As mentioned a few times in my prior articles, the fear of death has never been lost on me. I wasn’t in constant horror, but rather the fear would hit me in waves; often at night. The endless void, the blackness of space - these are the images that would plague my mind as I tried to sleep. And I don’t doubt many others have the same problem.
I envied the religious. When my friends would preach the superiority of science and atheism, as someone raised with a love for science, I could never doubt their arguments. It may be nice to be so confident in your beliefs, but to believe in nothing at all gave me the exact opposite of peace. It left me hollow and fearful.
I spent a lot of time researching the different popular religions to see if any of them had the answer I needed. If you had read through my search history in my early teens, you’d find things like: “Convert me to your religion”, “What religion is right?”, etc. Desperate attempts at finding peace from the hauntings of atheism.
I don’t know if one particular religion will ever get it exactly right for me. But what I’ve come to realise is that faith is not binary. You are not always without faith or with faith, it’s a scale that shifts and moves as you grow. The key for me was to build a belief system. Everyday I muse about life, death, and God. I read wisdom from others to affirm what I believe, or to shift my beliefs depending on what makes the most sense to me.
I’m developing a personal belief system, and I’ll never stop until I die. In the early stages of this growth, when people have asked me what I believed, or if I believed in God, I’d answer honestly: “I’m getting there.” And when I’d see people with strong faiths, such as the grandfather of my wife, I’d look at him with admiration, for with a strong faith comes such peace. He’s a devout Catholic, and truly believes in his God and God’s plan.
The first major breakthrough, the time that I felt strongly about the possibility that this isn’t all there is, was sometime around February or March of this year (2023). I was learning about quantum entanglement, which has been proven in experiments. To put it simply:
Aspects of one particle of an entangled pair depend on aspects of the other particle, no matter how far apart they are or what lies between them
What does this tell us about the universe? To me, this tells me that there is more to this universe than what we can see or understand. We claim that nothing goes faster than the speed of light, but these particles know the state of each other without passing the information between them - instantaneously. There is a layer, or layers, to reality that we cannot see, measure or feel.
The observer effect, very well documented and proven in experiments (such as the double-slit experiment) is a phenomenon where the act of observing a particle alters its behaviour. As Alan Wallace, in Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic, said:
The observer is essential to measuring quantum systems
We’re involved! This apparent bag of bones and organs, chemical reactions and electrical impulses can have an effect on the universe around it just through its observation. I see, things change. How can I be just the illusion of consciousness, living on a rock, created only to survive, when my observation and thought can determine how a particle acts? Is this not proof that my consciousness is involved with something more?
The next major breakthrough I had was around the same time and it hit me like a train. I outline it in more depth in my other article Atheism vs Theism, and Proof of Reincarnation? The basic gist of it, however, is that being alive right now proves that being alive from being dead is possible. So when I’m dead, being alive again is assured - because anything that is even minutely possible, over an infinite time, is certain to happen eventually.
So what have I learned? The observers (us) have an effect on the universe around us, just from observing If I’m alive now, that infers I will be alive again
I feel fearless now, but I don’t doubt that in the moment of my death, I will be fearful. In the same way that I am fearful on a plane - I am confident that everything will be okay, but doubt is never non-existent, no matter how small the chance my beliefs are wrong. We can never be truly certain of anything but we can be pretty damn sure.
I live much more peacefully now with a stronger belief that something comes after this rather than nothing at all. I’ve always loved my life and I still do, but I no longer spend my days fearing death. Instead, my main concern is living this life to the fullest extent I can.
So what of God? Well, I go further in-depth on this topic in my article mentioned above. However, to put it simply, it’s more likely that the universe came from something rather than nothing at all. My belief is that the entire universe, us included, is God. Maybe in the next life we’ll still not understand, and the next after that, and the next. But one day, when we’re done living as individuals, we will understand everything.
In my quest to conquer my fear of death, I gained a much deeper understanding and appreciation of life. I’m not only more peaceful, but I’m happier too. But this is only the first stage in my lifelong exploration of myself. And as stated in the ever-wise Bhagavad Gita:
Some people, trying to escape the fear of death, come to Me for refuge. Once with Me, they learn of their True Self (Atma) and ascertain the nature of Divinity. Therefore, because death stirs people to seek answers to important spiritual questions, it becomes the greatest servant of humanity, rather than its most feared enemy.
