Death is not a destination. It's every breath.

Death is a very fundamental question. Actually, death is closer to us than the statistics we read about it.

Each moment, death is happening in us at the organ and cellular levels. This is how, with just one look at your insides, your doctor knows how old you are. In fact, death began in us even before we were born.

Only if you are ignorant and unaware does it seem like death will come to you someday later. If you are aware, you will see both life and death are happening every moment.

If you as much as breathe a little more consciously, you will notice that with every inhalation there is life, with every exhalation there is death.

Upon birth, the first thing that a child does is to inhale—to take in a gasp of air. And the last thing that you will do in your life is an exhalation. You exhale now, and if you do not take the next inhalation, you will be dead.

If you do not get this, just do an exhalation, hold your nose and do not do the next inhalation. Within a few moments, every cell in your body will start screaming for life.

Life and death are happening all the time. They exist together, inseparably, in the same breath.

This relationship goes even beyond the breath. Breath is only a supporting actor. The real process is of the life energy—prana—that controls physical existence. With certain mastery over prana, one can exist beyond breath for substantial amounts of time. Breath is more immediate in its requirement, but it's in the same category as food and water.

Death is such a fundamental aspect because if one small thing happens, you can be gone tomorrow morning. Why tomorrow morning? One small thing now and you could be off the next moment.

If you were like any other creature, maybe you would be unable to think about all this. But once you are endowed with human intelligence, how can you just ignore such a significant aspect of your life?

How can you avoid it and live on as if you are going to be here forever?

How is it that after millions of years of life, human beings still do not know a damn thing about death? Well, they know nothing about life either. We know all the trappings about life, but what do you know about life as such?

This is the real question. Not "When will I die?" but "What am I living for?"

Because once you understand that death is not something that happens to you—it's something that's happening right now—everything changes.

You stop postponing. Stop performing. Stop building your life around a future that might not come.

You start breathing. Really breathing. And in that breath, you find both life and death, moving together, reminding you that they were never separate.

There is no time like the present moment. Because the present moment is the only moment where life actually happens.