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The Death
Peace of the fans of Indian Movies was hit hard in last couple of days with passing-away of Irrfan Khan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrfan_Khan) and Rishi Kapoor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Kapoor) on successive days. Needless to say that these terrible news came in the background of all that is happening worldwide due to Covid-19 situation where we have lost more than 2,00,000 lives so far. These are the times where even the most unconscious of individual has also at least once got awakened and thought about The Death. I have also given my time in thinking over it through my limited abilities and came out with this article.
Some of you might know that I am under Jupiter-Venus dasha which is actually a Maraka Dasha for me and one of the results of this dasha is that thought of death didn’t go out of my mind even for a day. Daily, at least a couple of times, I thought about death and that today can be my last day in this human life. Death became a common topic to discuss with my friends. I reached the peak when in Sep, 2019 my grandfather passed away and since then the intensity of these thoughts increased. As always, I looked at Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh “Osho” for guidance and ordered His book titled “Main Mrityu Sikhata Hoon”, in which He preached in detail about death. While I was going through this internal process, we have managed to get ourselves in the mess named Covid-19 and then these 2 celebrity’s passing away which has hit us really hard. So, I just thought of sharing what all I read in last 6 months which may help all of us in looking at this gloomy scenario from different perspective and which may bring some hope or optimism to us. Needless to say that I will utilize the wisdom gained through Mythology and Osho to explain things here.
Let’s break this article in following points –
Fear.
Death.
Reason behind Sorrow and Fear?
Death of known/unknown people?
Awakening.
Conclusion.
Let’s begin this journey –
Fear – In Bhagwad Geeta, Lord Krishna uses the words “Be Fearless” many-a-times while responding to Arjun’s queries. Why Krishna needs to remind Arjun of being fearless? Arjun was a warrior by birth. He has fought many wars before Mahabharat war. It can’t be imagined that Arjun would be fearful or scared of war in general sense. Then what is this fear Krishna is talking about? Osho says that there is only one fear in this world, i.e. Fear of Death. You may give any reason or excuse behind your fears but at the base of all reasons, there is only one reason, i.e. The Death. So, Death is the only foundational fear we have.
Death – But then what is Death? Does an event like Death, as we understand it, really takes place?
a. Osho says that people who themselves have no experience of death, declare someone dead. The person who has gone through that event or process is not even there to tell what has happened inside him? Whether he has really died or not? But other people are deciding that he is dead. At best, they can only say that person is not walking, talking, eating, dancing, singing etc like he used to do. At best, they can say that person is not behaving as living person as per their understanding but it is too assertive statement or judgmental to declare that person is dead. People haven’t seen what has actually happened inside the person. Hence, they have no right to say that someone has died because none ever dies.
b. This is something I wrote in my article on Re-incarnation (https://www.astrosaxena.com/incarnate) and if I may reproduce the relevant portion here –
Death is most commonly publicised as the End of Life. As long as we continue to have such notions, the re-incarnation theory will face challenges. Death is polar opposite of Birth and because we consider Birth as beginning of life, the Death is bound to be considered as end of life. Birth & Death both are nothing but a point of transformation. With Birth, we only get revealed in this life, in any form (from Rock to Plant to Animal to Human). With Death, we only disappear from current form and reveal into another form. So, Birth & Death are nothing but points of transformations in another form of life. Understand it with this example. There is an electric wire which has current (Life) flowing in it. At its end, we have a Bulb hanging and it is burning bright (Life getting revealed). Suddenly, Bulb got fused (Death). Can we say that current has died or current is no more? No. Current is still there but it is not getting expressed. Similarly, life is always there. It is just when a soul gets association of 5 elements, life gets revealed through a body and when soul leaves it, life gets disappeared and waits for another moment for its revelation. So, Birth & Death are same points of transformation. Hence, it is wrong to say that life has ended with Death. Life never ends. It just transforms itself and reveals differently, which we call re-incarnation.
So, the death is just the moment when Life turns into inactive mode from active mode. Life expresses itself through a birth and then goes into inexpressive mode through death. But life continue as it is. One of the initial realizations Gautam Buddha had on his spiritual journey was that "we get expressed and then we get un-expressed".
Reason behind Sorrow and Fear? – Now, if life continues as it is then what is the reason behind sorrow and fear? The only reason is that we are connected with bodies of people around us. For namesake we say things like “soul is immortal” or “ohhh, you are beautiful inside-out”, but we have no idea about inside of anyone. Basically, if we have no idea about our own inside or our own soul then how can we have any idea about other person’s soul. Our love is for body of person or thing. Actually, it is not necessary to make separate mentions of “person” or “thing”. If we love some person for his/her bodily beauties then we are treating even that person as a thing. So, the main reason of any sorrow or fear due to events like Death is that we know Life up to the limits of the functioning of body. We feel that if someone is utilizing his body then he is alive. As our connection or understanding of life is limited to body then we are obviously going to feel sad when that body is not functioning anymore. And see what happens once that body stops functioning? The same body, for which we were madly in love with, gets disposed-off within few hours. We don’t even want to keep the same body even for more than 24 hours. Somewhere we realize that we never loved the real being inside and we were connected only to the outer body. But again, if we are not even connected to our own being inside then how can we imagine to connect with someone else’s at inner level? The day we really realize that “soul is immortal”, then there will be not a single person crying over any dead body.
Death of known/unknown people – But then every death doesn’t impact us in same way. If someone dies in the neighbourhood, we will pay a visit, console them and may even share the wisdom that don’t worry, soul is immortal. But things may not be so easy if someone in our own family dies. It is because that person was part of us. When he dies, a part of us also dies. We have some investment in that person. That’s why, 2,00,000 people passed away in Covid but it didn’t impact us the same way when 2 celebrities died in 2 days. As they were known to us, we have given many hours of our life watching their movies, we have lived the characters they have played and we have shared emotions along with them through those characters, their death impacts us more. It kills a part of us. This was also the sorrow of Arjun in Mahabharat. The warrior who killed many throughout life was not willing to kill his own family-men as they were part of him. With their death, he himself was going to die at some level.
Awakening – But nothing wakes us up like death. From Buddha to Rajneesh, they all got awakened when they saw a death. So, these times may be troublesome but if we want to move beyond bodily love and understand our inner-self then this can be the best time we are going through. If even this time doesn’t wake us up then I don’t know what else will awaken us in future. These times are best to follow spiritual pursuits like meditation and go within. Even if we get one Buddha out of these times then the whole generation will be benefitted.
Conclusion – So, these were my random thoughts plus wisdom received from Osho on this topic. I recommend everyone to read the book Main Mrityu Sikhata Hoon by Osho to understand these things more deeply. The same book is available in English by the name And Now, And Here. Finally, like everything else, even this will pass-away
Hope this helps. Thanks,
SPB
2 comments on this post Comments
Vandana
2020-05-11 14:26:12I am also going through Jupiter Venus dasha. And my mind is also very ashaant. I also keep thinking the worst for my son who is far away from me during this crisis. Praying to almighty to give us peace of mind.
Raman
2020-05-02 00:52:15Nice and am going to buy this book. Thanks for motivating me.