If the truth be known, there is no fear of death – death is in fear. Death is unknown and unfamiliar, and I find it difficult to understand where the fear comes from. You need to be familiar with something to be afraid of it. It is not possible to fear the unknown, but fear of losing the known, of losing the familiar is possible. Fear of death is not really fearing death, it is fearing the loss of what you know as life. And when this fear solidifies, it is transformed into death.
That is why I advised the sadhu to search for death, why I tell everyone the same thing. And this is the only quest that bears fruit. At the end of that search it is not death that is achieved, but immortality itself.
Why is there so much misery in man’s life? It is because man’s life is a medley of notes, but there is no noteless medley. It is because there is always the pandemonium of thoughts, but never any thoughtless silence. It is because there is the constant turmoil of emotions, but no simple affection, free of fantasies. It is because man is always racing hither and thither in countless directions, but there is never any pause with no wish to go anywhere at all. It is because his life is an open market place of activity, but there is never any isolation, never any being alone, never any inactivity. And lastly, it is because his ego is always predominant and his soul is completely suppressed.
Learn how to surrender yourself to truth. Unless you surrender yourself the truth cannot be realized. The seed has to crumble and disintegrate before it can become a seedling, green and full of life. Learn to die if you want to live.
I had a dream in which I saw some of my dead acquaintances once again. They were all wearing the same clothes they had died in, they were all obsessed with the same thoughts, opinions and prejudices with which they had died. Since they had died everything in life had changed, but they had not changed one bit. I mentioned this to them and they laughed. “The dead never change,” they said. “We remain fixed in the world of the dead. Our principles are eternal. It is only life that is affected by and afflicted with the disease of change.”
“There are people who never change in life as well,” I said. “Their principles are also eternal and they shut their eyes to change as well. But aren’t there at least a few here who change too?”
In one voice they answered, “No. No. No. How can that happen here? No one is alive here. Such a thing may happen in life because many people are already dead long before they actually die.”