one bucket list, two deaths and three horses

One bucket list.....

The other day I was talking to someone, telling them about my retirement plans and my bucket list.The person who I was talking to was taken aback and told me, doctor, you are too young to think about it. You still have plenty years to go thinking about it. Just enjoy the time of youthfulness rather doing what oldie, with one of their leg hanging in grave does.

Well that would have made sense taking in consideration of just one vector that's of my age. But we live life in dimensional units, so the blunder we do is missing on other vectors.

My bucket list came into such a scrutiny, was it a wrong assessment on my side to plan it soon and being so eager or there is something we all so conveniently blind our eyes too.

Two deaths.....

This man had a wonderful life till now, born in a rich family, running a successful business of his own, aristocratic friend circle, an extraordinary beautiful wife, two daughters and one son. Picture perfect fairy tale life till death took it away at thirty five.

(I am thirty one by the way)

Anyways coming back to his abrupt unfortunate end is that there was no trail of lurking medical history in the background.

Perfectly healthy life style which included regular morning walks and a good sleeping schedule. Nothing seemed out of the box. The night before he was talking to his acquaintance about their monthly party at Leela Palace, discussing minute details and next morning on his regular walk schedule felt little uncomfortable in his body. Instead of coming home straight, went to the hospital got his blood pressure and ECG checked and everything was just perfect like his perfect life. Doctors send him home, only to encounter his lifeless body half hour later.

Brain dead because of stroke. Some random clot just thought to go for a stall and got blocked in the thin vessel of brain, cutting away all the oxygen supply and rest it was matter of 8 seconds, he collapsed like the last autumn leaf on the tree.

The family was affluent, wife too young to be widowed and kids too small to be fatherless, therefore thought to fight death. Put the brain dead body on life support, shunted hospitals, and got pandits performing ritualistic sacrifices in hope that the body could breath again on its own.

Seven days of fight on the lost battle, ultimately the fire devoured what was remaining. 

The man died with a last thought of party plan.

Well, this boy was twenty. Suffering from Azorian disease. It's a form of genetic disorder which manifest late in life like early teenage. He too manifested symptoms of it at the age of fourteen. It's a degenerative disease which effects all muscles and nerves of the body compromising it's basic functioning of locomotion, breathing, eating and talking. The person becomes bed ridden and is completely dependent on attendants to do the basic needful. The disease is a progressive type, without unknown aetiology that screwed the genetic material in first place. Medical science is still incompetent to find any breakthrough treatment in such cases.

The only silver lining in the darkest black clouds is that this disease doesn't effect the mental faculty and the people suffering from it are well oriented till their end, it's only the expressing faculty goes away. In language of shastras 'vak indriya' {sensory system} goes away but the 'Gyan indriya', mind, memory, intelligence and ego stays.

So even with their frailing body frame, their mind frame still works.

The parents were devestated in the beginning. It took lot of councilling to get them through it so that they could at least take care of their boy in his remaining life time. So they did.

They called their child Gopal.

In Hindu homes their is a tradition of bringing the deity of child form of krsna and he is served with lot of love and care. That deity is called Gopal.

So with selfless service they started to serve their Gopal. They knew they couldn't stop the inevitably death but at least they could do their best and leave rest to God. Since the child mental faculty was good, they took advantage of it and day in and day out they taught their Gopal the ultimate wisdom of life and it's ultimate truth, the Bhagvad Gita and Bhagvad katha.

Six years and they train their frail child for death. This summer the all devouring death took their Gopal away. The twenty year old boy who lost the faculty of speech died with the name of Narayan on his lips. He must have gone to Vaikuntha.{As told by his mother!}

In Bhagvad Gita, lord krsna says, that those who remembers me at the time of death reach my eternal abode. The boy with Azorian disease found his way to Vaikuntha. (Kuntha means anxieties, the place without anxieties is called Vaikuntha, the eternal abode of lord hari).

It's like Parakshith Maharaj, who was cursed to die in seven days. Instead of lamenting over the inevitable death which is going to come to all, he choose to hear Bhagvad Katha and cashed his curse to pave his way to eternal abode of the almighty God.

And finally the three horses...

Well these are the famous three horses of Gautam Buddha.

So this first horse that is born in a stable sees his surroundings and learn from it. He knows that he is born to serve humans and if he doesn't not follow the rules he is bound to suffer in the process of training which will include beating and fasting. So instead of resisting he is yielding and is saved from the subjective miseries. This horse is smartest and is a fast learner.

The second horse though born in the same environment thinks that he is special and he won't be subjected to such a treatment but when he sees his best friend going through it, it becomes an eye opener for him. So once reluctant horse becomes yielding to his master. This horse is a late bloomer but still he learns his lessons in due time and is saved to a maximum extent.

Well third horse was born with little puffed up wits and superiority complex that he was so obstinate to demands of his master. He thought what his brothers are going through, he will never go through it. But sooner his trance is also broken when he realized it was his own build illusion. He learns his lessons late but after lot of suffering.

Here is how Buddha used this analogy.

Birth, death, disease and old age are the natural laws of universe and they are inevitable. It's how smartly we deal with them is called the way of living.

Either we can be smart like the first horse and learn our lessons early so that we can surrender our life to service of our master, the almighty God, who will save us and deliver us out of this ocean of nescience or we can blunder like other two horses thinking ourselves to be special and thinking that old age, disease and death will never happen to us. But meanwhile being subjected to endless miseries of the world.

Well at the end of the day, man is what he choose to be.

So make a right call.

Finally, hence proved I am not wrong in making a bucket list for myself. Because every step we take, we are one step nearer to our death.

Regards

Hare krsna