Death Defined

The below are words of my Grand father T.D. Chandran

As life after eighty is like a candle in the wind, it is my posthumous desire that this pamphlet is distributed to those who attend my obsequies, or funeral.

According to Gandhiji, "Birth and Death are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. They are different aspects of the same thing. But out of ignorance we welcome the one and shrink from the other. Death is the master who would take us by the hand and lead us to god. But we resist. He would take us to heaven, but we cling to hell".

Death is only a bigger way to going abroad. It is the end of our journey to an unknown port. Death comes like a thief in the night. We know not the hour nor the day.

It is an natural to die as to be born. Time is an endless ladder of humanity, and wherever on stops it is death. We cannot run away from death, as nothing can save us when the appointed time comes.

Death is not departure, it is arrival, as the sun sets in the west only to rise again in the east with renewed splendor. We should should submit to pain because it is inevitable, to bereavement because it is irresparable, and to death because it is our destiny.

Death affects neither the dead nor living, for life is an eternal current which instantly fills every void. Death has an undying reputation of relieving pain. It is life that is painful. Death is painful to the near ones around us and not to the dying. The grief at a loved one's death is self-pity. The pain has its root in pleasure. We suffer when that which gives us joy is taken away from us.

For that which is born, death is certain, and for the dead birth is certain. Death is more universal than life, for everyone dies, but not everyone lives for ever. Constant remembrance of death keeps one's mind clean and calm.

In the democracy of the dead all are equal. There is neither rank nor position, nor prerogative in the republic of the grave. Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

Our body is a well-set clock which keeps good time; but if it is unduly tampered with, the alarm runs out before the hour. Uncertainty of death keeps the world alive. If human beings could time death, they would not bother about living and kicking.

When you were born, you cried and others laughed, but when you die see that you laugh and others cry.

Arr. 17-8-1910 T.D. Chandran

Dep. 17-4-1993 Yadavagiri, Mysore.