Birth - Death

Birth and death are two important events in life. Both are necessary for every human being.
All of us here right now have already taken birth. Death eventually will also come to everyone. So many births and deaths are seen happening in the world every day.
Now that we already born, there is nothing we had to do for it. And since it is impossible to prevent death, there is nothing we need to do for that either.
When, where and in what way the death may come to anyone, nobody will ever know. Death can come to anyone, at any time, at any place, and in many different ways. Birth and death are both inevitable events. Such is the law of nature.

Existence in itself is only auspicious. Every event that takes place in the existence is an expression of auspiciousness. Therefore, death must also be an auspicious event.
People have all along come to see birth as auspicious, but no one is yet prepared to see death as something auspicious. Since birth and death are mutually complimentary, both must logically be equally auspicious.
When a person's age approaches hundred years, death is generally accepted much more readily. Nevertheless, the news of even such a death is considered as sad one, implying that the family has lost something precious.
Death at a relatively younger age is considered inauspicious by everybody. Yet the possibility of anybody dying always exists. There is a common deep-rooted belief that the body must stay healthy up to the age of hundred. But beliefs are one thing and the reality is something else.
Keeping the ailing body alive by any means does not appear to serve any purpose. The thing to remember is to take good care of the body and make the best use of it as long as it lives. Therefore, rather than worrying about how much longer one lives, it would be more meaningful to take care of the body so that it remains fit to fulfill its purpose of being here.
With this perspective, when I look at my own life, I find myself thinking,
(a) How do I make the best use of my body's remaining time on earth?
(b) How do I take good care of this body during this period?
The real meaning of the second objective lies in the fulfillment of the first. It is meaningless to worry about the well being of the body while paying no attention to fulfilling its purpose. Thus taking care of the body makes sense only when it can be utilized for its intended purpose.
I am a human being. My main purpose in life is to know the truth and teach it to others. Therefore, I make the best use of this body when:
(1) I constantly keep on studying to quench my innate thirst for knowledge of reality,
(2) I express, share with others, and live my life according to that understanding,
(3) And keep my body fit for achieving the above goals.
Just as birth, death is also an inevitable event for all humans. Everybody appears to know this truth and only to remind us of this fact death of someone or the other keeps happening everyday around us. We ourselves talk about such happenings from time to time. At such occasions, people often reflect on their own lives and realize the futility of many of their deeds and emotions. But soon they forget all this and revert back to their old way of living. One person once said to his brother while cremating the dead body of a loved one on the bank of Yamuna, "I have been to these cremation grounds hundreds of times before. When I am here I constantly think what this life is all about; but as soon as I leave this place, I forget and start to live my life, as if nothing has happened." We can all relate to having similar experiences ourselves.
We remain speechless about those who cast their bodies and leave us and after expressing our grief only for a short while we go back to our business as usual. Seeing this time and time again, many saints and wise men have repeatedly exhorted us to always remember that death may come to anybody at any time. They often wondered why people, even after seeing many such dreadful instances, continue to behave as if nothing will ever happen to them.
Of course the question then arises as to what is the use of remembering such painful experiences anyway? Should people keep on dwelling on such dreadful events as death? And should they keep on crying and feeling helpless and miserable all the time? This, of course, is not what we are to do. We are here to live our lives so as to best express the innate beauty of the life within us in all our daily activities.
……From the diary of late Sri Yashpal Satyaji
Translated by Jaipal Rathi