Meditate, because this moment will be of significance for you. Whenever somebody dies, somebody you have been deeply related to, someone with whom you have been very intimate, somebody with whom you have been happy and unhappy, sad and angry, somebody with whom you have known all the seasons of life and somebody who has somehow become a part of you and you have become a part of him or her – when somebody like that dies, it is not only a death that occurs outside, it is a death that occurs inside also. [She] was holding a part of your being, so when she dies, that part in your being also dies. She was fulfilling something in you. She disappears and wounds are left.

We have many holes in our being. Because of those holes we seek the company of the other, the love of the other. By the other’s presence we somehow manage to fill those holes. When the other disappears, those holes are again there...yawning abysses opening. You may have forgotten about them, but you will feel them and the pain. So use these moments for a deep meditation because sooner or later those holes will be filled again. These holes will again disappear. Before it happens it is good to enter those holes, to enter that emptiness that she will leave behind her.

So use these moments. Sit silently, close your eyes, go inside. And just see what has happened. Don’t think about the future, don’t think about the past. Don’t go into the memories because that is futile. Just go in. What has happened to you? She is dead; now what has happened to you? What is happening to you? Just go into that process. That will reveal many things in you. You will be completely transformed if you can penetrate those holes. You will not try to fill them again, but still you can love.

One can love without in any way taking the other inside and fulfilling some deep need there. One can love as a luxury...because one has to share and one wants to share. Then love is no more a need; you are not hiding your wounds behind it.

So go into these wounds, go into this emptiness, go into this absence, and watch – that’s one thing.

The second thing: remember that life is really fleeting, slipping by...so momentary. We live in a magic world. We go on deluding ourselves. Again and again the delusion drops. Again and again reality erupts. Again and again somebody dies and you are reminded that life is not reliable, that one should not depend too much on life. One moment it is there, another moment it is gone. It is a soap bubble – just a small prick and it is gone. In fact the more you understand life, the more full of wonder you are about how it exists. Then death is not the problem; life becomes the problem. Death seems natural.

It is a miracle that life exists – such a temporary thing, such a momentary thing. And not only does it exist, people trust it. People depend on it, people rely on it. They put their whole being at its feet – and it is just an illusion, a dream. Any moment it is gone and one is left crying. With it is gone the whole effort, the whole sacrifice that you had made for it. Suddenly everything disappears. So watch this – this momentary, dream-like illusory life.

And death is coming to everybody. We are all standing in the queue, and the queue is continuously coming closer to death. She disappears; the queue is a little less. She had made space for one person more. Every person dying brings you closer to your own death, so every death is basically your death. In every death one is dying and coming closer to the full stop. Before it happens, one has to become as much aware as possible.

If we trust life too much, we tend to become unconscious. If we start doubting life – this so-called life which always ends in death – then we become more aware. And in that awareness a new sort of life starts, its doors open – the life which is deathless, the life which is eternal, the life which is beyond time.