Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II

Death

You say that it is through a newspaper that the news came of your nephew's death. So the child died a few days ago. Did S and P find any difference in their atmosphere, their feelings, their thoughts, their sensations, — a difference, an uneasiness, or a sense of loss, which would give a real ground for their sorrow? I am pretty sure that they did not. So their sorrow, if they have any, is not true but the result of conventional thoughts and feelings; it is all illusion coming from the family idea which is one of the most artificial and false of all conventions.

In truth the child was not in their atmosphere, otherwise they would have become aware of his death without needing to receive the news of it; he was no more in their atmosphere than any one of the 2 million human beings who die everyday — for the average death of human beings is 2 millions a day. Do they know that? Is not death the most common and everyday happening and can they reasonably expect that none of those they know will escape this general law?

24 December 1932

The Mother