The moment of the death of someone you have loved deeply brings your own death into your mind. The moment of death is a great revelation. It makes you feel impotent and helpless. It makes you feel that you are not. The illusion of being disappears.
Anybody will be shaken because suddenly you see that the ground underneath your feet has disappeared. You cannot do anything. Somebody is dying that you love: you would even like to give your life but you cannot. Nothing can be done; one simply waits in deep impotence.
That moment can make you depressed. That moment can make you sad or that moment can send you on a great journey for truth...a eat journey into the search. What is this life? If death comes and takes it, what is this life? What meaning does it carry if one is so impotent against death? And remember, everybody is on his or her deathbed. After birth everybody is on his deathbed. There is no other way. All beds are deathbeds, because after birth only one thing is certain and that is death.
Somebody dies today, somebody tomorrow and somebody the day after tomorrow: what is the difference basically? Time cannot make much difference. Time can only create an illusion of life but the life that ends in death is not and cannot be the real life. It must be a dream.
Life is authentic only when it is eternal. Otherwise, what is the difference between a dream and what you call your life? In the night, in deep asleep, a dream is as true as anything is, as real – even more real than what you see with open eyes. By the morning it is gone, not even a trace is left. In the morning when you are awake you see it was a dream and not a reality. This dream of life continues for a few years; then suddenly one is awakened and the whole of life proves to be a dream.
Death is a great revelation. If there were no death there would be no religion. It is because of death that religion exists. It is because of death that a Buddha was born. All buddhas are born because of the realization of death.
When you go and sit by the side of a dying person feel sorry for yourself. You are in the same boat, in the same plight. Death will knock on your door any day. Be ready. Before death knocks, come back home. You should not be caught in the middle; otherwise this whole life disappears like a dream and you are left in tremendous poverty, an inner poverty.
Life, real life, never dies. Then who dies? You die. The “I” dies, the ego dies. The ego is part of death; life is not. So if you can be egoless, then there is no death for you. If you can drop the ego consciously, you have conquered death. If you are really aware you can drop it in a single step. If you are not so aware you will have to drop it gradually. That depends on you. But one thing is certain: the ego has to be dropped. With the disappearance of the ego, death disappears. With the dropping of the ego, death is also dropped.
Don’t feel sorry for the dying person, feel sorry for yourself. Let death surround you. Have the taste of it. Feel helpless, impotent. Who is feeling helpless and who is feeling impotent? The ego – because you see you cannot do anything. You would like to help her and you cannot. You would like her to survive but nothing can be done.
Feel this impotence as deeply as possible and out of this helplessness, a certain awareness, a prayerfulness and a meditation will arise. Use the person’s death; t is an opportunity. Use everything as an opportunity.
Be by their side. Sit silently and meditate. Let their death become a pointer to you so that you don’t go on wasting your life. The same is going to happen to you....
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