Death, Remembrance of Death
Remembrance of death makes a man cut to size, making him modest. Then one lives in total helplessness, acknowledges and accepts others and surrenders before the truth.
Death without doubt is the greatest problem for everyone. Death is like an earthquake for the individual. Earthquakes strike on the land, while death strikes at the individual. Just as man has no control over the earthquake, similarly, man is not able to control death. Just as an earthquake comes without prior warning so also does death come without prior warning. Just as it is not possible to reverse the earthquake, so also it is not possible to turn back death. Man in the face of the earthquake is totally helpless. Similarly, man too, in the face of death, is totally helpless. Man has no personal control either over the earthquake or over death.
While death puts an end to one’s life, the remembrance of death can cause the elimination of the ego. The ego is man’s greatest quality. Yet it is this very ego which becomes the cause of all evils in man. It is due to this ego that such a personality is formed in a person as may be called self-centered. It is this self-centered personality that creates the feeling or the sense of one’s own greatness, and the result of this sense of self-centeredness is that all those negative qualities are engendered within a person which can be described as pride, jealousy, oppressiveness, violence, revengefulness and more.
If one remembers death it can be the killer of all such negative feelings. One who has a living consciousness of death in the real sense, and who discovers the reality that he has to die one day and that after death he has to appear before the Lord of the World, he becomes a man cut to size. Such a man becomes modest to the ultimate extent. The feeling of personal greatness will disappear from such a person. Then he will start living with the feeling of total helplessness. He will start acknowledging and accepting others. He will surrender before truth, instead of trying to make the truth surrender before him.
