Death Spares No One

Someone I know told me that a famous young person, who was in every way healthy and fit, cheerful and positive about life, recently succumbed to an illness in spite of a formidable struggle, which ultimately took his life, so that his wife, whom he had married but a few days before, was widowed. My friend, like everyone else who was astounded by the news, expressed deep regret at the nature of life.

My response to him was: Birth and death, as Adi Shankaracharya has said --- punarapi jananam, punarapi maranam (born again, dying again) --- are ineluctable. They occur without our consent and may arise for the most unexpected of reasons.

Whether it be cancer or even a common cold, anything may become the occasion for the life force to depart from us. Death is no respecter of health or vigour; neither does it discriminate between the virtuous and the wicked, between a higher form of life such as the human and a lower existence such as a unicellular organism.

What, then, remains to us but the choice to live rightly before we depart, often unceremoniously.

If there is anything we ought to fear deeply, it is that state which lies “after death”, a stage preceding our inexorable rebirth.

That is why Adi Shankaracharya has said:

Punarapi jananam,

Punarapi maranam,

Punarapi janani jathare shayanam;

Iha samsare bahudustare,

Kṛpaya pare pahi Murare.

Born again, dying again, entering once more the mother’s womb; this worldly existence is indeed difficult to cross. O Lord Murari (Krishna), in Thy grace, bear me across.

It is time for us to make peace with ourselves --- with our minds --- and to resolve to attain Him in this very birth, which has been granted to us as a gift, yet which may, in fearful swiftness, be snatched away within days or even minutes.