Page 18 - All India Magazine Dec-2024

not haunted all the time by this “horror” facing them which they
must escape and which they try to push as far away from them
as they can. These, when the occasion comes, can lift their head,
smile and say, “Here I am.”
It is they who have the will to make the best possible use of
their life, it is they who say, “I shall remain here as long as it is nec-
essary, to the last second, and I shall not lose one moment to re-
alise my goal”; these, when the necessity comes, put up the best
show. Why? — It is very simple, because they live in their ideal, the
truth of their ideal; because that is the real thing for them, the
very reason of their being, and in all things they can see this ideal,
this reason of existence, and never do they come down into the
sordidness of material life.
So, the conclusion:
One must never wish for death.
One must never will to die.
One must never be afraid to die.
And in all circumstances one must will to exceed oneself.

CWM 4: 354

Fear of death
When one has to die one dies, and when one has not to die,
one does not die. Even when you are in mortal danger, if it is not
your hour to die, you will not die, and even if you are out of all
danger, just a scratch on your foot will be enough to make you
die, for there are people who have died of a pin-scratch on the
foot — because the time had come. Therefore, fear has no sense.
What you can do is to rise to a state of consciousness where you
can say, “It is like that, we accept the fact because it seems to be
recognised as an inevitable fact. But I do not need to worry, for it
will come only when it must come. So I don’t need to feel afraid:
when it is not to come, it will not come to me, but when it must
come to me, it will come. And as it will come to me inevitably, it

18 All India Magazine, December 2024