Die to Live

By Sita Krishnan

Most of us stay in perpetual motion all our lives. Afraid of death, we fill up our time – and minds – with the comfort of busyness, with responsibilities and pleasures. We fear death because it lies on the other side of the barrier between known and unknown. Although it is the one inevitable event that we are all moving towards, we avoid thinking about it and run desperately the other way. We plunge into all kinds of enjoyments. We pursue money, power, and status. We submerge ourselves in our family responsibilities and attachments.

But still we have the nagging realization that something awaits us at the end of it all, and that is death.

Is there any way to know what is on the other side? Has anyone ever been there and come back to tell all? It would seem not; it would seem that we're all in the same situation. Yet somewhere amid the din and distractions of life is the voice of the mystics, those enlightened souls who have appeared in all religions and at all times in history and all places in the world. These mystics teach us that if we can still our minds and take our attention within, we can transcend the limitations of the body and mind and experience God. Their process of meditation takes us beyond the barrier of death, and that is why it is sometimes called 'dying while living'