Hinduism and Death Essay -- essays research papers

Each month our educational center section provides the Hinduism right away staff with a kind of group meditation. Individually we ponder our subject, and together we discuss it in detail. These past 30 days our meditation was on death. You might guess we had a morbid March. Not so, since, as U.S. General George Patton rightly noted, "For Hindus death is the most exalted experience of life."This idea is sometimes hard for non-Hindus to grasp - in particular for atheists facing Eternal Oblivion and for those of the semitic faiths which define death as a kind of punishment for mans sin and disobedience. According to this view, death is the ultimate betoken of mans spiritual failure, a belief which understandably arouses instincts of denial and injustice. We may feel shamed, penitent, guilty and graced, not to mentioned frightened. And thats a long way from exultation.No such thoughts come after the dying and death of a Hindu. Of course, there is much sadness surrounding th e passing of friends and family, but that is honest acknowledgement of our love and attachment to life and to severally other. Inside we know that death is OK, it is natural. Inside we know that the consciousness, even if it was less than perfect in this life, is continuing its appointed journey toward Liberation and will, in time, throw the other shore. Such knowledge is reassuring, whether the death is anothers or our own. Thus, Hindus called death by a lofty name - Maha Samadhi, "the Great Superconscious State." And to be near an awakened soul at the time he or she gives up the body is considered one of the most auspicious and blessed of opportunities.If we see death as the opposite of life, past life is good and death is bad. But if we see life and death not as hostile but as collaborative parts of a greater whole called samsara (the cosmic evolutionary cycle of birth-death-rebirth), then life is good and death is also good. Both are part of the Cosmic-What-Is.That b eing so, the unworldly Hindu approaches death as a mediation and a sadhana, as a spiritual opportunity. The physical bodys impending demise compels him to practice detachment which yogis queue up easy but which is so difficult to achieve in the tumult of life. Yamas nearness brings an urgency to strive more than ever, to plunge deeper into consciousness in a renewed search for the Divine Self. No longer can he put it off. No mor... ...ht by fighting medical and legal battles in development numbers.Death is personified in most cultures. The Greeks called him Thanatos, and to the Romans he was Mors. IN India he is Yama, riding on a black water buffalo, green in color, dressed in red. The pigeon and owl are his messengers, his weapon is a mace. He carries a noose, called kala-sutra or "black threat," with which he snares the life force, prana, and draws it from the body. He is also called Mrityu, "death," Kala, "time" and Dharma Raja, "King of Justice.&qu ot in that respect is much to be said of the Hindu insights on death, and only a fraction of it fit into the four pages you will find at the center of this issue. We mean to do more in the future and welcome readers contributions. Our objective is to share the message of the awakened ones who conquered death and knew the bodys dissolution as freedom from bondage, as exit into the Light, as a flowing of the finite into the Infinite. They asked us to think fearlessly about death, to fathom its meaning. They urged us in exiting life to let go of the self and be the immortal Self which time and again shrugs off the shackles of sorrow.