Death! First of all I would like to clear the meaning of death. It is referred to as an act of dying which signifies ‘to stop living’. There are two main mythologies associated with death. One suggests that after death soul renounces the body and according to your good or bad karma the soul is granted a place in heaven or hell respectively. Here karma refers to the deeds committed during the lifetime.
The second one is based on the myth of cycle of life and death. According to it once you complete your share of good karma and attain the feat of eternal knowledge the soul is freed from the cycle of life and death. There is no clear mention however that what happens to soul. An extension which merges both the theories is that the hell signifies earth where we are engaged in unethical worldly pleasures and sins. Ironically, is no concrete proof till date about what actually happens after death or it’s consequences etc.
And life! It is referred to as a state where activity takes place i.e. actions can be carried out independently (in a broad sense). We all know about life as it is. Therefore, I take the liberty of not explaining it much.
Now after briefly explaining about life and death I start my discussion about life and death relative to each other. It is a fact that everyone loves life. Everyone wants to live on forever. We treasure life as the most valuable thing. A thing which has no equal. On the contrary we fear death. We fear that someday it will take possession of us. Death ‘as we know’ begins where life ends.
But to think of it what exists before we exist i.e. life exists? Can we call it death too? In my opinion we can! Death is after all defined as to cease to exist which implies no existence at all or to be extinct. This exactly is the case before we take birth. It is only after we take birth that we make an identity, we start to live.
Concerning this the first argument which comes to mind is that after death we leave back an identity of a person. But won’t it also be destroyed with time? How many generations will remember you as a person? The next argument that comes up is about history. “That we do remember about ancient times. It is all there in historical records”. The first correction I would like to make is that we KNOW about ancient times through historical records and not remember them. Also let me remind you that there are predictions that so and so person will come and do such and such things. But there is no way to find the truth unless we witness it ourselves. Same goes with history. If we talk about historical records then as for today if I write a historical record full of lies and bury it somewhere deep. Let us assume it is found after about 1000 years. At that time no-one would know truth about our time. They will just see my record as a magnificent discovery. What I want to make clear is that the historical records we discovered were written under the rule of a certain king so it is natural that it will contain his deeds of valor and bravery. And it is not that all of the historical records coalesce. There are still many points unclear. We cannot even know the true name of the person concerned with these records!
Therefore, before life death exists and after it too death exists. It just implies that life is discontinuity of death and not the other way round. And moreover it is just a single discontinuity. The argument that comes up here is about soul. Soul is the supernatural element that resides within the body, therefore, we can’t argue much about it. But the argument brought up is that a soul may take birth again and again. On this account life is not mere discontinuity of death. But they fail to realize that death is concerned with a single individual. Since that individual lived death is also defined for him. As for soul it is immortal. It just changes it’s place of residing from one body to another giving birth to a new individual for whom death will be another independent event. Therefore, it is immaterial to connect death with soul. Death means to cease to exist while soul is an immortal entity.
Now after this discussion of life relative to death I hope I was able to convince you that before life death exits. And therefore, as death prevails for longer time than life, why do we see death as absence of life and not the other way round? For instance, try to plot a curve of death versus time. Life on this curve would occur as a point where curve would cease to exist. So would it not be fair to define life in terms of death and not the other way round. ‘Since there was death there will be life too not that there is life so there will be death too’. In a nutshell life should be defined as ‘to cease to be dead’!
Secondly, I think the fear of death is immaterial. Everything that possesses life fears death for reasons unknown. We do not possess the slightest idea of the after-effects of death, although I agree that it is a balance that could shift to either side but still is there really a want to fear it? I would like to place an argument here. We are all familiar with one of the most basic laws of science: “Anything has maximum stability in it’s initial and final state, it is the transition state which in not stable.” Applying this basic law to life and death, life is the transition state so it has to be less stable than death. And I guess we would agree on the fact that peace is hard found in life!
I would like to conclude by saying that, though unknown to us, we have made an impression of death, seeing the ‘materialistic’ bodies decaying and being burned to ashes after death, though we forget that those ashes and decay matter provide the most essential nutrients to the plant kingdom which we ourselves worship as ‘Mother Nature’. I request you to annihilate this vision and unveil the greater horizon that lies beyond this veil of pessimism!
I hope I gave you some food for thought!
NOTE : This article considers only the Indian mythologies associated with death, which in any case dont hold much importance!
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