Radhanath Swami on Facing Death

Death is unknown, it is a mystery and therefore people are afraid of death, for themselves and their loved ones. When one of them does die, it’s very sad and it increases our own fear of death. This fear of death is an intricate part of every person’s life and you can try to forget it. But you can only forget it for a short time. You can hide yourself from the reality of your ultimate destiny. But eventually you have to face it. It’s all around you, it’s in all the newspapers, it’s in your families, you are getting older, it’s creeping up upon you. To face a problem and to try and understand and solve that problem is the true glory of a human being. To close your eyes and run away from the problem or ignore the problem is ignorance. And most people, even the most highly educated ones, when it comes to this most important problem of life, they close their eyes, they don’t want to think about it, they don’t want to hear about it because they do not know the solution. Because they believe that life or death is simply whatever they want to believe.