I was reading a small anecdote.
Once there were two little worms. The first was lazy and improvident, and always stayed
in bed late. The other was always up early, going about his business. The early bird caught the early worm. Then along came a fisherman with a flashlight, and caught the night crawler. Moral: You can''t win.
Death is
certain. Whatsoever you do-get up early or not-death is certain. It has already happened, that''s why it is certain; it is already happening, that''s why it is certain. So why wait for the moment when you are dying on your bed? Why not make it certain right now?
Just watch. If I say death is certain, can''t you feel fear disappearing within you? Can''t you feel that with the very idea-and it is just an idea right now, not your experience-with just an idea that death is certain, you are calm and quiet. If you can experience it.... And you can, because it is a fact. I am not talking about theories; I don''t deal in theories. This is a simple fact. Just open your eyes and watch it. And don''t try to avoid it; there is no way to avoid it. In avoiding, you miss. Accept it. Embrace it. And live with the consciousness that each moment you die and each moment you are born. Allow it to happen. Don''t cling to the past-it is no more, it is already gone. Why go on carrying dead things? Why be so burdened with corpses? Drop them. And you will feel weightlessness; you will feel unburdened.
And once you drop the past the future drops on its own accord, because the future is nothing but a projection of the past. In the past you had some pleasures; now the mind projects those same pleasures into the future. In the past you had some sufferings; now the mind projects a future in which those sufferings are not allowed to happen. That''s what your future is. What else is your future? Pleasures that you enjoyed in the past are projected and miseries are dropped. Your future is a more colorful and modified past, repainted, renovated, but it is the past. Once the past drops, suddenly the future drops-and then you are left here and now; then you are in existence, you are existential, and that is the only way to be. All other ways are just to avoid life. The more you avoid life, the more you become afraid of death.
A person who is really
living is not in any way afraid of death. If you are living rightly you are finished with death, you are already too grateful, fulfilled. But if you have not lived, then the constant worry continues, "I have not lived yet and death is coming. And death will stop all; with death there will be no future." So one becomes apprehensive, afraid, and tries to avoid death.
In trying to avoid death, one goes on missing life. Forget about that avoidance. Live life. In living life, death is avoided. In living life, you become so fulfilled that if this very moment death comes and the future stops, you will be ready. You will be happily ready. You have lived your life; you have delighted in existence; you have celebrated it; you are contented. There is no complaint, no grumbling; you don''t have any grudge. You welcome death. And unless you can welcome death, one thing is certain-you have not lived.
I have heard one anecdote.
Two Hungarian noblemen fell into a deadly quarrel. But since neither was anxious to risk his life with either sword or pistol, a bloodless duel was decided upon. Each was to speak a number, and the one presenting the higher number would be adjudged the winner. The seconds were of course at hand, and the excitement and suspense were extreme as the two noblemen, seated at opposite ends of a long table, bent to the task of thinking of a high number. The challenged party who had the privilege of going first. thought long and hard. The veins on his temples swelled, and the perspiration stood out on his forehead. "Three," he said finally.
The other duelist said at once, "Well,/>
When you are afraid of death even the number three is the ultimate. When you are afraid of death you go on finding excuses for how to go on living. Whether your life means anything or not one simply goes on finding excuses to prolong it.
In the West now, there is a craze about how to prolong life. That simply shows that somewhere life is being missed. Whenever a country or a culture-starts thinking about how to prolong life, it simply shows one thing-that life is not being lived. If you live life, then even a single moment is enough. A single moment can be equal to eternity. It is not a question of length, it is a question of depth; it is not a question of quantity, it is a question of quality.
Just think: would you like one moment of Buddha''s life or would you like a thousand years of your own life? Then you will be able to understand what I mean about the quality, the intensity, the depth. In a single moment fulfillment is possible: you can bloom and blossom. But you may not bloom for one thousand years, you may remain hiding in the seed.
This is the difference between the scientific attitude towards life and the religious attitude. The scientific attitude is concerned with prolongation-how to prolong life. It is not concerned with significance. So you can find old people in hospitals, particularly in the West, just hanging on. They want to die but the culture won''t allow them. They are fed up with just being alive; they are simply vegetating. There is no significance, no meaning, no poetry, because everything has disappeared, and they are a burden to themselves. They are asking for euthanasia but society does not allow it. Society is so afraid of death that it does not allow death even for people who are ready to die.