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Barry Long: What It Is To Die
WHAT IT IS TO DIE (as I’m seeing it)
A revealing article on the meaning behind death and life written by Barry Long as he approaches his own death.
Mystics and poets down through the ages have told us that our real home is eternity. Our short stay on earth and our deepest longing would seem to confirm that we belong elsewhere.
As I approach physical death I’m looking at whether I can put the inspiration of the mystics into a context more easily understood by us ordinary – albeit temporary – people of the earth.
To do so I see I will have to draw on the same area of knowledge from which I wrote ‘The Origins of Man and the Universe’ more than two decades ago. As that knowledge extends from earth to eternity the concepts I’m forced to use will be outside normal rational thinking experience. But as rational thought has no explanation of what we truly are, what we’re doing or where we’re going, and since everyone must finally pass this way, it would seem fitting to introduce another paradigm, another way of looking at things.