I would like to teach everyone how to live beautifully and blissfully, every moment of their lives. Then they would naturally leave in the best possible manner. But as I get older, I realise that it is taking a lot of time and effort. So, I would like at least to teach people how to die well. This possibility is available not only for accomplished yogis but for any sensible person who is willing to take instructions that are beyond one’s logical understanding. Yes, it is certainly possible to die in style

To go to a neighbouring city, you typically just hop on to a bus and go. You don’t book a seat on the bus ten days in advance, pack a huge suitcase, meals and provisions. But if you are to make a long journey through unfamiliar terrain, you might do all this and more. Likewise, when compared to the journey after death, the journey from your birth to death is just a short one. The time you spend in an embodied state is nothing compared to the time spent in a disembodied state. Yet, you have made a disproportionate level of preparation for this. You have bought enough clothes for three lifetimes, footwear for eight lifetimes, and much else! It is time to start making adequate preparations for the journey after death, too

People ask me, “If death is inevitable, why should I spend time and energy preparing for it?” Don’t forget that what you refer to as death is a unique happening. Almost everything else in your life may happen many times over, but the final moment, when you transcend the limitations of your physical body, will happen only once in your lifetime. Moving from the physical to the non-physical is the greatest moment in your life, so it is very important that you make it happen gracefully and wonderfully.

Preparing for death is not about gathering a lot of information or satisfying one’s curiosity about it. If you can manage the last moment of your life properly, you will at least go through the disembodied phase well. You will not make it hellish. If you want to make use of the opportunity that death presents, you must not approach it with fear. Unfortunately, most people create fear at that moment. Some people desperately cling to a bedsheet or someone’s hand. This is not a good way to go.

With just a little bit of preparation, guidance and help, death can become a spiritual possibility – what did not perhaps happen in life can be accomplished now of death. This is because it is very easy to untie the knots of everything that you have accumulated at that final moment. But if you are unprepared, ignorant or fearful, you will create resistance, and miss that possibility altogether.

If you have lived a life of awareness, possibly, you will stay aware in your last moments. Hence cultivate awareness: for irrespective of how death comes to you, you have the ability to die well. For seekers, leaving this body consciously and walking away without damaging it – just like shedding your clothes – is the ultimate aspiration. If you know how to disentangle your being from the physical body, you can exit whenever the moment is right for you. This is the ultimate preparation you can make for your death.