Sadhguru on the approaching hour of Death

Sadhguru : One more aspect is, if you have a certain thought at the moment of death, it becomes the quality of your future birth. We must create an atmosphere of peacefulness and wellbeing for people during the dying process because whatever is the dominant factor in their mind and emotions in the last moment will become the quality of their future lives. That is the reason why in this culture, we always said you should not die among your family. People used to go to the forest to die – this is Vanaprastha. Even emperor Dhritarashtra, his queen Gandhari, and Kunti went into the forest after the Kurukshetra war, with just Sanjaya as an assistant. They had all become old, so they went to the forest to die there, rather than in the palace. Though Dhritarashtra was blind and stupid in many ways, that much awareness was there, which is missing in the world today. Now that her children had become emperors, Kunti, who had suffered all kinds of hardship in her life, could have enjoyed the palace, but she also decided to go and die in the forest.


So they went into the forest and climbed up a very steep hill. There was a forest fire. Since they were old, they could not run or fight the forest fire, so they just decided to offer themselves to the fire. So Dhritarashtra told Sanjaya, “You have served me very well till now, but you are still a young man – go away. The three of us will give ourselves to the fire.” Sanjaya refused to leave them, and all four got burnt in the forest fire.


If you die among the family, you will die with a huge sense of attachment, which, in the future, will not bring wellbeing. You know that in India, even today, people go to Kashi to die, because it is a holy place. They want to die in the grace of Shiva. They don’t want to die with their family throwing their emotions at them.
http://blog.ishafoundation.org/lifestyle/dying-process-moment-of-death/