DEATH AND IMMORTALITY

If there were no death hanging at the end of the journey, immortality would have been either meaningless or oh-so- boring! And so would have been the journey. Blessed be death which to me has always represented an intense (I hope so) moment in an endless, perhaps cyclical flow of time. And immoratality has never meant anything more than the seemingly endless rotating of the earth on its axis, revealing patterns which appear excitingly varied and shifting because of the brevity of view and the rapidity of exposure through a tiny aperture available to one generation.To misquote Voltaire, if there were no death, we would have to invent one. (And generally we do -- for others!)
Generally speaking, death is the only way to find out the truth of immortality. There is no means of knowing what lies beyond life except through losing life - in some way, and not necessarily in only the physical sense. Spake Nanak "NANAK JEEVATIAN MAR RAHIYE, AISA JOG KAMAAIYE". ( "OBLITERATE THYSELF EVEN AS LIFE IN YOU DOTH STILL RING / THIS ALONE SHALL TO THY MIND INNER ENLIGHTNEMENT BRING." Note: Don't read the translation if you can understand the original) And for one to whom this life represents no more than a mere fragment in an endlessly moving panorama, the deal is worth it. But it would be foolish to push the dealm inn the merely physical sense by casting away the throbbing current moment in favour of what follows next. The one is as exciting as the other is likely to be, and there is no point forcing a premature climax to the living moment. Universe moves -- and must move -- at its own pace, revealing patterns to eyes that are ready to receive new sights. Even if you merely stand and watch, the billion new faces of the universe would still be revealed to you each moment. It is not in the nature of life to with-hold. The palms of nature always stay, fingers pointing downward in a gesture of endless giving.