On Death And Dying

Death is inevitable, something that will touch every one of us at some time – no matter how hard we try to avoid the thought or pretend it’s not there.  It is something that people don’t wish to talk or think about and yet it is as certain as our birth.

The greatest fear in human beings is the fear of the unknown.  What happens to me at death?  The cause of this fear and confusion stems in not knowing who or what “I” am.  We feel “I” am dying thinking “I” to be the body.

When I realize “I” am not this body, then I free myself from death altogether.  I am immortal, eternal and I leave this body when the part I have been playing is over.  Remember, the senses (smell, touch, taste etc) are the instruments of consciousness, but not consciousness itself.  Whatever we can experience from sense objects will not give experience of immortality.

We experience sorrow when something is taken away from us and yet we know that everything in the world is perishable.  It is not that we should not enjoy the things and the people around us.  We are actors on a stage.  The world is a drama and we souls are acting through our bodies, playing our part with other actors, using the props, and choosing scenes of our choice.

We must learn to live in the present enjoying each moment realizing the overall plan of this drama.  We wonder at the intricacy and precision at which each action brings an equal and opposite reaction.  This theory of cause and effect, action and reaction, is the basic law of life, both on physical and metaphysical planes.

This understanding also helps us to face the loss of a loved one.  We must realize that we were playing a part together with someone and now, that scene is over.  It is the possessiveness of things and people that causes sorrow.  This is also called “Maya” or illusion of life.  It is because of Maya that we experience grief, sorrow, emptiness and loneliness.

When somebody’s part is over, we fell that we have lost that person’s love and comfort.  But, it was never yours.  You are fortunate to experience that person’s love or comfort just as you are fortunate to experience the warmth of the sun’s rays or the coolness of the water.  We cannot control the coming and the going of a person more that the rising and the setting of the sun.

Neither money nor power nor prayer can stop the eternal flow of Life and so we must learn to flow with it.

© Nitesh Kotecha