An Inconvenient Truth?

Try as we may to avoid it, death is constantly knocking at our doorstep. Fastforwarding a few years, we can anticipate that we’ll grieve for loved ones, endure the devastation and emptiness of loss, and become personally weakened by the assault of old age and infirmity. All such experiences prepare us for the inevitable end. Nevertheless, we live in a society where death is sterilised, sanitised and carefully sealed off from public view. The latest statistics indicate that 72% of people die without writing a will. Maybe they thought it would never happen to them. Maybe they just didn’t want to think about it. Despite our denial and defiance, time and tide wait for no man.

Death, however, need not be seen as an inconvenient truth, but rather the ultimate meditation to reinstate clarity and perspective into every aspect of our life.

Priority - death reminds us of our priorities; those critical things we must pursue before time runs out. The harsh reality of having to leave behind our possessions, positions and profiles, helps promote our spiritual practices on the ‘to-do’ list, knowing such practices to be our eternal wealth (sad-dhana iti sadhana).

Urgency - the chronic tendency to ‘put things off till later’ confronts us all, and the reminder of unpredictable temporality can heighten one’s urgency. Death not only reminds us of what is important, but urges us to pursue it now. There’s no point in killing time once you realise that time is actually killing you.

Humility – death fosters a deep sense of humility. When a young man explained his unease with the ancient ritual of bowing down before God, Srila Prabhupada told him that he would inevitably be forced to bow down when death appeared at his door. The utter powerlessness to counteract it helps us realise we are not in control and higher powers are at work. That level of acceptance brings great freedom and peace of mind. The annihilation of pride opens doors to higher spiritual realisation.

Clarity - through the lens of temporality, we perceive everything and everyone we complain about in a new light. We all have the experience of failing to appreciate things until they have gone. In presence we tend to focus on faults, but in absence we see significant value. Death lends us clarity of vision.

Immunity - in the face of permanent expiry, our worries and anxieties pale into insignificance. We build an inner immunity to apprehension. Life is full of many fears - of getting sick, of growing old, of being unsuccessful - but our greatest fear is of death, before which all others pale in comparison. Being fearless of death means that one is liberated from fear altogether.

Opportunity – a realised devotee undergoing terminal illness had a striking epiphany in his acute predicament: “When you get this close to death, you see that it is not what you thought. Throughout life we fear it, but when you are this close you see that it is not the end; it is a portal to opportunities beckoning us, a portal beyond which we are able to see our true existence and nature. It is not something negative or destructive; it is the opposite of that - hugely life affirming.”

For most of us, however, death hasn’t quite registered. That stubborn obliviousness to the inevitability of death is the inconvenient reality. Once the certainty of death sinks in, only then can we truly break free and live life unbound.