Let’s Embrace Death

Toastmaster's speech for Area Level 'International Speech Contest' 

Date: 8th April 2017

Title: Let’s Embrace Death

Time: 7 min

Death is one of our biggest fears. Each and every moment we are struggling not to die, we are forgetting how to live. Once we transcend the fear of death, we can live our life the way we want. So, how to get over this fear? How do we make friendship with Yamraj? And how, fellow toastmasters, guests and session chair, do we embrace death?

Before we get into the topic of death, let us understand the thing that dies. ‘We’ die. But who are we?

We are many things – a code, a form and a perception.

First: The code, our genes.

Scientists like Richard Dawkins believe that the true us is our selfish genes. Our body is just its means of survival. These codes literally make us from the dust. They decide whether I will be an unholy human or a holy cow. It is the same code that decides if I can get dowry after marriage or get killed before birth. The sole purpose of the codes is to survive. We receive it from our parents and transfer them to our kids. Our body dies a million deaths, but we as codes evolve and continue our battle of survival.

So what dies?

Second: Form…our body

Some of us associate our self with our body. It is made of cells. Your cells are dying as I speak, and are being replaced by new ones. The body you were born with is long dead. The cells that you are made of now, are new ones. If you are your body then you have already died many times. We do not shed tears for our cells because it keeps us healthy. Death is nature’s way of keeping itself healthy.

When you go back home, I want you to find the biggest mirror. Stand in front of it and look at yourself very carefully. You are looking at yourself, yourself that is made of cells, and cells that are made up of atoms. Look at yourself and remember this. The atoms that make you were once part of a distant star. They were ones part of dinosaurs. You can research it if you do not believe me, but a part of you definitely belonged to Buddha, Genghis Khan and even Shakespeare. You are a reincarnation of these great legends… and more. Every inch of you is immortal.

Then what dies?

The perception of you.

Some say, ‘You are what you think’. The truth is, ‘You are what you remember’. Suppose I knew magic and was able to erase all your memories. Abracadabra …. Woshh… You maam? Your religion means nothing to you now. You sir? You country means nothing to you now. Even you family means nothing to you. The ‘code’ you is here, the ‘form’ you is here. But the ‘perceived’ you is dead. 

Memories are just electro-chemical patterns stored in the brain. Scientists like Ramirez and Liu have been able to not just to copy these patterns, but transfer memories of one rat to another. In the future it would be possible to store human memory in memory banks. Say I store my memory when I am 40 years old. I die when I am 70. A couple of decades later my memory is restored into a person who has lost all his memories. So this guy wakes up….hold on….actually I wake up in a new body, still 40 years old, half a century later. Think about it for a bit. Let the idea sink. The ‘code’ me is transferred to my kids… the ‘form’ me is recycled and is now part of something else… but the ‘perceived’ me is still alive. The thing that we call as ourself is really that perception, that electrochemical pattern. Gita is right when it says nothing dies….because a pattern is not even a thing.

The perceived us is like waves in the ocean. They form, roll, and crush into the shore and die. But, the ‘true you’ is not the wave but the water that makes it. After crushing into the shore the water returns and starts the cycle again. The moment we break ourselves from that ego, that pattern, that wave… death ceases to exist … death becomes meaningless.

Maybe that thought is for the saints. What is in it for the ordinary mortals like us? We just need to remember how insignificant the ‘perceived’ us is. If the 4.5 billion years of earth history was compressed in a single day, our civilisation only last few seconds, and ‘your’ life…insignificant. If the whole universe were this room, your galaxy would be smaller than an atom. And you in that? Insignificant. Death is as insignificant as our life as an individual. When you realise how insignificant the perceived you is, you realise that your life is a joke. The trick is to laugh at it. Let’s be happy in that insignificant instant when we are just ‘us’. Let’s embrace life and let’s embrace death, until the time we realise that we are one with eternity.

Over to you session chair.

Written by Subhrashis Adhikari

Author of 5 Questions of the Inquisitive Apes

"Engaging and entertaining, this page-turner is remarkable in its narration and will give you a new perspective on various aspects of life. Wellresearched and heartfelt, the encouraging tone throughout the book tries to motivate towards a happier life." - Times of India