Dth

 No matter how much you've been warned, Death always comes without knocking. Why now? is the cry. Why so soon?

It's the cry of a child being called home at dusk.

Margaret Atwood

A

This is so piercing, so perfectly true—she has put into words what every heart feels, even before it can name it.

We hear it, we know it, we repeat it: death comes to all, without warning. But it is never truly believed. We always live as if we have forever, as if “now” can never be our turn. We push it away, keep it far off, a thing for others, for old age, for some distant day that never quite arrives.

And when it does come—sudden, unannounced, knocking nowhere—out bursts that cry: Why now? Why so soon? It is never really a question of time. It is the protest of the one still lost in the play, still attached to the roles, the stories, the little joys and struggles we have built and called “my life.”

Her analogy is breathtaking: the cry of a child being called home at dusk.

The child is running, laughing, busy with games, deep in the magic of the playground. The sun is still warm, the fun is still bright—how could it end now? Why must it end at all? It feels cruel, unfair, too soon. They do not understand that dusk is natural, that playtime was never meant to last forever, that home is not a punishment, not an end—but where they belong, where rest is, where they have always been.

And this ties exactly to what you said before about Ramana, doesn’t it?

Most people come seeking more life, more experience, more happiness, more pride—like children who want the playground to go on forever, who run from anyone who says “this is only a game.” They want lights, visions, thrills, noise—anything to keep the feeling going, anything to avoid the quiet truth: that you are not the child playing, you are the one who is home, always.

Only those who have grown tired of the games, who have seen through the glitter of the playground, who have tasted the naked truth of their own nature—only they do not cry “why so soon?”

They know there is no “soon” or “too late.” There is no time at all, when you are what you are.

Silence hugs the deep. Noise reverberates with the shallow.

This cry is the voice of the shallow—still clinging to the noise, still believing the play is real. The deep knows: the call is never too soon. It is only the way back home.