I don't know why am I writing about this, but somehow, somewhere this idea had been in my head for a long time....someone who was a stranger to me for so long..someone whom I was distantly acquainted with but is slowly but stealthily getting into the inner circle of my companions. I still don't know what to call it, a stranger or a friend but it is there in my life - period. It is Death.
When you think you know everything about life, death comes and gives you a gentle reminder about your perception about life - "Wake up! And smell the coffee!"
What is more painful? Seeing someone dying gradually or a sudden death? How nicely and ignorantly we plans about life and then death comes and completely makes all of these irrelevant, inconsequential. As it is mentioned in the Vana Parva of Mahabharata, when the Yaksha asked Yudhisthira about what is the most surprising thing in this world, he mentioned that even though everyday we humans see countless living entities dying, we still act and think as if we will live forever. As one doctor friend had recently mentioned to me, "Run as much as you want to run after whatever in life, death will eventually catch hold of you." Maybe how you look at this eventuality determines your approach towards it.
I had been acquainted with death long time back when I was a child. Unfortunately I didn't possess the maturity and understanding to delve about it that time. The earliest memory of a very near one dying is of my paternal grandmother and that was nearly twenty years ago. I was taken aback and I was very angry at her for suddenly dying and then when the anger went away suddenly the reality struck me and I was afraid...very afraid, don't know about what but I was. And from then onwards I realised that death scares me as it reminds of that eventuality that once it comes you can't turn back the clock any more...you won't be able to see the person any more, won't hear the person anymore, won't be able to touch the person anymore. Someone whom you knew, had loved, had loved you back would turn into few grams of ashes and that's all...that's the end of the story!
So what if you tell yourself that the person will remain in your heart, in your memories, in your DNA or Collective Unconscious - in that particular moment you discover that whom you knew as a person has left you and what is in front of you is but an empty vessel - a Dead Body.
We find in psychology there are five stages of Grief being described- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Accordingly, to adaptively overcome any emotional pain resulting from loss, we need to successfully go through each of the five stages and perhaps after that we might be able to move forward in life. This entire concept is all about recovery, but what about prevention from the same? Isn't prevention is better than cure?
Unfortunately we are not taught nor try to learn so. We rather choose to remain in our cocoon, our delusion and ignorance. Maybe that's why it becomes so difficult for us to assume that philosophical nonchalance that this body is but a vessel and the spirit was never born nor it will cease to be as it is birthless and deathless. Nor can we be poetic and look as death like the dark colored Shyam (Krishna) and thus welcome it as a solace and emancipation.
To cut things short, right now I feel that it is Death that provides us with the truest meaning of life, the biggest existential question and thereafter we make own derivations. And thus sometimes it is good for us to consider the existence of death. Maybe then we will learn to appreciate the value of life and relations more than just the materialistic gains.
But again, today I might be feeling so, tomorrow or may be after few hours all these thoughts will vanish from my head and I will get lost in the different self created alleys and by lanes of life. Till then let's pretend to be philosophical...
"Death is but only a beginning."