Preparing for Death

Having recently reached my three score years and ten I've been thinking about how to prepare for death. Not because I think I'm due to go anytime soon, but as you grow older you start to understand that the way you die is the whole point of life. By that I mean the state of your mind which is all you'll take with you. So it makes sense to be prepared.

Actually, I've been preparing for death ever since I took the fact of the spiritual world seriously because when you awaken to the reality of God you understand that everything else must be seen in his light. You cannot add the spiritual on to the everyday or worldly (though many people do). The everyday has its place, of course, it is equally wrong to dismiss it as nothing. But that place stands in relation to the spiritual which is primary. And therefore since the spiritual will only fully come into view after death, you must start taking death seriously. Not in a way that makes earthly life futile for earthly life must be lived and lived properly. At the same time, death is the goal of life, the goal not just the end of it, and you must see it as in a sense the crowning achievement of your life.

That the great majority of people in the contemporary West do not see it like that may be one reason for the widespread dementia that afflicts much of the elderly population. The obvious reason for that is that people are just living longer, kept going by modern medicine. However, there could be an underlying spiritual purpose behind this too or accompanying it. I don't know if dementia affects atheists more than believers but it would be interesting to find out if that were the case though how many self-designated believers do not really believe would skew the results. Still, it could be that dementia strips away the resistance to the spiritual and leaves its victims on some level more open to the next world. An atheist has by definition erected barriers in his mind. Old age in general and dementia in particular might help to dismantle these barriers, but this is only a passing thought prompted by personal acquaintance with a case in point. 

To live every day as though it were your last is a traditional spiritual exercise but nobody can really do that, not for long anyway. The lesson is there however, and it is to live in the moment or from moment to moment, giving full attention to everything you do and with a proper respect for the awfulness of death. This will also imbue your mind with a sense of your own insignificance and utter helplessness in the face of the universe but, when backed up with faith in the living God, gratitude and trust. You realise yourself to be totally dependent on God, but his love supports and sustains you always.

Preparing for death requires a twofold approach, akin to the division of the virtues into cardinal and theological. Traditionally, the former, corresponding perhaps to natural religion, are justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance. This would involve developing an inner calm and detachment that brings emotional firmness and stability. Then the mind must be mastered so that thoughts do not run through your head like wild horses but are harnessed and ridden to where you want them to go. Balance, self -control and order are the foundations on which to build the next stage which is not to say you must wait until these are perfect to begin the next stage, only that it is a step beyond and will work best when it does have this foundation.

The next stage is faith, hope and charity which are the spiritual virtues of true supernatural religion. Mental and emotional control are important and will certainly bring power and insight to the mind. But they won't being genuine spiritual awareness without the positive qualities of faith, hope and charity. They can make a philosopher or a sage but not a saint which is why Dante needed Beatrice to take him where Virgil could not go. Preparing for death is all about faith and hope but these need to be vivified by love of God for without that they are rather like a car without petrol. They may make the car but they don't make it go.

Your mind is all you take with you when you leave this world but you do take that with you. It may be that you can train and develop your mind when you are in the next world. I'm sure that is the case. Nevertheless, tradition affirms, and it makes sense given the educational nature of this world, that the condition of your mind is all-important when you die and that it will determine much about your ongoing experience. Therefore, preparing your mind for death is the most important thing you can do in this life and that means, on the one hand, mastering it, being controller rather than controlled, and on the other, letting it be irradiated by the love of God. This is the single most important thing anyone can ever do both in life and in death.