Why is Death Seen as Dark and Sinister?

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Why is Death Seen as Dark and Sinister?

Sagu, why is death always portrayed as dark, sinister? Why is there heaviness, why is so much fear attached to it? If you look at mostly the ancient civilizations, all have some sort of heaviness, even the symbols that we see, the mirage is a symbol, or you see Grim Reaper … There is some heaviness and darkness, and certain kinds of imagery that come with death, why is it so?

If we look at how we have perceived and portrayed death in this part of the world, you will see that death is not seen as sinister. The dark patch of death is for the living, that there is a loss. Loss is always a dark thing, whether small things or big things. People break down when they lose something that’s precious to them; it could be things, it could be people, it could be many things.

The darkness is only concerned with the living, about the death, but the death itself, in this culture particularly, always will portrayed as a grand event. It is only now that Indians are imitating the West, and walking with faces held down; otherwise, even today, it is death. When people die, we wear white clothes, not dark clothes; there is a certain science behind that, I’ll look at that later.

Overall, there are wonderful stories, the legend goes like this: Shiva is always waiting at the end. He has made that his abode, because he is waiting, and every time somebody dies, he dances in celebration. What kind of a poet can he be? That somebody dear to me is dead, and he will dance and celebrate?

Let’s look at the fundamental aspect of what life is, because they are not two different things: What we call as life right now, in the experience of most human beings, is just a body that they have accumulated, and a certain amount of thought and emotion that they have accumulated around themselves. It is very clear, to any human being, who pays a little attention to the nature of his life, that he can clearly see that body is an accumulation, and the psychological structure is also an accumulation.

Beyond these things, there is life. What you call life is, when you were children, I’m sure you definitely did blow some soap bubbles … When you blew a soap bubble, the bubble was real, but what was inside the bubble is just the atmosphere, all over … When the bubble bursts, one drop of the soap water fell on the floor, and the rest of the whole content of the bubble, where it went? You can never see, because it just never was, because it’s just a part of everything.

This is the nature of life; the whole cosmos is a living mass of life. You built a bubble; when the bubble bursts, and those living has a perspective of the other aspect, or the other side … Let’s look at life and death like this: You’re on this side of the wall, somebody else is on the other side of the wall. When the bubble bursts, and this air, or this life, which was trapped in this bubble, became released, and what’s happening on the other side is way bigger than what can happen within the trap of physicality. He is laughing, singing, and dancing, because one life got released from the mortal coil, as it has always been described.