I Have To Die???!!!!

[sweet nothings]

I found this at some website...if I dug deep I could find it again....but here's a tiny lil piece of it...

Initiation is a process of "death and rebirth" - the
old self dies, and the new and magickal self is born.

My old self has to die to dedicate myself? For some reason that throws me off BIG TIME. I knew that I was to be reborn when I dedicated myself, but just the thought of my old self dying is so wrong to me. Can someone please clear this up? And if my old self dies, how the dingle does that happen!??

Note: This throws me off more than anything because I've read quite a few books and none of them talked about my old self dying. Maybe he just said what they've all been saying in a little...darker way?

[Klucky]

Hmmm...I've never really heard that one before. I wouldn't worry about it, though. It doesn't completely make sense to me. I always felt Pagans lead two lives--a magickal one and a normal one.

I don't think you need to do one of those 180 degree life changes. Just add on. :D

-Klucky

[aftershocked]

'Death' as it's used here is not the dark, icky never-coming-back, pushing-up-daisies type of death that we in the Western Hemisphere associate with the word. I prefer to think of it more as a graduation.. the 'old you'- old, usually destructive habits, old beliefs, and often the old religion- 'dies' to you, meaning that it leaves your life. Not all of your old self will die, just those aspects that aren't productive for your new magical self. It's more of a chance for you to become a new person. :) Did that make sense?

[Ben Trismegistus]

My old self has to die to dedicate myself? For some reason that throws me off BIG TIME. I knew that I was to be reborn when I dedicated myself, but just the thought of my old self dying is so wrong to me. Can someone please clear this up? And if my old self dies, how the dingle does that happen!??
Um, yeah, sorry.

It's a metaphor. Any initiation is a transformative process, and any transformation exists because the old self falls away and a new self is created in its place. The old mundane you disappears and is replaced by the new magical you.

That's what transformation is all about - death and rebirth. Sorry if the imagery freaks you out a bit.

[Athena-Nadine]

The first thing that popped in to my head when I saw the title was, "Don't we all?"

Everything must balance. Light/Dark, Love/Indifference, Passion/Apathy, Living/Dying. Each follows the other, in an unending circle. Any initiation is a death as well as a rebirth. You can not be reborn without dying. It's just not possible. Upon an initiation, you accept a new way of looking at the world. In order to do so, the previous notions you had must die in order to make room for the new.

We all die little deaths every day. We all are reborn in some ways every day. *...shrugs...* It's just the way it is. There is nothing dark about death in any of its forms. It is just one more necessity of the cycle.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you seem to have an unreasoning fear of the word, the concept, and the actuality of death. One of the things you are going to have to realize, if you continue down your path, is that you will have to let go of that fear and find acceptance for the inevitable. This is not a choice if you are to be true to any serious religious path (yes, even Christianity). And yes, by doing so, you will again have to die and be reborn--the fear dies and acceptance is born, and you are no longer really the same person. It may seem a tiny change to most, but it is one of the most profound. If you cannot let go of the fear, if you cannot accept the natural course of things, maybe you should take a hard look at your spiritual choices again and see if they are right for you (I'm not saying your choices are not right for you; only that I think you need to look deeper within yourself than you have done so far). If you decide that your choices still stand as correct, then you must decide if you are truly ready to initiate yourself into the Mysteries of your religion. There is no shame in not being ready.

Edited for stupid spelling errors. Grrr...

[DragonFriend]

Aaaaaaah

Oooops only reason Im saying that is someones going to get heavy.

Part of being where we are is accepting our own mortality.

It was a beautiful sunny day in May inthe North when I first realised mine...... I looked at the hills nd realised "one of these days Im not going to be there any more as they are"

Live for today - our lady doesnt want us to live life like a funeral.

Study Kali or Hecate - both asociated with death but essentially both have a re-birth aspect.


Re-birth doesnt mean death first-It might mean a re-newal of self

[Semele]

Yeah it's the way so many people and theologies have of describing the new way of living and feeling through a newfound spirituality. I however, choose not to let the old me die for I feel that she has much to teach me and I embrace that. In fact I have only one bumper sticker on my vehicle and it says "Born ok the first time."

[morrigen]

I love that bumper sticker, Semele!

And as for death/rebirth...parts of us die and are reborn every day...when we learn something new, when we fall in love, when we make a new friend, or make a descision....we are inevitably, irreversably changed...because nothing in this world is static.

You have nothing to fear :)

[sweet nothings]

Ok maybe I didn't make what I meant so clear...I'm not afraid of death in any way, in fact I came to realize the full impact of death a few years ago. What I mean by saying that the death thing kind of wierds me out is that in my eyes saying that I died for my new life means giving up everything I hold onto now. I guess I just don't like the term in THAT sense...I like the way aftershocked put it with the graduation....sorry for any confusion.

[Athena-Nadine]

Ok maybe I didn't make what I meant so clear...I'm not afraid of death in any way, in fact I came to realize the full impact of death a few years ago. What I mean by saying that the death thing kind of wierds me out is that in my eyes saying that I died for my new life means giving up everything I hold onto now. I guess I just don't like the term in THAT sense...I like the way aftershocked put it with the graduation....sorry for any confusion.
*...nods...* Ah, I see. No, it doesn't mean that everything that makes you who you are must die. Then you would cease to exist and would be dead in the physical sense as well, or might as well be.

[Azure]

Any number of great poets through the ages have pointed out in their various ways that nothing ever truly dies that is remembered. Likewise, as long as you know yourself, that self isn't dead.

That said, it sounds to me a bit like Christian rhetoric, which might be why it's off-putting - the "born again" thing. But Jesus also meant it metaphorically. Think of it more as a change in your perspective of the world - a paradigm shift where you become more aware than you used to be of the spiritual aspects of life. The idea being that when you see the world in a different way, it can be like being a whole new person.

That doesn't mean that who you were, or who you are now, is bad or wrong. It means that when you make major life choices - any choices - you become a different person because you made a choice and acted, whether you planned it or not.

I like the Arthurian legend metaphor - life is a quest and we all start out as "fools" - people with tons of potential and littel knowledge or experience. We travel life's path, gaining both hoping to be knights at the end like Percival and Gareth and Galahad. Likewise, as we learn and grow, we become something other than we were. Yet at the core is still the person we were born.

You've gone through a major transformation, you've changed, you're more aware - but you are still you.

[moonchild]

yup, just a metaphor.

it doesn't mean that you are to get rid of ALL of what you were....it's just a growth process. no matter what you do you will always have parts of your past self, that is what has made the foundation of yourself. think of it as a shedding of skin, a rite of passage, a graduation, death, whatever. they all can mean essentially the same thing.

[sweet nothings]

Alright guys thanks...you cleared that up for me completely