Questioner 1: I was not privileged to know Ryan personally,
but in the last year that I’ve gotten to know Amita,
she has shared so much about him and his spirit and
we’ve shared her experience of Ryan’s passing.
And closer to the end of his time here and it was very similar for me with my father,
and we’ve shared a lot of those experiences.
And for me it was bittersweet and there was so much sweetness in that, those last days.
And I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about that transition for us and
how we can…
I don’t want to say do it better but how we can experience it with a new perspective
because it is something that really shifted how I see it and experience it.
Sadhguru: Your own or somebody else’s?
Questioner 1: My...
(Laughs) not my own but I mean probably both, but really be… being here after someone passes,
and going through that with them.
Sadhguru: Tch, I want you to listen to this carefully
because (Laughs) this could be easily misunderstood.
Because when someone loses someone who is dear to them,
it’s like a piece of their life has been taken away.
And it goes through various processes of grief, loss, cherishing many things that they were,
variety of things.
Not all of it can be articulated.
But at the same time, we are not the first people to be born on this planet,
nor are we going to be the first to die on this planet.
In our lives, whether we are going to get educated or not, we don’t know when we are born
Whether we are going to get married or not, we do not know,
whether we are going to bear children or not, we do not know.
Whether we are going to do this, that, and so many things in the world or not,
we do not know.
But we know one thing – that we are going to die.
Yes or no?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: That’s one certainty, isn't it?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Though it is such an obvious thing, we are not able to come to terms with it.
Somebody was asking me, “Sadhguru, how do snakes die - where do they die?
Because we don’t see ever a dead snake unless it’s killed by somebody.”
They are asking this question in a tropical country and I think it’s relevant in California also
where there are actually millions of snakes.
But they’re quiet lives, they don’t show themselves too often,
unless you step into their terrain somewhere.
And they don’t show themselves, they’re just there.
So where do they die?
This is something very wonderful, particularly cobras.
When they want to die, when they know they should die, they will withdraw,
find one perch somewhere and go sit there and
they won'teat for over eighteen to twenty days.
They will not eat anything and sit in the same place, and they’ll die there.
At one time out of misplaced compassion (Laughs), I brought down these cobras,
because I knew where they would be sitting.
I would pick them up, bring them and try to force feed them.
Try to put some food into them and do something about it, but do what you want,
they won't accept a little bit of food.
If you leave them, again they go and sit in the same place.
And they will die there quietly.
I’m saying a crawling creature has that much awareness,
knows how long this body should be on and when it should go.
Similarly your life and every other life has this consciousness
as to when it should exit this body.
Either because we broke the body in some way or because
simply, the necessary intensity in the body doesn’t exist anymore to sustain life.
So we must understand when I say… when I use certain words,
do not understand it in normal sense,
when I say a… a life decides when to leave,
it’s not like you think about it and you decide, not that kind of decision.
In its own way, not with thought, many decisions about who you are is not decided by your thought
it’s simply made, isn't it?
Like that, a life decides when to leave,
as long as it’s here, we will do everything to preserve it and to hold it and
keep it with us because we cherish and value that life.
But once it leaves we must respect that, because that life has chosen to leave.
Now when I say life, I am not talking about the person.
I am not talking about the personality.
I am not talking about variety of thoughts and
emotions and activities that person was involved in.
You as a person never want to leave, because you want to be an endless psychological drama.
But life wants to leave at a certain time.
Whether you like it, you don’t like it, life wants to leave because
it doesn’t want to be trapped in the physical form that you have gathered forever.
It doesn’t want.
It enjoys the physical form only to a certain length of time, after that,
even if everything is well, many lives leave.
You will see this particularly in India, yogis will decide when to leave.
When they are very healthy and well, they sit down and they leave.
Other people think, “Why?
He was healthy, why should he leave?”
So you want to get sick and die?
Do you want to suffer in the hospital for three years and then only leave?
Is that the only way to go?
Participants: No…
Yeah.
Sadhguru: Please, listen to this carefully because this is a situation.
I’m not trying to trample on anything, but I want you to listen to this carefully.
Is it true that the final thing you do in your life is death?
Hello?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: So, the last thing that you do in your life,
is it not very important that you do it gracefully?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Huh?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: You’re…
You’re all from Los Angeles, you must do it in style, isn’t it?
(Laughter) At least gracefully.
Is it also not important that other lives who are around us when their time comes,
we must facilitate that they must be able to leave gracefully?
Not make them a victim of medical industry that is going on around us?
Hello?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Tell me, if what purpose does it serve
if you stretch a life which is about to exit now,
for another three months with all kinds of supports.
Three months you stretched it in pain and misery, what does it mean?
It just means that you’re ignorant about the nature of life and
you want to cling to something that you know and
you don’t want to know anything that you do not know.
It’s very important, we know the person.
We know this person and this person and this person, that’s fine.
We’ve enjoyed their personalities, but you have not touched the nature of their life.
Because unless you touch the nature of your life, you cannot touch the nature of another life
So the most important thing we need to do is, we don’t have to talk about death,
prepare for death, nothing is needed.
What we need to do is - beyond this body, which we have gathered
which you have agreed with me that you accumulated this.
Beyond this mind, which is also an accumulation of impressions and… and information.
Beyond your accumulations, if you sit here right now
and experience the life that you are,
you will have absolutely no issue with any aspect of life, which includes death.
Death is not another thing, death… death is an ongoing thing,
right now all of us are dying slowly.
One day, it’ll be complete.
You think it’s going to suddenly happen one day?
It is already on, isn’t it?
Hello?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Is it not on?
It is on in every one of us.
Should we not conduct this process – see you can call this right now,
I can say I’m living.
Another way of saying it is I’m dying.
I’m dying right now.
We want to stretch it as much as we can.
But to know this experientially, not trying to figure this intellectually is most important.
Because intellectually if you figure, you will always be one against the other because
this is the nature of intellect.
That intellect cannot perceive anything without creating two.
So you have created life and death, there is no such thing as life and death.
Life and death is one package, isn’t it?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Hello?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: It’s one package.
As we are living as we are also dying right now.
The question is, how gracefully you do it.
If you learn to do this moment absolutely gracefully,
you will also conduct that moment absolutely gracefully.
That is not a different kind of moment, that’s the same moment.
In the yogic science it goes like this, every inhalation you’re born,
every exhalation, you die.
When you were born as a little infant, the first thing you did was inhalation,
isn’t it (Gestures a gasp)?
What do you think is the last thing you will do?
Participants: Exhale.
Sadhguru: Exhalation, isn’t it?
Right now when you sit here – inhalation, exhalation, inhalation, exhalation,
inhalation, exhalation, next inhalation did not happen and suddenly a big man is gone, poof.
Yes or no?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: That’s how fragile it is, I want you to see this.
Every moment it’s happening, if this exhalation which went out, if it doesn’t come back,
this one (Referring to Oneself) is gone.
How many things a man can do?
But at the same time just see how fragile this is...
this is you’re yo-yoing with your life every moment.
If you don’t know how to pull it back, it will go away.
But it doesn’t feel like that right now, I’m real.
I’m not going to die today.
A whole lot of people thought so, before you and me.
We must understand mortality is the fundamental reality of our existence.
If we do not come to terms with this one thing,
believe me, you don’t know any other aspect of life in reality, you know only the drama.
Because this is the most fundamental nature of our existence – that we are mortal.
When we are born, it is declared that we are going to die, isn’t it?
How long is the only question.
I bless you with a very long life, thank you very much for being here (Laughs) (Applause).