Death has always been a mysterious concept. I could feel it in the air., better say I knew it was there, like a lover that would caress my face with so much affection that i knew running away was not feasible.
Last year i lost my parents, an event that shocked all of my existence.I loved them deeply and to know they would leave me was not something I was ready to accept.Reality hit hard, in ways that was not fathomable.
Being a son of an aristrocratic family I never could get to know the reality of this world. The hardships and heinous shadow that people hide under their public persona.Probably it was not just me who did not understand the world ,but all of us who have been living under the shadows of our loved ones.
Many religions and belief systems do not believe death to be an end. For them it exists as a part of a greater cycle. Hinduism, jainism, Islam, buddhism , Christianity and lot more talk about the after life. About the existance of an higher authority that judges us for all our rights and wrong, they talk about a hell and a heaven, about gods and demons, about rebirth and samsara.
Some believe buddhism to have been a branch of hinduism. When prince siddharth gotama reached enlightenment he was called as the Buddha. Buddha a word derived from the sanskrit word buddh meaning brain, wisdom or even enlightenment. Buddha meant the one who achieved enlightenment or became a knower.
But what was this enlightenment that Buddha achieved, he was a protected prince. The king in the belief that for the prince to not be hurt never let him know of the reality of world, of sickness and disease, of death and famine, of poverty and the pains and crimes that humanity carries with it.
When the prince ran away from the palace he was shocked, to know there could be dirt and filth in our intrinsic behaviour, it was not acceptable to him.
Later the prince reached acceptance, sitting under the bodhi tree in the city of Bodh gaya, Bihar in India. Where he reached enlightenment, becoming a God in himself. A lot stories about the prince confuse me. Most of the lectures I have heard show him like a common man that upheld humanity, that reignited the faith amongst humans but some also show him like a man of extraordinary prowess carrying power enough to hold even the Monkey King in his palm.
For me death was a sword, a sickle, a Gullitine that i knew always hung over my neck. A common enemy to all that exists in the realm of living. As Krishna said to prince arjun during the war of Mahabharata ,"Any and everything that exists in this world shall one day Vanquish". There is nothing but solace in death, for all that has existed faced it, and all that exists will also be embraced in its arms. The common lover, the end to all worries and the end to all karmic ties.
Though still many not believ it to be the end, for them exists the concept of samsara.. living lives again and again till we reach Enlightenment is main philosophy behind it. For only when we are enlightened could we return to the sea of souls, to the one above all, to the Almighty.
Still philosophy aside, I never knew I would die this young. At the age of twenty two, killed by my own distant family for money and finances.. The material worth that was never valuable to me took my life away. They will face the same, for karma exists, I know it does for it has the same breath as death.
And speaking of death I feel it's skeletal hands caressing me again... coming closer and closer.. as my life flashes back I do not carry any guilt for probably I shall meet my parents, my lovers again.