Death is an extraordinary thing; death is the unknown. You cannot come to it with the known; you cannot come to it with all your burdens. It is going to strip you of everything: your family, your children, your character, your ambitions. It is going to strip you of everything, so why not strip yourself of it now? Strip yourself of all that and then you will know what death means. I assure you, when you do know it, you will know great beauty. Then you will know what love is – because death, love and beauty always go together. The thing that you call love is not love but mere memory. What you love is your personal investment. What you love, your family, is the continuity of yourself. Your family is your own immortality, your own continuity, and when you die there is no family – nothing exists. From Public Talk 7, New Delhi, 11 February 1962 Read more |