Death is Sitting Right Next to Me

Death is Sitting Right Next to Me

Krishna Premarupa Dasa: It is with mixed feelings that I enter the crematorium, after all, it is a place of death. Although I have come here many times, I still become very thoughtful each time I revisit this place. Maybe it is because I am reminded of my own mortality.

Today I came with a group of devotees to sing mantras. A congregational member had passed away and this devotee’s family members and friends had gathered to pay their last homage. While some of our priests were performing the last rites and everyone else was offering some flowers and Ganges water, I sat on a carpet on the floor close to the coffin and sung a bhajan followed by maha-mantra kirtana. Some cried loudly, others stared at the large stone wall still trying to understand what had happened. I tried to sing with feeling and devotion, praying to the holy name to manifest His power for the benefit of the soul who has passed away and for the devotees who have gathered at this funeral hall.

After the ceremony, I was requested to say a few words. I was not particularly prepared for that and I also did not know the departed devotee so well. I decided to just speak in general about the nature of this world, how we live in a temporary place and that death will someday also approach us, sooner or later…

In the Mahabharata, there is this very instructive episode where Yudhishthira Maharaja finds his four brothers lying dead on the shore of a lake. They were apparently killed by a Yaksa, a celestial being who forbad them to drink water from the lake unless they could solve the riddles placed before them. In the conversation that took place between this Yaksa and Yudhistiras, the pious king answered all the questions in the most perfect way. One of these questions was: „What is the most wonderful thing in this world?“