The Cycle of Life and Death
If we take a little time and look into our fear of death, we will see that it has the power to transform our life in the most positive way. We will realize that it is on our side and that it does not play a contradictory role in our lives and it is actually complementary to our lives.
Death is deep relaxation. It is the ultimate letting go. It is the dropping of the old and starting of the new. When our being recognizes that it cannot achieve what it wants to through this body, it decides to move on. This moving on, this passing over is what is called death.
When our brand new house becomes old after the passage of time, we either try to repair it or if that is too inconvenient and frustrating, we decide to sell the house and move into a new one. When we do this, do we feel that we are missing something? No! In the same way, when we feel that we have not lived our lives completely, fully in the way we wanted to, we leave this body to take a new one. We want to restart. God gives us a choice to start again, He gives us a boon and He blesses us. Our choice to start again is what is called death!
When we die, all that happens is that we rejuvenate our body and our mind. We take a fresh set of memories, a new setting, different set of relatives, and a new life. In other words, we take a new birth hoping to fulfill all our incomplete desires. We come back to finish whatever we left unaccomplished in the last birth. This choice given to us by God to start all over again is death.
However, without understanding this simple truth, we waste our whole lives doing everything possible to resist death. Once we add meditation to our lives, we start understanding our fears. Facing fear demystifies death. It is as if all the fog, all the snow, all the ice has been removed and we are able to see the sparkling water of understanding flowing clearly and beautifully. We start looking death in the eye.
When we face death, we see that it is nothing but life; because every moment we die, the next moment we are born. Death and birth are just cycles. If we die, we will be born; if we are born, we will die. We should understand that it is just a cycle. When this happens, we lose all fears. We start really living our lives. We start enjoying every breath that we take on planet Earth.
A small story:
The great philosopher Socrates was about to die. He had been forced by his detractors to drink hemlock, which is a deadly poison.
All his disciples were around him, mourning his impending death.
Socrates was his usual calm, composed self. Seeing his composure one of the younger disciples asked, 'You have been poisoned! You are about to die, and yet you are so relaxed, you are your usual self. Aren't you afraid of dying?'
Socrates looked up, smiled and said, 'Why should I be afraid of dying? Only two things can happen: either I will continue to exist in some form, in some name, in which case what is there to fear? Or I will cease to exist in any form, by any name, in which case who is there to fear? So either way there is nothing to fear!'
Beautiful, isn't it? Just courage and understanding can set us free of our deepest fears. Socrates was a rare kind of philosopher: He lived by his words. He practiced what he preached!
Modern physiologists claim that once every eighty days, all our blood cells change. Not a single one of the old cells remain. The whole lot, consisting of millions and millions of blood cells are replaced. In a total span of seven years, our entire body is replaced! It is a proven medical fact. We are not the same person that we were seven years ago. But does that fact upset us? Do we feel that we have lost something? No! The person who was there seven years ago is not there anymore. We are totally new people.
Understand that we are going through a continuous process of life and death. Yet, we are not disturbed. We are not frightened by this change that is happening within us. We don't feel like we are losing anything. Then why do we feel a sense of loss with death? That is because we have not faced it. We have not taken the time to study it, to understand it. That is why we feel so sick, so frightened of death.
When we face fear, the very concept of death disappears. Death becomes a God and Guru. Death is the master; master is death. Death teaches us beautiful things which life cannot teach us. Death is the greatest master. It empowers us; it sets us free from bondage. If this same understanding is applied to sex through meditation, then that also gets purified. It gets freed from our fantasies and dreams and flowers as ultimate love.
I always tell people: if one wants to spread anything all over the world one just has to put it up on a web site. It spreads immediately and reaches every corner of the globe. It becomes universal. Just add a 'dot com' and it becomes universal! Personal things become universal things. In the same way, add 'dot com' to your passion and it becomes 'com-passion'. When all our attention is covertly or overtly directed towards only one person, it is mere passion, lust. When we add the '.com' to lust it becomes universal, it becomes compassion. As long as it is directed towards one person, it is passion. When we give it to the whole world, it becomes compassion.