THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 197
And I don’t think many people would like to live seven hundred years; even seventy years is too much! People
start thinking after a time, ”Now it will be better to die.” Death is a relief, a relaxation. Everything wants rest;
death is going into rest. Your body also gets tired, matter also gets tired. It wants to go back to its original
source: water into water and air into air and earth into earth and fire into fire. Everything wants to go back to
its source to rest, to rejuvenate itself, and come back again. But man has always cherished these ideas physical
immortality. And not ordinary people, even people who are thought to be extraordinary, they also go on having
such stupid ideas.
Sri Aurobindo and the mother of Sri Aurobindo both believed in physical immortality and both died! When
Sri Aurobindo died nobody believed it, because all the disciples who had gathered there had gathered for the
simple reason that he knows the secret of physical immortality and by being his disciples they are going to become
physically immortal. How can they believe that he had died?
For three days it was kept a secret that he had died. They waited: he may be in deep samadhi, he may come
back. But after three days when they saw no sign of his coming back and his body started stinking, then they
had to bury it. Then they hoped that the mother would be immortal. She lived a long life, but a long life does
not mean physical immortality. When she died, again they were shocked. Their whole philosophy was confused
by these two persons’ deaths.
But one thing is good about death: now you cannot ask Sri Aurobindo, ”Why have you been telling your whole
life that physical immortality is possible, that you know the secret, that you have been able to bring God into the
physical world?”
But fools gathered. Fools become attracted always to strange things. Just deep down the fear is there nobody
wants to die. Why? Why in the first place are you afraid of death? Death is not the enemy. To a man who has
really lived, death is the friend. It is like sleep. Nobody wants to remain wakeful twenty-four hours a day.
There are a few people who think that sleep is also just an old habit and they try to reduce it. For centuries
they have tried. Yes, it can be reduced, it can be reduced to two hours because two hours is the essential sleep;
you also sleep only two hours in a deep way. Somewhere between two and four or three and five you sleep for two
hours very deeply; those are the refreshing moments. All dreaming disappears, you are almost dead. Hence the
ancients used to say sleep is a small death. But people have been trying to avoid sleep also.
The logic is: if you can avoid sleep then you can one day avoid death too. If sleep is a small death and you
have conquered sleep, you will be able to conquer the big sleep, death, too. But why? What is wrong in dying?
The people who are afraid of death are the people who have not really lived their lives. They are not afraid of
death, they are simply afraid that they have not lived yet and death has come.
Rather than thinking of physical immortality, think of living your life totally. While you are here, live your
life in a multidimensional richness. And then when death comes you will feel it as a crescendo, as a peak, as an
ultimate life reaching to the highest and you will enjoy death as much as you have enjoyed life. You will be
utterly satisfied with death because it will give you rest, relaxation; it will renew you. It will take away the old
garments and it will give you new garments.
But people go on philosophizing. They have created things like Christian Science, mind over matter. They
think that if you believe that you are not going to die then you will not die.
I heard about a man who was a Christian Scientist. One day he met a young man. He asked the young man,
”Any news about your father?”
The young man said, ”He is very ill.”
The Christian Scientist said, ”All nonsense! Tell him, ’Mind over matter.’ He believes he is ill, that’s all; it is
his belief that is creating illness. Don’t believe in illness and you will be healthy.”
After a few days again the young man came across this Christian Scientist, and the Christian Scientist asked,
”How are things now with your old man? How is he?”
And the young man said, ”Now he believes that he is dead.”
It is not a question of belief: illness has a reality, and death too has a reality. Yes, by believing also you can
create a few illnesses which are false, bogus and by disbelieving in them you can destroy them. But you cannot
destroy a real illness; the illness has to be false in the first place. If you believe in it and create it, then by
disbelieving in it, it can be dropped.
But death is not your belief; otherwise why do animals die? They don’t believe, they don’t believe that they
are going to die. Why do trees die? They don’t believe that they are going to die, they don’t have any belief
system. Why do stars and suns and moons die? Why do earths die? They don’t believe; death is a universal
phenomenon, it happens everywhere. It is part of life; it is the other side of the coin.
I am not in any support of Christian Science. It is neither science nor Christian it is simply nonsense.