{"id":8517,"date":"2009-12-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/12\/04\/dying-with-dignity-the-hindu-way\/"},"modified":"2009-12-04T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T12:00:00","slug":"dying-with-dignity-the-hindu-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/12\/04\/dying-with-dignity-the-hindu-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Dying With Dignity, the Hindu Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: www.hafsite.org<\/a><\/p>\n

MINNEAPOLIS, MN, November 5, 2009 (by Dr. Aseem Shukla): The mandate for health care reform is writ large on our national landscape and few issues are more pressing than universal access from my vantage as a practicing physician. But when I witnessed the surreal protests about the so-called “death panels,” in many ways, I saw a drift into irrationality. <\/p>\n

The Hindu Vedas say, “Free of desires, wise, immortal, self-existent, full of bliss, lacking in nothing, is the one who knows the wise, unaging, atman (soul); that person fears not death.”<\/p>\n

To a Hindu, then, refusing to accept the inevitability of our own, or loved one’s death, “fighting till the end,” refusing to give up in the face of the inevitable–these are all manifestations of our own ignorance. There is no death; the soul simply continues its transmigration through reincarnation until the ultimate destination of moksha, or salvation, is reached. <\/p>\n

We have built a narrative where not giving up, holding up hope is heroic, and capitulating to death is cowardly. And indeed, we must face disease courageously, trust our physicians, maintain a positive attitude and pray. But there is a time for battle, an age for battle, time for prayer and then an acceptance when the outcome is certain. <\/p>\n

Yet, as with many public health directives–exercising, stopping smoking, wearing seat-belts, avoiding drugs and alcohol–our public must be educated. But for all of the resources devoted to those issues, we continue to deny Americans the opportunity to discuss with a physician and others how they can write their own advanced directive. <\/p>\n

If we don’t leave a will for our children, our assets go to probate; don’t leave a living will, and you may not control what happens to your best asset–you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: www.hafsite.org MINNEAPOLIS, MN, November 5, 2009 (by Dr. Aseem Shukla): The mandate for health care reform is writ large,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}