Is Death Random or Predetermined?

Acharya Prashant

11 min
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Is Death Random or Predetermined?
When it comes to death, we think so much about divine intervention, as if there is some conscious entity at work with a deliberate plan. Just realize that life doesn’t follow our plan or any divine plan. We come and go, just as waves rise and fall in the ocean. There is no rhyme or reason to it. We die just as we come—randomly. Nobody is doing it. It’s hard to swallow, but if we can acknowledge this, it would set us free. This summary has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation

Questioner: Namaste Acharya ji, my name is Sangeeta, and I’m from the USA. My question is regarding my mother’s sudden death. She and my father, eighty years old and eighty-six years old, went to Kufri, Shimla, last year for a vacation. And as soon as they reached there, late in the evening, my mother, she suffered some breathing problems. And before she reached the hospital, she lost her life.

It was all of a sudden, and she had no other medical history of any diseases. What we are coping right now, is this sudden death and the grief that I’m going through.

I want to ask a question — Is her sudden death a destiny, her karma, or something else? Because we read in the scriptures that there is always like a divine intervention that could have happened, and saved her life, and given her an oxygen cylinder, or restored her to the hospital on time.

So, is there something called a divine destiny, divine intervention, or is this just destiny, and we have to accept it? That’s my question, Acharya ji.

Acharya Prashant: Neither divinity nor destiny are very relevant words here. You see, you look at this glass. This has many molecules. Let’s say, “There is a certain element named X here— a very large number of molecules. All those molecules are similar, very similar, right? Still, their velocities vary from minus infinity to plus infinity. The same thing. It’s not that somebody is dictating them to behave differently or that they are destined to move slower or faster. It’s just randomness.”

So, if you will look at the velocity distribution of these molecules, you’ll have to bear with a little bit of statistics, but it might help, the very ubiquitous normal distribution. They are all similar. There is no difference really between them. Right? The camera will soon focus on it, and you will get a very clear view.

Still, you will have certain molecules here (pointing towards the figure). This is the number of molecules, and this axis represents the velocity, right? Same, same. No difference at all, no difference at all. Yet certain molecules will have a very large velocity. The axis goes right till infinity. It does not stop anywhere. But we won’t say till infinity; let’s say till here.

Certain molecules will have a very large velocity, large positive velocity, moving in one particular direction. Certain molecules will have a very large negative velocity. Most molecules—because this is the number of molecules— most molecules will have a velocity around the mean, the average. And these velocities keep changing also because they operate in what can be called as popularly the Brownian motion. So, a molecule with a very large velocity strikes another molecule with a low velocity and loses its momentum, and, you know, the velocity abruptly changes. They’re all the time colliding with each other.

What is to be kept in mind is that they are all alike. There is no difference in them, and yet there is a huge difference in their velocities. They are all alike. There is no difference in them, yet there is a huge difference in their velocities, though most of them are going to have an average kind of velocity.

Now, replace the term velocity with lifespan. So, these are all human beings. Most of them will have an average kind of lifespan. The average lifespan in India will be sixty to eighty. Abroad, it will be seventy to ninety or something.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Some will have more than hundred, and some will have twenty, twenty-five, thirty, something. Some might die when they are three months old. They will lie somewhere here. That does not mean that somebody is destined to die young or somebody is destined to be a nonagenarian. Just randomness. Nothing in it.

Questioner: Sir, what is divine intervention then?

Acharya Prashant: There is no divine intervention. There is prakriti (nature). Prakriti does not brook any intervention from any quarter. Just happened. If you look for a reason, there isn’t any. Randomness is the reason.

Questioner: If I respectfully ask you a follow-up question is: Why do a lot of yogis, or even modern-day yogis, they keep saying that we went to a certain place, say in the Himalayas, and something was supposed to go really wrong according to our material plan, but then somebody appeared, something happened, and miraculously, we could catch a plane or catch a flight or we got oxygen cylinder? And that is my question. How didn’t that happen in my mom’s case?

Acharya Prashant: The more appropriate question might be, why do people believe in such stuff? Anybody can say anything. If we look at the kind of things people say, the range is infinite. But as a human being with discretion, I ought to know how stuff really operates, and I must know what to lend credence to?

Are you getting it?

Questioner: So, you’re saying randomness is the...

Acharya Prashant: Yes. And it is quite possible that somebody is almost dead, and he still manages to have some kind of a second wind. But that’s very similar to a molecule having close to zero velocity, and then it is hit by another molecule with a high velocity, and it gains velocity. Again, there is no divine intervention. Just randomness and laws of statistics at work.

You see, when it comes to death, we think so much of divine intervention, and as if there is some conscious entity at work with a conscious plan.

To simplify the matter of death, look at the matter of birth. Is there anything apart from randomness in birth?

Look at the number of sperm cells that compete to fertilize the egg. One particular one succeeds. Is it special? No, it is not special. It was a random chance that this one succeeded in reaching the egg first and fertilizing it. And millions of such cells are ejaculated. They all go waste, not that they were inferior or less qualified, or something. Just chance. And since it is just chance, the wise ones have told us, “Do not take all this seriously because it is all just chance.” Just chance. Why are you taking it seriously?

You know, I could have taken, for example, radioactive mutation here, and there, the whole thing would have become even more vividly alive because then we could have talked of something called half-life. The same phenomenon is observed in radioactive materials as well. The normal distribution, as I said, is ubiquitous in everything in prakriti you observe— this bell-shaped curve (Pointing to the graph drawn for this discussion). Most of us lie here, but then there are outliers— they are here, they are here. Everywhere. But the more is the extent of your deviation from the mean, the rarer you are.

Questioner: So, randomness is normal— is what you’re saying?

Acharya Prashant: Randomness is?

Questioner: The randomness is normal, and that’s how I should console myself. Is that what you’re saying?

Acharya Prashant: No. You don’t have to console yourself. Just realize. Just realize that things do not move as per our plan.

Questioner: Sure, sure. Yes.

Acharya Prashant: And things also do not move as per any divine plan.

Questioner: Okay. That is important to understand. Okay.

Acharya Prashant: You see, we think there are only two kinds of people. There are those with self-belief, who say life will go as per my personal plans, and then we think that the others are the ones who surrender and say that life will go as per some divine plan. Now, both these categories are similar because both of them believe in a plan. The first one says, “My plan will work my life.” The other one says, “God’s plan will work my life.” The fact is nobody has a plan. Life doesn’t go according to your plan, and there is no divine plan to run your life.

There is no plan. There is just randomness. But randomness is bewildering. It exhausts us. It confounds us. It’s like a huge insult.

Somebody wanted to kill us, and he came and shot, and we got killed. You can tell this and say, ”You know, I’m a victim.” You can narrate this tale with some dignity. But what if some stray bullet comes and hits you, and you’re gone? Oh, there is no dignity in this death. Random death. Some random fellow fired in some direction, and the bullet came and hit me, and I’m gone. That’s human life.

Because randomness is an affront to our so-called dignity, we don’t want to acknowledge it. We want to believe somebody did it with purpose.

There is nobody doing it purposefully. It is just happening, and that is what all spirituality is about. It is just happening. Nobody is doing it. It’s random. Therefore, there is no doer.

But we posit a plan. In positing a plan, we are positing a doer. By thinking of a plan, we are reinforcing our belief in the ego. Because if there is a plan, then there has to be a planner. And who would be the planner? The ego. So, we want to believe in the ego, so we want to believe in the planner and, therefore, the plan.

The fact is there is no plan anywhere. It’s just happening. And since it is just happening, therefore, teachers like Krishna tell us, “Don’t take it seriously. Don’t take it seriously. Don’t give it too much weightage. Don’t lean too much on it. Don’t get too attached to it. Prakriti won’t listen to your attachments. Prakriti has no respect for your beliefs, or feelings, or emotions or whatever.”

Why? Because your feelings, etc., are not yours at all. Prakriti knows your feelings better than you do. Prakriti knows where your feelings are coming from. Where are they coming from? Prakriti Itself. But you go to her and say, “You know, these are my feelings. Kindly acknowledge and respect.” Prakriti says, “What? What you’re calling feelings is just my randomness in action. And what you’re calling as your feelings — well, you do not exist. So, what do you want me to respect? There is nothing to respect.”

We come, we go just as waves rise and fall in the ocean. There is no rhyme or reason there. Though I fully appreciate and respect that when it comes to loved ones, we want to bring the whole episode to a closure. We want to believe something happened. We must know why it happened.

We die just as we come, randomly. There’s nothing to it. And it’s hard to swallow it, but if we can acknowledge, it would set us free.

Questioner: Yes, you’re right. I’m on that path, and I don’t want to take up much of your time. But the last thing I will say is that for past one year, I have been grieving, and it is very ironic—probably your blessing on me—that tomorrow is her first death anniversary according to the tithi. And you took my question today. So, I’m really, really grateful to you, Acharya ji. I wish you all the best always.

Acharya Prashant: I’m thankful.

Questioner: Thank you, sir.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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