When the Last Leaf Falls

 I guess this thought could help seniors in this group and so, decided to pen this down.

It is said—what we think of in the final moment, we become that. Our last thought becomes our next beginning. If, in the dusk of life, we cling to wealth, to name, to loved ones and unfinished longing, then the wheel turns again, gently but inexorably, and we return to sip from the same cup.

But if the Name of Bhagwan glows in the mind—like the last ember in a dying fire—then we are lifted. Beyond return. Beyond the ever-churning Samsāra Sāgaram.

That is why we bow, chant, fast, sing, weep, and pray every morning we are gifted with breath. Not to show merit, but to build a bridge. A bridge of Naama that will hold us when time and body no longer do.

Yet... what if the bridge collapses at the final hour? What if our last moment arrives wrapped in unconsciousness, an accident, a coma, a mind too clouded to remember the very Lord it served? Will He forget us because we forgot His Naama in those final moments?

No—says Jagadguru Adi Shankara, with fire and grace. In his Subrahmanya Bhujangam, he steps into our shoes and lifts his voice in a poetic thundercloud of faith:

प्रणंयासकृत्पादयोस्ते पतित्वा

प्रसाद्य प्रभो प्रार्थये’नेकवारम्

न वक्तुं क्षमो’हं तदानीं कृपाब्धे

न कार्यान्तकाले मनागप्युपेक्षा

“I have prostrated countless times at Your feet, O Lord, I have pleaded with You while my limbs are strong and my tongue still speaks. I may not be able to utter Your name at the final hour— but You, O Ocean of Compassion, must not abandon me even then. Let not my years of devotion be left behind at the altar of forgetfulness. Let not my anushthaanams be drowned in the Samsāra Sea. Take me unto You.”

This is not despair. This is a devotee calling upon Divine Memory . This is Shankara saying:

“You know my life. You have seen every flower I offered, every dawn I spent in chant, every tear of surrender. If my tongue fails me at the end, You will not fail me. You will honour this covenant of love.”

In John Donne’s sonnet "A Hymn to God the Father" (16th Century perhaps) the poet, with the classical Christian approach of a sinner addressing God, confesses his failures, but ends with the assurance of divine remembrance:

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

..........

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son

Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore.

And having done that, Thou hast done,

I fear no more.

Like Shankara, Donne too fears the shoreline of death but ends with faith that divine grace will not falter—even when his own faculties do.

Just as Manikkavacakar wrote:

உருக்கஞ்செய்து என் உள் நின்றாயை

உயிர் உறுதி ஆக உள்ளாயை…

உருகாது என் நாவால் உன்னை உரைக்கேன்

“You, who melted into me and made my soul Yours—even if I fail to melt in return, You will not forsake me.”

So let us not fear the final moment. Our devotion does not vanish if the voice fails. Bhagawan is no accountant tallying the last breath, but a mother who sees the child unconscious, and still holds it close. Adi Shankara, in that one verse, whispers a truth that surpasses ritual: that Divine Grace remembers, even when we forget.