Santino liked to contemplate the mysteries of the Universe, and there was one question he could never quite answer: What happens when we die? The question troubled him and if he were being honest, it troubled him greatly. He considered death all the time.
One day a woman saw Santino meditating under a mango tree. She watched as he sat for a very long time in silence; this intrigued the woman. She waited patiently until he finished his meditation and when she felt the time was right, she approached him.
“Hello, my friend. I noticed you sitting in silence. What are you contemplating?”
“Death,” Santino said.
“Why are you contemplating death?” she asked.
“I want to know what happens when we die.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, to me it does. It matters very much. I want to know if life goes on after we die.”
The woman thought about this for a moment and then said she had a proposition for Santino.
“I have a meditation I want you to practice. It will give you the answer you are looking for,” she said to Santino. “Every time you begin worrying about death, I want you to climb this mango tree, pick a mango, and then place it in a basket. Do your meditation for one full day and I will come back to you to help you with your question.”
Santino gathered a basket as she asked, and he sat beneath the mango tree once again. Within moments the fear of death entered his thoughts; he climbed the tree and picked a mango. He was settled for only a moment when again, the thought of death entered his mind. He climbed the tree and picked a mango. This same routine continued for hours. He thought of death, climbed the tree, and picked a mango. It wasn’t long before Santino was exhausted from climbing and he fell into a deep sleep under the tree.
The next thing Santino knew the woman had returned and had awakened him. She looked down at his basket and saw that it was filled with mangos.
“It appears as if you have been worried about death. Your basket is filled with mangoes,” the woman said to Santino. “What have you learned?”
“I learned that I got so tired from climbing the tree to pick a mango that I eventually fell asleep under the tree.”
“Did you answer your question?”
“No, I just got tired searching for the answer and now I have all these mangoes that I can’t eat,” Santino said.
The woman explained, yes, there is no way you could ever eat those mangoes before they all rotted and went bad. Your only hope of getting any worth out of those mangoes would be to give them away to others because you have way more than you could ever eat yourself. Those mangoes are exactly like your worries about death. You spend so much time thinking about dying that you never actually live and before long, your life has rotted away. Enjoy one mango at a time and give all your worries away to God. Stop climbing the mango tree.
Santino thought about this for a long moment when finally, the woman offered.
“What does it matter if life goes on after we die if we never truly live while we are alive?” the woman asked him.
The woman smiled at Santino and a long uncomfortable silence followed. Santino contemplated the woman’s words and they troubled Santino as much as the thought of dying did.
“Isn’t it true that we will all die?” the woman continued.
“Yes.”
“Why would you fear that which is inevitable? You spend all your time worrying about something that is going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it and no matter how hard you try, no matter how many times you climb the tree the only thing you’re going to be left with is more mangoes.”
Santino didn’t speak. He was too lost in thought.
“I cannot answer what happens when we die, and nor can you. We will never know while we are alive on Earth what happens the moment we pass out of our body. We must concern ourselves with only question: What happens when you truly live? This we can receive direct evidence of. When we truly live we are left with the exhilaration of life—until death finally becomes us,” the woman said and as she left Santino to ponder this.
As she did, Santino called out.
“I never asked your name.”
“Call me Dabria,” the woman said.
“What does your name mean?”
“Angel of Death.”
And the woman disappeared.