Meditations On Death

Gazing at the stars is one of the earliest forms of entertainment known to mankind-- yes, from as early as when we inhabited caves! On some silent nights, the noble savage must’ve looked up into those starlit skies and surely would’ve wondered with that insatiable curiosity which would eventually make him the best of the species of the Earth, as to what lies beyond that blue. Men bury their dead on earth yet throughout the ages they have looked for them in skies. He must've searched for his people too.There must have been fears of ghosts and spirits, and whatsoever supernatural his tribe might have invented to make reason of their surroundings to torment him; he would’ve pictured all of them.  Then certainly impermanence of life---his life, and the thought that what would become of him after death might’ve haunted him. Like his modern descendants, he would’ve also shrugged the thought off as it is too scaring to live with. But then he would have been restless for several minutes...

I have in many places mentioned as to how strongly consciousness has made us what we are. Man can think of the abstract, therefore he created death out of the dead. If you study the history of our civilization… turn over pages to see development of human psyche, you’d definitely come to a conclusion like I have, that Man’s life has throughout the ages been guided by the abstract not the concrete. And the greatest abstract living in our consciousness is death. Since most of my readers are very young---in early twenties and youth is characterized by a sort of arrogant denial of death, I doubt that whether you’ve really thought about death or not. Whether you have thought about it or not, death in its abstract form has lived with you since your birth.

Most of you are followers of a certain religion for atheists or the likes of them, the agnostics are very few in numbers in Indian scenario.  So if I want to address masses, I cannot escape talking about faiths. That’s why faith has been integral part of my posts. Every single religion of the world has stemmed out from death. None of the major faiths of the world assure you of a judgement in your lifetime, but definitely promise a reward or punishment in afterlife. Their philosophy is built on the premise that you’d die. Since the day of your christening or namkaran to that of your burial or cremation, there’d be a priest around, preparing and hoping for a comfortable after life for you. You grow up learning sacred verses and grow up incanting them fearing that you’d be otherwise punished by death or in death. In fact, Muslims have the concept of setting their ‘aakhirat’ right, and your greatest evils are believed to worsen it. So you see their whole lives are anchored towards death. In fact a thorough believer once told me a list of names that that defied god’s authority and consequently were killed early in life. Our belief is for the death. Most of the Indians do not think of iceberg when they talk of sinking of Titanic but that its makers were the people who challenged God. And since it is a Capital Sin and therefore, it was met with Capital Punishment, though it is a fact that none of those who died were makers of Titanic.

As I write this I am reminded of a conversation that I overheard a year ago. It would serve as a good example of how death is the guiding force of our religions, and therefore of our lives. This lady was expressing her grief for her only son had married a girl of different faith (she never accepted the couple in the family). “You sister”, said she to her listener “can at least hope that someone would baksh for you, but my daughter-in-law and son cannot even do that for my soul. I will never be in peace.” So in simplest terms, she didn’t reconcile with her son, for she would not receive right incantations after her death!

The first time I saw a dead body, I was twelve. I had sufficient intelligence about death to not to get horrified by the dead but even when people were elevating her to great heights merely because she was no more, I could not help but feel such revulsion from the sight that I never came near it even though the body was in our premises for several days. Since she was not an Indian citizen, there were many formalities to be completed, and one of it was taking pictures of her lifeless body. Later when I saw those pictures, I remember thinking how ugly she looked. Death and dead are always ugly. The only think that can make your body beautiful is the life force that resides in it. But somehow over the ages, we have glorified death to such extremes that people could even find face of the dead ‘happy’. Literature is replete with such angelic dead bodies.

As a child, I remember reading an eponymous story ‘BALGOBIN BHAGAT’. What remained in my little mind for longest was the titular character celebrating the death of his son, for he believed that his son had united with God while his poor daughter-in-law wailed with grief in some corner. I’ve already said that faiths have originated from death so it is necessary to think as to how our faiths have treated our knowledge about death. Hinduism has treated death as transitory phase, and therefore, you’d hardly find tales about long periods of mourning in its holy scriptures. But all Abrahamic religions regard death as final, and also there’s no concept of union with god. In all death is more melancholic in Abrahamic religions. I was much fond of the teleseries BOSTON LEGAL. In one of its episodes, Alan Shore asks his mad-cow stricken friend, Denny Crane as to whether he believes in afterlife or rebirth or not. Crane gave an affirmative as an answer while adding that otherwise is too great a hollow to live with. This brings me to the second major vein about my meditations about death that is impermanence of life. Since we are conscious of our impermanence and are sorrowful with the realization, we have invented or what believers would want to say, discovered afterlife. Think about it. 

I began with the noble savage because death is a savage realisation and has been passed down to the civilisation. Remember, the Stonehenge was for the dead! So you see this knowledge and brooding on death is in our genetic makeup. This morning I read a little about the collective human consciousness and how the fear of unknown rules us. What can be more unknown than what is fatal to know? So we are fearful of death. And all our philosophies are towards overcoming that fear. Yes the religion… the new fag word ‘spirituality’, yes! all to overcome that fear!

On one evening I began to think as to how exactly does one feel as that life force begins to drain out from his body? What does he feel, if he can? And above all what is usually the last thought as your consciousness dies? We do not know answers for any of these because they are few of those ever-lasting questions that are going to plague mankind for long. People who had near death experience say that they saw a kind of whiteness as they lose themselves. Most of them turned into thorough believers after such an experience as white is believed to be a divine colour. Scientists and psychologists are of opinions that as our systems successively shut down our mind sees a kind of blankness that they believe to be that reported whiteness. Up till now there has been little research on as to what exactly happens with your consciousness as you die. Death of Mind is a virgin area as far as our understanding is concerned. They say that if we somehow understand how our mind perceives death, we’d make a giant leap in understanding of our brain itself. So you see how important death as a question is for our specie!

After the discussion above, it would not come as a surprise to you that just a handful of writers have tried to write about the sensation of dying, and when I say writing about dying I mean the death of mind in the strictest sense of the word. The only noteworthy example that I can give you is of Tolstoy’s short story THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH. It is full of that sensation. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s CROSSING THE BAR is also a good work on death albeit it is not about sensation of dying.

Hitherto I have only talked of your own death but what about death of people who surround you? How does death of others affect one’s life? Let’s deepen our discussion now… So, what about others that die and you who sees them dying? If you read about people who try to cope up with loss of their loved ones you’d notice that all efforts are towards making senses of the deceased’s death. No matter what absurd conclusion you come down to but you must always be able to understand the loss. This is a psychological need which when left unattended leaves scars for life. I have this dictum in order to understand much of the mankind: Death is always hard for the living. Death must not be absurd else the living carry it to their graves. Just think for a moment, succumbing to some untreatable disease is still understandable but losing your people to some senseless accident, political strife or worse being used as a pawn in the state machinery, is simply too hard a morsel for human deglutition. Read Mahasweta Devi’s MOTHER OF 1084, and you’d understand what I mean by this that death ought not be absurd for the health of the living. If someone with a thriving life force dies because of poor roads, tires, cruel authorities or vested interests, it seems as if he was simply of no worth. To be negated to zero, is simply intolerable to man’s ego.

Since it is an irreversible change and mankind while been blessed with memory has also been cursed with nostalgia, so those who lose their dear ones to death search for some way to stay connected with them by whatever is left of them behind: their name, idea, belongings or as is the practice worldwide, their soul. So dead are remembered across all cultures and faiths.

For those of you who wish to really think and who think, you can never escape the enormity of death. All schools of philosophy have only moved around this question, and would continue to. If you really want to control your life by your free will, you must brood on what is death and since we are an egoistic lot, it would be incomplete a query without thinking on your death.