Srinatha Raghavan posted the following enlightening conversation on fb,
In Banares, I happened to meet a young Aghor or a Tantrik, on the ghats of Manikarnika. As I was just staring into the pyre of death, He came and sat beside me and struck a seamless conversation.
He: Death is as temporary as Life?
Me: Yes.
He: Do you know why Death (Yama) & Time (Kala) are so feared?
Me: No.
He: Because they are least understood?
Me: True.
Me: How to understand Death?
He: By experiencing it, even when alive.
Me: And how do we do that?
He: Under the guidance of a Guru, you can experience Death.
Me: What is Death?
He: There is nothing called as Death?
Me: What?
He: Death as we know it, is just physical cessation of the Body and it's functions.
Me: Yes.
He: But what made the Body once tick, the spark of life, lives on and just like a drop of Water that has turned into Vapour, it goes back to become one with the whole.
Me: Interesting.
He: What is more interesting is what happens after that?
Me: What would that be?
He: It's the way the whole game once again, when the droplet separates itself from the whole to become an individual again.
Me: That's true.
He: Thus the play of life and death continues, till the drop has finally lived it's share of desires to assume a form and lives happily as a part of the formless whole.
Then giving me some Bhasma and a Rudraksha, as a parting gift, He said, "May this Bhasma ever remind you of the impermanence of life and death and the Rudraksha of the latent Divinity that lay hidden within you, which is nothing less than Shivahood?"
Om Namah Shivaya!
Om I acknowledge the Shiva in my Self!
~ Memoirs of a lost Spiritual Traveller.
"Thus the play of life and death continues, till the drop has finally lived it's share of desires to assume a form and lives happily as a part of the formless whole."