Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

misery, crippled up. That is not the moment to find out what death is; it is while
you are capable of walking, looking, observing, being aware of the world outside
and inside, when you have understood what living is and what it means to love,
whether it is a tree or a dog or a woman or the beautiful sky of an evening.
So what is death? You know old people ask this question out of fear because
they are going to die. The old generation offer you nothing but theories about
death. They have nothing else to offer you, either traditionally or actually. What
have they offered you culturally, socially, economically? What have they given
you? They have given you a social structure that is corrupt, full of injustice, a
structure that breeds war, nationalism. And any intelligent, sensitive, alive young
person totally discards that and their morality. The old generation who are so
frightened of death have nothing to offer you except a lot of words and fear. So
don’t accept what another says about death. Let’s find out what it means.
What does it mean to die? Not in old age, crippled and diseased or by an
accident, but sitting here, conscious, aware, listening with a mind that is really
serious. It was serious when it inquired into what love is and what living is; and
now we are asking what it is to die. We have no fear, because we don’t know
what it means to die. We know only what it means to end—not what it means to
die—end what you know, your accumulated knowledge, your insults, your
hopes, your family, your wife, your children whom you think you love, but really
don’t. If you really loved your children, you would have a different world.
So what does it mean to die? Not the ending of the known, which causes fear.
That’s all that you are afraid of, ending the known, not of death, of which you
know nothing. You are frightened of ending the known. And what is the known?
Please go with me a little bit. What is the known? All your memories, the
collection of your worries, the furniture, the house, the accumulated insults and
worries and conflicts and sorrow—you hold on to that and say, “Please, I don’t
want to die.” Isn’t that what you are afraid of? You are afraid of letting go of the
known, not of death. Now if you let go of the known, let go of some memory that
you have, let go of the pleasures, the accumulated memories, the regrets, the
anxiety, die to them completely so that your mind is totally fresh, that’s what it
means to die. So that you don’t carry over all the memories, the shoddy
experiences or the pleasurable experiences, but are finished each day with every
accumulation. Then you will know what it means to die so completely that your
mind is fresh tomorrow, young and innocent and full of energy. Without that,
without love, without understanding of the beauty of this dying, do what you
will, you will never come near that which is unnameable.