What is life, or death!!!

Post By: Aditya Amar
June 9, 2021

All of us, anywhere on the planet, have not witnessed so much of death around us. All of us, unfortunately, have lost so many family members, friends and loved ones in the recent past due to Covid 19. Hospitals and medical staff across countries is overwhelmed with the number of people getting affected and many of them even dying with or without proper medical care.

Mankind today is sad, uncertain and anxious due to prevalent death all around us these days.

Condolences to all the readers who have lost their loved ones due to this unfortunate pandemic, man-made or not. I am based out of Mukteshwar where we have a holistic wellness centers in Uttarakhand and I have been getting lot of calls from people I know who are going through stress and anxiety at various levels. We try to help such people as we are a Yoga and meditation center and our team is working with distressed souls with meditation for anxiety and depression and life coaching programs.

Doctors and scientists talk about “why” a person has died, but unfortunately no one talks about, “what” is death and the most important part of the question,” what is life” will also come out of “what is death”.

This reminds me of a small story about great saint Tukaram. One day it so happened that a devotee came to saint Tukaram and said,”Oh great sage,you are so free and joyful in your life. I have never seen you getting upset or angry,you always radiate peace and serenity. Please share your secret of life”. Tukaram kept quiet for some time and finally looked at him for a long time and finally said,” I can see that you are going to die in seven days”. The devotee was so shocked, he forgot about his question completely and rushed home, thinking over and over again about what the great saint had predicted for him. Suddenly, this man changed towards his wife, he was sensitive started using love and affection for his family members and started doing whatever best he could do for everyone, as he knew he had only seven days to live. On the seventh day he went back to Tukaram and asked the saint to bless him as it was his last day to live. Tukaram said, alright but please tell me how you lived your past seven days. Did you get angry or upset with your wife, family members or friends? The devotee answered, I knew I was going to die in seven days. How could I get angry and upset with anyone? Tukaram said,”That is exactly the secret of my life. I always remember that relationships and incidents can come to an end any moment”. This is not living with fear of death but it is with an understanding of death.

If death is understood, there will be no more any fear of death. The fear of death is actually the root cause of any fear. For example, why do you go to work ?Most of us don’t feel like going to that stupid work place, right? If I am afraid of my immediate boss or employer, it’s because he will fire me from my job, If he is upset with me ,he will fire me. And I have so many obligations, school fees, loans to be repaid etc. If I lose my job then I will have no money to buy food and that will cause my death or bring misery to my family. Similarly, it is the fear of unknown, say a tiger in the forest, It’s not the tiger that scares me but the fear because it can kill me. The same tiger, when confined to a cage evokes no fear to me and I as a stupid human, can also throw peanuts at it.

Death is a definite fact of life. Please understand, when a child is born, no one can predict whether he is going to be a doctor or a sportsman, but one thing is certain, that he is going to die one day. You don’t need any astrologer to predict it. It’s a tragedy that we always neglect this definite fact of life and we tend to get lost in endless misery throughout our life.

If we understand “Death”, life will be far more interesting as there will be no phobia or nagging fear of “death” all through our life. In common parlance, death, simply, is the end of the physical body. We are born and we get a body which grows with our age and we interact and perform our duties with the help of this physical body, eventually, with the death of this body we conclude that we die. Now this body, or person, is not available for talking and transactions, we say he is dead.

For a moment, try to think of the best event in your life, it could be your marriage or any such beautiful event. Visualize, your home is full of your family members and friends and loved ones who have come to celebrate your marriage. Day one, day two, dance and music, fun and laughter, ceremonies with lot of people around you, day 3 and you are tired and you want it to end finally. Isn’t it? Anything, however good and great in your life, has to come to an end .

Death is nothing but a change in cosmic address, five elements of nature came together and gave birth to a child, finally he/she goes back into same elements. Like a wave in the ocean, a wave comes out of ocean and it merges back into the ocean. If we look at the entire process from a distance, we will realize that nothing really has happened.

As a matter of fact, our actions, what we do when we are alive decides if we ever lived or not.