Is there something called as “Untimely Death”?

From: Ravikumar Shukla

Could you please help me and my Friends Understand, is there something called as “Untimely Death” and “timely Death”, is it that both are pre-destined? And how should we understand both?

Transcript

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Question by Ravikumar Shukla Can you please help me and my friends understand, is there something called as untimely death and timely death is it that both are destined and how should we understand both Answer, from a worldly point of view when people die young or people die before they grow aged and then go through the course of old age, disease and death that is called as untimely death from the spiritual point of view from the understanding of the Bhagavad Gita that ultimately everything is under control of the Lord and everything is happening as per his sanction we can say that there is no such thing as untimely death that ultimately death was supposed to happen at that particular time, in that sense it was timely however, that is only a partial understanding in the Bhagavad Gita also, Krishna says that he is not necessarily wanting all things to happen the way they are happening, Krishna says Upadrashta Anvantacho I am overseer and permitter so it is said that not a blade of grass moves without God’s will actually from the Bhagavad Gita point of view which is actually the ultimate understanding as Krishna is the Supreme Lord the more precise rendering would be not even a blade of grass moves without Krishna’s sanction so in the Mahabharata, Krishna did not want Duryodhana to persist in the evil course of action by which terrible fratricidal war at Kurukshetra took place so that was not Krishna’s will but because Duryodhana’s will was so stubborn and obstinate and recalcitrant that Krishna sanctioned it this is what you think will make you happy I have showed you through logic and reason and scripture and even experienced demonstration, Krishna showed the Vishwaroop to Duryodhana this is not going to make you happy but if you are not ready to learn then you have to learn the hard way so Krishna allows Duryodhana to fight that war so therefore whatever happens is not necessarily according to God’s will it is according to God’s sanction so there can be one situation in which death can be untimely in the sense that it is before the time that is destined now how is the time destined for us when we should die normally speaking the soul is like a tenant and the body is like a temporary rented house now we get different bodies according to our karma from the previous life, our karma is like the rent that we pay and depending on the karma that we have done our period of tenancy in a particular body is fixed and that is why after a particular period, that particular period is expired we will leave this body so in that sense our death is timed after our period of tenancy in this body is over now we don’t know that period of tenancy and that period is determined not in terms of time duration but more in terms of breath how many breaths will we have in a particular body so that is the normal destined time for us in our body but because all of us have free will and we can misuse our free will then we can damage and even destroy our body before its time is over with us that’s why when people commit suicide suicide is not destined if we say everything happens by God’s will then that would mean that God wanted a particular person to commit suicide which is wrong God has given us life and God wants us to use our life to make ultimate spiritual advancement and ultimately attain the highest happiness and these difficulties reversal sufferings are all in one sense growth opportunities learning opportunities for us to move forward but if a person misuses his free will and destroys and damages his body to an extent that it is it is irreparable then the soul has to leave that body and that is what we call as suicide so from the spiritual, scriptural point of view when a person kills himself at that time he is misusing his own free will to end his stay in the body before his time came up so that suicide comprises a form of untimely death and as such when we are leaving our body we should not bother too much about whether a particular death is timely or untimely we should focus more on whether I am living in the proper way or not if I am living in the proper way then death will come in the proper way and take me to a future proper destination so once in America some young devotees were driving across the country and they met with a road accident and they passed away and it seemed that both of them had engaged in reckless driving because of which they had passed away and then when Shila Prabhupada came to know about it Shila Prabhupada was very sad and he prayed for those devotees and then one of the devotees who was with Prabhupada said Prabhupada, was this actually Krishna’s arrangement? Prabhupada said no, it was their mismanagement it was their carelessness so now we may not be able to go into the micro analysis to think that ok, if they had not been driving recklessly, would they have not met the accident would they have not died in some accidents it is entirely the driver’s fault only, some other accident is partially the driver’s fault partially it is some circumstantial fault also so we don’t have to go into this hair splitting analysis of when it is our fault and when it is not our fault the important thing for us is to understand is that we have to do our normal human responsibility so if a person is jumping down from a 10 story building or is hanging himself, suspending himself from a fan and then setting the fan button on to move it, there it is very clear that it is the person’s culpability and that sort of death is surely untimely other cases the death may be timely if actually that person is not directly responsible for being careless or reckless and causing the death but it is somebody else’s fault, an accident is happening and the person is passing away in that, so that means we understand in retrospect not a priori, not before but after that it was timely death but in some cases where the person is explicitly at fault, then we can say that that person’s death is untimely so to summarize once again the worldly understanding of untimely death, as somebody dying before he grows old is philosophically incorrect that sort of death is timely the time for our body is for us to stay in our body the number of breaths in our body but if we by our choice and misuse of our free will damage and destroy the body and then that causes death, that death is untimely