Death
Today, while I was about to park in front of an office building (my site where construction work was taking place), I noticed a weak puppy, about 4 months old, gasping his last breathes at the side of the road. He was in pain I could tell, probably hit by a car, internal bleeding leading to system shut down or just hunger. I watched him helplessly. Looked around if I could do anything, and then I thought who am I kidding, he probably has an hour left in him. So I closed my eyes and imagined his soul, prayed and talked to it. Wished that he left with least pain and his soul evolved. It was a quick heartfelt conversation with the Universe, God or whatever you would like to call it. All this, while my colleague, first watched me with confusion in his eyes and then finally with indifference.
Then we went on to our assigned task, had to take some measurements, talk to the manager, bla bla bla and after about an hour and a half returned back to the car. There his body was lying, mouth open, eyes closed, just lifeless. I had a mixed feeling, relief mixed with pity and immense flow of love. Again his soul was in my thoughts as I sent as much love as possible, before I started the ignition and drove off in to the concrete jungle.
I couldn't help but think, how many such dogs and puppies die each day, with no one around them to even mourn or feel a loss. Its sad that such loving creatures come in this world and die this way. These dogs are not those tyrant landlords, or the corrupt ministers or the lying , fake movie stars. No, they are in fact the innocent, the free spirited, truthful souls that frankly we should be learning from. Its unfortunate that they die this way.
But then later another thought filled my being: the thought was 'death'. That was death, just as unnoticed, as mundane and natural as possible. A life that came, just left. Off it went still on its journey, still on track, most likely evolving and in a happier place. But I gave it all this importance in my head. I grieved, I felt the sadness, thought of other dogs, of life, of people, but really, If I hadn't, he was just lying there dying, people walking by and with no one noticing. I made death something, when it was nothing. Maybe that's how death is to be taken. Fine, we were born with feelings and we have the right to feel this way, but what are we really doing? We are attaching stories to lives so that we can mourn when they leave. We want to identify someone by his achievements, categories them using relationship names (all man-made by the way), so that we can somehow insert them in our life story. So when they go, we feel there loss. Hence the "sorry for your loss" and the "my" condolences.
But then, that doesn't mean we can kill someone since death doesn't mean anything. Death does mean an end of this life, which we are in no way supposed to interfere with. Ours or others, all lives are sacred and are souls on a journey through different species, planets, realms and god knows what.
All I wish is that someday we could talk about death the way we talk about life and birth. I wish it wasn't a taboo. I wish we stopped lying to our kids (thinking we are protecting them) when we say, 'grandma became a star'.
Death is the most natural thing. We must talk about it openly. And hopefully someday we will be evolved enough (hopefully on this very planet and in the far far future) to not mourn and cry on deaths and funerals. Similarly, we could embrace every bitter and sweet truth of our lives. Its a distant possibility, well, until then "I am sorry for your loss".:)
Having said all this, I must mention that when I went on my facebook page later in the day, there was a news feed about how animals were tortured for lab experiments. They showed a cat whose spinal cord was crushed and then she was made to run on the tread mill and they were tracking her neuro thingy. As usual, I cried a bit, couldn't fathom how something so obvious like not hurting another being can be so non-obvious to people. This article was from some 'cruelty to animals exposed' page that I had 'liked'. I quickly went to their page to 'unlike', not because I don't like what they were doing but I didn't have the stomach for such every day trauma.
So, what does this all mean? Here I am advocating about how death is natural and we shouldn't mourn and here I am crying the same day? I guess I'm not evolved enough and have way more to learn and even though sometimes I understand something doesn't necessarily mean I have 'realised' it yet. ......Not yet, ....not yet. (always wanted to end a dialogue with this quote from the 'Gladiator'..:)..)
Then we went on to our assigned task, had to take some measurements, talk to the manager, bla bla bla and after about an hour and a half returned back to the car. There his body was lying, mouth open, eyes closed, just lifeless. I had a mixed feeling, relief mixed with pity and immense flow of love. Again his soul was in my thoughts as I sent as much love as possible, before I started the ignition and drove off in to the concrete jungle.
I couldn't help but think, how many such dogs and puppies die each day, with no one around them to even mourn or feel a loss. Its sad that such loving creatures come in this world and die this way. These dogs are not those tyrant landlords, or the corrupt ministers or the lying , fake movie stars. No, they are in fact the innocent, the free spirited, truthful souls that frankly we should be learning from. Its unfortunate that they die this way.
But then later another thought filled my being: the thought was 'death'. That was death, just as unnoticed, as mundane and natural as possible. A life that came, just left. Off it went still on its journey, still on track, most likely evolving and in a happier place. But I gave it all this importance in my head. I grieved, I felt the sadness, thought of other dogs, of life, of people, but really, If I hadn't, he was just lying there dying, people walking by and with no one noticing. I made death something, when it was nothing. Maybe that's how death is to be taken. Fine, we were born with feelings and we have the right to feel this way, but what are we really doing? We are attaching stories to lives so that we can mourn when they leave. We want to identify someone by his achievements, categories them using relationship names (all man-made by the way), so that we can somehow insert them in our life story. So when they go, we feel there loss. Hence the "sorry for your loss" and the "my" condolences.
But then, that doesn't mean we can kill someone since death doesn't mean anything. Death does mean an end of this life, which we are in no way supposed to interfere with. Ours or others, all lives are sacred and are souls on a journey through different species, planets, realms and god knows what.
All I wish is that someday we could talk about death the way we talk about life and birth. I wish it wasn't a taboo. I wish we stopped lying to our kids (thinking we are protecting them) when we say, 'grandma became a star'.
Death is the most natural thing. We must talk about it openly. And hopefully someday we will be evolved enough (hopefully on this very planet and in the far far future) to not mourn and cry on deaths and funerals. Similarly, we could embrace every bitter and sweet truth of our lives. Its a distant possibility, well, until then "I am sorry for your loss".:)
Having said all this, I must mention that when I went on my facebook page later in the day, there was a news feed about how animals were tortured for lab experiments. They showed a cat whose spinal cord was crushed and then she was made to run on the tread mill and they were tracking her neuro thingy. As usual, I cried a bit, couldn't fathom how something so obvious like not hurting another being can be so non-obvious to people. This article was from some 'cruelty to animals exposed' page that I had 'liked'. I quickly went to their page to 'unlike', not because I don't like what they were doing but I didn't have the stomach for such every day trauma.
So, what does this all mean? Here I am advocating about how death is natural and we shouldn't mourn and here I am crying the same day? I guess I'm not evolved enough and have way more to learn and even though sometimes I understand something doesn't necessarily mean I have 'realised' it yet. ......Not yet, ....not yet. (always wanted to end a dialogue with this quote from the 'Gladiator'..:)..)
posted by The sky @ 5:05 AM
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