Essential Philosophy: Are You Afraid of Death?
By Raja Sharma
Copyright@2011 Raja Sharma
Smashwords Edition
All Rights Reserved.
Chapter One
The mere mention of the word “Death” frightens you, doesn’t it? We are often so much lost in our own worlds of worldly affairs that we never think about it. When we hear about the death of someone close to us, we definitely pause for a moment to present our sympathies to the relatives of the departed soul, but that is all. We assume that this word “Death” belongs to other and we are immune.
Then follow, sooner or later, the sad incidents when we have to lose our parents, relatives, or friends, and their departure from this earth definitely makes us pause for a longer period to seriously think about it. We are suddenly scared, I mean, very scared because we begin to feel that it could well happen to us.
The other day, a friend of mine said to me, “You are always happy. What is the secret of your permanent happiness?”
I smiled and said, “Why shouldn’t I be happy when death is somewhere waiting for me?”
“Aren’t you afraid of death?” he said very gravely, constantly looking in my eyes.
“I have never possessed anything in my life so why should I be worried if I have to leave everything one day?”
“But you have a very successful business, a beautiful wife, wonderful children, and your friends and all that you have earned in your lifetime. Won’t you be sorry to leave all this behind?” he tried to explore.
“Yes, I got rewarded in this life with material, children, friends, etc. but they are not mine. The same applies to everything in this world. I started dying the day I was born. In my youth, I never cared but now I have understood the cause of human misery. Everything is so deeply attached to material and relations but if you are ready to alienate yourself from this bondage, you are ready to die happily.”
My friend did not ask further and he changed the topic. However, I realized or it clearly seemed that he had already begun to think seriously.
I have concluded that accumulation of anything is bad because it has to be left behind one day. You accumulate power, money, respect, virtues, knowledge, and spiritual experiences but everything is going to be left behind. If you are attached to the accumulations, you are definitely not going to die peacefully. I have used these accumulations and never really believed that they are mine so that the loss of them wouldn’t make me sad. If you don’t accumulate anything you are ready to die any moment because you have nothing to lose.
You are actually not afraid of death; on the contrary, you are afraid of losing your possessions. You want to cling to all that you have accumulated and you are not ready to part with them. How beautifully Lord Jesus had said,” Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
One day I met a very old beggar. He was laughing and dancing. He was really happy, extremely happy. I was surprised how a beggar could be so happy.
I rallied courage and said to him, “Baba, what makes you so happy? You are a beggar and you are happier than the people who are so rich?”
The beggar scrutinized me from top to bottom and said, “I have renounced this entire world and everything in it. I have nothing to lose now so I am happy. Why do you waste your time with me? Go and do your work and buy more things for your house and your children…”
The beggar turned and went away but he left me completely shaken. I had definitely found something which was more precious than all that I had accumulated.
Don’t understand me wrong because I don’t want you to become a beggar by renouncing this world. I want you to be in this world but don’t be of the world. You can buy anything and accumulate as much as you want but don’t accumulate inside. Be poor in spirit.
This life is not a problem: possessiveness is the problem. The more you accumulate: the more you are attached to your possessions. You don’t want to lose them. If you are free from any kind of attachment inside, you are pure and your spirit is uncontaminated, and as a result you are ready to disappear any moment. You are not afraid of death because you are not losing anything. When death comes to you, without any regret you will be ready for the new experience.
It is hard to think like that, isn’t it? Yes, it is difficult because you have never trained yourself in this way. You have been trained to accumulate things, to give your own name to the possessions you have, and to boastfully announce your worldly possessions and achievements. You might think I am mad because I am saying all this so easily. Yes, I am mad because I am not like you. My madness is the result of nothingness, the divine state of being. I have all the people in the world around me but I am alone inside and I don’t want any accumulation in there.
In the Western world things are very important, the things which they are able to buy after their hard work. The same is in the Eastern world but there are many fake and misguiding gurus in countries like India and they tell you not to accumulate things, they tell you to earn virtues, knowledge, spirituality, and strengthen your character. They convince you that your cars, houses, money, etc. will not go with you after your death but they assure you that your virtues, your knowledge, and the spiritual experiences will go with you. Wrong! Absolutely Wrong! Don’t you see that you will still be accumulating in some other form? I tell you not to accumulate at all. I just tell you to lead a pure life, a life of goodness, a life of helpfulness, a life which is full of smiles.
If you begin to accumulate anything, even the things your spiritual gurus tell you to acquire, you will be a loser and you will not be ready for death. It will not be a peaceful experience for you. I tell you to continue to flow in the river of goodness and happiness, just flow but don’t accumulate anything. If you help a hungry man on the way of your journey and feed him, it is good but never think that it is a virtue which is being added to your accounts and you will be rewarded in other life. If you try to buy virtues in this way, you will be missing life. I tell you to be virtuous intrinsically, without ever thinking that you are doing something which is going to prove you better than others.
The fake gurus in the Eastern world seem to be basically greedier than the ordinary worldly people. Such sellers of religion and philosophy have their logic: don’t accumulate in this world because death will take it away, so accumulate something that death cannot take away from you. They tell you to accumulate virtue, punya (good deeds); accumulate character, morality, knowledge; accumulate experiences, spiritual experiences, experiences of Kundalini, meditation, this and that; accumulate something that death cannot take away from you. I am telling you not to accumulate at all. I am telling you to just experience the happenings and let them go. Free yourself from all that is trying to bind you.
I am amazed to see the Yogi Gurus who teach people how to breathe properly: inhale deeply like this, hold your breath for a while, exhale deeply, and hold your breath for a while. They take you away from the normal natural breathing and load you with a fear that your normal breathing is wrong. Now you have a fear in your mind and you begin to breathe as the guru has taught you. It has brought fear with it.
You see, accumulation brings fear and you are afraid of losing all that you have accumulated.
I don’t tell you to become a Sanyasi, a recluse, or a hermit: I simply tell you to be very much there in this world, enjoy all that you are doing, but don’t accumulate. Feel like an outsider even in the crowd of the people who are very close to you. If you begin to give more importance to this closeness, then separation is going to be very painful and death will definitely be a very ugly for you.
I am not preparing you for death; on the contrary, I am telling you to live more freely so that even death does not frighten you.
Chapter Two
“Blessed are the poor in spirit” brings me back to a very old story:
Once there was a very powerful king. He suddenly renounced all his worldly possessions and left his palace and kingdom. Having left his kingdom, he became a beggar, a mystic, a Sufi.
One day the former king was in the company of another Sufi mystic. That person was continuously complaining of his poverty. The former king was quite puzzled.
He said to the complaining Sufi, “You abuse your poverty so much. It seems that you have bought your poverty very cheaply.”
“How stupid you must be!” the man retorted, not knowing to whom he was talking, not knowing that he was once the emperor. He said, “How stupid you must be to think that one buys poverty.”
The king replied, “In my case, I paid my kingdom for it. I would even give away a hundred worlds for a single moment of it, for every day its value becomes more and more to me. No wonder then that I give thanks for it while you lament it.”
The word Sufi is derived from Arabic word Safa. It means purity, the purity of the spirit. A Sufi is a person who is pure in the heart. It is not easy to become really poor with purity of heart. You will have to sacrifice a lot; you will have to break all your attachments.
Generally, when the scholars and pundits talk about purity of heart, they try to convince you that morality is the most important thing; they try to mould you in the way they think is moral. They confuse it with general morality.
To me purity of heart is quite different. The purity here has nothing to do with morality. It simple refers to a state of mind which is totally uncontaminated and except for your consciousness there is nothing else. There is no room for your worldly possessions, even for the thoughts related to your worldly possessions. This state of mind is very hard to get to but once you attain to this divine state you want to continue to dwell in it. There is no room for accumulations in a person with such a state of mind.
My definition of spirituality is also different from all those definitions which are crammed into your minds by philosophers, or religious gurus. To me a real spiritual man never accumulates anything. He goes through many experiences in life but he never accumulates them. Things happen to him but he continues to forget them; he does not want those experiences to be repeated. Unlike religious preachers who tell you to continue to keep on repeating the mantras and hymns, my spiritual person never prays for the repetition of the experiences which he has had. My spiritual man is always ready to experience something new and he never wants to possess old. I don’t mean to say that you should shed all that is old. I only mean to say this in respect of those experiences which are not physical. It does not mean that you should throw your old parents out of your house, or you should discard your library of books because you think the books are old.