In the American culture, especially in southern California where physical appearance and beauty are highly valued, aging is not exactly something most people look forward to. Those who can afford to, sometimes undertake expensive procedures to attempt to maintain their bodies’ youthful appearances, despite their inability to stop time or the aging process. Botox, hair dye, laser treatments, and face lifts are just some of the popular procedures in the ever expanding field of anti-aging. Why are we afraid to age? Why can’t we let nature take its course without feeling anxiety?

The anxiety we feel as we age and come closer to life’s end, may serve as a wake-up call that we are not using our time properly, and call us to take spiritual action. As we age, we face the reality of our mortality. In our twenties, it is easy to ignore the ticking of life’s clock. We live for the moment and feel immortal. Later in life, we start to feel the limitations of the body, experiencing aches and pains, and decreased energy, strength, and endurance. We undergo the loss of loved ones. We look in the mirror and wonder where the twenty year old face we once had went. In a culture that emphasizes youth and beauty, such ex¬periences can be scary. We subsequently try to cling to our youth through these anti-aging treatments.

In comparison, other cultures embrace aging as a natural part of life. The Chinese, for example, are well known to revere and care for their elders. Gray hair is a sign of wisdom, not something to be ashamed of. As another example, Ayurvedic philosophy divides life into four stages compared to the seasons – the spring of youth, summer of young adulthood, autumn of older adulthood, and winter of old age. Although spring and summer are warm, flourishing, and pleasurable, winter also serves its purpose and has its beauty. Similarly, although youth and early adulthood are joyful, productive times, slowing down in the winter of old age serves a valuable purpose and is to be embraced, not feared.

Spiritual realization is the goal of life in Vedic and Ayurvedic cultures, and one is taught from a young age onward that the body is a vehicle for the soul – a vehicle that when used properly, can drive one to the destination of self-realization. In such a culture, striving to maintain the external youthfulness of a naturally aging body would seem unnecessary or even folly, because the focus is on the ever youthful, eternal spirit. The human body is a sacred gift. The human mind is capable of deep thought, questioning, philosophizing, and reflecting, unlike the minds of the animals. We can seek the purpose of life, and become conscious of our relationship with God. One should cultivate spiritual practice through all life stages, but old age is a time to focus more exclusively on turning inward. After retiring from the busy life of earning a living, one has more time for introspection, reflection, and meditation. Another important task of elders is to share wisdom learned throughout life with the younger generations (if they will listen).

In cultures that teach their youth to value and accept the aging process, peo¬ple are not so bewildered when signs of aging appear. Each new wrinkle and gray hair can be seen as sacred reminders to use time wisely and focus on the spirit. A spiritually prepared person can walk bravely into the winter season. In the winter, we don’t pretend that it is hot and jump into the cool sea. We put on a coat and sit by the fire. Similarly, in the winter of old age we should not attempt to act like we are twenty, reliving spring and summer, or trying to reverse the aging process. Rather we should be prepared, put on the protective winter coat of our spiritual practice, and experience the joy of aging. Instead of using laser treatment to counteract the aging process, try some pure spiritual mantra chanting to awaken your eternal self – the soul which never ages or wrinkles.

When typing my seminar “There is No Death,” Sadanandi Dasi, my secretary, suddenly stopped and asked me in her innocent way, “Will you write a poem for me when I have gone and send it to everyone who is dear to me?” Well, with a lot of pain in my heart, I sat down today, only three days after her departure, and wrote this poem for her. In it I try to see things from Sadanandi Dasi’s perspective and say to you what she would say. I pray that she is pleased by it and so are you.

Don’t Cry

If you see me on the day of my death
laying with a pale face in the cold coffin,
don’t cry.

Do you cry when the shell of an oyster breaks
and the pearl rolls free?

Do you lament when the struggle is finally over
and the butterfly leaves the dead cocoon?

This is only one of the evenings of my life.
The sun has set in the west
but somewhere it will rise again
announcing the dawn of a new birthday.

Maybe I have even joined
the dance divine
on the sandy banks of the Yamuna River
in the deathless world.

The silent tears at the other end said it all. “Is everything alright?” I asked Priya. I have known Dr. Priya Venkat, a pediatrician, for nine years. I was a witness to her strength and determination as she fought through many challenges in her college years. I felt a sense of satisfaction to have personally contributed to her welfare and finally see her settled in a happy married life. That is why her call was tough. Priya, who was six-months pregnant, barely managed to utter the words: “Miscarriage.”

Two conspicuous emotions emerged simultaneously — helplessness and shock. Helplessness because I could not even find the words to console her or myself, and shock because two minutes before I received that phone call, I was talking to my roommate Ari about the fragility of our life and the constant, undercover companionship of our death. Little did I realize that the conversation was just the beginning of a series of deathly events in the span of one week. The news of the miscarriage was followed by a suicide of the 17-year-old son of a good friend, the demise of my 23-year-old student who was suffering from cancer, and finally a fatal heart attack that consumed my 60-year-old cousin.

Thousands of people die every day, and the world still moves on. We read and hear about deaths and tragedies almost everyday in the news. It may grab our attention for a moment, but the sports section seems more interesting. Is death really that trivial? Or have we unconsciously or consciously tranquilized ourselves from its impact?

The topic of death has the wondrous potential of concentrating the mind. It opens up a deeper sense of inquiry into our true nature and makes us question the very purpose of our existence. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said that the real education of mankind means facing up to death. In most spiritual traditions, especially those from the East, the problem of death seems to open up the doorway to deeper spiritual inquiry.

The Buddha renounced his wealth and riches to seek enlightenment when he saw the unpleasant sights of disease and death and realized that he had to go through the same. Similarly, in the Bhagavad-gita, which is India’s classic text on yoga and spiritual wisdom, prince Arjuna faces a similar existential crisis as he is called upon to fight a gruesome war against his own kinsmen, led by his wily and unrighteous cousin Duryodhana. Although Arjuna was a veteran of many wars, he confronted death like never before because on the opposing side were members of his own family that he deeply loved and respected, but he was forced to fight them because of political intrigue.

The first chapter of the Bhagavad-gita is called “The Yoga of Arjuna’s Crisis” — an appropriate title because the word “yoga” means “to link” or “to connect”. In this chapter, Arjuna’s crisis makes him connect through deep inquiry to his own identity. What follows is a beautifully composed and spiritually profound dialogue between Arjuna and his charioteer and dear friend Krishna. Although I grew up with three different editions of the Bhagavad-gita at home, this text made a much deeper impact on me after my own encounter with death.

My spiritual journey began when I first confronted the problem of death at the age of 17. After securing admission to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, I faced deep insecurity about the fact that all achievements in my life will be invariably stripped from me at the time of death.

The issue was like a thorn in my side until one day, during dinner, I expressed it to my mother. Very affectionately, she mentioned that I was letting such thoughts rob away my real joys of life. It is important to live in the moment and experience life to the fullest. Her affection touched my heart, but her response left me dissatisfied. I felt that her response was urging me to be in denial of the terror of death. It was like trying to enjoy a delicious, elaborate feast on the eve of a really tough exam for which I have not prepared one bit.

Although I pursued the thought for some time, the intensity waned — helped by my own “confidence” of being able to “manage” the world. I invested myself in “hero projects” that I hoped would leave a mark in this world. It was not until my second date with death that I realized that the human brain just does not have the capacity to comprehend the magnitude of the terror.

The rendezvous occurred when I was a first year MBA student at Cornell University in September 2005. I had just finished a major exam in accounting and was one of few students in the class to secure full marks. My performance gave me complete confidence and security that I would ace my MBA program and secure a top job as an investment banker. That same afternoon I proceeded to Cornell University’s medical center for a regular blood test. After the doctor obtained the required samples, I was sitting in the reception area scouring the Wall Street Journal. Suddenly, I saw darkness in front of me.

So, is it a good or a bad thing?

When I came to external consciousness, I heard screams all around. I was on a stretcher surrounded by a whole bunch of medical personnel frantically rushing me to the emergency room. I felt excruciating pain in my hands and feet. They were twisted in an awkward fashion and to my greatest shock I could not move them. Then I felt numbness creeping up my body from my feet. I could barely speak and my eyes were getting heavier. Much to my horror, I realized that this could well be the end. Every moment seemed dilated. My entire life began to play out in front of me like a movie. All the people that I loved and all the things that I felt deeply attached to filled up my thoughts. The pain of sudden separation from all of them was intense and tears welled up in my eyes. A distinct feeling enveloped me — a state a despair resulting from an inevitable contradiction — the strong desire for immortality in a situation that had mortality written all over it.

I was given heavy dosage of painkillers and other medicines and woke up 14 hours later feeling like I had run a marathon on my hands. I was relieved to be alive. Nothing else mattered at that moment. The doctors described the episode to be an extreme case of a vasovagal reaction or neurocardiogenic syncope — an abnormal reflex to wounds or punctures that results in a blood pressure drop leading to decreased blood flow to the brain. Amazing what a harmless blood test can cause!

This experience opened my eyes to the fact that death could come at any time — even when it is least expected. It only takes a moment for life to change by 180 degrees, and when it does, the first reaction is shock. I say shock because the built-in narcissist in the human psyche believes that he will never die; he only feels sorry for the man next to him. Freud’s explanation for this was that in man’s inner organic recesses he feels immortal.

I once read a story in the Mahabharata, a text on India’s ancient history that resonates well with this. The great king Yudhisthira, who was very famous for his wisdom and unwavering sense of integrity, was once put to a test. He had to answer 100 questions that tested his intellect and wisdom, and his success was a matter of life and death for his dear brothers. Yudhisthira impressed his interrogator with the first 99 questions. The last and the most open-ended question of the test was, “What is the most wondrous thing in this world?” To this, the king deeply pondered and responded, “Every person sees many others around him die everyday, but refuses to believe that he will ever have to go through it. On the contrary, they make plans for a permanent settlement in this world. To me, this is the greatest wonder and the biggest irony!” Of course Yudhisthira won the contest.

Confronting the fragile nature of my existence was a very humbling experience. I realized that at the time of death, the physical body that I so carefully nurture, the adoration and distinction that I strive for and treasure as fortifications of my greatness can all get uprooted and scattered like trees in a tornado. I was forced to re-examine the reliability of social, political and financial power-linkages that gave me the sense of being grounded. Facing the truth of this situation opened up spiritual inquiry yet again. For the first time, the concepts from the Bhagavad-gita made deep and logical sense.

This experience also helped me realize that treating death in a trivial fashion may close doors to deep realizations about our very existence. Life escapes us when we huddle within the defended fortress of our invulnerability. It’s not that we should be paralyzed and depressed at the thought of death and renounce enjoying the precious and deep moments that life has bestowed upon us, but not taking death seriously enough may be as good as not taking life seriously enough. It may very well rob us of the opportunity to develop the humility and gratitude to appreciate the abundant gifts of life.

One bit of profound advice that Socrates gave to his disciples was to practice dying everyday. Although this may sound impractical, the undertone to this insight is very useful — to cultivate awareness of and face our deep-rooted insecurities, the epitome of which is death itself. Such awareness, when dealt with in a healthy and honest fashion, leads to a deliberate dismantling of our defense mechanisms of denial and repression. It makes us take life seriously enough to deliberate on our actions and makes routine activity impossible. It increases the discovery of new possibilities of choice and action and new forms of courage and endurance. It gives rise to a new and more meaningful way of life.

The very word plague brings dread. We recall medieval images of the Black Death, scourging fourteenth-century Asia and Europe. We envision rampant rats and dying children.

Late in 1994, as plague broke out in the Indian state of Gujarat, people fled in the hundreds of thousands. Neighboring countries sealed their borders. Airlines cancelled flights. Even doctors grabbed their stethoscopes and scrambled for their lives.

Now, of course, life is back to normal. The outbreak had been quelled. We’re no longer in the fourteenth century; the plague bacillus yields to tetracycline.

Yet all of us find ourselves still encircled by death. Rats!

It may be today from plague or tomorrow from cancer, old age, a car crash, an armed burglar. All we’re doing is putting death off—we think.

Everyone has an appointed time to live, say the Vedic sages, and an appointed time to die. When your time comes you go, plague or no plague, medicine or none. And so it sometimes happens that a hopeless case survives and a man the doctors tell us ought to live drops dead.

Anyway, while life is still in us, what are we living for? If we don’t know and don’t ask, what’s the use of our life?

Matter will be finished—all of it. Every material body is destined to be a corpse, every universe a cinder. The more we embrace matter and try to hold onto it, the more we suffer, and the more we lose. Material enjoyment is an oxymoron. Security is humbug.

This is the plague of the material world. For one who is born, says the Bhagavad-gita, death is certain. And after one dies one is sure to be born again. Tetracycline isn’t a cure for the cycle of birth and death.

The severest plague, worldwide in its extent, is that of spiritual ignorance. It is this plague that has driven us into the materialism, and that keeps us there suffering. It is this plague that fools us into making our problems still worse. And this plague of ignorance can be cured only by spiritual knowledge.

I’ve been sitting here for hours. It’s a funeral; my friend died.

At uncertain intervals people get off their plastic chairs, fine tune their careful solemnity, and walk slowly to the coffin. The coffin perplexes me.

See, this is my first funeral and I’m still trying to figure things out. My friend is gone—and what does this long box represent?

I thought it was empty. They said he was gone.

I get up and walk forward slowly… I stare at carpet out of duty… I reach the coffin, and take a curious look …

It shocked me so bad…

Bill’s right here!! He’s right here!! They told me Bill was gone — but here he is — right here in the coffin. Same eyes, same hair, same brain, same DNA.

I blurt, “Hey Billy! Man, you’re too wild, man! What kinda stunt is this!?” I wheel around to face the people. “Hey, it’s a practical joke or something, right? Bill’s not gone. He’s right here!”

Needless to say, I was escorted out. They stare at me in disbelief—“Are you from some other planet or something? Can’t you understand? That’s not Bill in the coffin. Bill’s gone, he’s gone.”

How can Bill be “gone” when his entire body is right there? Simple: he’s not the body.

All of Bill’s body is there in the coffin—even all his brain cells, his heredity, and his DNA—but Bill is gone. The body’s there, but the person is gone.

The person is not the body.

You can understand this form another angle if you’re willing to try a simple experiment. Go dig up your old baby pictures (Cute? I hope so). Anyway, find a mirror. Look at your body in the mirror. Look at your body in the pictures. Two very different bodies you got there—but both are somehow considered yours.

From a chubby little baby body to a “cool” adolescent body… and someday to a wrinkled-up old body. The body constantly changes, but you remain. Same person, changing body.

You are different from the body.

Doubt: You say that my body has been changing throughout my life, while I have remained the same person, and therefore I’m different from my body. I don’t agree. I think I have changed with my body. I am a different person now then I was ten years ago.

Answer: True. Not only does my physical body change, my mental body is also in a constant state of flux. Likes and dislikes change, goals and plans change, I even subtly change my concept of identity. This shows that the real me is neither the body nor the mind.

I remember being totally into dinosaurs and Little League, with my self-concept wrapped around a five-year old body and mind. I also remember being into Twisted Sister and leather jackets in junior high. But behind all my changing identifications is the changeless I. Otherwise, who went through all those changes and remembers them all?

Beyond the body and the mind is the real me.

Doubt: You say the body is always changing, and we remain through all the changes—so we must be different from the body. But the body isn’t totally changing. There are similarities between the body in the baby pictures and the body in the mirror. Brown eyes then, brown eyes now, etc. And the navy-anchor tattoo I just got will still be there when I’m 70.

Answer: If you study it closely you’ll see that the body really is always changing. Similarities in growth appear because cell structures like eyes and hair replicate themselves in specific patterns determined by DNA and stuff like that. Although the cells are constantly changing, there appear to be similarities, because they change within regular patterns.