“All think, all mortal, but themselves”.
Typically, the world ‘mortality’ means, the state of being subject to death. In other words, whatever is born, will have to die. Death is inescapable. It is inevitable. The opposite of mortality is immortality. The moot question is does immortality really exist?
Immortality or the state of being without death, as a concept fascinated and haunted the human mind for centuries. This very fascination became an incurable addiction. Addiction led hallucinations enabled man to make millions of stories of immortality. Added to these stories, millions of religious beliefs and practices certify of immortality. I should not say but many such beliefs and practices are weird. We do not know anything about death; how do we expect to ever know about immortality? This question never occurred to human mind.
The concept of immortality is so much ingrained on human mind that it refuses to accept its own mortality. Even mind, without exception, thinks that it is immortal. At the same time, it also certifies in an indubitable manner of the mortality of others. Hence the first law of mortality i.e., All think, all mortal, but themselves’.
Everyone thinks that everyone is mortal but the thinker. He believes that he is not going to die. ‘Mr. XYZ died in an accident, but the thinker will not die in an accident’. This thinking goes on ad infinitum. Then to satisfy their lust for immortality, people began talking things such as the good deeds of a person or the good name or the charity work etc., shall stay immortal! Can the name stay immortal? Can the good deeds of a person have remembered forever? Name, good deeds etc. are also mortal. Frankly speaking, do we really remember the good deeds of our ancestors or for that matter their names? There is simply nothing that is immortal. The Himalayan human stupidity refuses mortality.
Mortality is not sudden… but gradual. The day we are born, the process of mortality commences. And death is the conclusion of that process. We can at most ascribe reasons for the death of a person. Reasons such as ‘death by heart attack’ etc. It must be remembered that the faces of mortality are infinite and so are the reasons. No face of mortality or the reason will repeat. The only thought that repeats is ‘All think, all mortal, but themselves.
This thought, this refusal to accept once own mortality shall reign forever. The new religion of man i.e., science has also joined the search for immortality, thus blurring the distinction between science and religion. The pyramids, etc. are proven examples of man’s refusal to accept mortality. Refusal to accept mortality is stupid. Thus, to lead a fuller and stress-free life one has to take the first step. And the first step in life is to accept our own mortality.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
