Sujataji: No, no it was not about fulfilling something there. I was just trying to convey the fact that all our fears about death comes from the mystery surrounding death.
To understand death, we need to understand life. Go down deep into it. Where does it begin, where does it end? And what is it in the meantime? Who am I, who am I? Each day there is a flower in the plant in my garden. Yesterday's had wilted and fallen. But today's is the same flower. It is fresh and new. There is the same fragrance. The flower is beautiful. Then it too wilts and falls. Can we look at everything as flowers, fresh and fragrant new flowers? Then there is no death. When there is no death there is neither fear nor hope in death. Hope is in the future that is never born. (How is that Arun? We surprise ourselves sometimes, don't we? I am dead scared of death, just as you are.-)
Venu Chettan: Now, it’s the other way around; last things first. How did you get it, that I’m scared of death? I’m, I think and happy to know that I got company. Just the other day I experienced it. It was on Monday (or early Tuesday?) Around 1 at night I started to feel chest pain, exactly on the left side. I read medical journals and I sometimes feel that I have all the symptoms of some major illnesses. So if there’s chest pain and it radiates to the left arm one is supposed to be on the verge of cardiac arrest. I got scared anticipating the pain which I heard was excruciating to the point of being unbearable. And considering some of the facts like I was posting about death in my blog, there’s a wedding at home next month…it’s time to die. ( I could almost hear people talk’ “ yea he had foreseen it and his blog was filled with posts about death.” “We are to God what flies are to wanton boys, they kill us for their sport” – Lear.) Though my friend suggested that it would be gastric problem, he too got tensed after a while and drove me to the hospital. The thing about lying on bed in the emergency of a hospital is that it simply makes you helpless. Your eyes are fixed on the roof, there’s no pillow to support your head. So you feel that you are at the mercy of others. Doctors came, nurses came, questions were asked I underwent some tests and lay there for a couple of hours before I was told that all’s well with my heart. Lying there I was thinking; did I hurt anybody? Did I do injustice to anyone? How can people kill each other? Next to my bed was a college student who was severely fractured in a fall from the third floor of the hostel. He was groaning and writhing in pain. It’s not death but anticipating it is the worst. We don’t pay much attention to it when we are happy and healthy. But the awareness that all these, just all these can turn upside down in a jiffy is startling.
When I think about the bigger questions like where I came from and where am I going to I always get the image of shooting stars in my mind. From darkness to darkness shedding a moment of light in the process. I’ve not started yet to attribute it all to the almighty and I’m blasphemous sometimes. But considering the fact that energy is never lost but transferred to other forms (Law of conservation of energy) is it possible that energy that makes us go just gets destroyed when one dies? Am I blabbering?
You are not at all blabbering, Arun. Now, to put things in the order in which you had presented the matter, I think I have nowadays a sixth sense with which I can smell out the mood of others. You have been a bit down these days and it is there in some of your recent posts. This is a passing phase. One of the things I have noticed watching myself is our tendency to wallow in sentiments. How exactly you describe the tendency. ("I could almost hear people talk’ “ yea he had foreseen it and his blog was filled with posts about death.” “We are to God what flies are to wanton boys, they kill us for their sport” – Lear. etc.) I have noticed that when we allow sentiments and romance to come in through the door, reality goes into hiding. There is some kind of intoxication in indulging in sentiments. We work them up until, by degrees, they have us totally in their control. I have also noticed, watching myself, that thought is like an embryo in the womb--it has a life of its own and keeps growing till it becomes more than a reality. I do not mean to say we should ignore a chest pain when we have one. I have wondered why we are so afraid of death, when it is the most natural thing to happen, the only certainty there is. Life and death are the same, they are inseparable. Life carries the seed of death inside and death is actually a flowering, the climax. Moment by moment from birth we are building up to the ecstatic climax of an orgasmic flowering. We somehow perceive death as the opposite of life. This conflict is an illusion, isn't it? This illusion is the seat of all our fears. I am vaguely aware of a condition where we can be free of this illusion, not at a theoretical or philosophical level, but at a deep psychic level. Life assumes a dimension beyond anything our mind can conceive when we understand deep down its inseparable bond with death. We need not attribute it to the almighty. We can even be blasphemous. But, when we go beyond the arithmatical way of putting logic upon logic to reach conclusions, we start experiencing something flowing in and flowing out. And that is something that cannot be put into words.
6 comments:
interesting... as mysterious as death itself!
maybe its the begining to achieve all that was unfulfilled in this life
Kaalpanique: Thanks for dropping by.
Sujataji: No, no it was not about fulfilling something there. I was just trying to convey the fact that all our fears about death comes from the mystery surrounding death.
To understand death, we need to understand life. Go down deep into it. Where does it begin, where does it end? And what is it in the meantime? Who am I, who am I? Each day there is a flower in the plant in my garden. Yesterday's had wilted and fallen. But today's is the same flower. It is fresh and new. There is the same fragrance. The flower is beautiful. Then it too wilts and falls. Can we look at everything as flowers, fresh and fragrant new flowers? Then there is no death. When there is no death there is neither fear nor hope in death. Hope is in the future that is never born.
(How is that Arun? We surprise ourselves sometimes, don't we? I am dead scared of death, just as you are.-)
Venu Chettan: Now, it’s the other way around; last things first. How did you get it, that I’m scared of death? I’m, I think and happy to know that I got company. Just the other day I experienced it. It was on Monday (or early Tuesday?) Around 1 at night I started to feel chest pain, exactly on the left side. I read medical journals and I sometimes feel that I have all the symptoms of some major illnesses. So if there’s chest pain and it radiates to the left arm one is supposed to be on the verge of cardiac arrest. I got scared anticipating the pain which I heard was excruciating to the point of being unbearable. And considering some of the facts like I was posting about death in my blog, there’s a wedding at home next month…it’s time to die. ( I could almost hear people talk’ “ yea he had foreseen it and his blog was filled with posts about death.” “We are to God what flies are to wanton boys, they kill us for their sport” – Lear.) Though my friend suggested that it would be gastric problem, he too got tensed after a while and drove me to the hospital. The thing about lying on bed in the emergency of a hospital is that it simply makes you helpless. Your eyes are fixed on the roof, there’s no pillow to support your head. So you feel that you are at the mercy of others. Doctors came, nurses came, questions were asked I underwent some tests and lay there for a couple of hours before I was told that all’s well with my heart. Lying there I was thinking; did I hurt anybody? Did I do injustice to anyone? How can people kill each other? Next to my bed was a college student who was severely fractured in a fall from the third floor of the hostel. He was groaning and writhing in pain. It’s not death but anticipating it is the worst. We don’t pay much attention to it when we are happy and healthy. But the awareness that all these, just all these can turn upside down in a jiffy is startling.
When I think about the bigger questions like where I came from and where am I going to I always get the image of shooting stars in my mind. From darkness to darkness shedding a moment of light in the process. I’ve not started yet to attribute it all to the almighty and I’m blasphemous sometimes. But considering the fact that energy is never lost but transferred to other forms (Law of conservation of energy) is it possible that energy that makes us go just gets destroyed when one dies? Am I blabbering?
You are not at all blabbering, Arun. Now, to put things in the order in which you had presented the matter, I think I have nowadays a sixth sense with which I can smell out the mood of others. You have been a bit down these days and it is there in some of your recent posts. This is a passing phase.
One of the things I have noticed watching myself is our tendency to wallow in sentiments. How exactly you describe the tendency. ("I could almost hear people talk’ “ yea he had foreseen it and his blog was filled with posts about death.” “We are to God what flies are to wanton boys, they kill us for their sport” – Lear. etc.)
I have noticed that when we allow sentiments and romance to come in through the door, reality goes into hiding. There is some kind of intoxication in indulging in sentiments. We work them up until, by degrees, they have us totally in their control. I have also noticed, watching myself, that thought is like an embryo in the womb--it has a life of its own and keeps growing till it becomes more than a reality. I do not mean to say we should ignore a chest pain when we have one.
I have wondered why we are so afraid of death, when it is the most natural thing to happen, the only certainty there is. Life and death are the same, they are inseparable. Life carries the seed of death inside and death is actually a flowering, the climax. Moment by moment from birth we are building up to the ecstatic climax of an orgasmic flowering. We somehow perceive death as the opposite of life. This conflict is an illusion, isn't it? This illusion is the seat of all our fears.
I am vaguely aware of a condition where we can be free of this illusion, not at a theoretical or philosophical level, but at a deep psychic level. Life assumes a dimension beyond anything our mind can conceive when we understand deep down its inseparable bond with death.
We need not attribute it to the almighty. We can even be blasphemous. But, when we go beyond the arithmatical way of putting logic upon logic to reach conclusions, we start experiencing something flowing in and flowing out. And that is something that cannot be put into words.
Post a Comment