Almost everyone I know, believes that doctors can save them or their relatives from sure death. I’ve seen and heard of many cases where a person went to the doctor with a major or a minor complaint, only to be told that if they didn’t operate on him or her within a few days, he or she may pass away. The person and the relatives then went into a complete panic, resorting to foolish decisions and a number of operations to ‘save their life’.

When we were at Akshardham, Delhi, we were shown a video of Swaminarayan’s life. At one point of time, he chose to meditate under a tree in the forest, when he was informed by a nearby ashram that a man-eating tiger was on the prowl, and would he please take shelter inside for the night. He asked just one question, enough to silence them all. ‘Do you think the doors of your ashram can keep death away?’

Let me add that a few months later, I watched a program on television, that talked of a man – injured and disabled – who spent an entire night unable to move in the African jungles alone and survived unharmed, something that no one could imagine. A man cannot die before his time. Neither can he postpone his death.

Do you think the doors of your ashram can keep death away?
Let me change that. Do you think the doctor can keep death away? Do you really think so? Doctors can prevent suffering. But death? No. However, man is so afraid of death that he binds himself in all kinds of beliefs about it. He thinks that if he pays the doctor enough, he’ll survive. He dies anyway, but the doctor gets richer. People come to me too, when alopathic treatments have failed, thinking that maybe working with their energies will help them avoid death. Well, I’m sorry! No one can prevent death, not me, not you, and not even the best doctor in the world!

There are usually three reasons for sicknesses. The minor diseases usually come for cleansing some negativities from our body. If it involves doctors, then it is usually for clearing past-life debts with the doctor. There are times when people try every possible therapy to no avail, and one fine day, something works like magic – that is because they have cleared all the debts and were probably destined to be cured only by that particular doctor. The third reason for disease, which is slightly rarer, is a drastic change of life-direction. We’ve heard of NDEs and other major sicknesses that changed the entire perspective of that person – they belong to this category. Ofcourse, disease cannot be classified into only one of these reasons, it is often a combination.

Well, now that we’ve understood that death cannot be prevented or postponed, what do we do about it? We need to understand that death is not THE END. You will probably come back to earth and most probably be born or married into the same family! Even if you do not believe in reincarnation, don’t let death scare you. Understand that we are afraid of it because we don’t know anything about it, because religious books scare us about it and because nature has programmed every living being to resist death. The next step is to stop fighting it. By running after doctors trying to prevent death, one will only make his last days more miserable, and spend his last days in a dingy green and white funny-smelling room, probably half conscious and not even able to bid his relatives goodbye.

We all want to make the best of life. Why not also make the best of death? Don’t fight it. Accept it as a certainity, and accept it with grace.