Anita – this is an interesting way to put it – “I fear my death, but that already happened: before I was conceived I was NOT, just as after dying I will be NOT. What I fear: my non existence already happened.”

I feel this way too – that my death has already happened, but my reaction is the opposite of yours – I don’t feel fear of it. I might be naive, but I can honestly say I’ve never feared it so far – I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I wonder if people don’t fear death so much as dying?

As for your other comment about religious people not being able to handle the truth, I don’t know enough about other religions, nor am I religious, but the philosophy behind reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism is not to “never die” but to transcend the endless birth-and-death cycle.

But you’re right – no matter which way you look at death, no one truly knows it until they experience it – until then it’s only a belief 🙂

thank god it doesn’t divide us anita!
(probably need to stop thanking God, in your presence don’t I) 🙂

would you say, whatever unites us is good?
Not when our hatred is united for example, germans towards jews in wwII

Its all about time – Anita is right – without her remembrance of the past – she’d have no fear. She’s afraid because there’s a memory of a past fear projected through the present into the future. By living wholly in the present moment with as much consciousness as one can muster, the fear is not actually there. Fear is one of those guttural reactions that is difficult to get rid of, but it requires thought to have it. Over thinking is the problem. Emotions start as thoughts. Stop the thoughts and the emotion goes.
Of course other emotions can swamp out fear, as in ‘perfect love casts out all fear’, and this is the so-called ‘easy route’ according to certain religions (the love route), but the fear can equally be simply removed by not thinking, which is more of a ‘difficult route’ requiring rationality and effort. A number of religions and branches of religions are attractive to people because they typify the ‘easy route’ – most people have some experience of love and other emotions, but less people have experience of the use of rational logical thought. Therefore, in order to help the most people and to appeal to the most people and to be understood by most people, many religions have the emotional route (Love the lord thy God, etc.). However, this approach doesn’t always suit everyone. Whether religious or not, it doesn’t matter, what matters is to understand where emotions come from, how they are used, and where thought comes from, and how thoughts form emotions. The mind, and its thoughts, moves very quickly. Watch it and find where the thoughts originate – there’s no fear there.