The Love of Life

The next inclination is the love of life, and not only in human beings for even little insects escape if one tries to touch them; their life is dear to them. What does this show? It shows that every being wishes to live, however unhappy he may be, however difficult life may seem. Perhaps in the sadness of the moment a person might wish to commit suicide, but if he were in his normal condition he would never think of leaving this world. Not because the world is so dear to him, but because the soul's inclination is to live.


It is said in the Gayan, "Life lives, death dies." Since life lives, life longs to live, and nobody wishes for one moment that death should ever take him. The great prophets, masters, saints, sages, philosophers, mystics, what was their striving? Their striving was to find some remedy to cure man of mortality. But is his mortality his conception or his condition? It is a condition when seen outwardly; in reality it is a conception. The soul keeps the physical body as its garb only until its purpose is fulfilled and it wishes to leave this garb. For no one wishes always to carry his heavy coat. Even the king feels more comfortable when the crown is put in the cupboard.


The soul's happiness comes when it is freed from its physical burden; it can only be happy when it can be itself. As long as man thinks he is his body, so long is he mortal, being only conscious of his mortal existence. But this, intellectually understood, will not help. The soul must see itself, the soul must realize itself. How does the soul do this? In the scriptures it is said, "Die before death." What is this dying? This dying is playing at death. The mystics have all through their life on earth practiced playing at death; by playing at it they were able to see what death is. Then it was not only intellectual knowledge; they actually saw that the soul stands independently of this physical garb. Buddha has called it Jnana, which means realization. The absence of it is called Ajnana, the lack of realization.


Every thoughtful person, when he thinks of the day when he will have to depart from this earth where he has his friends whom he loves and his treasure, feels very sad. Not only that, but it makes him sadder still to feel that once he is gone he will be gone for ever, for life does not wish to become death; life wants to live. But this shows ignorance and a false conception of life, a conception gained by the senses, by experience through the senses. The one who has realized life and things through the senses does not know life. Life can be very different from this.