Gitanjali is a collection of poems written by Rabindranath Tagore, the celebrated Nobel prize winning Bengali poet. The book was first published in 1910 and includes 157 poems, written in Bengali and translated into English by Tagore himself.

The title Gitanjali means "Song Offerings" in Bengali, and the poems in the collection are a collection of devotional and philosophical reflections on spirituality, nature, love, and the human condition. The poems are written in a lyrical, free-verse style that emphasizes the beauty and simplicity of language.

The poems in Gitanjali are deeply spiritual and explore the relationship between God and the individual soul. Tagore presents God as a loving, compassionate presence who is present in all things, and he encourages readers to seek a deeper connection with the divine through contemplation and devotion.

The themes of nature and love also feature prominently in Gitanjali. Tagore sees nature as a source of spiritual inspiration and suggests that by contemplating the beauty of the natural world, we can connect with the divine. Love, too, is seen as a means of transcending the limitations of the human condition and achieving a deeper understanding of the world.

It is not just the poem that I happened to run across, but the topic of death is explored in many of the poems in Gitanjali.

In one of the poems, Tagore reflects on the inevitability of death, but also the possibility of transcendence. The poem suggests that death is a natural part of life, and that it can lead to a deeper understanding of the divine:

Here, Tagore seems to be suggesting that death is not something to be feared, but rather something to be accepted and even welcomed. He sees death as a messenger of the divine, bringing us closer to a deeper understanding of the world.

In another poem, Tagore reflects on the idea of immortality, suggesting that although our physical bodies may perish, our souls may live on:

Here, Tagore seems to suggest that although our physical bodies may decay, the truth and beauty of the world will endure, and that we may be immortalized in some way through our connection to the divine. Overall, Tagore's approach to death in "Gitanjali" is one of acceptance and transcendence, suggesting that through contemplation and devotion, we can overcome our fear of death and connect with a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world.

I have read several poems about the concept of fearlessness when it comes to death. Here are some of my favorite:

The late Khushwant Singh, a prolific Indian author and journalist, delves into the profound topic of death in this essay. He begins by acknowledging the universal nature of death and its inevitability, quoting poets and philosophers to underscore this reality. At the age of 95, Singh reflects on his own mortality but maintains a pragmatic and unafraid perspective (reminds me of Guru Nanak's Mool Mantra, and the concept of Nirbhau). 

He contrasts his readiness for death with his fear of a protracted period of incapacitation in old age, expressing a desire for a swift and painless departure. Despite his contemplation of death, Singh continues to embrace life and its myriad possibilities, echoing the sentiments of poets like Iqbal and Tennyson who emphasize the importance of living fully until the very end. Singh's perspective on death is shaped by his agnostic beliefs, and he asserts the need for individuals to make peace with the idea of a final end, free from religious constraints. I find it interesting that this agnostic thinking actually fits very well with Sikhism. 

I used to hear from my father how well Khushwant Singh would write.  I understand this better having read this essay.  He imparts valuable life lessons in this essay. He shares a set of principles for achieving happiness, emphasizing the significance of good health, financial stability, a comfortable home, meaningful relationships, and personal fulfillment through hobbies and introspection. He encourages readers to avoid envy, control their temper, and detach from meaningless gossip. Throughout, he advocates for a life lived with purpose, contentment, and a sense of closure. His wisdom, grounded in his own experiences and beliefs, serves as a guiding light for those seeking a balanced and fulfilling existence, even as they confront the profound reality of mortality. A mortality without the burden of religion. 

It is interesting that he doesn't have many professional pictures on the internet. He did not really care about appearances, did he? I guess I am not the only crazy one. And I guess we all inherited this veparvaah attitude from oneness. 

He didn't quote Guru Nanak here.  I guess he hadn't read Guru Nanak much. There are some beautiful lines he has written on Death.  I did an album on that subject and this is one of the shabads in that album:

 

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing

Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing...

and,

“There was a Door to which I found no Key
There was a Veil through which I could not see
Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed—and then no more of Thee and Me.”

I once asked the Dalai Lama how one should face death and he had advised meditation. I’m not scared of death; I do not fear it. Death is inevitable. While I have thought about it a lot, I don’t brood about it. I’m prepared for it. As Asadullah Khan Ghalib has so aptly put it,

Rau mein hai raksh-e-umar kahaan dekhiye thhamey
Nai haath baag par hai na pa hai rakaab mein
(Age travels at galloping pace; who knows where it will stop
We do not have the reins in our hands nor our feet in the stirrups).”

All my contemporaries—whether here or in England or in Pakistan—they’re all gone. I don’t know where I’ll be in a year or two. I don’t fear death. What I dread is the day I go blind or am incapacitated because of old age—that’s what I fear—I’d rather die than live in that condition. I’m a burden enough on my daughter Mala and don’t want to be an extra burden on her.

All that I hope for is that when death comes to me, it comes swiftly, without much pain, like fading away in sound slumber. Till then I’ll keep working and living each day as it comes. There’s so much left to do. I have to content myself by saying these lines of Iqbal:

“Baagh-e-bahisht se mujhe hukm-e-safar diya tha kyon?
Kaar-e-Jahaan daraaz hai, ab mera intezaar kar

(Why did you order me out of the garden of paradise? 

I have a lot left to do; now you wait for me).”

So I often tell Bade Mian, as I refer to him, from time to time, that he’s got to wait for me as I still have work to complete.

I believe in these lines of Tennyson:

“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea...
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness or farewell,
When I embark.”

I believe in the Jain philosophy that death ought to be celebrated. Earlier, whenever I was upset or low, I used to go to the cremation grounds. It has a cleansing effect, and worked like a therapy for me. In fact, I’d written my own epitaph years ago:

“Here lies one who spared neither man nor God
Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod
Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun
Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.”

‘We regret to announce the sudden death of Sardar Khushwant Singh at 6 pm last evening. He leaves behind a young widow, two infant children and a large number of friends and admirers. Amongst those who called at the late sardar’s residence were the PA to the chief justice, several ministers, and judges of the high court.’I had even written my own obit in 1943 when I was still in my twenties. It later appeared in a collection of short stories, titled ‘Posthumous’. In the piece, I had imagined The Tribune announcing the news of my death on its front page with a small photograph. The headline would read: ‘Sardar Khushwant Singh Dead’. And then, in somewhat smaller print:

I had to cope with death when I lost my wife. Being an agnostic, I could not find solace in religious rituals. Being essentially a loner, I discouraged friends and relatives from coming to condole with me. I spent the first night alone sitting in my chair in the dark. At times, I broke down, but soon recovered my composure. A couple of days later, I resumed my usual routine, working from dawn to dusk. That took my mind off the stark reality of having to live alone in an empty home for the rest of my days. When friends persisted in calling and upsetting my equilibrium, I packed myself off to Goa to be by myself.

I used to be keen on a burial because with a burial you give back to the earth what you have taken. Now, it will be the electric crematorium. I had requested the management of the Bahai faith if I could be buried. Initially, they had agreed, but then they came up with all sorts of conditions and rules. I had wanted to be buried in one corner with just a peepal tree next to my grave. After okaying this, the management later said that that wouldn’t be possible and that my grave would be in the middle of a row and not in a corner. I wasn’t okay with that—even though I know that once you are dead it makes no difference. But I was keen to be buried in one corner. They also told me later that they would chant some prayers, which again I couldn’t agree with, because I don’t believe in religion or in religious rituals of any kind.

Though I’m quite fit, I know I don’t have much time left. I’m coming to terms with death, preparing myself. And since I have no faith in God, nor in the day of judgement, nor in the theory of reincarnation, I have to come to terms with the complete full stop. I have been criticised for not sparing even the dead, but then death does not sanctify a person, and if I find the person had been corrupt, I write about it even when he’s gone.

I don’t believe in rebirth or in reincarnation, in the day of judgement or in heaven or hell. I accept the finality of death. We do not know what happens to us after we die but one should help a person go in peace—at peace with himself and with the world.

I’ve lived a reasonably contented life. I’ve often thought about what it is that makes people happy—what one has to do in order to achieve happiness.

First and foremost is good health. If you do not enjoy good health, you can never be happy. Any ailment, however trivial, will deduct something from your happiness.

Second, a healthy bank balance. It need not run into crores, but it should be enough to provide for comforts, and there should be something to spare for recreation—eating out, going to the movies, travel and holidays in the hills or by the sea. Shortage of money can be demoralising. Living on credit or borrowing is demeaning and lowers one in one’s own eyes.

Third, your own home. Rented places can never give you the comfort or security of a home that is yours for keeps. If it has garden space, all the better. Plant your own trees and flowers, see them grow and blossom, and cultivate a sense of kinship with them.

Fourth, an understanding companion, be it your spouse or a friend. If you have too many misunderstandings, it robs you of your peace of mind. It is better to be divorced than to be quarrelling all the time.

Fifth, stop envying those who have done better than you in life—risen higher, made more money, or earned more fame. Envy can be corroding; avoid comparing yourself with others.

Sixth, do not allow people to descend on you for gup-shup. By the time you get rid of them, you will feel exhausted and poisoned by their gossip-mongering.

Seventh, cultivate a hobby or two that will fulfil you—gardening, reading, writing, painting, playing or listening to music. Going to clubs or parties to get free drinks, or to meet celebrities, is a criminal waste of time. It’s important to concentrate on something that keeps you occupied meaningfully. I have family members and friends who spend their entire day caring for stray dogs, giving them food and medicines. There are others who run mobile clinics, treating sick people and animals free of charge.

Eighth, every morning and evening devote 15 minutes to introspection. In the mornings, 10 minutes should be spent in keeping the mind absolutely still, and five listing the things you have to do that day. In the evenings, five minutes should be set aside to keep the mind still and 10 to go over the tasks you had intended to do.

Ninth, don’t lose your temper. Try not to be short-tempered, or vengeful. Even when a friend has been rude, just move on.

Above all, when the time comes to go, one should go like a man without any regret or grievance against anyone. Iqbal said it beautifully in a couplet in Persian: “You ask me about the signs of a man of faith? When death comes to him, he has a smile on his lips.”

That purpose is the song in our heart that we have come here to sing
We spend so much time in trying to understand what it is
Yet like the bud, many of us have to opened up to it yet
Sometimes life throws subtle hints at what it could be
and we may spend much time preparing for the day we truly align with it
Blessed are those whose inner light has been lit
for they are truly singing the song they came here to sing.

I should walk up the stairs right now

and make slow love to the woman I live with

but I sit here drinking gingerale instead

and turning the pages of a book

about the polar expeditions -- men

who ran away from what they should have done

to carve a name out for themselves

in a hunk of planetary ice.

In the yellowed, hundred-year-old photographs.

they still look arrogant and brash

in their brand new bearskin coats and beards.

The might be Nordic gods, posing on a ridge

above a caravan of Eskimoes and sleds.

But I wonder how they looked months later,

when the emptiness they wanted

such a close inspection of

had eaten out their cheeks, eaten up

the part of them made out of words,

and left the bony, silent men themselves

walking over fields of sea-green,

thousand-year old ice and wind. There are

other photographs -- the Welshman

kneeling, as if to pray

at the carcass of a seal; Peary

weeping at the stump of his left hand.

There are other plot-lines and motifs

But the story stays the same: some of us

would rather die than change. We love 

what will destroy us

as a shortcut through this world

which would bend an break us slowly

into average flesh and blood.

I close the book and listen to the noises

of an ordinary night. A chair that scrapes.

The cricket, like a small appliance

singing. The air of every room

so ponderously still. I can tell

that it is not too late.

And then I think this ordinariness

will crush me in its fist.

And then I wish it would

  

                               for Charlie Smith

I read Dudley Clendinen’s essay “The Good Short Life” in The New York Times (see below, sorry NYT - I think this merits sharing freely), and it hasn’t left me. In the face of his ALS diagnosis, Clendinen doesn’t flinch or retreat—he leans in, writing with grace, humor, and astonishing clarity about his decision not to prolong his life artificially. He speaks not just of death, but of living well even as the end approaches. He reminds us that while we obsess about how to live—jobs, diets, sex, success—we rarely talk about how to die.

And yet, Clendinen writes of death as a kind of freedom, calling it “the weird blessing of Lou,” a chance to focus on what truly matters. He doesn’t want to become “a conscious but motionless, mute, withered, incontinent mummy” for the sake of staying alive. Instead, he chooses a path of love, honesty, and dignity. “I’m dancing,” he writes, “spinning around, happy in the last rhythms of the life I love.”

He makes death conversational, even beautiful. Not something morbid, but a final bow to a song well sung. How important is to have fearlessness. And how even more important to sing the fearlessness. That clarity inspired the following poem. We are going to die. Might as well have somethings to laugh before we are gone. 

The following poem has Robert Frost’s take on man’s purpose and potential return to home (heaven). The forbidden fruit of the Bible is substituted by gold flowers. The simplicity of the poem is apparent; it is one of Frost’s earlier poems and it’s not interesting as his later work. It reminds me of “valon nikki pursalat” - Gurbani’s reference to the “narrow path” to heaven. It also reminds me of Mirza Ghalib’s khayaabaan khayaabaan iram: “Wherever I see your footsteps, flowerbed after flowerbed I see heaven’s garden.”