Always on the Brink

Confident of his wisdom and the worldly success it brings, everyone fearlessly walks straight ahead, heedless that he can plunge headlong into the pit of doom at any moment.

P. V. Venkatashawaran, the Chief Marketing Engineer in a government firm, attended a meeting held on the eighth floor of the Gopala Tower in New Delhi on May 29, 1982. He walked towards the lift with some of his colleagues when the meeting was over. As the door was open, he thought the lift had arrived, but it was still on the ninth floor. In an excited state of mind, at the success of the decisions taken at the meeting, he paid no attention to where he was walking and stepped into the empty lift shaft. He fell straight to the ground from the eighth floor. His doctor, who had been with him then, could do nothing for him. He could only declare him dead. He was 51 years old at the time of his death. (Hindustan Times, May 30, 1982)

Venkatashawaran was an extremely successful officer. In an official journal, he was described as “A thoroughbred professional and a dashing, innovative manager with fire in his belly and ideas in his mind, an astute general.”

So far as this world is concerned, the case of Venkatashawaran is unique. However, from the point of view of life Hereafter, there is nothing uncommon about it. Confident of his wisdom and the worldly success it brings, everyone fearlessly walks straight ahead, heedless that he can plunge headlong into the pit of doom at any moment. To utter insulting words against others, oppress the weak and the innocent, take revenge, be unjust to others, ridicule others’ failures, and argue without reason—all such evils are like stepping into the empty lift shaft on the eighth floor. Every such step can plunge a man headlong into the pit of destruction. It is then that neither his friends nor his wishful thinking will save him—everyone is on the brink of that lift shaft, convinced that he is holding fast to a firm rock that will never fail him.