# Thoughts on the End There is something about endings that compels us to think. Not because they are rare—we encounter them daily, in small ways. A conversation concludes. A day dissolves into night. A relationship, which once seemed permanent, suddenly belongs to the past. Yet we rarely pause to examine what happens in that moment when something ceases to be. Perhaps this is because endings frighten us. They remind us of a finality we would rather not contemplate. We are creatures built for continuation, for the next moment, the next breath. An ending breaks that rhythm. It says: here, something stops. Here, there will be no more. But what if we approached the end differently? Not as a catastrophe, but as a necessary punctuation mark in the grammar of existence. The full stop is not the enemy of meaning; it is what gives meaning to all that comes before it. A sentence without an ending is not profound—it simply does not exist as a sentence. Similarly, a life without an end would not be a life; it would be an eternal wandering, without shape or purpose. I have begun to notice that we spend much of our time running from this thought. We distract ourselves with tasks, with accumulations, with the myth of infinite tomorrows. We build monuments to ourselves—in stone, in words, in the memory of others—as if these could somehow cheat death of its claim. And yet, the monuments crumble. The words are forgotten. The memory fades. This is not pessimism. It is, rather, a kind of clarity. When we truly accept that we are temporary, something shifts. The urgent loses its urgency. The trivial remains trivial, but so does much of what we thought was essential. What remains, if we are honest, is surprisingly simple: the warmth of presence, the depth of attention, the capacity to love what we cannot keep. The end gives the present its weight. It is only because things end that they matter. A moment that would stretch into infinity loses all value; it becomes mere background noise, a gray eternity. But a moment we know will pass—that moment glows. That moment asks something of us: to be fully here, to choose what we do with this irreplaceable fragment of time. There is another kind of ending too—the endings we create within ourselves. The moment we decide to stop seeking approval, and begin to seek only truth. The moment we cease pretending to be someone we are not. These small deaths are often more liberating than any external change. They clear the ground. They allow something truer to emerge. In the Buddhist traditions, there is a practice of contemplating impermanence. Not morbidly, but as a gateway to wisdom. Everything that arises must pass away. Everything that comes together must come apart. This is not a tragedy; it is the very nature of existence. And when we stop resisting this truth—when we stop the futile struggle against what is—we find a strange peace. The end teaches us how to live. It teaches us that nothing is promised. That presence is the only real estate we own. That love is not diminished by its impermanence; rather, impermanence is what makes love real. I think of people I have known who faced their own ending with grace. Not because they had triumphed over death—no one does that—but because they had learned to live fully in the space they were given. They had understood, perhaps wordlessly, that finitude is not a flaw in the design. It is the design. So let us think about endings. Not to make ourselves miserable, but to wake up. To recognize the preciousness of what is present. To understand that the fear we carry about the end is often a fear of not having truly lived while we had the chance. The end is not our enemy. It is our teacher. And if we listen to what it has to say, we might learn, at last, how to begin.

What, then, is to become of this variegated nature and of mankind, nature's crowning creation? The learned men of science tell us that all is imperishable—that nature progresses through the transformation of conditions, and that alongside this continuous evolution, the body and mind of man are undergoing various improvements. The philosophers, acknowledging the immortality of the soul, declare that man is ever advancing toward perfection; the uncultured are becoming civilized—and one day the civilized shall be elevated to divinity itself.

We are subject to decay and death, bewildered by sorrow and suffering, sin and torment. We do not know great things, nor do we grasp them. With simple eyes we see: everything seems to tumble into death's embrace, everything rushes toward fall and ruin. In my own existence I find proof of the entire being of the world and nature. If I depart, if all the people of my society drown, what use is it for me to ponder what progress or decline the collective might face, what is possible or impossible for the earth? The nature that I call nature's very essence, the humanity I call man's true nature—both seem to travel the path of decline and death. We extract nectar by straining the moon, beauty by pressing flowers, coldness by freezing water, warmth by kindling fire; from the mingling of water and fire we obtain vapor—but what lies at the root of all this? At its root lies the manifestation of one indestructible, active consciousness-force. Is that very force not being veiled and obscured day by day beneath the arguments of positivism and materialism?

One class of learned men now acknowledges only matter; another class of learned men, rejecting matter, acknowledges only illusion. Whether Shankara's doctrine of illusion or consciousness be true, or whether Charvaka's positivism or materialism be true—we seek no judgment, we render none; we say only this: that the truth concealed within both doctrines, that both views contain partial truth—no faction has ever admitted this; never has a reconciliation between the two camps come to pass. They have not acknowledged that this fertile, flourishing, verdant nature is a fusion of perceptible matter and perceptible consciousness. Where, then, has mankind found complete knowledge of complete nature?

When has nature, eternally fraught with contradiction and disparity, ever been fully discovered? How can one speak of the fate of that which has never been fully discovered even to this day? Science declares that moon and sun will one day grow dark; but what will come to pass in their ending—can anyone truly say? Setting aside words mingled with conjecture and theory, all must acknowledge that the outcome and ultimate fate of nature lies beyond the reach of ordinary human intellect. What deformation might occur in nature's evolution—no materialist, no spiritual philosopher can declare with certainty. Perhaps when the two schools unite, something might become possible. But for now, such a prospect remains mere fantasy, like flowers blooming in the sky.

If such is nature's end, what then awaits mankind? Man is but nature's shadow cast across the world; in a word, his end must be the same. In all creation, only in man do we find matter and consciousness clearly distinguished and laid bare. In man both play their games—the inert has its sport, the conscious has its own. Here they mingle and shine together. Here consciousness performs its labor like an eternal servant, completing the limbs and organs of the material body. The brain commands, the hands and feet obey. The mind orders, the senses comply. Man, enslaved by the six enemies—desire, wrath, and their kin—perpetually and shamefully acknowledges his bondage to sense. Here, it seems, complete knowledge reveals itself. Here attachment and detachment, joy and sorrow, light and darkness, this world and the next—all are made manifest.

Had mankind possessed true and comprehensive knowledge, perhaps it could have furnished a fitting answer to nature's problem of ends. The pity of it: for all he sees and hears, man remains utterly foolish; for all his reading and research, he stays profoundly ignorant—as though he had never witnessed anything, as though no one had ever heard a word. Who has not learned from experience that excessive indulgence of the senses harms the body—yet who abstains? Who has not heard that unchecked passions corrupt our humanity—yet who obeys or masters them? Lost in servitude to appetite and thrall to sense, man cannot fathom his own destiny.

Can even the great souls—the conquerors of self, the learned in manifold wisdom, the truly wise—declare with certainty where mankind journeys and what shore he shall reach? We are slaves to sense, bound by passion, trembling all year at the sight of age and death, tormented by worldly cares—and so we say death is man's only end. Setting aside the comforting fantasy of the soul's immortality, we must admit: we know no destination beyond death. Had we known one, we would not sow such thorns upon the path of our own humanity.

If man could not distinguish good from evil, there would be no cause for complaint. Yet in man both dwell—the righteous and the unrighteous understanding. The eternal struggle between gods and demons rages ceaselessly in the human heart. Those who deny conscience, deny the Creator's command—even they acknowledge the distinction between the pleasant and the truly good. And see how the battle turns: the demon's wisdom now prevails. Man abandons the path of the truly good and rushes instead toward the pleasant.

Does no one understand? That wine destroys the body—who does not know this? That indulgence weakens the flesh and mind alike, inviting countless afflictions—who fails to grasp it? Yet why does man still indulge? That wealth and glory, all worldly splendor, are fleeting—who is ignorant of this? Yet why does man grow drunk with pride? For a happiness that lasts but days, why does man lose himself, blinded by vanity? That we are inspired by the greatness of others—does anyone deny it? Yet ignoring his own countless faults, why does man spend his days obsessing over the faults of another?

The reason is simple enough—in the battle between gods and demons, the demons are winning at every turn. Such is the peculiar trait of materialism. Once a philosophy takes root—"borrow ghee and eat well"—people forget what lies within and grow intoxicated with what lies without. Vocational education, for all the good it brings us, commits this grave harm: it drags the children of those many-sighted, contemplative sages from the inner to the outer, from subtle knowledge to gross knowledge, from the realm of indirect knowing and devotion into the direct, sense-perceivable pleasures of enjoyment. Once there was spiritual practice and worship; now Western education pushes us into the world of work and commerce! Neither spiritual practice alone is good, nor labor alone—we need both together. Yet this has never happened in any land. Some pursue spiritual practice and lose the world, forfeit worldly learning; others chase pleasure and work, forgetting dharma, heaven, merit, and morality, walking only the path of sin!

Man understands all, yet cannot defend himself. Man sees all, yet drinks poison thinking it nectar and dies! It is such a marvel that even knowing death must come, man forgets it, wallows in sin—as though the path to death were all that man has ever known!

Material science can speak of death, but it cannot truly speak of what lies beyond it. Man will die, yes—but then? Is this the end? Is there no knowledge beyond this, no realm transcending it? Material science stands mute here. And so man is lost, adrift. This is why many say: I have received life, now let me enjoy pleasure and die. In the end, man is but a moth—drawn to the fire of attachment, thirst, and craving, burning himself to ash. Wherever I look, all seem afflicted with this condition. Everyone is consumed with fleeting pleasure. There is hardly any thought of growth or consequence. The doctrine of Charvaka holds complete sway.

What ruin remains untouched! If man were merely a material body, we would feel no pain from its decay. But within the body dwells that consciousness—call it the soul or the mind—and for its perfection, we do nothing. Without its cultivation, without its refinement, there is no liberation for any being. The passions, the senses, the body exist for its perfection; for it, this world, abundant with waters and harvests, stands as a great university. The arrangement for entry into the spiritual realm lies within this material frame, yet we remain indifferent, apathetic to it. Therefore we mistake death for the mere end of the embodied being.

Some, through mere imaginative belief, do acknowledge the immortality of the soul—but it is not true, felt conviction. It is like admitting the sweetness of a sweet without ever tasting it, knowing of it only by hearsay. Such knowledge bears no fruit. The knowing that comes from hearsay is not the full knowledge of the spiritual realm. Unless man attains direct experience, he cannot truly believe in the soul's immortality. This disbelief springs from the neglect of spiritual cultivation. And this disbelief consumes man utterly. Thus the world beyond death now lies shrouded in the mist of imagination.

When death approaches, man wails and grows restless. Yet if somehow he survives, within two days he forgets it all—plunges into festivity and drowns himself in the pursuit of appetites. Day by day, man grows so hollow that the realm of the spirit, the kingdom of consciousness—these now seem mere imagination. Whether rebirth is possible, what state the soul inhabits hereafter—these questions have become entangled in the narrow orthodoxies of sect and doctrine; each clings to his own blind faith without yielding an inch. A new thought arrives and he loses himself in anger or irritation. The root cause is simple: the absence of true knowledge. Until the understanding of genuine spiritual power awakens, man cannot fathom the realm beyond the senses. Until that day arrives, he will deem death the end of life itself, and will wail at death's threshold.

When man gains true knowledge of matter and consciousness alike, then what lies beyond matter—the transcendent mind—and what lies beyond mind—the evolution of the material—will illuminate his understanding with brilliant clarity. Then he will comprehend where man goes after death, what he becomes. Once that knowing settles within him, he will no longer die ensnared in the world's illusions, imagining it his all, drowning in sin and sorrow. When that day will come, who can say?