Dying and fear of death

Some days ago a very sincere, gentle young man who served at the Ashram suddenly 'died'.

Some of the resident ashramites enjoy playing badminton in the evenings. I was informed that due to
the 'shocking, sudden death of a good, young person' nobody felt like 'playing'. Subsequently I recalled
the gentle nature of this co-traveller whose demeanor had touched my heart during our work together
some months ago. It was learnt that the young man was hit by an express train just after crossing the
railway tracks. He 'died' suddenly.

Such incidents propel a series of thoughts that enable deeper contemplation upon the meaning of
'death'.

'Normally' we see death as a sad event that invokes sadness, sympathy, inquiries into the reason and
also the past of such persons to determine whether the death was 'timely or untimely', warranted or
not, justified or not...etc. For those whom we do not know, we may sympathize momentarily; we may
extend our moral and other types of support if we have known the 'dead' person. Of course, the impact
of the news of death of a near and dear one invokes deeper sense of loss and related sentiments.

Swami Chinmayanandaji stated, "Every body dies, but nobody dies". This is the fundamental, profound
truth. God - the creator of this world - is evidently most empathetic because he knows that our nature
is to be swayed by all that attract us and in the process we fail to grasp the essence of Swamiji's
statement. Everywhere we look, there is birth, growth, decay, death in that sequence, as a perrenial
cycle. But we are so dazzled by the 'other' factors that we preferentially ignore this easy reminder in
display at every blink of our eyes!

What motivates me to share my perspectives herein is an intriguing statement I listened to from a

mature, well read, long time devotee of God. He stated that he has lost faith in the fairness of God, in
view of the sudden death of the young man I mentioned earlier herein! He rationalized that if a person
was genuinely good, why should he and his family be punished thus with sudden death?! I presume that
most of human population perhaps thinks accordingly.

The term 'disillusionment' is now a great teacher of mine. Now I understand the following:

 Vedanta teaches that we are unable to experience our true nature of happiness as we carry an
illusion that happiness is to be 'attained' from pleasant, positive thoughts, feelings and things!

 This indeed is an illusion - veil - a blockade - a misunderstanding, now I know.

 Death that persists at every level, everywhere within this entire creation is not a negative act
of the Creator; it is indeed a step forward in the process of evolutionary phenomena.

 In the Sanatana Dharma scriptures we learn that the moment of 'birth' is the beginning of
'death'. We all die and are reborn every moment, every day, only we 'fail' to recognize this
most basic worldly reality! It is indeed our misfortune!
Just as a lost person sees light at the end of a dark tunnel I am joyous that I too am able to experience
that ‘light’ which clearly indicates that each 'death' is simply a 'pro-motion' - in worldly terms, a
progressive elevation to the 'higher' state of life. It helps profoundly for each of us to understand and
remember that there is simply no ‘end’ or ‘finality’ or ‘death’ of anything, anyone. All of this creation
is involved in the ‘recycling’ process, albeit – flawlessly. We fail to grasp this phenomenal grandest of
scheme – ‘world-wide-web’ due to our erroneous perspectives and perceptions.

In ancient times Bharat Desh had the 'gurukul' education system that enabled each young person had an
option to learn these fundamental realities of life preparing such a one to not just live and survive but
thrive and be fearless, realistic, genuine, inwardly progressive and valiant in all aspects of life.

I am fortunate to share such profound facts with young ones and pray that they will learn to appreciate
all 'deaths' as 'pro-motions', fearlessly.