Sadhguru: Death is not something that happens to you sometime in future.
It's happening to you all the time.
If you are unaware,
you are ignorant
it comes to you sometime;
you do not know when but it’ll come.
If you are aware
in every moment
both life and death are involved.
If you as much as breathe little more consciously
you will notice
with every inhalation there is life,
with every exhalation there is death.
If you are not getting the point
just do the next inhalation and do not
next exhalation and do not take the next inhalation
you will get the point.
Every moment,
even beyond the breath,
every moment it is happening.
It's like the ticking of the clock
life and death,
life and death.
It's all the time happening.
One who is aware of this
will naturally become aware
there is no such thing
as life and death.
Life is death;
and death is life;
they are not different.
It is only a question of
the womb,
the crawling out,
growing up,
taking the loan from the planet
and putting it back
but it's just life
or it's just death.
We need not have invented two words for this.
It’s just one thing.
We can call it ‘Da-life’
because they are not two different things.
It is out of a very gross sense of unawareness about the life process
because the wonderful gifts that have been showered upon humanity
we are using them like toys;
it feels this way.
This mind,
this brain
capable of incredible things
but we are using it
like a toy
I think people enjoy toys, isn't it?
A large percentage of humanity is so suffering the mind
that slowly it has become fashionable
to teach you to become no mind.
Took millions of years
to evolve to this state of mental capability;
now we are talking about no mind
because a no mind is better than a crazy mind,
but a conscious mind is a fabulous thing.
Why would anybody want to give this up
because they do not know how to handle it?
If you knew how to handle it
if you knew how to handle it
you wouldn’t want to get rid of this.
People are seeking peace.
I don't know
if you walk straight on this pathway through the school and beyond
there we have some very peaceful creatures.
Did you see them?
You didn’t see the ashram cows?
No?
Please go, you must see them.
They are really peaceful,
especially at this time of the day they are munching
what they ate through the day and
very peaceful;
more peaceful than lot of saints.
Just a full stomach - so much peace.
Just grass;
see this is all you have to do
because not much of a mind;
even to create turmoil you need a mind,
with certain capability?
So
this mind has become a problem
only because of so many silly assumptions we have made about life.
So many kinds of camouflages we have put on life
not seeing it just the way it is.
All kinds of inventions about it;
too many philosophies;
too many ideologies
oh I am going too far.
Lot of people are just living by
some silly slogan that they read somewhere.
This happened in an African village.
There was a man eating lion
bothering
a certain village;
grabbing men, women and children off and on
and having… making breakfast of them
or dinner
So they did not know how to deal with this lion
because it was a very ferocious animal.
So they called the big time celebrated hunter from Zimbabwe;
his name was Kola Mandell Smite.
Kola Mandell Smite is a big man,
carried a big gun and is a big game hunter;
big on all things.
So they invited him for a …big fee.
He came;
he walked around the village for three days,
the lion didn’t turn up.
He had other contracts,
so he said,
‘My time, precious time is going away.
So let me do one thing.
Bring one of your cows here.’
They brought a cow.
With one slash of his hunting knife,
big hunting knife slashed the animal’s throat
and then skinned the animal,
took the hide,
fresh hide and put it over his body as camouflage,
hid his gun in this hide
and went and started pretending like he is grazing upon the field.
So the villages were really impressed with this
and they were all waiting that he’ll get the lion today.
Then they heard blood curling screams from Kola Mandell Smite
and all of them ran to see what happened
and they found a strange situation
that the bull was upon him
He started screaming,
‘You idiots! Why did you let the bull loose?’
So you don't know which way it’ll get you.
Death is like this;
you don't know which way it’ll get you
unless you have become aware
that what you call as life
and what you call as death
are not two separate things.
One who does not embrace death will not know life at all.
If you sit here,
‘I don’t want to die,
I don’t want to die,
I don’t want to die…’ -
all that’ll happen is you will not live.
You will anyway die
but you will not live for sure.
It's not that I want to die today
but if I do,
it's alright with me.
I’ll do everything to protect myself,
to nurture myself,
to take care of myself
but if I have to die today it's okay with me.
Now I can step out and live;
otherwise I cannot live.
Basava,
a Kannada Saint,
a great poet,
a fabulous devotee,
a very beautiful devotee,
a sage and a mystic
wrote hundreds of poems
which constantly he treaded
Many, many things he wrote about death;
lot of things about life
but many things about death.
this is a translation;
it loses its
some of the beauty of poetry
but you get the meaning.
Basava said,
“Sacrificial lamb brought to the festival
Eats up the green leaf brought for decorations
Sacrificial lamb brought for the festival
Eats up the green leaf brought for the decoration
Not knowing a thing about the kill
It wants only to fill its belly,
born that day to die that day
But tell me,
did the killer survive,
O kudallasangama deva”
it is just that for the ignorant death comes
for those who are aware death doesn't come
death is
As life is, death is