DEATH

DEATH The Inevitable O F all the stages through which a person will have to pass, death is the most certain. Yet, it is something that few people bother to seriously think about, leave alone prepare for. Everyone who is alive now will be dead sometime in the future. One day, the eyes of those who now see will fade and their tongues will freeze into silence. Every human being will one day be leaving this world, never to return, and will enter a world which he will never leave. Death is commonly defined as the end of life in an organism. Upon death, apparently all biological and other related activities of a living being stop, including the mind and the senses. Research suggests that about 150,000 people die every day around the world. Dictionaries often define death as ‘the permanent cessation of life’. This definition reflects a negative understanding of death. It seems to suggest that death is the complete extinguishing of a being after having been alive on earth for a short while. It is as if when one dies, one ceases to exist forever. In contrast to this, religion presents a positive understanding of death. It teaches us that death is not the end of life. Rather, it marks the beginning of a new phase of our life. We often see or read or hear about people dying. We should take this as a very valuable learning experience. Someone else’s death should lead us to be mindful of our own impending death. It should provoke us to remember that we, too, will have to meet the same fate, some day or the other. It should remind us to suitably prepare for our own death, which is on its way. Death is the end of the pre-death period of life for the deceased, while for those who are still alive in this world it is a reminder of their own impending death. When a person dies, it appears that someone who could speak has now fallen silent. But his silence is in itself a loud announcement to those who remain in this world. It calls out to us: “What had to happen with me has now taken place! It will happen with you, too! And so, prepare yourself for it!” Offering funeral prayers on the occasion of someone’s burial is not a mere ritual. Rather, it is a reminder of a very serious reality—of the fact To remember death often is an attribute of a truly sensitive person. Not to remember death is a sign of extreme insensitivity.