A bright-eyed boy in the kindergarten looks forward to school every day,
for there he has children of the same age-group to play games and chant rhymes with.
However, one particular morning he is glum and listless from the time of waking
up; he becomes more and more depressed as the minutes go by and when the bell
of the tricycle-rickshaw to take him to school is heard, he lets out a wail
and declares he would not go. Has the boy been scared of the school all these
days, Sirs. No, the fear is only for the day. It is
certainly not dread of the school but the reprimand in store for him there
because he had failed to do his homework on the previous evening. And, why did
he omit the assignment. Because an uncle had come to visit with them and the
guest had brought a set of new fangled electronic toys for the boy, enchanted
with which the lad had been sporting with them till late in the night and the
thought of the impending homework had totally receded form his memory. If only
he is allowed to miss school for one day, he would certainly catch up with the
homework and be ready for the rickshaw on the next day.
Our predicament is no way different from the errant schoolboy's.
The Totality of Nature, called variously as God, the Almighty, Brahman, Meiporul or merely "the Word" in the Scriptures,
had fitted out our life-energy with hands and feet and eyes and ears and mind
so that we may engage ourselves in the task of purging the soul of the dross it
had accumulated on itself through countless generations. But we chose to ignore
the homework and instead have been gambolling and gallivanting with
sense-objects spread out in the world. These wasteful and life-squandering
activities continued unremittingly even during our forties and fifties. With
the approach of our sixties we hear the inevitable bell tolling for us at a
distance and it cannot be wished away by ostrich-attitude. Naturally we are in
a dither as the tumbril nears our door. This, in
short, is the Fear of Death, Sirs, don't you agree?
How on earth is one to overcome this Fear of
fears is the next question. The answer is simple, Dr.Watson,
as Sherlock Holmes would put it. Gird up your loins and get down to the
postponed task of fulfilling the purpose of life without tarrying further. What
is the way to do this, you ask. Resolve to adopt the path of uncompromising
Virtue by not causing any harm or hurt to any living being through deed, word
or thought. This would result in not adding to the load of adverse imprints deposited on your soul, which burden I referred to as
"the dross" earlier. As the necessary next step put your mind on the
Absolute that is your source and origin and destination, wherein you live and
move and have your being. It is your forgetfulness and your abysmal ignorance
of your own history that has landed you in your present impoverishment. Could
any state be sadder than this, O humans ?
Having paid the price and learnt your lesson, would you at least
now lend ear to the clarion-call of the Saviour of humanity, Jesus the Christ : "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain
the whole world and lose his own soul"
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