#30 - Grandad on Death - His Thoughts

Your question - how to react to a death in the family, is a difficult one. Every time death strikes, it is a new experience. One can only close one's eyes & take a deep breath to let the thought of death of a dear one sink deep into one's mind.

When death strikes, it is a shattering moment. It is one of those inevitable events, which one has to live with, with as much composure as one can muster. But, soon thereafter, the whole process of cremation & after-death rituals, takes one's mind away from the immediate loss & one begins to accept the fact of death as well as the transitory nature of human existence. 

Dada Told me about death, but today as I read his words, his emails, on death, when he himself is not around here in his physical form, makes me realize and undertand more this transient nature of life.

Death is another issue, which we normally do not even think of, but when it strikes, we wake up to it. More the attachment, more the pain of separation. 

"Material nature and the living entities should be understood to be beginningless" - though material objects & living entities go through the cycle of one form getting destroyed and taking a new form & living entities going through the cycle of birth & death, all of which is beginningless.

How to face a situation in which one hears about a close dear one passing away - such situations are always shattering experiences, but once this happens, the initial shock & numbness, soon passes away & you collect your wilts to prepare yourself to face the situation. In the case of Babu ji passing away, since his death was due to cancer of the liver, we knew he was leaving soon, but the actual news of his passing away was nevertheless, benumbing. Both, his passing away & Gurudev's passing away have been described by me in my book in considerable detail. In the case of Ija, she was ill & was brought down to Dehradun from Mussoorie by Uday Singh in a taxi & straightaway admitted in the Doon Hospital, where she passed away by that late evening. Both, your Dadi & self were with her till about half an hour before she passed away. I was gradually recuperating from my by-pass heart surgery the previous year, so the trauma of her passing away was faced by me in a state of very weak health. Her cremation took place the next day in Dehradun only, for which your Papa & Champa Didi came to Dehradun from Delhi. As you grow older, you will have to face such situations quite often, for which you will have to steal yourself.