Death is the only option

Even though the topic is strange, this is a blog on how to live well.

Today I attended  NFJS(No Fluff Just Stuff ) 2014 conference and the Keynote title was "Failure is the only option" by Matt Stine. The speaker piqued the curiosity of the audience by having a provocative title.

He explained that when a software is in production

•  it is bound to fail, sooner or later.
• It is not a question of  "if" but "when"

If we accept this, we can try to

•  understand it. 
• learn from it.
• plan and prepare for it
• handle it gracefully while it is happening.

Then I had my 'aha' moment.  If we replace 'failure' with 'death' in this premise, all of the above still  holds true. 

We would truly appreciate the value of life and learn how to live it well.

We all know we are going to die, but we choose to hold on to our pettiness and our bank balances.

Our body is designed to fail. If we accept this , we explore further and try to

• understand it  

To truly understand death, we have to explore our self-identity. Who are we truly?  In eastern philosophical traditions, the concept of rebirth states  the spirit/soul gets a body , mind and intellect as tools to accomplish its mission. Once the mission is accomplished, the tools are discarded and new ones are taken up for the next mission. The soul is eternal, so there is no need to mourn for the ever-changing, ephemeral body. It is hard to internalize it, yet alone understand this concept.

 So death remains the most feared , taboo subject and elephant in the room, no one talks about. Since we have not experienced it, how do we know if it is not the most amazing experience of life? Like the grand finale of a fireworks?

• learn from it

You ask "How can I learn from death, since I have never experienced it?"  We see death all around us every single moment of our life. Day is dying to give birth to night, There are cycles all around us, sleep-awake, hunger-fullness, happiness-sadness. We accept these cycles as natural. However the irony is all of us want to break the cycle of birth and death.

We think that it is the most unnatural thing, almost as if it is a flaw in nature's otherwise perfect plan. It is the greatest 'Equal opportunity Employer' there ever was, with no partiality toward rich-poor, male-female, relative-stranger.

• plan and prepare for it

If we understand what death is and learn from it, planning and preparing for it becomes easy. Instead of obsessing about whom to give what in our wills, we would contemplate what legacy we are leaving behind and what we will take to our next life.

 Once we realize all the ill-earned earthly belongings will not go with us, we will focus on our spiritual capital. It will inspire us to be more truthful and compassionate and focus on doing the right things for the right reasons.

• handle it gracefully while it is happening

We have all heard stories of how Jesus handled it gracefully while it was happening.  When people were crucifying him, he was praying to the Lord. "Please forgive them for they know not what they are doing!!" Is there a better example of handling death while it is happening?

According to yogic tradition, the yogi has trained himself the whole life for this moment. He is fully alert when it comes and is able to observe each breath as it comes and leaves, and discards his body with full awareness and the Individual Consciousness (Jivatma)  merges with the Universal Consciousness(Paramatma).

I would like to end with a simple story :  Imagine you are a person who took loan from the bank for 1 million dollars for 2 years. When the loan is due and the banker comes, and you have lost the million dollars,  you will make all sorts of excuses and see the banker as a curse.  On the other hand, if you make 4 million during the 2 years, you will see the banker as a boon and will be happy to return the loan and be debt-free. Similarly I wish we all make good use of the time we have on loan so when it is time for the reaper, we see it as a boon and not a curse. Om Shantih Santih Shantih Peace.