We humans are terrified of death, and so we try to live on beyond it .. spending our lives seeking out immortality projects, things that will endure as our legacy.
We worry so much about death .. not just today but from the very beginning of humanity .. Fear of death and its associated grief at loss of loved ones have haunted us right from the first day of existence. And it has all along been the worst fear .. we may not show it, display it .. we may put up a brave front but we worry .. we worry about death a lot .. maybe because it is unknown and mysterious. We don't know for certain what happens after death .. fear of unknown has always been part of our psyche. We are scared of death. Hence we make up stories, myths and everything to bring solace, some semblance of certainty .. behind every religion, philosophies are ideas made up to help alleviate this fear .. Even today, death is scary and everyone wants to live longer .. to imbibe a magical medicine to stay alive forever.
What is death? What happens after we die? No one knows it. One idea is to - Look at the stars .. they form from dust, stay for a period of time, collapse and merge back as dust .. we are made of star dust .. shouldn’t the process be the same? .. birth, life and death .. back to being star dust ..
Music we sing every day,
an unstoppable melody
A destined tragedy in nature's harmony
Death is the poignant note
- an excerpt from the poem "Death", Jul 1999
As we us look at myths and religious texts, discussion on death is everywhere ..
We made up a holistic concept of God .. a person who is sitting up in the heavens and ready to take care of us after death ..
In Hinduism, it is the concept of rebirth to assuage the fear of death .. don’t worry about death as you will be born again .. added in some form is the concept of “good” deeds so you get more privileges the next time around ..
In Christianity, it is about liberation by believing in Jesus - the son of God ..
Egyptians believed in after-life and made elaborate preparations including building pyramids ..
Buddha discussed suffering in this world as inevitable and ways to “live” in the moment by saying “everything will pass” .. albeit implicitly hinting that, this life and living is difficult so the next one may be better ..
Many other philosophies discuss living happy in the moment and not worry about after-life. Some texts even went to the extent of saying mankind is “low form of life” and by doing “good”, we will reach salvation or a better place after death ..
And then there are stories of living after death as spirits or ghosts ..
As you see, the fear was so rampant that much of the history has been trying to explain this unknown phenomenon in various ways .. yet today, we stand as ignorant as our ancestors.
The irony of life is by fearing death, we don’t live the life that we have and yet crave for a better life after death.
In the journey from here to there
on the roads of rich and poor
unaware and ignorant are we,
Death is our final destination
- an excerpt from the poem "Death", Jul 1999
We should realize that all of us will die one day no matter what; death involves “when” and “how” but not “if".
Death is simply nature’s process of moving from order to disorder .. always moving towards state of higher entropy.
Freedom from fear of death is the ultimate freedom .. the moment you are born, you are defined with a finite number of breaths .. almost like an "expiration date" .. Let go the pretension that you will live forever and accept that everything is finite .. including this life .. and you will be able to value what you have in the moment and appreciate it ..