Let’s celebrate death as much as we celebrate life when someone is born, because life never ceases when we leave our body, says the writer
I came across a quote by Stevens Wallace that said, “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams and desires.” It set my mind wandering and I pondered why is it that we always talk of death as something fearful? To my mind when we know that death is anyway going to come knocking on our door, shouldn’t we do everything we can to make life beautiful and exciting?
Desires are often criticised and considered bad, because they drench us into the materialistic world, which we call Mayajal. Divested of all its religiosity, we realise that it is desire that spurs us into action. Desire makes us work. From a simple desire to drink a cup of tea to a big dream to own a beautiful BMW, all bring action in our life. When we desire something it follows that we got to work to acquire it.
Knowing that death is inevitable inspires us to fulfil as many of our desires and dreams in the short span of time available to us on this planet. We set goals for ourselves, which motivate us to work hard because we would like to achieve them before we die. Achieving the goal in a short span of life is what excites us and infuses enthusiasm or life in life.
If there was no death, there would be no birth. If everyone lived forever, won’t it be a boring dull world? Living beings may have no motivation to work at all. All actions may get postponed by thinking where is the hurry when it can be done later? We would all be living a life of lethargy and inaction. Emotions like love and hate may also lose their intensity, because people we love or hate will be around forever.
Change makes life interesting and beautiful. Seasons must change to make us sit up and look at the wonders of nature. If trees didn’t shed leaves, we would never look forward to them to bloom again and bring beauty and joy in our lives. Water too must evaporate, as water vaporises to form clouds, so that we can feel nostalgic and romantic once again, when it falls as raindrops and brings cheer and brightness in our surroundings. Seasonal fruits and flowers make us look forward to their arrival with the change of every season.
“Destroying is a necessary function in life. Everything has it season, and all things eventually lose their effectiveness and die,” says Margaret J. Wheatley. Let us not fear death but look at it as a must for the continuous growth of our soul―a chance to be reborn.
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it,” Mark Twain said. In the Bhagavad Gita, when Arjun is hesitant to fight the war with his cousins and elders standing opposite him in the battle field, Lord Krishna says:
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि।
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही।।2.22।।
“Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so also the embodied Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters others which are new.”
However, in fulfilling our desires, our aspirations, we must not forget the principles of Dharma that tells us to live a righteous life. We must accept life and death as a natural cycle of energy that changes form, but remains forever. Born as human, our guiding factor should be humanity. Our actions should have the right intent and be done for the larger good.
So let us celebrate death as a blessing for our life on earth. Celebrate life because it never ceases with the death of a body.
Truly, death is the harbinger of change―for the better.
Nita Agarwal is an ex-Table Tennis State player, qualified teacher, self-taught budding painter, a successful blogger, who writes about her observations of life and people; and most importantly, a working housewife.