FROM THE SPIRITUAL TREE

Death strikes all, sparing neither the high nor the low. Yet people who are not directly affected sadly fail to understand its significance. his rule. Alexander did not tolerate opposition, always pursuing a policy of nipping it in the bud. The new empire was organised, into provinces, each keeping its own traditions and institutions. About this time he crushed a rising led by Bessus, the successor of Darius. He next entered India, crossing the Indus near Attock and winning a great victory. After some further conquests, he returned through Baluchistan to Persepolis, then set himself to organise the great empire he had conquered. Alexander was a great administrator as well as a great soldier, and spread the influence of Greece throughout the empire he had won. But what did fate have in store for him? In the midst of this tremendous task and while planning a fresh expedition into Arabia, he died in the ancient city of Babylon—as defenceless in the face of death as any poor man in his miserable hut. Although he started out on a career of conquest that has few if any parallels in world history, his life was too short for his empire to be welded together. And with his only son born after his death, none of his acquisitions could be retained by his heirs. His vast empire was then divided up between three military officers, none of whom was in any way related to him. There being no unifying force to hold it together, it was not long before his hard-won empire had disintegrated. When death comes, it impresses upon the immediate beholders just how helpless man is before his Maker. Death strikes all, sparing neither the high nor the low. Yet people who are not directly affected sadly fail to understand its significance. It has a lesson to teach, but man ignores it. And if he has paid no heed to the most urgent realities of life, death will certainly leave him no respite to cogitate upon them at that time. It will be too late for him to learn lessons which he should have learnt long before. Death is the greatest teacher, but man lives out his life as if there were no such thing awaiting him which will end his life’s journey. o