How to overcome the fear of death?

Today you are here, and everything is so real — you, your wife/husband, your child, your property, your work, your ideas, your ego. Each and everything is real. Today you are here, appearing so real. Tomorrow morning, if you are dead, what will happen to you? Where are you then? Where did you go?

Your body is a nuisance. Once you are dead, would anybody want to keep your body? If even the most loved one in your family dies, will you keep the body in your bedroom? Like Sankara says, “Bharya Bibyathi Tasmin Kaye”. Meaning, “Tomorrow if you die, that person who loved you very much or who seemed to love you, even she will be scared of this one (the body)”.

This is only a body, so don't get attached. You do know that if we bury you here, you become earth. If we burn you, immediately the results are there for you to see. If we bury you, it takes a little longer. But what happens to you? This needs probing. It definitely needs looking into, isn't it? Because this man who is here today, so real, tomorrow if he can suddenly evaporate, disappear, it is your business to know what happened, because it is going to happen to you also. Definitely, it is everybody's business to know, isn't it? So that's where the first step is.

The first step is you start looking at death. And if you start looking at your own death, you will definitely become spiritual; there is no other way. Unfortunately, today, in our society you avoid the word death itself. Even children cannot use that word. You say “Rama, Shiva”. The word “death” is banned at home because you are scared. Just the word, the reminder, scares you. Many people are scared to even see a funeral procession in their streets because it reminds them of their own death. Whatever you may shut yourself off to, are you really going to shut off death?

Once you are in physical form, there are certain laws, because the whole physical matter has to be under a certain law. The very creation happens on a certain basis. How long the life of the body extends depends on various factors - karmic factors, physical factors and energy factors. And there is another thing, the ultimate thing, that the time's over. Once time is up, there is no business for that being to be here anymore. It is finished.

Source: Jaggi Vasudev, Isha founder.

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