Does Death Exist?

But certainly from the Indian point of view, as I said earlier also, death is really part of overall. Like life with a capital l, includes what we ordinarily would call life and death. In fact, most people probably often don't realize that the in the Indian mythology, the person who's in charge of both the law of dharma, which basically means the law running the universe and the law of death is yam. He's in so death is just part of the universal law. There is nothing nothing strange or unusual about this.

I often have to remind people. It's very useful for all of us actually to know that there are more than 8,000,000,000 people now on the planet. And between now and a year from now, guaranteedly more than a 100,000,000 people will die. And as many, in fact, more will be born. So it's like a large conveyor belt.

Mother earth has a very fecund womb, very destructive jaw. Eating and excreting, earning, and spending. Living and die. That's the overall project of the world. And I often remind people out of 8,000,000,000 people, I would be completely surprised even if 1% are even remotely interested in anything spiritual.

They may claim to be Hindus or Christians is all very nice. You know, I believe in something. So maybe I will be saved and go to heaven. But Extremely few people actually have an internal spiritual urge. And then out of those, those who try to practice something or they soon realize that it is not such an easy task.

It may take many incarnations. Even a person like the, you probably know the story about the Buddha. There is a whole book called Life stories of the Buddha. He had many lives before he could come to the level of becoming the Buddha. So if that is true, even for the Buddha, you can absolutely be certain.

It'll be true for somebody like me. And I don't know how many lifetimes. So from that perspective, to recognize that living and dying is just part of universal law. Nothing peculiar about this. Eight billion people.

Keep this in mind. More than a hundred million will die the next one year. And as many in fact, more are born, which is why whenever a person actually sometimes becomes aware of this, one begins to wonder, why am I alive? How long will I be alive? And what is the call for my existence? And these questions become, I think, much more serious in the so called midlife crisis just because by that time, initially earlier, one has to earn educate, get education, earn something, keep a family background.

All that is required. In India, this gets divided very strongly, twenty five years, twenty five years, etcetera. But that is that one doesn't need to get attached to that idea. For some people, my own father, only at the age of 65, he just retired completely from his legal practice, then serving the society, etcetera. Similarly, my older brother, who was chief justice at punjab and Harana, gave it up and started serving the society. So I think not everybody follows these ideas.

Because sometimes a person can't afford purely financially. But sometimes those who have done fairly well financially begin to question, why am I alive? In fact, in the Chinese tradition, very strong tendency that the spiritual orientation or spiritual education should not even be brought until after the age of 30, because they don't think it's really quite relevant until that time. And but only after that, strong emphasis on this, more in China than elsewhere.