die, they will be transported to heaven and that their God will wipe away their sins. Thus, people bow down in their places of worship in prayer and submit to their priests. This does not help them understand death but just calms them from the thought of it. In fact, we are made to perform several rituals and observe many superstitions because of death and the suffering that we must experience.
The real fear of death resides in two areas. First, we fear that we will lose everything that belongs to us. All through life, we go to school and college, take up a profession and create success. When death strikes, nothing remains ours. We see people who die leave everything behind and go with nothing. This creates fear—fear of the loss of everything that is known to us. However, this doesn’t lead us into a quest to demystify death.
Secondly, not just the loss of the known, the fear of the unknown causes a greater fear in many. “What will happen to me after death?” “How will I be able to bear the suffering?” we think. We see people’s bodies being decimated by the fire as it is cremated, or we get horrified at the thought of how our body will decompose when it is buried below the earth.
This is just the beginning of the fear that is unknown.