'Don't say the D-word,' this is how parents react when children talk about death. Its like saying - you-know-who or the one who must not be named in the Harry Potter books.
Death, in almost all cultures, traditions and religions, is a taboo word. When someone dies, children are not allowed to enter that place. They are just kept away. Forget children, elders also avoid this subject. They are either scared or do not want to bring up this topic.
The most logical reason that one says is - why should we think about death or talk about it. Just enjoy life now, just live.
Swami Nithyananda says - only when you know about death, you will know what life is. When you understand death, you will know how to live.
We either shrug off or avoid talking about death. The fact is we believe death is the end of life; death is something that will take away everything from us. Swami Nithyananda says, death is not the end, it is the climax. He says when we understand truly what death is, we start to see death in a totally different light. We see death as something giving, not as something taking away.
Swami Nithyananda quotes a story from Socrates' life. When Socrates was about to be poisoned, people around him saw him to be completely happy. They did not find him perturbed by it at all. Someone asked him, 'are you not scared? You are going to die soon.' Socrates gives a beautiful reply, 'why should I be scared? What can happen? Either I will start living in another body or I will be liberated. Either way, I will not lose anything.'
We always fear death because we believe that it will take away what ever we have. We want to hold on to our name, our status, our desires, our guilts, our pleasures, our sorrows strongly. And we believe that death will take all these things away from us.
Just one realization that all these are as temporary as flowing river, will give us a new insight into death. Just this clutching to what we think as ours makes us think death as a villian.
Only an enlightened master can speak what death is, what exactly is the process of death. Only he can express that experience because he has undergone a conscious process of death. In Life Bliss Program 2 (LBP2), Swami Nithyananda throws light on the process of death. He speaks out of His personal experience of death and takes us through the different body layers that a soul passes through at the process of death.
On a personal note, after going through LBP2, our whole perspective to death and life has undergone a 180 degree shift. After internalizing the deeper truths, we and I am sure many who have done LBP2, see death in its truest form and are no longer scared of it.
This topic is too big to put in one post and we putting it in words is not as experiential as an enlightened master speaking out of his experience... So we leave you with this video by Swami Nithyananda...N!joy!
-- Sri Nithya Arpanananda
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