The Death of a Mask

What is death? It is arguably one of humanity's earliest mysteries and a widely debated topic in philosophy. The fear of death is also a common fear for many of us. We seek to comprehend death in its entirety and what follows thereafter. Is there a part of us that remains? To understand death, we should first consider when we became aware of it in our lives. When do we realize that death is an inevitable part of life for every living being? If we wish to understand the end, we must first understand the beginning. Thus, instead of asking when we became aware of death, we should ask when we first became aware of our birth. When did we start feeling alive? Was this knowledge imparted to us by others? Our birth date is communicated to us by others, which is ironic because the proof of our existence is provided by someone else, not ourselves. If others can inform us of our date of birth (DOB), why not also our date of death (DOD)? Others dictate the moments of our birth and death, yet we ourselves do not know when we were born, and we will never know of our death because the experiencer is absent in both instances. People discuss among themselves that a baby is born today or that a person has died yesterday, yet neither the baby nor the deceased are aware of their own existence or non-existence.

One might ask, what's wrong with that? What's wrong if the proof of our existence in this world is given to someone else? If a piece of paper with my date of birth written on it signifies that I am alive because my date of death is yet to be inscribed, what is the problem? There are major issues with this, and let's examine the most important one. A significant problem to realize is that these so-called 'others' not only determine our existence but also command and control everything in the life of the individual. They dictate the type of clothes the individual will wear—if he is a boy, he will dress in a certain way; if she is a girl, she will dress another way. They decide what language he or she will speak, what traditions to follow, what the individual's name will be, their goals, personality, and so on. Everything you know and can think about yourself has come from others. Everything! Realize this crucial fact: who you are now is actually decided by others. Before proceeding, I would like to clarify who these 'others' are. Our parents? Yes and no. No, because they are also individuals who have had the mask decided for them and forced upon them by others, and yes, because they wear that mask and are thus part of that group. The same applies to ourselves because we also wear this mask. If we remove that mask, what is left is nothing. There is no identity; therefore, there is no 'me' as such.

Let's delve into the 'nothingness' that remains when we strip away the mask. Who resides behind it? This 'nothingness' within us, once we discard all externally imposed identities, defies description, for language itself is an external construct. This inherent 'nothingness' is universal; if all were to shed their masks, this identical state would prevail. This concept extends beyond humanity to animals as well; for instance, a street dog's behavior is dictated by nature, or 'prakriti' as referred to in Hindu philosophy. Thus, every being is governed by prakriti. Everything tangible, perceived by our senses, originates from prakriti. However, the 'nothingness' revealed upon removing the mask (a construct of prakriti), belongs not to the physical domain but to an indescribable, unfathomable realm.

That "nothingness" is what we experience when we are born and what we return to when we die. When we die, we enter into that state of nothingness from which we originally came. Now, the question that comes to mind is: what about our consciousness? Will we be aware in that state? First of all, what is consciousness? Is it the state of being self-aware? Being aware of everything happening around us? I can say that I am self-aware, but how can I make the same claim about others—that they are self-aware or conscious? How can I know if others feel the same awareness that I do? This seems puzzling, right? Unless I am somehow able to feel the same state of consciousness in another person, as I feel it in myself, I cannot guarantee that the other person is conscious at all. This question extends to plants, tables, chairs, and any non-living thing as well. And why shouldn’t it? After all, we are made of the same elementary particles—electrons, protons, quarks, etc. The reality of these particles is itself questionable, as stated by Niels Bohr in the quantum world. Therefore, the reality we observe should also be questioned, because it is composed of the same particles.

So, how can consciousness arise from unconsciousness? How can these particles form something as mysterious and puzzling as a conscious being? It may be the case that the state of consciousness varies. For example, a plant may seem less conscious than a person, but both can still possess consciousness—just at different levels. In fact, these levels of consciousness differ even among people. One person may be more self-aware than another, noticing and observing everything around them, yet remaining calm, silent, and alone. Choosing to be alone is not actually about separating yourself from others; in fact, it is quite the opposite. For instance, when you are in a hall full of people, sitting with a colleague or a friend, your attention is focused on that person. But when you separate yourself and sit alone in the same hall, you can notice and observe everyone around you, as if you are connected to all of them. To be alone means being with everything—being with nature, the universe, and the cosmos.

To conclude, consciousness after death may be completely different from what we are experiencing now. It’s somewhat like when we are in a deep sleep without dreams. In Hindu philosophy, this is called "Brahm-muharth," a state during sleep when there are no dreams. It’s hard to describe that state of sleep, too. If someone asks, "How do you feel in that sleep state?" you can’t really say anything because you don’t feel anything, and you also don’t have a sense of time, right? You wake up in the same state of mind you had moment before you fell asleep! This suggests that the sense of time itself might be an illusion. Why? Because our sense of time is tied to memory. Since there is a past for us, there will be present and future for us, we associate time with the memories of what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen(prediction made from past). In the book Atomic Habits, the author James Clear describes a man named Eugene Pauly, whose story was originally detailed in the book The Mind of a Mnemonist by Alexander Luria, as well as in studies on memory disorders. Eugene suffered severe brain damage from viral encephalitis, which destroyed his hippocampus—a crucial part of the brain responsible for forming new memories. As a result, he experienced profound anterograde amnesia, meaning he could no longer create new memories. Therefore, he experienced each day as if it were the first time! He could remember events from his life before the brain damage but was unable to form new memories afterward.

So, in a case where, due to brain injury, a person forgets their past, there would be no sense of time at all. Every moment would feel like a new one, as if experiencing everything for eternity. In other words, there would be no time. Our mind has created the illusion of time.

Lastly, if that nothingness is what we truly are, should we not embrace it? When we are born, we are forced to wear an illusory mask as a child, and when we die, that mask—the one that represents our memories, identity, personality, etc.—is what dies along with us. What is left is nothingness. We were born from that nothingness, we live in it, and we die in it. So, should we not embrace who we truly are?

You see, that nothingness is identical in every person we know or see regularly. Doesn’t that make us the same? Why do we love our mask so much? Why are we so obsessed with it? And why do we love or hate someone else’s mask? Why don’t we see through the mask and realize that whoever we are looking at is, in the truest sense, the same nothingness that is within us? Why do we fear losing that mask? Why are we afraid of that nothingness or death if that is what we are?

These ideas are nothing new. One must encounter these ideas and messages in many books. But the point here is not to simply read these messages, but to feel them, to apply them. It shouldn’t just be a logical statement coming from our mind and knowledge. We have to feel that nothingness and emptiness within us; otherwise, these ideas will remain mere thoughts—a clever act of the mind and nothing more.

What we must first understand is that the purpose of our mind, which we trust more than anything else, should be to recognize that our knowledge and intellect cannot lead us to feel that state of nothingness, peacefulness, and serenity inside us. Our intellect (which itself comes from prakriti) cannot grasp or encapsulate it. It can only be felt.