Death

Death

Chapter 1

What Is Death?

Death is the most fundamental question. Yet, people can ignore it, avoid it, and just live on in their ignorance simply because all kinds of idiotic stories have been spread in the world in the name of religion.

Death: The Most Fundamental Question

Do you know you will die one day? Oh, I bless you with a long life, but anyway, you will die one day. We cannot be sure about other things in your life. We don’t know if you will get married or not, or if you will get a job or not, if you will be successful or not, but this one thing is guaranteed in your life: You will go straight to your grave! One of the biggest human follies is to engage with death in the third person, as though it is an abstract event that happens to other people, not us. Do you know that about one hundred and sixty thousand people who were alive in the world yesterday are not there today? Each second, two people die in the world. And one day, it is going to happen to you and me too. It does not take enormous research or intelligence or even education to know this. This knowledge is built into every human being. Yet, we think we have an unlimited lease on life. This situation is best expressed in the Hindu epic Mahabharata.

The five Pandava princes, who are the protagonists, are lost in the forest. Severely starved and parched, they scour the nearby hills for water and food. They spot a lake, and as they try to drink from it, they are confronted by a yaksha (a celestial being) in the form of a white crane who insists they answer his questions first. Refusing to be stopped by a mere bird, one by one they try to drink from the lake and drop dead. Only Yudhishthira, the eldest of them, is left. Always the humble and righteous one, Yudhishthira ignores his thirst and engages with the yaksha, who fires a volley of questions about life at him. One of those questions being, “What is the biggest wonder of life?” Without hesitation, Yudhishthira famously answers, “Hundreds and thousands of living beings meet death at every moment, yet the foolish man thinks himself deathless and does not prepare for death. This is the biggest wonder of life.” The yaksha is pleased with this answer, so he allows him to drink from the lake and also restores the lives of his dead brothers. This happened five thousand years ago, but the human psyche regarding death has changed very little since then.

Death is a very fundamental question. Actually, death is closer to us than the statistics we read about it. Each moment, death is happening in us at the organ and cellular levels. This is how, with just one look at your insides, your doctor knows how old you are. In fact, death began in us even before we were born. Only if you are ignorant and unaware does it seem like death will come to you someday later. If you are aware, you will see that both life and death are happening every moment. If you breathe just a little more consciously, you will notice that with every inhalation there is life, with every exhalation there is death. Upon birth, the first thing that a child does is inhale, take in a gasp of air. And the last thing that you will do in your life is an exhalation. You exhale now, and if you do not take the next inhalation, you will be dead. If you do not get this, just do an exhalation, hold your nose, and do not do the next inhalation. Within a few moments, every cell in your body will start screaming for life. Life and death are happening all the time. They exist together, inseparably, in the same breath. This relationship goes even beyond the breath. Breath is only a supporting actor; the real process is that of the life energy, or prana, that controls physical existence. With certain mastery over prana, one can exist beyond breath for substantial amounts of time. Breath is a bit more immediate in its requirement, but in the same category as food and water.

Death is such a fundamental concept, because if one small thing happens, you can be gone tomorrow morning. Forget about tomorrow morning—one small thing now and you could be off the next moment. If you were like any other creature, maybe you would be unable to think about all this, but once one is endowed with human intelligence, how can you just ignore such a significant aspect of your life? How can you avoid it and live on as if you were going to be here forever? How is it that after living here for millions of years, human beings still don’t know a damn thing about death? Well, they know nothing about life either. You know all about the trappings of life, but what do you know about life as such?

Fundamentally, this situation has come about because you have lost perspective as to who you are in this Universe. If this solar system, in which we are, evaporates tomorrow morning, no one will even notice it in this Cosmos. It is that small, just a speck. In this speck of a solar system, Planet Earth is a micro speck. In that micro speck, the city you live in is a super-micro speck. In that, you are a big man. This is a serious problem. When you have completely lost perspective as to who you are, how do you think you will grasp anything about the nature of life or death?

One reason people can ignore death and continue to live on in their ignorance is simply that society and the religions of the world have spread all kinds of idiotic stories about life and death. They created some silly, childish explanations for everything. “How was I born?” “The stork brought you.” “Where am I going to go?” “To heaven.” This explanation is very simple but absurd. At least they could have chosen a more efficient mode of transport than a stork. Storks migrate only in a particular season, so all the children should have been born in that season alone, not during other times! Moreover, if people are so sure that they are going to heaven after they die, I ask them, “Why are you delaying your departure, then? Why not go right now?” All these silly stories have snuffed out the basic human curiosity about life and death. Otherwise, sheer curiosity—if not the pain and suffering of life—would have strongly propelled many people to seek answers to this fundamental question.

Mortal Nature

People always think that reminding themselves of God will make them spiritual. Not at all. If you keep thinking of or believing in God, you will not do your job properly, but you think you will produce good results. You will not study for your exam and yet think you will be first in class because of your prayer. Such people become more brazen than others about life because now they have God’s support. Always, people who believed that God is with them have done the most violent things on the planet. “God is with me” gives you a new confidence, which is very dangerous. If you think of God this way, you will not become spiritual—you could actually become very brazen and stupid.

Once it happened: There were two young boys—very energetic boys—in a neighborhood. Usually, when young boys are very energetic, they are in constant trouble. The same happened with these boys also. Their parents were very embarrassed by them because the entire community was discussing their children. So, not knowing what to do, they decided to take them to the local parish priest to correct them. Because the boys would be too strong to handle together, the parents decided to take them to the priest separately. They took the younger boy first, made him sit down in the priest’s office, and left. The priest walked in with his long robes and walked up and down the room a few times with a grave face. The boy sat there, his eyeballs doing a ping-pong act.

As he walked up and down, the priest worked out a strategy. He thought, “If I remind this boy that God is within him, all his mischief will go.” So he dramatically stopped mid-stride and, with a booming voice, asked the boy, “Where is God?” The boy looked bewildered. He started looking all around because he thought God must be somewhere in the priest’s office. The priest saw that the boy was not getting the point. Thinking that he should give him a little clue that God is within him, the priest leaned on the table and, pointing at the little boy, boomed again, “Where is God?” The boy appeared even more bewildered and looked under the table. The priest saw that the boy was still not getting it. So, he walked around, came close to him, and, tapping on the little boy’s chest, boomed again, “Where is God?” The boy now got up and bolted out of the room. He ran to where his elder brother was and said, “We are in real trouble.” The elder brother asked, “Why? What happened?” He said, “They have lost their God and they think we did it.”