Memento mori

For example, when Prospero says at the end of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “Every third thought shall be my grave”, he wasn’t being morbid; for him, death was not unwelcome. In this he was embracing the Christian theology which told people to focus upon eternal life after death rather than the fleeting life of this transitory world, although, according to Christian doctrine, the way we live life in this world will decide whether our eternal lives will be lived in heaven or hell. This reminder to live a ‘good life’ was summed up in the phrase memento mori (“remember that you must die”), a reminder which was taken to its extreme by those Carthusian monks who would sleep every night in stone coffins.

But not all those who practiced memento mori were believers in an after-life (or rebirth, like the Hindus, who, like many other faiths, believe that a well-lived life will have its later rewards). The ancient Greek and Roman sect, the Stoics, did not, but still they believed that people should live their lives as if death was possible at any moment. This was so they could live life to the full, and treasure every moment upon earth. It was also to help them cultivate equanimity, not to be disturbed by either success or failure, as the daily admonition, memento mori, was a reminder that everything in life is fleeting. 

In this sense, memento mori can be applied by anyone at any age. As Seneca put it, “Death ought to be right there before the eyes of a young man just as much as an old one”.

This has also inspired many artists. Some of the most arresting images in art are the skulls, hourglasses, wilting flowers and dead animals in paintings which signify the transience of life. Other representations of this include the grim reaper with his scythe and the Danse Macabre, which was a particularly popular image in the late Middle Ages. Poussin makes the same point in his famous painting, Et in Arcadia Ego (“I am also in Arcadia”), which depicts an idyllic pastoral scene in which shepherds are seen to be examining an austere grave.

In fact, a whole artistic genre, termed vanitas, is devoted to such representations on the theme of the ever-present shadow of death.

In Auroville, it is unfashionable, almost a taboo, to urge people to think daily about death. This is not just because of fear of creating ‘negative formations’, but also because Mother spoke forcibly about the need for the ‘death of death’. Indeed, Mother described death as being merely a ‘habit’ which would no longer be necessary in a supramentalised world.

This explains the profound shock experienced by those early Aurovilians when they heard of Mother’s passing. As one of them told me, “We were sure that Mother would succeed in the transformation of her body so that none of us would die.” This has fostered an unspoken sense, at least among some Aurovilians, that death in Auroville is in some way a defeat and not something we should acknowledge as a fact of our present lives.

But perhaps this is a mistake. For while we should continue to aspire deeply for transformation, there is no harm in doing what the Stoics did: using the lever of our present mortality, the likelihood of our eventual demise, to consider daily if we are satisfied with the way we are living our lives, and to constantly remind ourselves of what a worthwhile life in Auroville would look like.

And not to be continually cast down or uplifted, like a crazed rubber ball, by the big dipper moments we are constantly experiencing in this extraordinary place.