The fire of desire will fill your death!

- Known yet unknown - Munindra

- Cravings subside and a person can die in a state of calm mind or trance. Tranquil state because cravings are always hot

It is true that 'If you have the right understanding, you can die happily', but what is 'true understanding'? Before developing an understanding of death one has to look at one's pre-death life. In a sense, the life before death itself becomes decisive in the event of death, because the same understanding of life is revealed at death. At the time of death the vision is concentrated on the pursuit of what one has sought in life. It means that if a person has been running with cravings in life, then the same cravings will continue to keep him running at the end of his life i.e. at the time of death. Consider Kumarpal Desai's reflection on the craving for death.

These cravings have many colors and as the states of human life change, their cravings also change color. The cravings that a child has in infancy are not there in youth. In his youth, he constantly longs for a beautiful girl or earns money. Now if the thread of desire for the same money gets extended, then even in old age it cannot go away from the rush of getting money. He is constantly scrambling for wealth and then he takes his entire wealth till death. Even at the time of death he has a lust to get more, what he has got is not enough, to start some new business venture and make some more money.

Bhartrihari has depicted this situation ironically in 'Vairagyashatak'. It says,

Valibhirmukhasakrantam palitenankitam Shir:

गत्रानी शिथिलायईटे ट्रिशनिका तरुनायेटे.

'Though wrinkles have fallen on the face, the hair on the head has turned white, even though the body parts have become loose, in old age only one craving keeps getting younger.'

In this verse, Bhartrihari ironically shows that Trishna is eternally young, but as the years pass, her youth becomes more and more ebb and flow. A growing craving cannot leave a person even in old age and dying condition. Even at the last moment it is attached to him, and therefore one who has such mercurial cravings, the fiber of that craving extends from his life till death, and even at the time of his death, that craving clings to him. That is, if he has got the position of a king, then he wants the throne of Indra, if he is sitting on the throne of Indra, then he longs for the throne of Brahma, and if it is Brahma, he wants to get the position of Vishnu. In this way the craving is constantly tormenting the person.

If we think about the present time, this craving has taken a different form. This age is the age of competition and one is in a race to defeat others in that competition. If he is a millionaire, he tries to become a millionaire and if he is a millionaire, he races to become a billionaire. The distinction that needs to be made when it comes is between desire and craving. It is natural for a person to have ambitions to advance in life. If he wants to reach new heights of achievement, that too is intuitive today.

Today, if you ask a young swimmer to give up desire and sit down for samadhi, he will not do it. It need not even preach renunciation of desire, but should explain the difference between desire and craving. Desire is intuitive. Awakened from within, while craving is associated with greed. It is all right for a person to move forward by his own efforts and by his own will, but when he is touched by craving, there is a change in his life. While he was progressing willingly, he had discernment. He could see what is good and what is bad, he could walk on the right path, but when the storm of lust arises in his life, his discernment is extinguished. He does not realize good and evil and then there comes a time when he wants to achieve success even by adopting wrong ways due to craving. Even if a person has good wealth, due to greed, he tries to deceive others to get more wealth.

In a sense, many evils in the world have been created due to this craving. The great massacre of Mahabharata was also caused due to Duryodhana's lust for kingship. Hence it can be said that no one is poor like a greedy person and craving has no end. It becomes ever young and youthful. We see that a person can barely walk, barely able to speak, yet he is unwilling to give up his throne because of the lust for wealth. He runs day and night to get food. So it can be said that there is a trade-off between craving and satisfaction.

In fact, craving always cheats satisfaction. A greedy person thinks that if I get this much, then I will live contentedly, but after getting that much, he craves for more. In this way craving creates a world and perhaps you see that a human being is enslaved to his cravings throughout his life. How easily Bholebaba has said this in 'Vedanta Chhandavli',

Where there is craving, there is the world. Where there is no desire, there is no world, meaning a person without desire transcends the world. It is also true that our needs are not so many. The needs are also not so much, yet due to cravings, man strives to get more and more, and his indulgence reaches the end of his life, and then the same cravings that were in the world are still swirling in the mind at the time of death, and so at the time of death, a person He is boasting to satisfy his craving. This is why different theologies have talked about the state of mind at the time of death.

Some say to perform Bhagavad Bhajan, some say to do Sanlekhna (Santhara), but the purpose behind all these is the same so that cravings are quenched and a person can die with a calm mind or in a state of samadhi. Tranquil state because cravings are always hot. It constantly stirs up the human mind, robs it of peace, creates constant anxiety in it. Also, the craving for materialism and the desire for wealth is such that that craving keeps fueling the fire of the mind. A fire is constantly burning in the mind of one who has such a craving in his mind. Be it the fire of desire, the fire of lust, the fire of unsatisfaction, but somehow this fire surrounds the mind of the craving and when one approaches death that fire is especially lit and hence the first foundation of 'true understanding' of death. It is to recognize the cravings in life, to control them, to be gradually freed from them and finally to approach death without cravings.