You think about death and you become disturbed by small things: a headache, an ant crawling on your body. You become distracted by such small things; small discomforts—and you talk about death. Maybe you don’t know what death is; maybe you have only heard the name. and you have seen people dying, but you yourself have never seen death. In fact, when a person dies you see him lying in repose—silent, relaxed, with no discomfort. You think death is not a discomfort? You are seeing only a dead person; you have not seen his inner misery, you have not seen his inner conflict. You have not seen his inner struggle with death. You have not seen his inner anguish and turmoil. You just see the dead body—painted, dressed well, washed, cleaned.
At the moment of death all your knowledge of the world will be lost into thin air. Only one thing will go with you, and that one thing is being constantly ignored- that is your self-knowledge, your self-realization. In fact, this is the only ignorance- ignoring yourself. It is always death that comes before your desires are fulfilled. Even if you live for a thousand years your desires are not going to be fulfilled.
Only a person who has enjoyed his life becomes capable of enjoying his death. And if you are capable of enjoying your death, you have defeated death. Then there is no more birth for you and no more death for you--- you have learnt the lesson.
Live deeply, live totally, live wholly, so when death comes and knocks at your door you are ready—ready like a ripe fruit to drop. Just a small breeze comes and the fruit drops; sometimes even without the breeze the fruit drops from its own weight and ripeness. Death should be like that. And the readiness has to come through living.The secret is, start living more fully, more totally. Be more alert so that you can find within yourself something that is unreachable by death. That is the only shelter, the only security, the only safety. And if you want to help your friends and family, let them become aware of this secret.
