A small story:
Once a Zen monk was ordered by the king to be put to death. He was supposed to be killed the next day.
The monk remained calm and silent.
One of his disciples, shocked by the monk’s calmness, asked him, “Do you realize you have only 24 hours to live? Are you not afraid?”
The monk replied calmly, “I have lived, therefore I have no fear of dying.”
He means to say, “I have lived every moment of my life, moment to moment. Every single moment has been so much for me! Why should I be afraid?”
If you look deep inside, you will realize that most of us are not afraid of dying, but we are afraid that we haven’t lived our lives enough. We are afraid that we have lived a pseudo life. We feel a kind of deep unexplainable regret about the whole thing. We feel we have not lived as we wanted to live; we don’t feel fulfilled – and there starts the fear of death!
Continuously compromising for the sake of others, trying to live out a life that is not natural to us, trying to fit into a mould that society has prepared for us…all these things lead to a lack of fulfillment! The fear of life is what is reflected in the fear of death.
When you have lived in the deepest possible way, to your full satisfaction, you will not be in fear of death. Live without fear.
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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.
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