You may not have encountered this question very often. But I ask this question to myself almost everyday. Okay, I'll come to it later. First would you like to voice your opinion on the following question:

Should death be celebrated or mourned for?

In my country, the topic of someone's death is not welcomed for discussion. It's almost always is shocking to the immediate family members and social circle of the deceased. But isn't death the only certain thing for every life? Then why are we afraid of it?

Although everyone knows about the certainty of death; no one is prepared to accept it. We have got so much to do in this world but have got only one life to live. So our work and life is always assumed to be incomplete. We never have time to die and would like to postpone our death if we could.

The fact is, death is not only a certain event but it can strike us any moment. So shouldn't we be prepared for it all our life?

Death ceremonies

In my life, I've witnessed several death ceremonies. I've always found weeping family members, relatives in shock and tensed moments surrounding the gathering there. However when someone dies at a ripe age, people arrange band-baja troupe to lead the funeral procession and serve sweet dishes for the meals organised in the memory as part of the tradition . But you won't see any happy faces with it. So what's all these music & sweets signify? It's all symbolic!

Today, when I was about to leave for my daily morning vegan outreach, my friend @chetanpadliya informed me of a friend's death. I went to another friend's place in the neighbourhood to know the details of cremation ceremony. There, his mother interfered in our discussion asking, "who is going?". To that I quipped, "The one who was about to go has already gone". This instantaneously made everyone of us burst into laughter and lightened up the serious atmosphere. But not everyone is accustomed to humour on such occasions and it is considered ill mannerism.

Before moving to crematorium, I asked the brother of the deceased to know if he died at home. To this, he narrated me a whole detailed story of how his brother had a silent heart-attack and died on way to the hospital. Now, this is a tradition in India. To express your condolence, you have to ask questions like, "How it all happened?" And in reply, you will be told the whole story, whether you're genuinely interested to listen to it or not. I wonder, how many times, family members need to narrate this story to everyone. How painful it is to repeat such a story again and again? But that's how it's done in the society.

So coming back to my opening question:

Are you prepared for your death in this very moment?

Personally, I'm aware of the fact that I may be forced to leave my body at any moment. So yes, I can say I'm ready to accept my death any moment. But most of us are not.

I remember, about 15 years back, a friend owed me a huge sum of money but he wasn't willing to clear his debt. So we were not much in touch. Suddenly one day, one of our common friend died in an accident along with his entire family. So we were on a long train journey to visit the deceased friend's native place. My friend was very shocked with the accident. But I normally told him that death can strike anyone, at any hour, in any fashion. We always need to be ready to accept this fact. This moved him so much that he immediately wrote me a cheque clearing all my dues ...probably in the preparation of death, we don't want to keep anything pending. And of what good these material things are after we die?

How to prepare for death

With preparing yourself for death, I don't mean that you should always be waiting to die. What I mean is to do all your life's tasks as a duty while being unattached to all name-fame, social relations and material possessions. You can also consider the whole world's set up as some playground and take life as nothing but game. Let's play it and enjoy the game. Who knows when the time is up and we'll have to leave this playground?

Getting ready and waiting for the death

There is a concept called Sanlekhna or Santhara in Jainism. In Jainism, a person serves this world as long as his / her body is capable of doing it. Once the body gets old or gets seriously ill, the person can take a vow to not to consume any food or water until death. This is termed as Sanlekhna / Santhara. This is the most revered process. While waiting for the death, the person devotes all his / her time in religious activities like meditation, prayers or listening to scriptures according to the capability of the body.

Yesterday, the revolutionary Jain saint Shri Tarun Sagar took the vow of Santhara after the permission for it was granted to him by his Guru. Muni Tarun Sagar is suffering from Jaundice for last 3 weeks. His health was not improving with medication. So yesterday, he decided to stop all medication and got ready to welcome his death by taking the vow to not to consume any food or water until it arrives.

His Guru Pushpdant Sagar has granted permission to take this vow and ordered two other saints to reach at Muni Tarun Sagar's Chaturmas venue at Radhapuri Jain Temple in Krishna Nagar at Delhi to extend their support in his Santhara process. In a video released by Jain saint Lokesh Muni, 1967 born Muni Tarun Sagar looks very weak. His days in this body are now numbered. It's just a matter of few days that he will embrace death.

What a graceful acceptance of death!