Why be Oblivious of Death?
People are busy fulfilling the demands of this world, being forgetful of death. Forgetfulness of death is forgetfulness of the Hereafter, ignoring which we face eternal deprivation.
Thinking about how near we all are to death and how seldom we think about it, I recalled a young student, who was not prepared for the forthcoming exams. His parents reminded him daily about the exams. They would sternly say: “If you fail in the exams, your future will be ruined and you will not be able to achieve anything.” This reminder by the parents was so effective that he shut himself up in his room and started preparing in earnest for the exams.
In this incident, I saw the parallel in how people are oblivious of death. Their obliviousness of death is because of their being oblivious of the Hereafter. All men and women are engaged in fulfilling the demands of this world. All the time they think of the harm and losses of this world. This is why the concept of death is not alive in their active memory. Had their minds been focused daily on the situation they would face after death, they would have paid serious attention to the most serious issue of being made to appear in the court of God. Then they would never be oblivious or ignorant of death. They would become far more serious about death, even more serious than the young student had become about his exams.
The general condition of people is that they give a great deal of thought to their lives before death, but they do not think at all about life after death. This is why every time they mention the things of this world, they do not mention the issue of the Hereafter at all. This is why people have become indifferent to death. Nothing reminds them of death. Not even others’ deaths. They see others dying but they do not give any thought to their own death. The truth is forgetfulness of death is also forgetfulness of their future. Death is like an earthquake. Whatever opportunities man has must be seized before the earthquake, for after the earthquake no one will have the opportunity to do anything.
