ‘consciousness’ as certain types of brain activity, while a religious person might define it as the essential attribute of an immaterial soul. In both cases, the word is overloaded with a particular explanation… I use the following definition in this book: consciousness is that whose excitations are subjective experiences. In other words, every subjective experience is a particular excitation of consciousness – whatever consciousness may intrinsically be – just like ripples are excitations of water. This operational definition is precise and metaphysically neutral. ⁴

This will be explored further in chapter 5 with the so-called hard problem of consciousness (as defined by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind 1996) and the philosophy of panpsychism.

Fear of Death

The fear of death is an egoic construct, the annihilation of which terrifies us throughout life. Any threat to it is always a source of anxiety and often of embarrassment. Death can be embarrassing both physically and psychologically because we are so accustomed to clinging to the illusion of permanence, control and even invincibility. Even though we may mouth words such as ‘inevitability’ and ‘when my time comes’, deep down it is as if it simply doesn’t apply to us. Just as I suggested in The Alchemy of Performance Anxiety, to improve and transform our experience of artistic performance it is necessary to examine our day-to-day life performance which comprises thoughts, reactions, perceptions and interactions. In so doing, we can become aware of habitual behaviours that might be detrimental to any type of performance. This can be an ongoing exercise in observational awareness which then becomes a benign and beneficial habit.

With an understanding and acceptance of the nature of consciousness, the fear of death ought to fade and disappear. Even without that awareness, the fear of death is, rationally, absurd regardless of one’s beliefs. Consider the amount of discomfort, physical self-criticism, dietary imposition and deprivation that so many people undergo through life, at war with their bodies and wishing that they occupied a different form. It should be a relief to be free from so much conflict which has taken up headspace and emotional energy over the years, even if it has only been a preoccupation with how to clothe it; we often use clothes as screens, distractions, and projections in our daily performances. It must be that we think and believe that our bodies (clothed or otherwise) are who we are, maintaining and reinforcing our sense of separateness. Bodies can be viewed as a cross between houses and cars; they need to be cared for in order to fulfil their function, a part of which is to shelter consciousness and enable it to travel when required. However, even the most rational among us are still capable of fearing the process of dying and death, because fear is fundamentally irrational to begin with.

Flippant though that might sound, the fact is that we possess bodies that function like animals, yet our minds, capable of great feats of creation, have created an illusion of supremacy, and this duality is a source of conflict. ‘Falling in love’ ticks both boxes; our physicality is validated and made acceptable by a seemingly higher realm of existence, something pure and true. This mutual fascination has as much to do with our own relief as it does with the adoration of another. The guilt of being an animal is further alleviated when we reproduce – a double paradox perhaps. The cyclic nature of birth and death is perpetuated by sex, and alongside ‘le petit mort’ lies ‘le grand mort’ which is frequently denied by engaging in more of the activity. The issue of gender has now become much more fluid and, while it is increasingly accepted that one can feel housed in the wrong body and seek radical surgery to rectify it, there is a quest beyond gender realignment which is to transcend gender itself. Ernest Becker writes in The Denial of Death:⁵

Man is aghast at the arbitrary nature of genitality, the accidentality of his separate sexual emergence. He can’t accept the impermanence of the body casing or its incompleteness – now male, now female. The body makes no sense to us in its physical thingness, which ties us to a particular kind of fate, a one-sided sexual role. The hermaphrodite image represents a striving for wholeness, a striving that is not sexual but ontological. It is a desire of being for the recapture of the (Agape) unity with the rest of nature, as well as for a completeness in oneself. It is a desire for the healing of the ruptures of existence, the dualism of self and body, self and other, self and the world ⁶

Becker went on to write:

"Jung saw the wishful meaning