The end is a beginning

Even if one leads a perfectly normal life and has a perfectly natural death, every moment in life is a step toward death! What remains to be seen is whether it is just a step, or a stride, or a dive off the banister. Tread carefully!

After pondering over the threat death poses, I concluded that death was an adventure, an opportunity, a gateway to new life! So why fear death if we begin to die as soon as we are born, and if the end is eternally linked to the beginning? And what seems to be death is just a transition 8211; from one life to another! Nothing in nature dies, some form or the other arises from the remnants of decay! Death is a deep refreshing slumber! It is not the last sleep but the final awakening.

After death comes heaven and hell. I realised that on the basis of work done in the present life, one may find himself in one of the two Hs8217;! People tend to conceive heaven and hell as out-of-this-world8217;! But can8217;t both heaven and hell be on earth itself? Man gets his desserts on earth itself! However the way things are I think that it8217;s only hell on earth!

When we die, only our body disintegrates, our thoughts, values, conscience remain alive. Our prana or atma remain in power of the supreme being till he decides to grant it a body to dwell. That just goes to show that we are not our body, but our aatma! Some think of death as a monster named Yama who is responsible for death. When he stealthily comes by, we remember with pain, remorse, depression, anxiety and fright. Death is like the time I waited for the doctor to dab medicine, waiting for the pain and was surprised that it is all over so quickly. Death is like that. It seems much more ferocious than it actually is because most people tend to imagine it as a growling lion instead of a purring kitten.

Others find death painful because they are intimately attached to life. They experience pain when they are torn apart between the two opposite forces 8211; desire and death! There is a story in which an old woman who decided to go on a pilgrimage to Pandharpur, finished off all matters, surrendered the keys of the house to her daughter-in-law and started on her journey. She had gone five blocks when she turned back home. She came to find out whether her daughter-in-law had put salt in the curry. Assured she started again only to turn around again, this time to find if she had prepared butter out of butter-milk. This story just goes to show how some people are so attached to life. Death seems far away for them. So instead of worrying about death let us all do our duties to the best of our abilities, irrespective of the time death overtakes life!