1. TO LIVE WITH DEATH
§ Compiled by : Pradeep Apte
2. Flowers come, bloom in the morning, live for a few hours and die. They are as beautiful in death as they are alive
3. We live a lifetime in
* Great conflict
* misery
* passing pleasures
and die rather miserably
We are as ugly in death as we are in life
4. The blooming and death of the flower is a fact
You can imagine the whole process but you are never in contact with the FACT through the idea
5. We are going to talk about time, sorrow and that strange phenomenon called DEATH
Either we come in direct contact with them or treat them as mere inevitabilities
6. The following have nothing to do with the reality - the reality of time, sorrow, death and love
(a)
· Explanations
· Conclusions
· Opinions
(b)
· Beliefs
· Concepts
· Symbols
7. We live in travail, misery and conflict, never coming in contact with life itself
If you are merely in contact with IDEAS and not with FACTS you will continue to lead a wasteful life
8. Let us talk about time. There is obviously time by the watch, chronological time.We are not discussing that but the time which not by the watch
9. We live much more by time not by the watch - psychological time, it has
· More importance
· Greater significance
· Greater validity
10. Psychological time is
· Time as continuity
· Time as yesterday
· Time as a thousand yesterdays
· Time as tradition
· Time as the present
· Time as the future
11. We live with the past, in conflict with the present, which creates the tomorrow
This is an obvious fact, there is nothing complex about it
The past shapes our thinking, our activity, our outlook and so conditions the future
12. We use time as a means of
· Evolving
· Achieving
· Gradual changing
· We do so because we are indolent, lazy, frightened of immediate change and its consequences
13. Time by the watch is is needed to learn a technique, a language.
But we are using psychological time, not time by the watch, as a means of changing, so we introduce the gradual process
14. As we do not know how to live completely, totally in to day, bring about complete transformation in to day ,we have invented the idea of tomorrow
So thought creates psychological time, and thought also brings FEAR
15. There are many, many fears from which we try to
· Escape into a vast network
· OR rationalize
· OR being unable to understand, become neurotic
16. Man runs away from from fear through
(a)
· God
· Drink
· Identification or social activities
(b)
· Reformation
· Joining a political party
· Joining a religious group
17. You are looking at yourself not through ideas but by directly coming in contact with the fact that you are frightened
Which is entirely different from the idea that you are frightened
18. As long as fear exists, any action however good it maybe would always contain
· The seed of its destruction
· The seed of its deterioration
· Because this action is an escape from the fact
19. The running away from the fact implies that the objects to which you run away become much more important than the fact
20. That which gives the assurance to escape from fear becomes extra-ordinarily important thus you vigorously protect
* The God
* The Temple
* The Pub
* The Idea
21. The escape has become more important than the resolution of fear
Unless you totally resolve fear you cannot understand fear, love or sorrow
22. Physical fear like self protection from a poisonous snake is a natural response
We are talking about the fear thought has created
23. You have to follow this question of fear step by step otherwise you won’t be able to resolve it
You have to come in direct contact with what fear is and what you are frightened about
24. FEAR exists ONLY in relationship to something and NOT by itself. You are afraid of
· Darkness
· Public Opinion
· Death
· Losing a job
· Losing a beloved one
25. To come in direct contact with that:
Emotion/Feeling called
The WORD
The THOUGHT
The IDEA
Must NOT COME IN AT ALL !
26. When you understand that the idea interferes with your coming in direct contact, you no longer fight the idea
· The idea being opinion, formula and so on
27. Then you are in direct contact with fear, seeking no escape from it
· When you do so FEAR ALTOGETHER DISAPPEARS !
28. Then there is this question of sorrow with which man has been living for millennia. The sorrow of
(a)
· Loss of someone
· Failure
· Finding yourself devoid of love
(b)
· Finding that you are living entirely in your petty little mind
29. There is a vast sorrow not only of a human being but of the race
You have to resolve this sorrow as you resolve fear, that is by coming in direct contact with it
30. There is no future - you can invent a future.
There is no future for a man living with intelligence, who is
· Sensitive
· Alive
· Young
· Fresh
· Innocent
31. Then there is the problem of DEATH - and with it comes the problem of old age. You all know death is inevitable through
· Senility
· Disease
· Or Accident
32. To understand death we must come in direct contact with it. It demands a mind
· That is not afraid
· That is not thinking in terms of time
· That is not living in the dimension of time
33. We usually put death in the distant future and invent a hereafter or reincarnation which are escapes from the fact of today
34. Think of your life that you wish to prolong, what is it ?
(a)
· A constant battle
· Confusion
· Occasional flash of pleasure
· Boredom
(b)
· Sorrow
· Fear
· Agony
· Despair
· Ambition
35. If at all you believe in reincarnation what you do now will condition your future
So
* what you are
* what you do
* what you think
* what you feel
* how you live
all this becomes infinitely important
36. Do you know what it is to die ? You have seen death
But do you know it as the flower dies? With that beauty with that delicacy ? It dies without regret, without it comes to an end
37. You are inevitably going to die to your pleasures but have tried to so
· Without persuasion
· Without compulsion
· Without necessity ?
38. Have you tried to die to the day; easily, happily to
· Your pleasures
· Your rememberances
· Your hates
· Your ambitions
· Your urgency to gather money ?
39. You are going to die - that is, die to everything
* You know
* Your body
* Your mind
* The things you have built up
So you say:
40. All the things you have done, the service, the body, the knowledge, the experiences, the pleasures, the affection, the family - all end in death
Either you die to them now or inevitably and only an intelligent man who understands the process is a religious one
41. The religious man is one who dies everyday and is reborn everyday. That is, his mind is young, fresh, innocent. Die to everything - do it !
42. Do it and thus you will see that you have not wasted your life
Then you will find something that is INCREDIBLE, that NO MAN HAS EVER PERCEIVED !
43. This is not a reward ; you have to die naturally, everyday, as the flower dies
Bloom, rich, full and then die to it so that you are reborn everyday with a fresh mind
44. You need a fresh mind ; otherwise you do not know what love is. If you do not die your love is merely
* Memory
* The Past
* Conditioned
* Stale
* Mechanical
45. You have to die everyday
· To everything you know
· To your hatred
· To your insults
· To flatteries
· Die to them and then you will see that TIME HAS NO MEANING
46. There is no tomorrow then, there is only now, that is beyond yesterday, today and tomorrow
And it is only in the NOW that there is LOVE
47. A human being who has no love cannot approach Truth
Without love do what you will -
* all your sacrifices
* vows of celibacy
* social work
* your exploitations
None have any value
48. And you cannot love without dying everyday to your memory. For love is not of memory ; it is a living thing
49. A living thing is a movement and that movement cannot be caged in words, or in thought or in a mind that is self seeking
50. Only a mind that has understood time, that has ended sorrow, that has no fear - only such a mind knows what death is and therefore
FOR SUCH A MIND THERE IS LIFE
§ Compiled by : Pradeep Apte
2. Flowers come, bloom in the morning, live for a few hours and die. They are as beautiful in death as they are alive
3. We live a lifetime in
* Great conflict
* misery
* passing pleasures
and die rather miserably
We are as ugly in death as we are in life
4. The blooming and death of the flower is a fact
You can imagine the whole process but you are never in contact with the FACT through the idea
5. We are going to talk about time, sorrow and that strange phenomenon called DEATH
Either we come in direct contact with them or treat them as mere inevitabilities
6. The following have nothing to do with the reality - the reality of time, sorrow, death and love
(a)
· Explanations
· Conclusions
· Opinions
(b)
· Beliefs
· Concepts
· Symbols
7. We live in travail, misery and conflict, never coming in contact with life itself
If you are merely in contact with IDEAS and not with FACTS you will continue to lead a wasteful life
8. Let us talk about time. There is obviously time by the watch, chronological time.We are not discussing that but the time which not by the watch
9. We live much more by time not by the watch - psychological time, it has
· More importance
· Greater significance
· Greater validity
10. Psychological time is
· Time as continuity
· Time as yesterday
· Time as a thousand yesterdays
· Time as tradition
· Time as the present
· Time as the future
11. We live with the past, in conflict with the present, which creates the tomorrow
This is an obvious fact, there is nothing complex about it
The past shapes our thinking, our activity, our outlook and so conditions the future
12. We use time as a means of
· Evolving
· Achieving
· Gradual changing
· We do so because we are indolent, lazy, frightened of immediate change and its consequences
13. Time by the watch is is needed to learn a technique, a language.
But we are using psychological time, not time by the watch, as a means of changing, so we introduce the gradual process
14. As we do not know how to live completely, totally in to day, bring about complete transformation in to day ,we have invented the idea of tomorrow
So thought creates psychological time, and thought also brings FEAR
15. There are many, many fears from which we try to
· Escape into a vast network
· OR rationalize
· OR being unable to understand, become neurotic
16. Man runs away from from fear through
(a)
· God
· Drink
· Identification or social activities
(b)
· Reformation
· Joining a political party
· Joining a religious group
17. You are looking at yourself not through ideas but by directly coming in contact with the fact that you are frightened
Which is entirely different from the idea that you are frightened
18. As long as fear exists, any action however good it maybe would always contain
· The seed of its destruction
· The seed of its deterioration
· Because this action is an escape from the fact
19. The running away from the fact implies that the objects to which you run away become much more important than the fact
20. That which gives the assurance to escape from fear becomes extra-ordinarily important thus you vigorously protect
* The God
* The Temple
* The Pub
* The Idea
21. The escape has become more important than the resolution of fear
Unless you totally resolve fear you cannot understand fear, love or sorrow
22. Physical fear like self protection from a poisonous snake is a natural response
We are talking about the fear thought has created
23. You have to follow this question of fear step by step otherwise you won’t be able to resolve it
You have to come in direct contact with what fear is and what you are frightened about
24. FEAR exists ONLY in relationship to something and NOT by itself. You are afraid of
· Darkness
· Public Opinion
· Death
· Losing a job
· Losing a beloved one
25. To come in direct contact with that:
Emotion/Feeling called
The WORD
The THOUGHT
The IDEA
Must NOT COME IN AT ALL !
26. When you understand that the idea interferes with your coming in direct contact, you no longer fight the idea
· The idea being opinion, formula and so on
27. Then you are in direct contact with fear, seeking no escape from it
· When you do so FEAR ALTOGETHER DISAPPEARS !
28. Then there is this question of sorrow with which man has been living for millennia. The sorrow of
(a)
· Loss of someone
· Failure
· Finding yourself devoid of love
(b)
· Finding that you are living entirely in your petty little mind
29. There is a vast sorrow not only of a human being but of the race
You have to resolve this sorrow as you resolve fear, that is by coming in direct contact with it
30. There is no future - you can invent a future.
There is no future for a man living with intelligence, who is
· Sensitive
· Alive
· Young
· Fresh
· Innocent
31. Then there is the problem of DEATH - and with it comes the problem of old age. You all know death is inevitable through
· Senility
· Disease
· Or Accident
32. To understand death we must come in direct contact with it. It demands a mind
· That is not afraid
· That is not thinking in terms of time
· That is not living in the dimension of time
33. We usually put death in the distant future and invent a hereafter or reincarnation which are escapes from the fact of today
34. Think of your life that you wish to prolong, what is it ?
(a)
· A constant battle
· Confusion
· Occasional flash of pleasure
· Boredom
(b)
· Sorrow
· Fear
· Agony
· Despair
· Ambition
35. If at all you believe in reincarnation what you do now will condition your future
So
* what you are
* what you do
* what you think
* what you feel
* how you live
all this becomes infinitely important
36. Do you know what it is to die ? You have seen death
But do you know it as the flower dies? With that beauty with that delicacy ? It dies without regret, without it comes to an end
37. You are inevitably going to die to your pleasures but have tried to so
· Without persuasion
· Without compulsion
· Without necessity ?
38. Have you tried to die to the day; easily, happily to
· Your pleasures
· Your rememberances
· Your hates
· Your ambitions
· Your urgency to gather money ?
39. You are going to die - that is, die to everything
* You know
* Your body
* Your mind
* The things you have built up
So you say:
40. All the things you have done, the service, the body, the knowledge, the experiences, the pleasures, the affection, the family - all end in death
Either you die to them now or inevitably and only an intelligent man who understands the process is a religious one
41. The religious man is one who dies everyday and is reborn everyday. That is, his mind is young, fresh, innocent. Die to everything - do it !
42. Do it and thus you will see that you have not wasted your life
Then you will find something that is INCREDIBLE, that NO MAN HAS EVER PERCEIVED !
43. This is not a reward ; you have to die naturally, everyday, as the flower dies
Bloom, rich, full and then die to it so that you are reborn everyday with a fresh mind
44. You need a fresh mind ; otherwise you do not know what love is. If you do not die your love is merely
* Memory
* The Past
* Conditioned
* Stale
* Mechanical
45. You have to die everyday
· To everything you know
· To your hatred
· To your insults
· To flatteries
· Die to them and then you will see that TIME HAS NO MEANING
46. There is no tomorrow then, there is only now, that is beyond yesterday, today and tomorrow
And it is only in the NOW that there is LOVE
47. A human being who has no love cannot approach Truth
Without love do what you will -
* all your sacrifices
* vows of celibacy
* social work
* your exploitations
None have any value
48. And you cannot love without dying everyday to your memory. For love is not of memory ; it is a living thing
49. A living thing is a movement and that movement cannot be caged in words, or in thought or in a mind that is self seeking
50. Only a mind that has understood time, that has ended sorrow, that has no fear - only such a mind knows what death is and therefore
FOR SUCH A MIND THERE IS LIFE
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“Without problems, without achievements and failures, the self is not.”
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Commentaries on Living: Series I, Chapter 49, 'Problems and Escapes'}
{Book of Life Daily Meditations, Commentaries on Living: Series I, Chapter 49, 'Problems and Escapes'}
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