Question: What happens to people who die accidental deaths?

Sri Chinmoy: People who have accidental deaths are sometimes unsatisfied. They take a longer time to come back. They are dissatisfied with this world. For people who die over two or three years, or people who are old and over the years have acquired abundant wisdom, death is natural. But young people do not take it that way. Young people never think that death can come tomorrow. Old people, after some time, know that death can come any day. Young people think, “No, everybody else will die. My father died, my brother died, my sister died, but I am immortal! I will live for a long time.” They always think that way.

When people die in an accident, like a crash, they do not go straight to the higher worlds. Their death is like cutting the throat of a chicken. After the throat is cut, the chicken runs here and there. If people are daily becoming weak, weaker, weakest, death is normal for them. But with accidental death, it is as if untimely somebody has cut the person’s throat. The other way is a slow process: the person becomes forty, fifty, seventy, eighty years old and finally he dies. There is preparation. The patient or the sick man is getting prepared. He says, “My death is coming.” But in the mind of young people, the very thought of death never comes. It will take time for them to reincarnate.

Again, if someone has been murdered, sometimes revenge comes into the picture. In boxing, the referee declares that somebody has been defeated; he surrenders and lies down on the ground. Then he goes outside the ring and returns to his place. But he cannot wait to come back and punch the fellow who has defeated him. He thinks that the next time he will be able to defeat his opponent.

When the hostile forces have killed someone, a challenging attitude comes to the fore in the one who is defeated. He may think that the next time he will be able to kill his enemy.