What is Death?

Life is in living. It is not a thing, it is a process. There is no way to attain to life except by living it, except by being alive, by flowing, streaming with it. If you are seeking the meaning of life in some dogma, in some philosophy, in some theology, that is the sure way to miss life and meaning both.

What is death?

The second thing to remember is: once you know what life is, you will know what death is. Death is also part of the same process. Ordinarily, we think death comes at the end; ordinarily we think death is against life; ordinarily we think death is the enemy. But death is not the enemy. And if you think of death as the enemy, it simply shows that you have not been able to know what life is.

Death and life are two polarities of the same energy, of the same phenomenon—the tide and the ebb, the day and the night, the summer and the winter. They are not separate and not opposites, not contraries; they are complementariness. Death is not the end of life; in fact, it is a completion of one life, the crescendo of one life, the climax, the finale. And once you know your life and its process, then you understand what death is.

Breathe in, breathe out

Death is an organic, integral part of life, and it is very friendly to life. Without it, life cannot exist. Life exists because of death; death gives the background. Death is, in fact, a process of renewal. And death happens each moment. The moment you breathe in and the moment you breathe out, both happen.

Breathing in, life happens; breathing out, death happens. That’s why when a child is born the first thing he does is breathe in, then life starts. And when an old man is dying, the last thing he does is breathe out, then life departs. Breathing out is death, breathing in is life—they are like two wheels of a bullock cart. You live by breathing in as much as you live by breathing out. The breathing out is part of breathing in. You cannot breathe in if you stop breathing out. You cannot live if you stop dying.

The man, who has understood what his life is, allows death to happen; he welcomes it. He dies each moment and each moment he is resurrected. His cross and his resurrection are continually happening as a process. He dies to the past each moment and he is born again and again into the future.

Ego and death are opposites

If you really want to live you have to be ready to die. Who is afraid of death in you? Is life afraid of death? It is not possible. How can life be afraid of its own integral process? Something else is afraid in you. The ego is afraid in you. Life and death are not opposites; ego and death are opposites. Life and death are not opposites; ego and life are opposites. Ego is against both life and death. The ego is afraid to live and the ego is afraid to die. It is afraid to live because each effort, each step towards life, brings death closer. If you live, you are coming closer to dying. The ego is afraid to die, hence it is afraid to live also. The ego simply drags.

Death completes life

Let it be remembered that death and life both become aflame together, they are never separate. If you are very, very minimally alive, at the minimum, then you can see death and life as being separate. The closer you come to the peak, the closer they start coming. At the very apex, they meet and become one. In love, in meditation, in trust, in prayer, wherever life becomes total, death is there. Without death, life cannot become total.

Courtesy: Complete Well-Being