Death Is a Celebration - Vol 1

vāyur-anilam amṛtam athedaṁ bhasmāntagṁ śarīram | auṁ krato smara kṛtaguṁ smara krato smara kṛtaguṁ smara || 17 ||

Let the vital life-energy 'Wind' present in the body, now merge into the allpervading, eternal cosmic life-energy; and now let this gross body along with subtle body, disintegrate into its basic elements and be reduced to the sacred ashes.

Body assumes its shape and it can go back to the basic elements. Let the prana, vayu relax, merge into the Cosmic life, anilam; and let the body retire to the basic elements, become ashes. But you remember what all you did to become One with the Cosmos. Oh Cosmos,

The way Sanatana Dharma approaches Death It's very clear, the body has nothing useful. It has no use after death, that is why they say, let it disintegrate – bhasmāntaguṁ śareeram. This verse declares about the need of cremation for Hindus.

It is this verse shows the way why cremation in Hindu tradition, because – vāyur-anilam amṛtam athedaṁ. Let the 'prana' merge with the Cosmic Prana. bhasmāntaguṁ śareeram – let the body go back to its basic elements, no use! After you leave the body, it has no use; you don't need this after that. If you want, you will have one more body. You will take a new body, but this itself is not required.

From the right context and understanding there is no such thing as death. When there is a wrong context, every moment you will be dying. When there is a right context, even what you think as the socalled death is not death. With a wrong understanding and wrong context just the thought, "Will this roof fall on my head?" is enough to put you into a panic attack. Just a small jolt in the flight is enough. Sometimes it is not even required, just your thought, a jolt in your thinking is enough to put you in the fear of death and make you go through death.

The first thing you need to know about death is, the actual happening has no significance at all. Imagination about the happening plays all the chaos, havoc in your life. Please listen; actual happening has no significance at all.

This is what you think of as death, that one day you will suddenly disappear, your body will be taken and burnt or cremated or buried disposed. After that you won't exist in the form you are existing now, that is what is, actual incident you call it as death. It has no significance.

Death is nothing but a job change, profession change or career change. It has no significance. Just like you change your jobs, change your career, change your profession, sometime change the city you are living in, sometime change your spouse, sometime change your house, you just change your body.

You might be thinking "No, that means too much". The incident really has no significance at all. Changing your body happens so regularly in your life, it has no significance. Body changing has no significance. It is regular phenomena;

It is cleaning of all the memory. There is only one thing in the death, actually happening which you are not seeing during the life; that is you forgetting the whole memory, cleaning of all memories, that is the beauty of death, never try to demystify that because just like once in a while you need stomach cleansing, stomach washing, once in a while you need all the memories getting cleansed. You get the fresh slate, you get the fresh life, you get the fresh energy, you get the fresh space.

Once, in USA, a young lady asked the great Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda*

'What is life?' Swami Vivekananda said, 'Come with me to Bharat. I will teach you.'

She asked, 'What will you teach me?' He said, 'I will teach you how to die.'

The question is about life but the answer is about death! It seems strange! What Swami Vivekananda* is saying is that if you know the secret of death, the quality of your life will be different. Your very understanding and attitude towards everything will change. We can actually use our lives to prepare for death. We do not have to wait for the pain of seeing someone's death or the shock of being faced with a critical illness to force us to look into the meaning of life.

The very word 'death' creates agony and fear. Even talking about it is considered of inauspicious as we may invite it by even mentioning it. Death is seen as an enemy. We paint death as a villain, never as a hero. The idea of death is always approached with negativity. We feel death takes away everything from us. What ever we want, whatever we enjoy, whatever we have, everything is just taken by force from us

So most of us live either in denial of death or in fear of it. We think, 'why should we think about it now? We will handle it when it arrives.' Some how we always want to escape from death, Our concern for unfulfillment is rooted in our fear of death.

It is a primal fear, that of the unknown our actions in this life are for the most part driven by the desire to be in a better place after death or the fear not to be in a worst place after death. This fear of leaving the body and mind has existed through the ages.

• What does the word death create?
• Why death is painted in black?
• We approach the idea of death with what?
• What we feel about death?
• Which is rooted in our fear of death?
• Which is a primal fear?
• Which desire drives our actions in life?
• Which fear drives our actions in life?

• 1. Paper
• 2. Permanent marker
• 3. Impermanent marker (washable marker).

Encourage the children to draw any picture with permanent marker on the plain sheet and now ask them to draw the same picture with impermanent marker and ask them to use ink eraser and erase the pictures and see the difference.

The picture drawn with permanent marker cannot be erased with ink eraser but the picture drawn with impermanent marker can be easily erased with ink eraser. Connect them to the fact that soul is eternal and that it cannot be erased or destroyed while the body is perishable

• 1. Poster colors
• 2. Plain sheet
• 3. Pencil
• 4. Crayon

Encourage the children to do the drawing in the paper and paint it with poster colors. Ask them to dry the painting and tear each of their painting. Now ask each child to share and interchange part of their painting with the other child and form a new collage. Encourage each child to explain what they interpret from the new collage. Ask them to discuss how was this change in the painting was perceived by them.

We are afraid of death because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change in life.

Why is the whole of humanity struggling against, one thing, the only thing that it is a certainty in all our lives. We are afraid because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change in life. Man thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present. We are afraid because we do not know who we are. We hold an identity of ourselves inside us, based on our family, relationships, job, wealth, social image.

Death removes this very identity foundation on which our identity is built, so we feel death snatches everything that is ours. Our understanding about death or rather misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience. The man who resists death dies even while he lives. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing your comfortable life is one form of death.

Every part of your body i.e. connected to someone or the other. Your being is not an individual being. It is not a love, separate, as your think. We are all interlinked. That is why we undergo terrible suffering when we lose someone or something. All that we understand of death is that it is anti-life. Again because of our fear we think too much about death.

In the mystery of death lies the answer to life. If you know the secret of death, the quality of your life will be different. Your very understanding and attitude towards everything will change. We can actually use our lives to prepare for death. Death is not a mere incident at the end of your life. It is a profound knowing. If you know how the die, you know how to live. Living and leaving are new sides of the same thing.

• Which is certainty in all our lives?
• Which is the abrupt change in life?
• Which makes us incapable of living in the present?
• What removes the identity foundation?
• Which makes death a powerful experience?
• What is death?
• Is your being an individual one?.

Part 2: Death Is a Celebration

• 1. Water
• 2. Sand
• 3. Straw
• 4. Incense Stick

Encourage the children to do a beautiful art which utilizes all the five elements of nature like water, for earth use sand, air for blowing, for fire use incense stick, and represent the space as paper. Encourage the children to mix sand with poster colors and water and then use straw to do blowing on the plain sheet so that they can do straw blowing painting. After it is dried, ask them to make designs by creating holes with incense sticks.

Our body is made up of all the five elements of nature water, earth, air, fire, and space.

This game is a group activity which ensures focus and co-ordination. Encourage the children to sit in a circle. One child will be the catcher and he has to identify who is the leader. The game is each has to continue to do the activity. Then the leader changes the activity others has to follow it and it goes on like this. The game goes so fast. The catcher has to correctly identify who changes the activity as the leader. Now other child who identified the leader will sit and the leader will be the catcher

Connect them to the fact that being in the present is very important. Just be in the present and allow time to flow through you.

Encourage each child to talk about and write down the changes that happened in their life and ask them to talk about how they handled the changes.

For example:

How about their new friend? What they felt when there was a new friend, new school, or any new place or any new dimension? How did they handle the new situation?

Any change happening to us is the death of the old person and evolving of the new person. For everything, you hold the key to getting upset or accepting the change happily. This is decided by you. One step, one click is needed to make our understanding better about change.