THE LESSON OF DEATH
Take it Seriously
THE moment a culprit hears the death sentence, he is as good as dead. It matters not whether his execution is the very next day or weeks later. Life loses all meaning. He falls silent and his smiles fade. Those hands, which were so freely raised to strike the weak and vulnerable, fall limp and lifeless by his sides.
Everyone alive today is to be “hanged” tomorrow. But everyone is lost in his today and blissfully unaware of his tomorrow. In this world, everyone is in some sense a culprit, but few pay heed to the fact that death can catch us unawares—it can even strike tomorrow.
Man lives in this world, an unthinking, pleasure-loving, materially ambitious creature, who enjoys having friends and riches. He revels in this. Then a strange event takes place. Death comes unannounced, he stops in his tracks and his eyes become sightless. In an instant he is bereft of all his worldly possessions—all that he holds dear—and he is carried away to the solitude of the grave.
Everyone is lost in his today and blissfully unaware of his tomorrow.
This event makes plain the reality. It wordlessly conveys man’s sudden fall from power to powerlessness, from light to darkness,. Before death he finds himself in a world where his will is his own. After death he will be ushered into a world where he will be forced to bow to the will of Another.
Were man to remember this reality, his life would be transformed. It would then appear inane to oppress the poor, hapless individuals in his clutches. He would realise that it was fruitless to oppress others if tomorrow he himself was to come under the control of Another. He would feel ashamed of having indulged in the idea of his own greatness, because greatness which does not endure is of no value.
