Looking at death

Today you are here, and everything is so real - you, your wife, your child, your property, your work, your ideas, your ego - everything is so real. Today you are here, appearing so real. Tomorrow morning, if you are dead, what will happen to you? Where are you? Where did you go? Your body is a nuisance. Once you are dead, would anybody want to keep your body? Even the most loved ones in your family, if he or she dies, will you keep the body in your bedroom? Like Sankara says, “Bharya Bibyathi Tasmin Kaye.” It means, “Tomorrow if you die, that person who loved you very much or who seemed to love you, even she will be scared of this one (the body).”

This is only a body, so don’t get attached. You do know that if we bury you here, you become earth. If we burn you, immediately the results are there for you to see. If we bury you, it takes a little longer. But what happens to you? So, it needs probing. It needs looking at. Definitely, needs to be looked at, isn’t it? Because this man who is here today, so real, tomorrow if he can suddenly evaporate and disappear, it is your business to know, because it is going to happen to you also. Definitely, it is everybody’s business to know, isn’t it? So, that’s where the first step is.

The first step is, you start looking at death; then you become spiritual. If you start looking at your own death, you will definitely become spiritual; there is no other way. Unfortunately, today, in society, you avoid the word death itself. Even children cannot use that word. You say “Rama, Shiva.” But the word “death” is banned at home, because you are scared. Just the word, the reminder, scares you. Many people are scared to even see a funeral passing by in their streets because it reminds them of their own death. Whatever you may shut yourself off to, are you really going to shut off death?

Once you are in physical form, there are certain laws, because the whole physical matter have to be under a certain law. The very creation happens with a certain basis. How long the life of the body extends depends on various factors - there are many karmic factors, there are physical factors and energy factors. And there is another thing, the ultimate thing, that the time is over. There is no business for that being to be here anymore. It is finished.

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Published on 20^th July, 2004