You have been sentenced to Death.

Imagine that you are in a courtroom. There are people who know you waiting anxiously for the Judge to come to announce the sentence that you must face. Then the court officer announces “All rise” and the Judge takes his place. You are stand up waiting to hear the sentence. 

Then the Judge looks straight into your eyes and says:

“By the powers vested upon me, I now sentence you to death”

How exactly would you feel? How exactly would those who are around you and care for you feel? What would you do now that you know you are going to die – just waiting to know when exactly?

What would those who care for you do that they know you will someday no longer be with them?

I am sure all sorts of unimaginable emotions may arise in you.

Being sentenced to death, however is not a novel thing. We all are.

The day we are born, the only thing that we are certain of is that we will someday die. We know that a death sentence has been passed on us – we only do not know when, where and how. We can do all we want in life but we can never avert this death sentence.

We can be kings or peasants, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly but we all carry the death sentence.

I am not being gloomy here but trying to be honest about life. When I was 12, I imagined how it was to be a lonely, old man waiting for death to come.  Or worse, some sort of sickness that I may have to suffer before death at even an earlier age. I imagined my still body on the ground totally helpless and at the mercy of those who are alive. How powerful or wealthy I may one day become (which is uncertain), I will certainly be absolutely helpless and dead one day.

We are overwhelmed when we hear a death sentence being pronounced on others without really being aware that we are waiting for our own death sentence to be executed. 

Despite the death sentence that we carry, we are busy with our lives segregating human beings on the basis of race, religion, culture, economic status and so on. Some of these differences we even institutionalise and make them laws to live by. We are busy, at all costs, preparing and consumed with the life that we must leave one day.

What would a person who is fully aware that he will die someday do with his temporary life on earth?

What would you do with your death sentence?

Peace !