Living death (ICA)

This occurs when an individual experiences having fully embraced the fact of his death. This allows them to be fearless: no-one can touch him or disillusion him for he has died to his entire life. Having decided to be the "living dead", he is afraid of nothing. Sun Tzu speaks of being one with the void; St. Francis speaks of Brother Death; and St. Paul of being "dead and yet alive". Protesters who calmly set themselves alight are a sign of having embraced death.

A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination. There is a kind of irritation with being bombarded with insignificant things, but a fascination with death mixed with a sense of the liveliness of life. The decision is to put one's death into the universe, one wills to die the one death one has to give. There remains a constant awareness that one day death will come. With fear of this moment is the knowledge that such fear is a little silly.

This state is number 61 in the ICA Other World in the midst of this World.