Death Is But A Passage

2.26 O mighty-armed, even if you should think of the soul as being constantly born and constantly dying,

Even then, you should not lament.

2.27 Indeed, death is certain for the born and birth is certain for the dead. Therefore, you should not grieve over the inevitable.

2. 28 O Bharata, being intangible in the beginning, being intangible again in their end, seemingly tangible in the middle.

What are we grieving about?

2.29 One sees It as a wonder, another speaks of It as a wonder, another hears of It as a wonder.

Yet, having heard, none understands It at all!

2.30 O Bharata, This that dwells in the body of everyone can never be destroyed;

Do not grieve for any creature.

When you understand what Krishna is saying in these verses you get over any fear of death. In fact you will celebrate death.

Sometime ago when I was delivering a discourse in Bharat, news arrived that my father had died. I continued with the discourse. Later that night many of our disciples traveled with me to Tiruvannamalai where the body lay. If you see the videos of this event, you will find that my mother never once cried. She was a very traditional person, brought up in a rural environment that sets great importance on how one should behave socially. When one's husband dies one is naturally heart broken; especially as in the case of my mother and father, who were very close to each other. His departure would have been a great loss to her. She understood the meaning of these verses of Krishna without my ever having to explain them to her.

She has such immense faith in me that when I told her my father, her husband, is now in energy form that is eternal, she trusted me implicitly and joined me in celebrating his release. Many of our followers have seen the video recording of this event. It was made specifically to explain what Krishna is saying here. They could see it in action and get over any fear that they may have still have had about death.

Even more interestingly, another incident reinforced this truth. Soon after my father's death, the father of a disciple died and the family requested that the body be cremated at our Bidadi ashram and that I do the last rites. People who met the widow after the cremation were astounded to see the peace and calm in her, unlike what one would see in a traditional Hindu widow. When people asked her how she felt she simply replied that she fully believed that her husband's energy survived the destruction of the body and she was happy that he found peace.

We are not talking about philosophers and saints here. We are talking about very ordinary people whose lifestyle was all about fear of death and grief at death. They understood very easily what Krishna was saying. They understood that the spirit lives on after the body perishes and death is indeed an event to celebrate and not to grieve. It is only the scholars who have a mere intellectual understanding of what the Gita says with no trust in Krishna who still suffer from the fear of death. They may talk philosophically about how to detach from death as long as it does not affect them; the moment they face the death of a beloved or worse still, their own, their logical defenses crumble.

Krishna's words are not about logic; they are about trust in the Master.

The celebrated Greek philosopher, Socrates, was sentenced to death because the Greek society could not accept his views and his constant questioning attitude. He was asked to take back his sayings, failing which, he was sentenced to die by drinking poison. Since he refused to reject his own philosophy, Socrates was sentenced to death.

As he calmly awaited his death, his disciples asked him, 'Master, are you not afraid of dying?' Socrates said, 'There are two possibilities. One, that there is indeed life after death. In that case I shall go to a place better than where I am. The other is that there is no life after death. In that case I shall not be aware of anything that would happen now. In either case, what is there to worry?'

Death is inevitable. Whether the spirit lives on after the body perishes and locates itself in another body may be a debatable point to some. Krishna says that this is not a reason to lament death. In either case, death can be a passage that one can look forward to as Socrates did.

Whether the spirit goes to a region called hell or another region called heaven is as debatable a point as to whether there is an undying spirit at all, or whether that spirit reincarnates. You may believe whatever you like to believe. Occidental religions profess not to believe in the cycle of life and death. They seem to believe that death is once and for all. Even then what is there to worry about?

We all know death is inevitable.

A deeply disturbed woman approached Buddha one morning. She brought the body of her dead son to Buddha and said, 'Master, they tell me that you are the only one in this world with the power to revive the dead. Please give life back to my son.'

Buddha knew that no words of His could console the mother. He merely said, 'Mother, please bring me a handful of rice from any household that has not experienced death so far and I shall revive your son.'

The woman went door-to-door seeking a handful of rice. Every household she visited was only too glad to give her what she asked for. However, they all said that they too had suffered such a loss in their household. She went to neighboring villages and got the same reply.

She came back to Buddha and said, 'Master, I now understand that death is inevitable and that there can be no life without death. Thank you for teaching me this invaluable truth. I would like to sit at your feet for the rest of my life. Please accept me as your disciple.'

Bringing the dead back to life is not a miracle. It can be done under certain circumstances, but to transform the individual and to instill truth in them is indeed the miracle that only a true Master can perform.

Many of us do believe that life is a wonder; truly so. Life is wondrous! We do not understand how life is created. We may have a biological explanation as to how a sperm impregnates an egg and cells are created but that is not life at all.

Even today there is no absolute proof as to how the universe was created. All one has are theories such as Big Bang etc. What was there before Big Bang? No one knows.

Buddha rightly observed, 'The universe creates itself. It always was and always will be.' No one knows as well, how the first life form originated. Again, there are only theories. The explanation for 'abiogenesis', creation of life from non-living matter, has no scientific proof as yet. The first life form just seems to have happened. One fine morning or evening or night, the first amino acid, the first life block, seems to have sprung up from nowhere.

All that we know is that life exists. All we can observe and wonder about is the life form that is in front of us, that is manifest. What was there before and what happened to it thereafter are shrouded in questions and mystery. We can believe in what we believe but we do not know as we have not observed.

From time immemorial this has been the human quest. What happens after life, more correctly after death? Conversely, what were we before we were born?

I mentioned the famous Zen koan, 'What was your face like before your father and mother were born?' What was it indeed? If only you knew, you would have solved the mystery of life and death, wouldn't you?

The very effort of visualizing the possibility of an existence before this life opens doors. That is what this koan tries to do. There is no need to see your face. The fact that you understand and realize that you existed before, exist now and will exist again makes a difference to how you live your life from now on. You will no longer fear death because you have been there before!

It is unfortunate that the present day version of the Bible discounts the statement of Jesus when He says I was there before Abraham. It is the same as Krishna saying in the Gita that He taught Surya, the Sun God. Jesus implies that the spirit energy lives on and death of the body is not final.

The cycle of life and death is a mystery and a wonder. As yet there is no 'scientific' proof as the logic minded would demand, though there is plenty of empirical evidence. Quantum Physics and Molecular Biology are making rapid advances in this area and it is possible that there would be some 'proof' soon.

Those who are confident enough to accept the truth of the eternal nature of spirit as it comes are the fortunate, the blessed. Those who fight and grieve are the wretched, the miserable. You cannot fight life or death. They are both beyond you, out of your control. You can marvel at them and be happy and joyous. Or you can keep questioning them and be miserable. This is the choice and free will you have.

The illustrious King Yayati lived for hundreds of years. Bhagavatam, the Hindu epic, says that when Yama, God of Death, came to Yayati at his appointed time of death, Yayati begged to be allowed to live on. He said he had not lived life enough and he needed more time. Yama relented and said if one of his sons would give Yayati the rest of his life time, then he could live that long. Using the life span of his sons, Yayati lived many hundreds of years. Finally the realization dawned on him that no matter how long he lived, his desires would never cease and that fulfillment would never happen through material enjoyment. Yayati gave himself up to Yama once he realized this truth.

It is not death that frightens us. It is leaving our desires and unlived life that frightens us.

The problem is that we do not know how to live a fulfilled life, how to genuinely enjoy ourselves so that our desires are fulfilled. All our desires are partially fulfilled because, before they are fulfilled, we move on to other desires. We do not give our attention or awareness fully to what we are doing and experiencing. The simple fact is that we do not know how to be joyful.

To be truly joyful, to be eternally blissful, is to understand the truth that you are indestructible, that your spirit lives on.

Death is not an end; it is a passage of sorts. The truth is that the spirit is not satisfied with mere material pleasures. However much you please your senses, you cannot achieve satisfaction. More you enjoy through your senses, more the need for more enjoyment. It never stops. Discontentment with material pleasures alone is hardwired into the human psyche.

People are really confused about the concept of spirituality. Spirituality is not something intangible or something mysterious that religion and religious leaders need to explain.

Spirituality is the total understanding and enjoyment of life, materially, physically, emotionally, relationally and in all senses without discontent and with responsibility. This enjoyment and responsibility arise out of awareness. This awareness arises out of our ability to focus on the present moment. That is when our mind stops flitting from the past to the future, from regrets to speculation.

The present moment is the only moment when we are truly alive. That is the only moment we are awake. The rest of the time we are in deep sleep, even if our eyes are open; we are in virtual death. Yet, we, the walking dead are afraid to die.

Whether one believes in God or not, and accepts the inner divinity within oneself or not, is irrelevant to how one understands life after death.

If, instead of believing in God, we choose to believe in science, we still need to accept that there are no answers to what we were before we were born and what we will be once we are dead. It is still unmanifest at both ends; it is still a mystery before and after, with no answers. This understanding can only come with the understanding that we live on in spirit.

A Zen Master was asked, 'Now that you are enlightened, what is the difference in your perception of things around you?'

The Master said, 'Before enlightenment, I saw a mountain as a mountain and a river as a river. During the process toward enlightenment the mountain was not a mountain and the river was not a river. Now again, the mountain is a mountain and the river is a river.'

The Master here means that before he set out on his spiritual journey, he just saw the physical forms of the mountains, rivers etc. But once he started experiencing the energy behind them, he saw them all as manifestations of the very same energy.

Upon enlightenment, he saw that all matter as the very energy itself that is the real nature of them all.

Krishna says whatever was permanent and real was intangible before it became tangible and again it will be intangible. Everything is in a state of becoming something else. At every moment we die and are reborn; millions of cells in our mind-body system die everyday and are reborn. Yet, through all this change there is continuity. There is a continuity that we cannot see, touch or feel. What we see as manifested, as this body and mind, hides from us the process of constant change that happens within us, as well as the continuous thread that holds the thread of change.