The Mysteries of Life & Death
Old Age
The first forty years of our life-history write us a book, and the following thirty years are the commentary about it.
At twenty years of age, a man is a peacock; at thirty, a lion; at forty, a camel; at fifty, a serpent; at sixty, a dog; at seventy, a monkey; and at eighty, only a voice and a shadow.
Time reveals all things; it is a very intriguing old charlatan, speaking on a whim, even when no questions are asked of him.
There is nothing made by the hand of the poor intellectual animal (mistakenly called human) that sooner or later time cannot destroy.
“Fugit Irreparabile Tempus”—the time that flees cannot be restored.
Yes, time will bring to public light everything that is now hidden, and will cover and hide everything that at this moment shines with splendor.
Old age is like love; it cannot be hidden, even when it disguises itself with youthful attire.
Old age erodes the pride of men and humiliates them; behold, it is one thing to be humble and another to fall humiliated.
When death approaches, those old men who are disillusioned with life, they find that old age is no longer a burden. Notwithstanding, all men harbor the hope of living a long life and attaining old age, yet old age frightens them.
Old age begins at fifty-six years of age and thereafter is processed in Septenary periods that lead us to decrepitude and death.
The greatest tragedy of old people lies not in the fact of being old, but in the foolishness of not wanting to recognize that they are old, and in the stupidity of believing themselves young, as if old age was a crime.
The best thing about old age is that one is very close to the goal.
The psychological “I,” the myself, does not become better with time and experience; on the contrary, it becomes more complicated, more difficult, more laborious. This is why there is a common saying that states, “Old people use their culture to torture, even in the sepulcher.”
The psychological “I” of whimsical old people consoles itself by giving beautiful advice, due to its incapacity of doing mischievous things. Yes, old people know very well that old age is a very terrible tyrant that prohibits them, under penalty of death, from enjoying the pleasures of crazy youth, thus they prefer to console themselves by giving beautiful advice.
The “I” hides the “I.” The “I” hides a part of itself, and thereafter labels everything with sublime phrases and beautiful advice. Yes, one part of the self-willed hides another part of the self-willed; this is how the “I” hides what is inconvenient for it.
It is completely demonstrated by observation and experience that when vices abandon us, we like to think that we were the ones who abandoned them.
The heart of the intellectual animal does not become better with time but worse: it always becomes stone-like, and if in youth we were covetous, impostors, wrathful, then in old age we will become even worse.
Old people live in the past; old people are the outcome of many yesterdays. Old people totally ignore the moment in which we live; old people are accumulated memory.
The only way of reaching perfect old age is by dissolving the psychological ego. When we learn how to die from moment to moment, we arrive at sublime old age.
Old age has a great sense of peace and freedom for those who have dissolved the ego.
When passions have died in a radical, total, and definitive manner, one becomes free from not just one tyrant, but many.
In life, it is very difficult to find innocent seniors who no longer possess even the residues of their “I.” These seniors are infinitely happy, and live from moment to moment.
A senior, grey-haired in wisdom, an elder in knowledge, a lord of love, becomes, in fact, a lighthouse who wisely guides the current of innumerable centuries.
There have existed and still exist in this world some aged Masters that do not even have the last residues of the “I”. These Gnostic Arhats are as exotic and divine as a lotus flower.
A venerable old Master who has dissolved the pluralized “I” in a radical and definitive manner is the perfect expression of perfect wisdom, divine love, and sublime power.
An old Master who no longer has the “I” is, in fact, the full manifestation of a divine Being.
These sublime Elders, these Gnostic Arhats, have illuminated the world since ancient times; let us remember Buddha, Moses, Hermes, Ramakrishna, Daniel, the saintly Lama, etc.
Parents and teachers of schools, colleges, and universities must teach the new generations to respect and venerate their elders.
That which has no name, that which is Divine, that which is the Reality, has three aspects: wisdom, love, and Word.
The Divine as Father is cosmic wisdom, as Mother is infinite love, as Son is the Word.
The father of a family is the symbol of wisdom. The mother of a home symbolizes love; children symbolize the Word.
An aged father deserves the support of his children. A father that is now old cannot work and it is proper for the children to support and respect him.
An adorable mother that is now aged cannot work and therefore, it is necessary that the sons and daughters take care of her and love her as if such a love were a religion.
Those who do not know how to love their father, those who do not know how to adore their mother, march on the left-handed path, on the path of error.
Children do not have the right to judge their parents. No one is perfect in this world, and those of us who do not have specific defects in one direction have them in another. The patterns of all of us were cut with the same scissors.
Some people underestimate paternal love, others even laugh at paternal love. Those who in life behave like this, have not even entered onto the path that leads towards that which has no name.
An ungrateful son who abhors his father and forgets his mother is indeed a true pervert who abhors everything that is Divine.
Understand: the revolution of the consciousness does not mean ungratefulness; it does not mean forgetting our father and underestimating our adorable mother. The revolution of the consciousness is wisdom, love, and perfect power.
The symbol of wisdom is found in the father, and the living source of love is found in the mother; indeed, without this purest essence of love, it is impossible to achieve the highest inner realizations.
SAMAEL AUN WEOR “Fundamentals of Gnostic Education“
Death
It is essential to comprehend in depth and in all the levels of the mind what death truly really is; only in this manner is it possible to integrally understand what immortality is. Merely seeing the corpse of a beloved relative within a coffin does not signify that the mystery of death has been comprehended.
For the mind, the truth is unknowable from moment to moment, and the truth about death is no exception. This is why the “I” always wants—as is hardly natural—insurance against death; that is, a guarantee from some authority that will assure him of a good position and some type of immortality beyond the terrifying sepulcher. This is because the “myself” does not feel any desire to die. Yes, the “I” wants to continue. The “I” is very afraid of death.
The truth is not an issue to believe in or doubt. The truth has nothing to do with credibility or skepticism. The truth is not subject to ideas, theories, opinions, concepts, preconceptions, suppositions, prejudices, affirmations, negotiations, etc., and the truth about the mystery of death is no exception.
The truth about the mystery of death can be known only through direct experience, and it is impossible to communicate this genuine experience of death to someone who does not know it.
Any poet can write beautiful books about love, but it is impossible to communicate the truth about love to people who have never experienced it. Likewise, we state that it is impossible to communicate the truth about death to people who have not consciously experienced it.
Those who want to know the truth about death must investigate, experience, and properly search for themselves. Only in this manner can we discover the profound significance of death.
The observation and experience of many years have allowed us to comprehend that people are not interested in really comprehending the profound significance of death; the only thing that people are really interested in is how to continue to exist in the beyond, that is all. Many people want to continue to exist by means of their material goods, prestige, family, beliefs, ideas, children, etc. Nevertheless, when they comprehend that any type of psychological continuity is vain, transitory, ephemeral, unstable, then—lacking subsequent guarantees—their “I” feels insecure and they become terrified, horrified; they become filled with infinite terror.
These wretched people do not want to comprehend—they do not want to understand—that everything that continues develops in time. Likewise, these wretched people do not want to comprehend that everything that continues also decays with time.
Moreover, these wretched people do not want to comprehend that everything that continues becomes mechanical, routine, boring.
It is essential, necessary, and indispensable for us to become completely cognizant of the deep significance of death; only in this manner will the terror of ceasing to exist disappear.
By carefully observing humanity, we can verify that the mind is always found bottled up within the known, and wants to continue to exist together with this known beyond the sepulcher.
But a mind that is bottled up within the known can never experience the unknowable; that is, it can never experience the reality, the truth. So, understand: in order to experience the Eternal, the Atemporal, the Reality, it is necessary to break the bottle of time by means of correct meditation.
Therefore, those who desire to continue to exist fear death, and their beliefs and theories only serve them as narcotics.
Death in itself is not frightful; it is something lovely, sublime, ineffable—nevertheless, since the mind is bottled up within the known, it only moves within the vicious circle that loops around from credulity to skepticism.
When we become completely cognizant of the deep and profound significance of death, we discover for ourselves—by direct experience—that life and death constitute an integral and unitotal whole.
Death is the depository of life. The path of life is formed by the hoof prints of the horse of death.
Life is a defined and defining energy. Different types of energies flow within the human organism from birth to death. The only type of energy that the human organism cannot resist is the energy of the Ray of Death; this Ray is a lightning bolt charged with excessively elevated electrical voltage. The human organism cannot resist such a voltage.
Just as a lightning bolt tears a tree to pieces, likewise the ray of death inevitably destroys the human organism when it flows through it.
The ray of death connects the phenomenon of death to the phenomenon of birth; this lightning bolt of death originates very intrinsic, intimate, electrical tensions, and a certain keynote that has the determinant power of combining the genes within the fecundated egg.
The lightning bolt of death reduces the human organism to its fundamental elements. Thus, this is how the ego, the energetic “I,” regrettably continues in our descendants.
So, the truth about that which is death—which is the interval between death and conception—is something that does not belong to time; it is something that we can only experience by means of the science of meditation.
Teachers of schools, colleges, and universities must teach their students the path which leads to the experience of reality, of the truth.
Samael aun Weor “Fundamentals of Gnostic Education”