{"id":1693,"date":"2023-01-04T07:15:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T07:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/04\/death-as-a-boon-to-the-spiritual\/"},"modified":"2023-01-04T07:15:06","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T07:15:06","slug":"death-as-a-boon-to-the-spiritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/04\/death-as-a-boon-to-the-spiritual\/","title":{"rendered":"Death as a Boon to the Spiritual"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read the Sufi mystic R\u016bm\u012b  (1207-1273) when I lived in Turkey, 1995-1996. Here is an entry from my Turkish journal written on Christmas Eve morning, 1995. The following quotation is from The Masnavi<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Death is in reality a boon to the spiritual, and it is only fools who cry, "Would that this world might endure forever, and that there were no such thing as death."<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. Our Sufi is making two claims. One is that death is the door to eternal life. The other is that <\/span>only the fool fails to perceive the profoundly unsatisfactory character of this life. You are not a fool if you deny the first, though you may be wrong; you are a fool if you deny the second. To want to live on indefinitely in this world as it is is a clear indicator of spiritual blindness.
<\/span><\/p>\n

So I say, "Up or out!" What do I mean?<\/span><\/p>\n

Academic tenure is sometimes described as 'up or out.' You either gain tenure, within a limited probationary period, or you must leave. I tend to think of life like that: either up or out, either promotion to a Higher Life or annihilation. I wouldn't want an indefinitely prolonged stay in this vale of probation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In plain English: I wouldn't want to live forever in this world. Thus for metaphysical reasons alone I have no interest in cryogenic or cryonic life extension. Up or out! <\/span><\/p>\n

It would be interesting to delve into some of the issues surrounding cryonics and the trans-humanist fantasies that subserve this hare-brained scheme. The possibilities of fraud and foul play seem endless.  Some controversies reported here<\/a>.   But for now I will merely note that Alcor<\/a> is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The infernal Valle del Sol<\/em> would not be my first choice for such an operation. One hopes that they have good backup in case of a power outage.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read the Sufi mystic R\u016bm\u012b  (1207-1273) when I lived in Turkey, 1995-1996. Here is an entry from my Turkish journal written on Christmas Eve morning, 1995. The following quotation is from The Masnavi. Death is in reality a boon to the spiritual, and it is only fools who cry, "Would that this world might … Continue reading “Death as a Boon to the Spiritual”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death-and-immortality","category-islamism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}