Sunday 14 February 2016

Monday, February 8th, 2016

Monday, February 8th, 2016                                           
Toronto, Ontario


Death For Sure

A yaksha is usually described in the Vedic literatures as a nature-spirit who oversees some hidden treasure of the earth like a tree or a body of water.  In the epic tale of the “Mahabharata,” pious king Yudristhira had met a yaksha in the forest.  This yaksha was a guardian of a lake and at that lake the king was forbidden to drink from this its water until the yaksha could have some questions answered.

His questions were of a philosophical nature and the king answered each question masterfully.  One question asked was “What to you is the most amazing thing?”  To which king Yudhisthira responded by saying, “the most amazing thing in existence is that everywhere we see death taking place but one believes that he/she will not die.”

Eventually the king was permitted to drink and all was well.  It did strike me in the course of today’s walk through residential Rosedale that death is all around.  I received information that a young man-- we met at his father’s birthday ten days prior-- had been shot to death at his home in Guyana.  Thieves were attempting to break in.

On that same day I received an e-mail stating how one of my travelling partners in my earlier monk years, Subal by name, got hit by a tractor-trailer while cycling in Vancouver.  He didn’t make it to the hospital.

As painful as it is to be the recipient of such bad news on the topic of a sudden passing, we must be convinced that this feature of death is inevitable for all of us.  We might consider that ego allows us to believe in a false sense of immortality.  Perhaps we can conclude that the atma itself (the soul) is truly resident.  Bear in mind that the body is not.
 
My respects go to Chaitanya and Subal.

May the Source be with you!

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