|
Main Index
|
| |
| |
|
| |
next time he would have no fear of death because there would be no death. Not that he would be victorious over death -- we can achieve victory only over something which exists. Just by knowing death, it disappears. Then nothing remains over which to be victorious.
We have died many times before, but whenever death has occurred we have become unconscious. This is similar to when a physician or a surgeon gives anesthesia before an operation so you won't feel the pain. We are so very afraid of dying that at the time of death we become unconscious willingly. We become unconscious just a little before dying. We die unconscious, and then we are reborn in a state of unconsciousness. We neither see death, nor do we see birth -- and hence we are never able to understand that life is eternal. Birth and death are nothing more than stopping places where we change clothes or horses.
In olden times there were no railroads and people traveled in horse-drawn carriages. They traveled from one village to another, and when the horses grew tired they exchanged them for fresh horses at an inn, and they changed them again at the next village. However, the people changing the horses never felt that what they were doing was like dying and being born again, because when they changed horses they were fully conscious.
Sometimes it used to happen that a horseman would travel after drinking. When he would look around in that state, it would make him wonder how everything had changed, how everything appeared so different. I have heard that once a drunk horseman even said, "Could it be that I am changed too? This doesn't seem to be the same horse I was riding. Could it be that I have become a different man?"
Birth and death are simply stations where vehicles are changed -- where the old vehicles are left behind, where tired horses are abandoned and fresh ones are acquired. But both these acts take place in our state of unconsciousness. And one whose birth and death happens in this unconscious state cannot live a conscious life -- he functions in an almost half-conscious state, in an almost half-awakened state of life.
What I wish to say is that it is essential
|
|
|
|
| |