Sai Baba Gita - Fear of Death - The most Powerful of all Fears

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Sai Baba GitaJuly 2, 2004

Fear of Death - The most Powerful of all Fears

Of all the fears that haunt humanity, the fear of death is the strongest. No

matter how courageous and valorous you may be, no matter how highly educated,

no matter how much you may be blessed with unlimited wealth, no matter what

great talents and skills you may possess, the fear of death will be lurking in

the background, annulling all your accomplishments and destroying your

self-confidence. Most people become subject to despair when they see people

dying. The moment they hear of someone's death they consider it very

inauspicious and try to close their ears to it. Even when they are over 100

they get frightened when they think of death. They always want to live just a

little bit longer. But however much more anyone may aspire to live, death is

certain.

The fear of death will not save you from death. Distracting the mind by dwelling

on the transient joys of life will not save you. Your relations and friends

cannot save you. Your great accomplishments cannot save you. All the objects in

the world and all the people in it, are equally washed away by the flow of

death. What profit is there for you to take shelter in those who are also being

washed away? The person who is seeking protection and shelter, and the one from

whom shelter is being sought, are both being washed away. Only when you catch

hold of the divinity, which is the immovable bank of this river of death, can

you nurture any hope of being saved. When you truly know that all there is, is

the divinity, then there is nothing to fear. Then you are saved. You will have

conquered the fear of death.

Fearlessness may be compared to a great mountain while fear is something like

the small waft of air created by your breath. Can this little current created

by your breath ever shake such a mighty mountain? Of course not. The little

wind of fear can never shake the great mountain of fearlessness. When this

steadfast and unwavering mountain of fearlessness becomes implanted in a mind

that is clean and pure and free of delusions, and when it resides in a heart

that is immersed in bliss, then you are veritably expressing your divine

nature. Then the truth will be established in your heart of hearts, that there

is only the one divine reality existing everywhere. Once you know this

all-pervasive divinity to be your essence you laugh at death, for then death no

longer has any power over you.

Why should anything ever frighten you? What can possibly make you afraid? Death

is really just a kind of joke in this play of life. If the role calls for you

to fall and die on the stage, will you, the actor, be affected? What is so

earth shaking about the death of a body that is born to die. The body, which is

made up of the five elements, has to be destroyed some day. For the sake of such

an impermanent thing why should you worry? "Arjuna, you are not the one who is

going to kill, nor will those you fight be killed. The only thing that can be

killed is the body. You are the immortal self. You are not the body." This is

the truth that Krishna taught Arjuna and thereby made him fearless.

Fearlessness is a quality that is as vital and as important as your lifebreath

itself. It is the foremost of the virtues taught in the Gita.

http://www.atmapress.com/saibabagita/saigita275.html

Sai Baba Gita, Compiled and edited by Al Drucker - Published by Atma Press -

http://www.atmapress.com - ISBN: 0963844903Online Edition:

http://www.atmapress.com/saibabagita/index.html

 

 

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