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Coping with death || Acharya Prashant (2020)
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5 years ago
Death
Unlived Life
Remembrance of Death
Relationships
Time
Fullness
Mahabharat
Yaksha Prashna
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that the highest tribute one can pay to a deceased loved one, such as a grandmother, is to have fulfilling and healthy relationships with those who are still alive. He emphasizes that since we will not be here forever and nobody will be left, one should not wait to weep after someone is gone. Instead, one should live in a way that does not leave them with disappointments after death. The pain of an unlived life is more profound than the pain of death itself. The anguish experienced after a person's passing often stems from unlived possibilities and the "lived nonsense" within the relationship, leaving behind sadness, disappointment, and guilt. He illustrates this by referencing the story of Yaksha and Yudhishthir from the Mahabharat, where the most surprising thing about life is that people know death is inevitable yet pretend to be immortal. Continuously remembering death is presented as the key to living a fulfilled life. This remembrance is not about morbidity but about valuing the precious, fleeting moments of life, as to respect life is to respect time. The speaker notes that the Western world, in particular, has a great fear of death, treating it as a taboo, whereas all watchfulness is, in a sense, about remembering death. Living life to the fullest means dedicating it to the purpose of fullness and reaching a climax before one passes away. This is not about maximizing pleasure or consumption. The speaker refutes the idea of another world or reincarnation, explaining that such a hope encourages a loose life. He asserts that this is our one and only chance, and the end is final and complete. Therefore, one must have right relationships—not immature or blind affiliations, but ones that represent an upward movement. When a relationship is right, its end is unlikely to be painful; it can even be a glorious pinnacle.