When Considered in the Face of Death

Have you ever taken one of those naps where you wake up and you feel discombobulated? Like you don't know where you are or what time it is and somehow everything feels foreign and somewhat unreal? I haven't had the experience lately, but I can remember the sensation. It makes me realize how this life is temporary and that I'm going to die one day.

Every now and then as I'm going through my daily routines and duties I'm interrupted by the thought, "What is the point of all of this?" And then it made me realize: when we weigh something against the reality of death, it really puts it into perspective. How much value will my BA in Art Education have as I'm laying on my death bed? How much will it matter that I helped people make copies at Staples?

And then it hits me: the only things that are important at the time of death are the things that we did selflessly to help, heal or uplift someone else. A life of service is a life well lived. How proud will I be laying there dying and thinking how I wasted my life in self-absorbed activities and thoughts and desires for sense gratification and personal enjoyment? When you think about it, it's actually embarrassing and shameful.

Those activities and thoughts and desires will do nothing but guarantee our rebirth in another material body in this miserable material world. So how can I live for others? How can I live a fulfilled life of trying to help and assist other living beings?

This was and still is one of my greatest struggles in devotional life. I can't seem to find that switch to flip to become selfless. My Guru Maharaja, H.H. Bhakti Tirtha Swami Maharaja, wrote in my copy of Spiritual Warrior 2:

"Lust attacks us on the gross and subtle levels. We will always be defeated unless we become truly selfless. Yours in the struggle for unconditional love."

And one time he said to me (after asking him how I can become more selfless), "Do you realize you keep asking the same question over and over? You might want to take a look at that." His point was that he kept giving me the answer, but I wasn't applying it. The way we become selfless is by simply being selfless! Another time I had said to him (paraphrasing), "Guru Maharaja, you're traveling all over the world in spite of your poor health. How do you do it?" He smiled that wide smile of his and replied, "Jayadeva, you think about your self too much!"

The secret to a truly happy, fulfilled and blessed life is to be genuinely selfless. Being genuinely selfless means doing things for others joyfully, willfully and with real love, compassion and concern. I sometimes thought I was being selfless as my Guru Maharaja's personal servant and secretary. After all, I was sometimes not eating, barely sleeping, sitting for long hours dictating emails, cleaning, doing Deity seva, serving, etc. So externally it appeared that I was very selfless and surrendered. But my Gurudeva knew my heart and one time in New Vrindavan he said to me, "You're doing all this service, but internally you're just angry and resentful." It caught me off guard, because I didn't realize I was giving off such a strong vibe with my energy, but it was completely true. I was never happy as his personal servant, because I was too self-absorbed and thinking about how I was miserable and tired or hungry or whatever. I just wanted to be relaxing and spacing out. I didn't want the stress and pressure of being that close to my Guru.

So externally we can appear to be very selfless, doing so many things for others, but internally harboring that resentment, anger and frustration. That's not the kind of selflessness that will make us happy. It will make us bitter and miserable. I believe that's part of the reason I couldn't remain as a brahmacari as well. It was a fake and forced sort of surrender; not a genuine, heartfelt reality.

So I left the temple and dove right back into the inviting waters of maya and I enjoyed my selfish pursuits and endeavors for material happiness. But after some time it made me feel empty and depressed. I expressed this to my Guru Maharaja to which he replied that living a life devoid of devotional service is "so damn boring". And it's true. A life without devotional service to the Vaishnavas, Guru and Krishna is so empty and pointless. Those are truly the only things that matter at the time of death. Everything else we've done and spent our time absorbed in will be evaporated and rendered meaningless by the touch of death.

Does that mean we all retire and move to Sri Vrindavan Dhama, because after all, everything else is just maya and a waste of time? Of course not. But it means we really have to find out how to cultivate a mood of selfless devotion within the activities of our daily life. If we're working some crappy retail job, we have to see how it's ultimately service to Guru and Krishna. It's not easy and I'm not claiming I'm at that level of devotional realization. I'm really just talking to myself here. If my activities and thoughts have no connection to Krishna, then what is their value? So I have to find some way of dovetailing everything I do into Guru and Krishna's service. Then, at the time of death, I won't feel like this life was completely wasted in pursuits of selfish sense gratification.