Such a view is
not accepted in Hinduism. According to Hindu view, an individual is potentially
divine, but he or she commits sin due to Maya
(cosmic ignorance), which is
a metaphysical principle and not a moral one. Although Christianity does not label
its spiritual disciplines as Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, the Christian emphasis
on love of mankind with one''s duties dedicated to the service of God is
essentially a path of Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga. It is our inability to
distinguish life from death increased complexities in our live for generations.
Were we to pursue rigorously the path shown by our ancient sages perhaps, half
the phenomenon touching the subject may have been understood. Today in many
countries, rationally thinking people are trying to combine scientific data and
mystical revelation to make clear precisely what the sages meant by death and
its survival. The route maps today are still imperfect, but there is hope that
few more generations of man may land on the edge of a new frontier! Ideas need
to be sparked off in all directions for linking available insight. Wide-eyed
sense of wonder needs to be further probed.
A gap between
orthodoxy in science and medicine and Para physical needs to be bridged; and very soon "cosmic law and
order" will reveal itself. J. Krishnamurthy interpreted "Death"
differently: In the autumn, with the coming of cold weather, the leaves fall the
trees, and reappear in the spring. Similarly, should we not die to everything
of yesterday, to all our accumulations and hopes, to all the successes that we
have gathered? Should we not die to all that and live again tomorrow, so that
like a new leaf, we are fresh, tender, sensitive? To a man who is constantly
dying, there is no death. To a man who insists on continuing there is always
death and that man knows no love; he has not let his ego die; his sense of a
separate and personal identity, however distorted, wish to carry on, he refuses
to renew his pool of consciousness. Death is an enigma. A lot is said and
written in the ancient scriptures. There are examples of the experience of death
of present day scientists through their dying men under observation. It is
impossible to define life without death. Up to its very last link, life is a
biochemical chain reaction. Once life is launched, like a bullet it must reach its
final destination, which is death. Death is less frightening, however, when we
concede that life attains maximum fullness only when it is guided by an ideal,
by something for which we are willing to die if necessary.
Whatever
incites us to die also incites us to live with greater intensity. That''s why
the lives of heroes, mystics and martyrs are more intense than the life of an
ordinary mortal. That''s also why love and the pleasures of the senses are felt
more intensely by people who are facing death in a war or revolution. A noble
example of a serene attitude towards death is to be found in the last letters
that Dr Wilson, physician, naturalist, artist and Antarctic explorer, wrote to
his wife from the icy wastes of the South Pole. The men in Scott''s ill-fated
expedition of which Dr Wilson was a member, was starving, had no fuel with
which to keep warm. Dr Wilson''s letters were found
near his
ice-sheathed body. "Don''t be unhappy", he wrote. We are playing a
good part in the great scheme arranged by God himself. We will all meet after
death, and death has no terrors." The roots of fear of death are fear of
pain and of the feeling of anguish that is implicit in dying, and the sadness
of leaving loved ones and joys that bind us to the world. Third, and perhaps
most important, is fear of the unknown.
Death, with
exceptions, is not accompanied by physical pain. Rather, it is suffused with serenity,
even a certain well-being and spiritual exaltation, caused by the anesthetic
action of carbon dioxide on the central nertem. Science reveals that
the sensation of dying is like that of falling asleep. And if a person accepts
his death as an act of service to an ideal, or as the end of his life''s work,
it could be a blessing. It could be accepted more willingly if we knew that we
had fulfilled our duty in life. Fear of the unknown is similar to the childhood
fear of darkness.