Death is not an End

Today, I saw the death of one of the oldest members of our family, my great grandmother. She lived a fulfilling life of 103 years. As per the rituals, when the men of the house were taking her body out of the house, seeing the lifeless body, I realized that this body wasn’t my great grandmother. The free spirited, strong willed woman that she was, couldn’t be this pale body lying in front of me. The body lying in front of me was just that, a body, a vehicle that carried her soul for this life, a vehicle that she discarded when it was no longer useful. But she lived on, through our memories of her, through the habits she helped us form, through the persons she shaped us into, but most importantly through her soul. I refuse to believe that she doesn’t exist as of today, because her soul does. She has just traveled from this body to her next to start another life.

Seeing her empty room and discarded wardrobe, I realized something that I have known all along. But the realization struck as a sudden blow of lightening. She lived a life of 103 years, had her own room that she loved, had clothes, her possessions but most importantly her family. But as soon as her life ended, she left everything behind. All she took forward was that which resided in her soul.

Our bodies have a short life to live in this unending circle of time. Our body is a temporary vehicle for one life time. It is important to take care of the mechanics and the parts of the vehicle for, longer life of the vehicle, longer will be the residence of the soul in one place. But we are so obsessed with taking care of the vehicle and giving it all that it desires, that we forget to connect with and enrich something much more important, i.e. us, our souls. We fail to realize that we aren’t our bodies, we are our souls, for we will discard the bodies soon, but we will carry with us what makes home in the soul.

I realized that I, spend 80% to 90% of my time fulfilling the desires of my body, entertaining it, giving in to the temporal pleasures, which lasts only for minutes and hours. Body is a means to an end, but not an end and yet I treat it as an end. I spend only 10% to 20% of my time to connect with my soul and to enrich it, when it is only what I carry therein, is going to last me for more than a lifetime.

When I ask myself, what can I do for my soul, I come up with a dual answer. I can connect with my soul and enrich it. Connection comes from an activity that comes from within, that helps to bring a state of satisfaction, a state where no sadness can touch you. For some it can be meditation, and for others it can be activities like singing or dancing or writing or anything at all that comes from deep within the self, that makes us glow like a bright moon on a dark night.

Enrichment of the soul comes from good karma. It can either be doing good for other living beings or from adding value in the lives of others or simply by giving respect to the lives of each and every small living being, from a caterpillar to an animal. It takes different meaning for different people.

We are so lost in gaining the worldly pleasures, in achieving the goals of a certain salary, a certain home, a certain car, a certain lifestyle and so on and so forth, that we forget that all of this is temporary, that eventually when we die, we are going to leave all of it behind and take only that which resides in our soul.

So from today on, drawing on my thoughts from the death of a body and the continuity of a soul, I am going to make a conscious effort to give more of my time and energy in connection with my soul and towards its enrichment, than I am going to for the pleasures of my body.

P.S. This article was written more than a month back.