Death
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Ok. Impressive!
But why am I quoting this "quotable" poem? Because I am reading on death these days. Na na, it is not preparation towards my exit from this world. I am not going to give up so easily, however difficult life might be because I have a long way to go and a lot more to achieve. But the topic of death has always interested me a lot. This started when I was in primary school and one of my friends met with a sudden death. This had a great impact on my tender mind. For days together, I was thinking about that friend - thought like where he would be now, would he be happy away from his mother, would he have all powers to do whatever he wishes to as it is shown in movies, what if he comes some day to meet me, what if I die and all such things.
My curiosity was served well by a column in the newspaper we used to subscribed then. It talked about near-death experiences and other stuff related to spirits and rebirth. I was fascinated. All these past years, I never missed an opportunity to read about death ,though I did avoid the heavy philosphical works. After all, I am not that old to dabble into the philosophy of a topic as serious as death. I was more interested in reading about strange experiences people have undergone. Though I have forgotten most of them, I have enough of information on such matters and I feel I should share some of them with my colleagues. I, therefore grabbed the opportunity of making a class presentation on the topic of death. And I have got a decent enough material, the above quote is a part of which.
By the way, I also had a close brush with death once; twice if my mother's description of an incident of my childhood is to be believed.
The first incident, as told to me by my mom, took place when I was in first standard. I was suffering from jaundice and one night, all my activities suddenly stopped. I lied on the bed, motionless, with my eyes wide open, not responding to frantic calls from my mother and perhaps not even breathing. But within minutes, I was automatically restored to normalcy. I do not remember any thing of this incident. How could I? I was "dead" then. :)!
The second incident is still as fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday. I was in 8th and was visiting a place called Jhamwala with my parents. The place is famous for a waterfall and we were all getting wet at the mouth of the waterfall. The place was strewn with big rocks all of which were quite slippery due to being continuously under water. I was standing on one of them and jumped on to another. In doing this, I slipped and fell into the water. Not that I am healthy now, but I was quite light then and the flow of the water at the mouth of the fall was too much for me. The wate started dragging me. Fortunately, my father was close by. He jumped into the water and managed to get hold of my hand. Otherwise, I would have, after being dragged by the water for some distance, fallen from a height on to large rocks and would have in all probabilites died. My mom had almost fainted then. Seeing my father jump into the water to save me, she thought she had lost both of us :)!
It would be a great experience to die but I wouldn't be alive then to cherish the experience. How ironic!
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Ok. Impressive!
But why am I quoting this "quotable" poem? Because I am reading on death these days. Na na, it is not preparation towards my exit from this world. I am not going to give up so easily, however difficult life might be because I have a long way to go and a lot more to achieve. But the topic of death has always interested me a lot. This started when I was in primary school and one of my friends met with a sudden death. This had a great impact on my tender mind. For days together, I was thinking about that friend - thought like where he would be now, would he be happy away from his mother, would he have all powers to do whatever he wishes to as it is shown in movies, what if he comes some day to meet me, what if I die and all such things.
My curiosity was served well by a column in the newspaper we used to subscribed then. It talked about near-death experiences and other stuff related to spirits and rebirth. I was fascinated. All these past years, I never missed an opportunity to read about death ,though I did avoid the heavy philosphical works. After all, I am not that old to dabble into the philosophy of a topic as serious as death. I was more interested in reading about strange experiences people have undergone. Though I have forgotten most of them, I have enough of information on such matters and I feel I should share some of them with my colleagues. I, therefore grabbed the opportunity of making a class presentation on the topic of death. And I have got a decent enough material, the above quote is a part of which.
By the way, I also had a close brush with death once; twice if my mother's description of an incident of my childhood is to be believed.
The first incident, as told to me by my mom, took place when I was in first standard. I was suffering from jaundice and one night, all my activities suddenly stopped. I lied on the bed, motionless, with my eyes wide open, not responding to frantic calls from my mother and perhaps not even breathing. But within minutes, I was automatically restored to normalcy. I do not remember any thing of this incident. How could I? I was "dead" then. :)!
The second incident is still as fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday. I was in 8th and was visiting a place called Jhamwala with my parents. The place is famous for a waterfall and we were all getting wet at the mouth of the waterfall. The place was strewn with big rocks all of which were quite slippery due to being continuously under water. I was standing on one of them and jumped on to another. In doing this, I slipped and fell into the water. Not that I am healthy now, but I was quite light then and the flow of the water at the mouth of the fall was too much for me. The wate started dragging me. Fortunately, my father was close by. He jumped into the water and managed to get hold of my hand. Otherwise, I would have, after being dragged by the water for some distance, fallen from a height on to large rocks and would have in all probabilites died. My mom had almost fainted then. Seeing my father jump into the water to save me, she thought she had lost both of us :)!
It would be a great experience to die but I wouldn't be alive then to cherish the experience. How ironic!
posted by Vivek Pabari at 7:32 AM
2 Comments:
u sure it'll be a great experience to die??
having experienced a "near death " experience myself , a bit longer than what u experienced . i am pretty sure its a very sad moment.
as for my experience goes , not going into the details , i was drowning in a river, had my head totally submerged under water and for a couple of moments i thought i was gone ..when a senior pulled me out.
believe me , for those 2 seconds ..my entire 12 years(i was 12 then , am 20 now) flashed in front of my eyes.!! my parents ,happy moments i spent with them and how sad they'll be when they know i m gone ..all came in rushing into my mind.i cant explain it exactly but it sure was very very sad. and then just out of nowhere when i thought all was lost, a senior pulled me out ..good gracious how happy i was..!! believe me ..life is happiness ..death --misery..!!
"For me death might be a good thing to happen. But surely, if it happens to me, life will become t
terrible for my parents."
dusnt this thought make u feel sad ??
so why do u think death wud be a nice experience for u ..i mean what drives u to think this?? cud u plz clarify a little on this ..
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