What do you do?

This post is dedicated to our dear friend Sneha Madhrani, whose death left a void in our lives.

I was sitting by the window, overlooking the home’s window, which was once hers, when memories flooded in.

Her bubbly, welcoming smile and pleasant demeanour never leave my vision, and this is when I question my reason.

Is my vision so limited that all I can see is just this? Is there more than what I just caught?

For death just seemed an extension of life. Here she was with us some moments ago, and now she just happened to go.

As I looked deep down, the void out here was in there too, but then suddenly, I stumbled on a block.

The block which blocked my vision did not let me see further, for the moment I craned my neck and tried to look beyond, it came in between and led me away, onto a path I could see.

The path I could see seemed cool and cosy; it was full of posies and roses, it was familiar.

Yes, I got back to the path and ways of the world, following the norms of society and the age-old theory, “life goes on doesn’t stop for anyone.”

The show must go on, so saying I went back to living life the way it was to be lived.

But then I paused, for something was amiss. Yes there was something I missed.

For seeing my beautiful, spirited friend dying, I saw the light she meant to convey.

Then as I wanted to reach out, life pulled a fast one, caught me in its grip with its glitter, trying to hide the bitter.

But I discovered better and shook myself, hard telling myself, “What you do?

Can you not see that life and death are but one, for as one passes over, it seems the night is over, as it’s the break of a new dawn.

But then how would you know? For your night is never over, you sleep through the day as if it is the night”.

“How,” I ask myself? Well, friends, it’s no different. ” For as the night passes over, comes the day, and if you learn to live life, you learn to die to it too.

The phenomenon goes on and similarly within us too. But since we have not learnt what life is, we’ll never learn what death is.

Sometimes I wonder, what is it that is hard to understand?

The fact that life and death are one or that as one comes in, one has to depart.

Oh, why oh, why are we so helpless and miserable?

But then, after all the hurt and misery, we get back to daily living, struggling and fighting against a tide that eventually arises as destined.

We struggle against an eventuality which is naturality, and forget about living altogether.

I sat silent and still, and then I stumbled on these beautiful words, which appeared as quickly and naturally as was meant to be.

(We put death beyond the walls, beyond the movement of life. It is something to evade, to avoid.

The question is what is living and what is dying? The two must be together, not separate.

If we learn about living, we’ll learn about death, and learning is in the now.) An extract from the biography of J. Krishnamurti by Pupul Jayakar.

It’s a new day, every day, life and death come in simultaneously. Once we learn to live now, we learn to die now too.

Living is dying, but we hold on to a yesterday, not here. So we cling to the past, not letting go. and live in it, dying to the now.

Can we walk through life as innocently as we came in? Can we shed all the experiences, the conditions, the knowledge as soon as we enter another walk in life?

If so, then we know that death is a part of living, for as we live in the moment, we die to it too.

Then the very fear we fear is the key to the lock of fearlessness.

The fear of not being is in our genetic makeup, and when we look at it consciously, we realise it’s a part of us, our very makeup.

So dear ones, let’s face it and live consciously today, dying every day, every moment to the past, then darlings, what we are is not what we became.

But purely so, we are able to be in the state of being, without the conflict of becoming, and when there is only the state of being now and here, there is no past and no future.

Then life and death go hand in hand, in the timeless zone.

As I conclude, I know for sure, dear Sneha, you are in the space of love and well being, and your smile will always remain a part of our being.