Yes, Death is a Festival and I totally mean it. “What is Death?” – this same question comes in my mind whenever I get to know about death of someone I know.
Today, I went to final prayer (Antim Ardas) of someone I knew. Sitting in a Gurudwara, looking at everyone’s faces, trying to make out meaning from Kirtan, which were in the language I have never understood. Saw sad faces, saw careless faces, saw shy faces, saw people busy with their mobile phones, saw kids playing in the corner and also saw one man, sitting at the door, welcoming everyone, his face had a different charm, a smile which would make you feel homely. That man was the closest person to the one who died. I know this must be really hard for him to keep himself calm and composed but that man taught me to smile in the worst circumstances. I never interacted with that man but his expressions told me the whole story and it made me understood the purpose of living and dying.
So, coming back to the subject, Death is a Festival. Why?
In our life, our aim is to achieve happiness in some or other way. Some people get happiness by being rich, some get by going on a holiday or by achieving some goal but all these things are temporary. These are our desires and new desires crop up once we get what we want. We just keep following those desires, we just keep pretending that we are happy. But that’s never true. A living person can only pretend to be happy.
Death is what makes a person happy. Away from the world, away from never ending desires, away from the fights, politics, money, affection.. away from everything.
You get this exact feeling when you are alone.. sitting alone in a peaceful place, a temple or on a holiday, without your cell phone. You get the peace when you keep staring at the ocean waves, keep staring at the mountains, hear the sound of birds chirping, hear the sound of the rain fall..
But everything is gone once we get back to our normal life, you are back at staring at your computer, getting tensed about surviving, worrying about the expenses, worrying about the fights and what not.
But Death.. Death is the End. Death is the fullstop to the past and the start of the journey we have always dreamed of. No cell phone rings, no one to disturb, no one to fight, no one to talk. Just peace and happiness.
And that’s the reason I call it as a Festival. It’s a festival of peace, happiness. We get something what we always try to achieve.
So, let’s not be sad about someone’s death. Yes, I know it hurts a lot but at the same time, we should see that, the person who died is free from all the restrictions we live in. Death is freedom.
Let’s be happy about person who will have a better life than us. Let’s bid farewell to that person with a smile.
Death is a Festival.
