Will You be Alive Tomorrow?

He who has died has died. This everyone knows. But there is another fact, which few people care to think about—that one day or the other they too will die. One day, you and me—all of us—will meet the same fate as has befallen hundreds of millions of people right from the dawn of human history. Every day we see or hear about people dying somewhere or the other but, strangely, in our minds we exempt ourselves from this experience, as if such exemption were really possible! It is as if people are announcing, “Others had to die, and so they have died. But I am never going to die!”

This is a terribly dangerous delusion. It is like the proverbial ostrich burying its head in the sand. The fact is that whether one thinks about one’s death or not, death in any case is racing towards us!

Death is like a personal earthquake. An earthquake strikes without making a prior announcement. Similarly, death arrives without prior notice. In the face of an earthquake, a human being is completely helpless. So too in the face of death. You may want to stop death, but that can never happen. Death has its own law, which operates completely without an individual’s consent.

This situation demands that everyone should be very serious about death. We should reflect on death very often. Every day, when evening comes one should remember that a new day, the next day, may perhaps not be written in one’s destiny. This awareness can completely transform us. Then, life will not remain as it has been all along. Instead, it will become a creative preparation, as will waiting for death.

Fortunate is one who becomes aware of death and makes preparations for it well before it suddenly strikes.