A CHAT WITH LIFE AND DEATH…. (Leaf – Two)

Restaurants are going empty. There are no adequate passenger on flights. Airlines are closing down their operations in some places. Mass gatherings are being discouraged.

“Women Fight Over Toilet Paper at Australia Supermarket Amid Coronavirus Fears”- Sydney News.

 Is it impact the mental health of the people apart from their biological health?

Covid-19, by virtue of its epidemic behaviour has indeed impacted the psyche of the people worldwide. The UN has responded by declaring it a worldwide concern. There is also a question in the minds of a few “Are we over-reacting?”

This epidemic is not just a health concern. It has also impacted the productivity of nations and hence their economic status. The stock markets are reacting adversely, more out of possible futuristic trends.

Fear. Of what is going to happen? Will it happen only to me or to the entire mass? And this doubt multiplies the fear.  Here are a few lines which I penned about fear in the year 1992 as a part of poem book titled “Apologies to an Existence.”

What is fear?

An animus attempting to unlock

The doors of wisdom

And steal away one’s confidence!

That which spreads its domain

Like an Octopus,

Into life’s peaceful existence,

Consuming it slowly and slowly?

Fears are like shadows

Skillfully painted by Satan

To disfigure Man!

They pass through the stillness of life

Like the Will-O-the Wisp.

Sometimes here,

Sometimes there

Chasing the Man

Day in and day out

Till he passes through Life.

Fears are cannibals,

And they eat their own flesh

In a suspicious mind!

They fertilize in sorrow’s soil

And let the weeds of greed

Grow in a delicate mind!

They live on sympathy’s subsidy

And stacks the shelf

Doubts and suspicions for a future shock!

In fear’s clock,

The hands go anticlockwise:

Hence, they write the preamble to death

In a coward’s history!”

“Life begins when fear ends” says Osho. Indeed, most of us miss a large part of life because of fear of one kind or the other. Otherwise we start fighting will life and land ourselves in a number of conflicting situations that robs us of our mental peace. “There is no illusion greater than fear” says Lao-Tzu. The shadow of fear oftentimes looks larger than life and drives us to unknown nooks of disbeliefs, where we start doubting the faith, we have in ourselves and the entire cosmos with which we are in harmony. Instead of living on the present, we appear to be linking wither to the past or the future. Either way it appears to be demoralizing our faith in our own selves.

“Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once” says William Shakespeare. It is therefore important for us to realize that we can’t afford to kill ourselves before we get the final call of life from Nature. “Every inhalation is life and every exhalation are death” explains Osho. On a similar note, Khalil Gibran observes “For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.” Hence, there is absolutely no need to entertain a dialogue with death when we are engaged actively with life. Death can afford to wait till it gets an alarming call.

What is the best gift life has given us? If you look closely, the fact that we are born every morning with a fresh hope and a fresh longing itself is the gift. A beautiful day, a beautiful life, a world full of resources, the opportunity to fall in love with an entire cosmos, the thirst to unravel the mysteries of the universe and in fact, an intelligence that helps us to pursue all these are but the gifts of life.  In trying to fulfil the above obligations we have to life; we build a series of relationships that scaffold our existence and the meaning we give to such an existence. But, the question before is, do we use all these in a positive and constructive manner to carve a beautiful persona or do we engage in wasteful and arbitrary conflicts that destroys the inner peace?

As I open the daily newspaper, the information’s flow:

The young man hanged because of love failure.

The middle-aged businessman consumes poison and kills himself and the family because of financial problems.

The family of four suicide because of poverty…

The news goes on… The number of people inviting death, for short-term challenges, for their inability to face the truth, for their unwillingness to fight life, for their inability to accept failures is increasing. They miss a whole life, in split-seconds, under emotional turmoil. Death is not a solution to problems. It is a kind of escapism. Nevertheless, one needs to position oneself on their shoes and see why life has been unfair to them. Is life a reality or a dream?

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw life was service. I acted, behold service was joy.” These beautiful words of Tagore summarize that intangible element of our life that brings us the much-needed joy. But such joys are not detailed to a long period of one’s timeline, but are captured in moments. He continues to say “The butterfly counts not moments and has time enough.” If it could happen to a butterfly with a short life, what about the humans who have been blessed with a longer timeline of life? But, do choose to seek this joy? Do we live in purposeful engagements that make a meaning to our life?

The early homo sapiens were indeed gatherers and hunters. They hunted extensively for two reasons: the urge for survival and the urge for supremacy. Their desire to conquer was essentially the result of a latent fear. This fear was largely the fear of the unknown rather than the fear of death. Over the years, with civilization advancing, the humans did articulate certain anxiety about their existence and hence the thought of death was unbearable. Thanatophobia, the fear of death, became one of the anxiety syndromes of human life process. Certain minimal amount of anxiety about death was but natural, but excessive focus on it, thus destroying one’s peace of mind and the possible avenues for a joyful existence are not required. Self- protectionism was so deep in the hunters and gatherers, it indeed took some time for the generation to understand the concept of togetherness, shared existence, social cohesion, equity and leadership. The hunter-gatherers did not have permanent leaders. However, over the years, the mightier one assumed leadership and was edified to a God.

Oftentimes, the urge for supremacy and control, raised the brute in them and they expressed violent strategies to show their power. Hence expression of violence was basically born out of a sense of insecurity and the need for dominance. The proverb “The hunter who travels into the woods is lost to the world, but he finds himself.”

The humans, as hunters, have been lost by this world. There are a number of incidents. But the moot question is: “Has he found himself?”

Before peeping into the history of his search to find the self, the words of George Bernard Shaw, are worth contemplating: “Life is not about finding yourself; Life is about creating yourself.”

Do we search for our life or do we create our life? It is time to ponder.