DEATH – Why do we respond the way we do?

Death - it means different things to different people. And it is based on our experience (with death) which in turn mostly drives our awareness.

People have different experiences with death. Young people, who may not have seen death happening around them, in their close family and friend circle. When death happens to someone close to them, they mostly react with disbelief. "How can something like this happen?” How could it happen to them.

Whereas people who have had already experienced death in their close circle and have already gone through the pain of losing someone close to them, death comes more of as grief than disbelief. These people mostly have accepted death as a reality of life. Now it does not come as a complete revelation to them but more as something painful - (which they understand a bit more now) – since it has happened to someone close.

As this experience of death grows, it normally leads to more awareness. Awareness about Life and Death. People realize that as life is real so is death. And in some sense more real. Since for many people life many not really happen fully, but death happens - fully, completely.
Though it may not be certain when it will happen - but happen it will for sure - for anyone and everyone. This is the prime truth of life. That one day, howsoever strongly one may be bound to the earthly things, one has to depart and leave everything behind. Once this realisation grows in a person, so does his or her awareness.

And when awareness grows completely, one will no more grief death. He or she will accept it as they accepts life. Reaching such a stage is the culmination of realisation. One can be called a realised being. But very few reach such a stage. Most of us are only partially there. And there is a huge spectrum in ones awareness of death - between reacting to death with "disbelief" and reacting to it with "acceptance". And based on this awareness, does our response to death happen.

Also a very important aspect which plays a role on this awareness about death is also the recency of any past event of death. Sometimes our awareness is inversely proportional to the time that has lapsed between out last experience to an event of death.
This is due to a very strong human trait (I call it - back to life) which helps us to forget the “ultimate reality” and makes us believe that the life happening around is the “only reality” and makes us indulge fully in it. Some people even talk highly of this trait and claim that without this trait all of us would take to vairagya.

This can be well explained by the concept of 'smashaan vairagya' and how most of us sometimes experience it. [Vairagya is a Sanskrit word, meaning the opposite of ragya. And ragya means color or passion of life. So Vairagya means no passion towards life or a colorless life]. Some of us would have observed this after attending a cremation or burial, we start questioning life, “What is it all about and what is the purpose of us trying to work hard towards a secure future, when in reality this is where we all have to reach”. This is called as smashaan vairagya, since this kind of vairagya remains with us only for a few minutes till we walk out of the place – or till we start our car and make that phone call to the world outside – our spouse, work, friends, etc, and our “back to life” trait takes over.

Now this “back to life” trait also plays a big role in our awareness – not just to death but to our overall levels of awareness. And with respect to death, depending on how much the “back to life” trait is strong in us, will determine our response to death.

That according me explains why we see different people responding differently to death, when it happens around them.

Here are some of the quotes that I have read about death and liked:

• "It is amazing to see, how people continue to ignore death, as it may never happen to them".

• "We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning." - Marcus Manilius

• "Death is stranger to and feared by Fools; To wise men, "death" is a friend and welcomed"

• "Fools delay spiritual culture for they forget nearness to death; Wise men cultivate themselves every minute for they remember it"

• "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead." - Albert Einstein
  

Ameet Mattoo
New Delhi.