Questioner: When we all meet the same end, that's death, how does it matter whether I spent my life like a warrior or as an idol statue?
Acharya Prashant: There are many other options as well which you are very cleverly hiding. Look at the very construction of the question—sharp! We all have to die one day, so how does it matter whether I am a warrior or a dumb statue?
The warrior really does not suffer, and the dumb statue too does not suffer. But there are many other ways in between. We live in those in-between ways. We are neither warriors nor are we dumb inanimate statues. We are living beings who are neither dumb enough to not experience anything nor dedicated enough to keep their experiences aside and fight for the right cause. We belong to a very shady zone, a zone that lies between dumbness and dedication, and hence is more dumb than dumbness and more disloyal than disloyalty.
You have to die one day, sure! What if the fellow behind you stabs you right now? Not to kill you, just to give you another experience. And when you turn around and confront him, he answers with the same argument, ‘You anyway have to die one day, how does it matter whether you live peacefully or in abject pain?’
One day you have to die, surely, and spirituality is not about the moment of death or life after death. Spirituality is about this life that you are living moment after moment, this unending moment that you have. There's a proverb that says, "An hour of life is still life”. Even if you have one hour left to live, it is still life, is it not? Or would you act as dead?
