Reflecting on life and death

Death is the only certainty in life. The only uncertainty is about when and how. Yet, while living, people either try to ignore the inevitability of death in their thoughts or get so obsessed with it (specially as they grow old) that they lose the ability to enjoy life.

So, how should one look upon life and death? Thinkers have viewed death in many different ways.

One, an individual’s life is like a bubble in the unending sea of time. In that sense, the life of an individual is insignificant. Yet, human civilization and its progress (and sometimes retrogression) through time is made by individuals while the contribution -- positive or negative -- of some is enormously more than that of others.

Two, what happens after death is not part of one’s existence and therefore one should not bother about it. For the dying, only the process of death matters, not death itself. For the dead, death brings an end to all one’s worries and sufferings. It is only for those left behind -- who carry the memory of the dead -- that the pain begins.

Three, each one of us dies a thousand deaths, as it were, in our lifetime. Yesterday’s me is dead today just as today’s me would be dead tomorrow. No doubt, the 5-year-old me is so very different from the 75-year-old me that each is a completely different person. The life of a person is like a garland of many different selves who are dead, held together only by the string of memories. Then, why lament over the final death of a person if he is dying so many times in a single lifetime? A person continues to live after death only to the extent that others remember him.

Four, death is like a door taking us to the next room, though we do not know the exact contours of this new abode. Then, why are we so worried about moving to an unknown place? In our lifetime, we do move from one known place to many unknown places, but eventually those unknown places become familiar with time.

Is there life after death? If we go by available scientific evidence, perhaps there is nothing after death. To comfort ourselves, we like to think that we will meet our dead ancestors and friends after our own death, but there is no empirical basis for this hypothesis. However, assuming that that there is some kind of life after death (immortal soul or consciousness), most probably it would not be a chaotic or unpleasant one. There is so much order and beauty in the universe as we know it. So, it is unlikely that the afterlife would be a dreadful one.

However difficult, Tagore’s way of looking at death, after the premature passing away of his most beloved 11-year-old son Samindranath, is instructive. He was coming back in a train after cremating his young son in a distant place. Silently gazing at the sky outside in the moon-lit night he wondered: “The vacuum is only in my heart. Sami’s death has made no difference to the beauty of the universe.” This gave him the strength to bear the loss, by placing it in the larger context. Of course, very few would have the spiritual strength or the poetic vision (like Tagore) to look at the death of his loved one in this detached manner.

While I was in school, the annual student magazine was mostly full of stories written by fellow students about some death in the family. The teacher-in-charge of the magazine told us: “Since you are young, death seems to you to be the biggest tragedy. But as you grow older, you will realise that there are far bigger tragedies in life than death.” How right he was! The death of love is no less traumatic than death of life. In many cases, love loses its intensity and dies just like the decay and end of physical life. Therefore, we should try to love a person knowing that it may not be permanent, just as we should love life knowing it is transient.

At the same time, the death of a person often enables others to see one in a different light. We look at him/her from a distance created by death, freed of the conflicts of everyday existence where we fight to get a bigger share of resources, including power, love and recognition. As the near ones -- including his children -- grow old, often they are better able to appreciate why the dead person did what he/she did in his/her lifetime.

What is the need for death in this world? The analogy of a moving train is useful here. The train stops at different stations where some passengers get down while some new ones get in. If only new passengers enter the train, without some leaving it, it would get overcrowded and suffocating for all. Life, like the train, moves on despite the death of some on the way, which is needed for the smooth journey. The same rule exists in nature. Old leaves must wither so that new leaves will grow. Resources (including food, space) are limited and, hence, the old ones have to give way to the new.

Just as light continues to come towards the earth from a dead star which does not exist anymore, so is the light that emanates from the lives of dead persons, particularly the great human beings. In that sense, death does not end life. Death is true, but so is the march of life. Human civilisation is like a relay race where one generation passes the baton to the next.

In conclusion, as a practical advice, how should we live life, knowing that death is inevitable? Perhaps, we can follow the dictum: Try to finish your work as if you are going to die tomorrow but go on learning as if you are going to live forever. At the same time, we should keep our eyes and ears open to enjoy the unbounded beauty of nature around us, available free of charge, while we are still here. After all, we have got only one life to live.

(The writer is a former Professor of Economics, IIM, Calcutta, and Cornell University, USA)