Wake Up!

WHY ARE WE AFRAiD OF DEATH?

This text was machine-transcribed from the printed book and may contain errors. Select the words and choose “Report a mistake”.

Why is the whole of humanity struggling against one thing, the only thing that is a certainty in all our lives?

Can we make the whole earth flat?

No, it is a proven fact that the earth is round. But if we struggle against this fact, then there is something wrong in our struggle, in our understanding. It is the same with death too. Why are we struggling to accept the truth? Because of the struggle, most people die unable to accept death when it comes - just as they have lived, unable to accept life as it is.

A smiling, cartoon-style depiction of a spiritual figure wearing a rudraksha mala and traditional markings.

WE ARE AFRAID
BECAUSE
iNSTiNCTiVELY WE
RESIST CHANGE
AND DEATH iS AN
ABRUPT CHANGE
iN LiFE.

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 etc. Death removes this very foundation on which our identity is built, so we feel death snatches everything that is ours. Our understanding about death, or rather our misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience. The man who resists death dies even while he lives. He dies every moment because he is tortured by the very idea of death.

Death does not only mean physical death. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing your comfortable life is one form of death, losing your relatives is another.

Loss in any form is nothing but death. There are two issues: the incident of death that happens at the end of our lives, and psychological death. Real death happens only once, but psychological death, the fear of death, permeates our life. The idea and fear of death decides our entire life structure.

[Figure: hospital bed]

A digital rendering of a young person in traditional attire with a deity in the background

You may ask why people are so depressed and disturbed when they lose their close relatives. Even if you are not emotionally attached to them and in a sense are waiting for them to die you will be deeply affected by their death!

It is more so when you are close to them, attached to them emotionally. Whenever your mother dies your whole left side will suffer. Whenever your father dies, your whole right side will suffer. Whenever your brothers die your hands will suffer.

Śāstra Pramāṇa - शास्त्र प्रमाण

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

Translation:

Let the vital life-energy ‘Wind’ present in the body, now merge into the all-pervading, 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.