How can you survive a volcano?

OK, i don't know why someone changed my old answer (pray) because there is no physical way of surviving a direct volcanic explosion. If lava runs you over at who knows how many degrees, you will die and if a chunk of lava flies through the air and hits you, you will also catch fire (and die) or melt (and die), depending on the size of the lava mass. If a rock propelled by the explosion hits you, you will either die of the impact or being suffocated/burned when you pass out from the hit and die of indirect causes. If you are too close to the fumes of the volcano or lava (lava releases CO2 and Sulfur gas - both harmful to humans), you will suffocate and die. If there is a pyroclastic flow, you will be burned at thousands of degrees and die (no one as ever survived a pyroclastic flow and don't bet on being the first). If you become stranded on an "island" in a flowing river of lava, the heat will dehydrate you, or if sufficient, catch you on fire and kill you, no to mention the toxic gases released by lava suffocating you. If there is a terrestrial rainfall or pumice rain, and you are completely exposed, you may or may not die, but for sure you will become impaired. And lets not even mention if you are on the cone of the volcano when the eruption takes place; that's obviously a guaranteed death. Basically you will not survive a volcanic eruption if you are near it long enough, I'm assuming your question implies that you survive the entire length of the volcanic activity within a near distance, and history will support that. Look at Pompey, not even on the volcano and nearly the entire city wiped out, or the Minoan Civilization which was on a separate island from the volcano and had many people killed (an indirect cause of the fall of Minoan civilization BTW) and Krakatoa too. So physically you will not survive, and therefore you're better off praying, unless you can outrun the volcano's wrath (don't forget volcanoes typically have earthquakes too and as for pyroclastic flows; they move at over a hundred mph, way faster than any human) or you can find some type of man-made shelter that can withstand lava, which doesn't exist by the way.