Why This Heedlessness of Death?

are continuously decaying and dying, and their place is continuously being taken by new cells. Inside the body, this process is taking place nonstop. It is as if in terms of his body, a person dies every few years and once again receives life. But despite this repeated ‘death’ of his body, an individual’s personality remains intact. For instance, his memory remains the same as before. This proves that the body is simply a vehicle for a person. A person’s vehicle changes, but his personality remains intact, in its true state. This fact is expressed by a western scholar in these words: “Personality is changelessness in change”. Death means that setting off on a journey, a person leaves the present world and travels to another one. Death is something that all of us will face, some day or the other. Given this, we ought to ponder deeply on death. In fact, we should contemplate on it the most, because it is a leap towards a completely new world. Since death is inevitable for all of us and is such a momentous thing, we ought to prepare ourselves fully for it and for the state after death. Our thinking should become ‘death-oriented’ thinking—in a positive sense. Death is the most certain occurrence for anyone. We are repeatedly faced with occasions to think of death. We all see or read or hear about death happening every day. But despite this, very few people think from the perspective of the reality of death. Most of us live in such a way as if we will never die, as if we are going to live in this world forever. Throughout human history there has not been a single person who has not died. Yet, we don’t learn any lessons from the inexorable fact of death. A person acknowledges, in the true sense of the term, the reality of death only when it comes upon him, when, in accordance with a compulsory decision, he finds that he has arrived at death’s doorstep. When a person travels, he does so with the thought that in a while, his journey will come to an end and that then he will arrive at a new place. For this purpose, he makes the