1. Death Is a Celebration - Collection

vāyur-anilam amṛtam athedaṁ bhasmāntagṁ śarīram | auṁ krato smara kṛtaguṁ smara krato smara kṛtaguṁ smara || 17 ||

Let the vital life-energy 'Wind' present in the body, now merge into the allpervading, eternal cosmic life-energy; and now let this gross body along with subtle body, disintegrate into its basic elements and be reduced to the sacred ashes.

Body assumes its shape and it can go back to the basic elements. Let the prana, vayu relax, merge into the Cosmic life, anilam; and let the body retire to the basic elements, become ashes. But you remember what all you did to become One with the Cosmos. Oh Cosmos,

The way Sanatana Dharma approaches Death It's very clear, the body has nothing useful. It has no use after death, that is why they say, let it disintegrate – bhasmāntaguṁ śareeram. This verse declares about the need of cremation for Hindus.

It is this verse shows the way why cremation in Hindu tradition, because – vāyur-anilam amṛtam athedaṁ. Let the 'prana' merge with the Cosmic Prana. bhasmāntaguṁ śareeram – let the body go back to its basic elements, no use! After you leave the body, it has no use; you don't need this after that. If you want, you will have one more body. You will take a new body, but this itself is not required.

From the right context and understanding there is no such thing as death. When there is a wrong context, every moment you will be dying. When there is a right context, even what you think as the socalled death is not death. With a wrong understanding and wrong context just the thought, "Will this roof fall on my head?" is enough to put you into a panic attack. Just a small jolt in the flight is enough. Sometimes it is not even required, just your thought, a jolt in your thinking is enough to put you in the fear of death and make you go through death.

The first thing you need to know about death is, the actual happening has no significance at all. Imagination about the happening plays all the chaos, havoc in your life. Please listen; actual happening has no significance at all.

This is what you think of as death, that one day you will suddenly disappear, your body will be taken and burnt or cremated or buried disposed. After that you won't exist in the form you are existing now, that is what is, actual incident you call it as death. It has no significance.

Death is nothing but a job change, profession change or career change. It has no significance. Just like you change your jobs, change your career, change your profession, sometime change the city you are living in, sometime change your spouse, sometime change your house, you just change your body.

You might be thinking "No, that means too much". The incident really has no significance at all. Changing your body happens so regularly in your life, it has no significance. Body changing has no significance. It is regular phenomena;

It is cleaning of all the memory. There is only one thing in the death, actually happening which you are not seeing during the life; that is you forgetting the whole memory, cleaning of all memories, that is the beauty of death, never try to demystify that because just like once in a while you need stomach cleansing, stomach washing, once in a while you need all the memories getting cleansed. You get the fresh slate, you get the fresh life, you get the fresh energy, you get the fresh space.

Once, in USA, a young lady asked the great Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda*

'What is life?' Swami Vivekananda said, 'Come with me to Bharat. I will teach you.'

She asked, 'What will you teach me?' He said, 'I will teach you how to die.'

The question is about life but the answer is about death! It seems strange! What Swami Vivekananda* is saying is that if you know the secret of death, the quality of your life will be different. Your very understanding and attitude towards everything will change. We can actually use our lives to prepare for death. We do not have to wait for the pain of seeing someone's death or the shock of being faced with a critical illness to force us to look into the meaning of life.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

The very word 'death' creates agony and fear. Even talking about it is considered of inauspicious as we may invite it by even mentioning it. Death is seen as an enemy. We paint death as a villain, never as a hero. The idea of death is always approached with negativity. We feel death takes away everything from us. What ever we want, whatever we enjoy, whatever we have, everything is just taken by force from us

So most of us live either in denial of death or in fear of it. We think, 'why should we think about it now? We will handle it when it arrives.' Some how we always want to escape from death, Our concern for unfulfillment is rooted in our fear of death.

It is a primal fear, that of the unknown our actions in this life are for the most part driven by the desire to be in a better place after death or the fear not to be in a worst place after death. This fear of leaving the body and mind has existed through the ages.

• What does the word death create?
• Why death is painted in black?
• We approach the idea of death with what?
• What we feel about death?
• Which is rooted in our fear of death?
• Which is a primal fear?
• Which desire drives our actions in life?
• Which fear drives our actions in life?

• 1. Paper
• 2. Permanent marker
• 3. Impermanent marker (washable marker).

Encourage the children to draw any picture with permanent marker on the plain sheet and now ask them to draw the same picture with impermanent marker and ask them to use ink eraser and erase the pictures and see the difference.

The picture drawn with permanent marker cannot be erased with ink eraser but the picture drawn with impermanent marker can be easily erased with ink eraser. Connect them to the fact that soul is eternal and that it cannot be erased or destroyed while the body is perishable

• 1. Poster colors
• 2. Plain sheet
• 3. Pencil
• 4. Crayon

Encourage the children to do the drawing in the paper and paint it with poster colors. Ask them to dry the painting and tear each of their painting. Now ask each child to share and interchange part of their painting with the other child and form a new collage. Encourage each child to explain what they interpret from the new collage. Ask them to discuss how was this change in the painting was perceived by them.

We are afraid of death because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change in life.

Why is the whole of humanity struggling against, one thing, the only thing that it is a certainty in all our lives. We are afraid because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change in life. Man thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present. We are afraid because we do not know who we are. We hold an identity of ourselves inside us, based on our family, relationships, job, wealth, social image.

Death removes this very identity foundation on which our identity is built, so we feel death snatches everything that is ours. Our understanding about death or rather misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience. The man who resists death dies even while he lives. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing your comfortable life is one form of death.

Every part of your body i.e. connected to someone or the other. Your being is not an individual being. It is not a love, separate, as your think. We are all interlinked. That is why we undergo terrible suffering when we lose someone or something. All that we understand of death is that it is anti-life. Again because of our fear we think too much about death.

In the mystery of death lies the answer to life. If you know the secret of death, the quality of your life will be different. Your very understanding and attitude towards everything will change. We can actually use our lives to prepare for death. Death is not a mere incident at the end of your life. It is a profound knowing. If you know how the die, you know how to live. Living and leaving are new sides of the same thing.

• Which is certainty in all our lives?
• Which is the abrupt change in life?
• Which makes us incapable of living in the present?
• What removes the identity foundation?
• Which makes death a powerful experience?
• What is death?
• Is your being an individual one?.

Part 2: Death Is a Celebration

• 1. Water
• 2. Sand
• 3. Straw
• 4. Incense Stick

Encourage the children to do a beautiful art which utilizes all the five elements of nature like water, for earth use sand, air for blowing, for fire use incense stick, and represent the space as paper. Encourage the children to mix sand with poster colors and water and then use straw to do blowing on the plain sheet so that they can do straw blowing painting. After it is dried, ask them to make designs by creating holes with incense sticks.

Our body is made up of all the five elements of nature water, earth, air, fire, and space.

This game is a group activity which ensures focus and co-ordination. Encourage the children to sit in a circle. One child will be the catcher and he has to identify who is the leader. The game is each has to continue to do the activity. Then the leader changes the activity others has to follow it and it goes on like this. The game goes so fast. The catcher has to correctly identify who changes the activity as the leader. Now other child who identified the leader will sit and the leader will be the catcher

Connect them to the fact that being in the present is very important. Just be in the present and allow time to flow through you.

Encourage each child to talk about and write down the changes that happened in their life and ask them to talk about how they handled the changes.

For example:

How about their new friend? What they felt when there was a new friend, new school, or any new place or any new dimension? How did they handle the new situation?

Any change happening to us is the death of the old person and evolving of the new person. For everything, you hold the key to getting upset or accepting the change happily. This is decided by you. One step, one click is needed to make our understanding better about change.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

The only way to break free from the vicious cycle of birth and death is by becoming enlightened, by entering into death, dropping the fear. As long as you are afraid of death you will never look death in the eye. Unless or until you do that, you will never know how much you are blessed with abundance. Only when you know that you will lose something will you realize the value of that thing. Once when you face death without fear, you will understand the death is not the end of life but it is the climax. Death is just a matter of

When you believe that death is terrifying, it becomes terrifying. We are not able to face death because we are not able to face the ever changing nature of life. We try to hold onto things, to people, to feelings, to situations and that is where the problem starts.

We are terrified to letting go. Look at everything happening in life with the understanding that change is the nature of life, the very reason why life is so colorful and interesting. Death is a deep relaxation it is the ultimate 'letting go'. It is the dropping of the old and starting with the new.

When your being recognizes that is cannot achieve what it wants to through this body it decides to move on . This moving on, this passing over is called death. Death is a fresh start – When you die, all that happens is that you rejuvenate your body is your mind. You take a fresh set of memories, a new place, a different set of relatives, a new life

We take up a new birth hoping to fulfill all our incomplete desires. Choices given to you by god to start all over again is death. Facing the fear demystifies death. Every moment you die, the next moment you are born. Death and birth are just cycles. If you die you will be born and if you are born you will die. When you understand this you start living your life, you start enjoying every breath that you take on planet earth. Death is the beginning of a new chapter of life.

• Which is the only way to break the birth and death cycle?
• When can we realize the abundance of nature?
• When can we realize the value of something?
• What happens when you belief death is terrifying?
• Are we scared of letting go?

Which is a deep relaxation? ·

• Is death a new beginning?

• 1. Pictures of deer eating grass, the lion eating deer, the hunter catching the lion.
• 2. Glue,
• 3. plain sheet cut into circular format.

Encourage the children to stick the pictures in the order of life circle. Stick the pictures in the circular form of deer eating grass, the lion eating deer, the hunter eating lion

Connect them to the fact that our life is a circle between birth and death

Encourage the child to dip the foot in the water and keep the foot print on the outdoor floor and ask each child to observe how it just disappear behind them. They can also observe the friend's footprint disappearing in no time. Ask each child to explain what they understood from this. INFERENCE

Death happens everyday. Everything is unstable, everything is changeable.

Death is truly the mystery of all mysteries. There are only two things that are certain about death. One that we will die at some point in time. The other is that it is uncertain when or how we will die. Everything that is born has to die. That is the nature of life. Beautifully the verse in the Upanishad says of that what ever you think in your last moment, you become that. '

'Thoughtless awareness' is the strongest experience you can have in your life. Even for a single moment, if you find that experience it is enough. Naturally when you leave the body that will come up. That will act as a light and you will be able to move into the consciousness. What exactly happens at the time of leaving the body? This question cannot be answered by a living person as has not experienced death. It cannot be answered by a dead person since he cannot come back to narrate the experience.

Only an enlightened being, a person who has gone through death conscious and come back a new, can exactly explain what happens during death. We do not just have one body. The physical body is just one of the seven bodies we have. It is the only gross body that can be felt and seen in space-time. However we actually have seven layers or bodies or planes of existence. Since these layers have a subtle existence they cannot we seen or felt by ordinary person Each of the bodies holds a corresponding emotions. Seven bodies are physical body, pranic body, mental body, etheric body causual body, cosmic body and nirvanic body.

Pranic body-holds the desires that arise in life. Mental body-holds all the feelings of guilt experience in life. Etheric body-Holds the experiences of mental pain felt in life.

When the spirit leaves the body it crosses all the seven body layers. The physical body dies, but the remaining six bodies do not totally do.

If you are holding a lot of desires in you life all those unfulfilled desire are held in the pranic body. So even the physical body dies the pranic body does not die. Somehow, you manage to move away from the pranic body, and enter next into the mental body. When you enter into the mental body all your guilt raises.

The way in which we want to live is desire, and the way in which we wanted to live but didn't is guilt when the desire, guilt and pain are less intense, you not only have an easy death with less suffering but you also age gracefully. Guilt is about the past and desire is about the future.

Happiness comes from an external object or reason. If you feel happy when you get to eat your favorite candy, you feel that the candy is the cause of your happiness. But it is not to be. you will hate your favorite candy if you are forced to eat the candy one after other continuously.

Happiness is temporary feeling created by the mind. Bliss the seven bodies, is the true reality. It is the causeless, unending happening inside you of spontaneous energy, joy and suspicious.

Picture book of baby to aged man. Materials needed: Picture book plain sheet to be made into scrapbook, different pictures of different age groups like pregnant mother etc.

Encourage the children to make a picture book like scrap book by sticking the pictures of various age group from young to old. The pictures can be picture of pregnant women New book baby Toddler, preschooler, kindergartner Primary secondary school going (teenager) Adult, middle aged, young age, very old age. The picture book must be in this order. Inference: We are changing by time to time. Death is the beginning of a new chapter of life. It is a fresh start.

Read holding upside down Explanation: Encourage children to hold a story book or written page upside down and read correctly. This activity encourages the child to be in now, and be creative in doing things. Encourage: Encourage the child to be out of logic and use the right brain and be creative. Anything done in the regular way is logic, the activity which needs focus, and being in now is related to the right brain. Death is not a mere incident at the end of your life. It is profound knowing we have to focus every moment.

Encourage all the children to talk about when they give excuses. For example: children will give excuses like I did not do my homework because there is no current in my home. I cannot do this exercise because it is very difficult and so on. Inference: When we give an excuse we start postponing. An excuse leads to postponing. We postpone our responsibility by giving excuses, we kill time by giving excuses, we start giving excuses for death also. Instead, we can live happily fulfilling our responsibilities without giving any excuses

volume 3

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

When you enter into the dream state and start dreaming, this whole world in which you live now becomes black and white because you are in the dream world. You forget this whole world of your waking state and the dream world becomes very real and seen in multi color. If you come out of the dream, this whole world that you wake up to is again seen in four dimensions, 4D. When you are in this physical body and in the waking state, you experience this world as 4D, in multi color.

When you are in the dream world, you experience that world as 4D. so when you are here the dream world becomes black and white and this world becomes 4D, and when you are there, the dreams becomes 4D, and this world becomes black and white.

In the same way when you move away from the death, this whole physical world will become unreal and seen in black and white. All your achievement, your pride, your efforts, your sorrow, your happiness, everything will no longer have meaning and will appear in black and white.

Understand that when something moves away from us, our whole body suffers. When we move away from physical body the same suffering starts happening in us. As of now this whole world will appear in 4D. All this talk about spirituality, meditation, growing the inner being, consciousness will appear as black and white. If spirituality and meditation appear as black and white to you now, you will not divert your energy in that area. But this is what happens when you move away from the physical body at the time of death.

Whatever you thought of as real and 4D when you were living disappears totally. Everything material is totally shaken and appears as black and white. If you have had a conscious glimpse of truth at least once in your life before, then you can enter into death with awareness and fully conscious.

Right now what is happening is that however many pillars we build our personality and life upon, all those pillars are based on the material world which appears to be 4D. Not a single pillar is based on consciousness or our inner space.

Our whole personality is built only based on the outer space, our name and fame, our outer world pillars are not in our control at all. So understand that these outer world pillars are that we. "what comes and stands in your mind at the time of leaving the body will alone decide about your next birth or enlightenment.

If we have at least one pillar on consciousness normally we will not have suffering when we have the body. All the other pillar will become black and white. But even if the other pillars become black and white, this one pillar will be there in multicolor, 4D and will take us through. As of now our problem is that we have no filter to take us through. Our entire personality is based on the outer space

Right now what is happening is that however many pillars we build our personality and life upon, all those pillars are based on the material world which appears to be 4D.

So understand that these outer world pillars are that we. "what comes and stands in your mind at the time of leaving the body will alone decide about your next birth or enlightenment. If we have at least one pillar on consciousness normally we will not have suffering when we have the body. All the other pillar will become black and white. But even if the other pillars become black and white, this one pillar will be there in multicolor, 4D and will take us through. As of now our problem is that we have no filter to take us through. Our entire personality is based on the outer space.

• What happens when you enter into the dream state?
• What happens when you are in the waking state?
• What happens when you move from physical body to pranic body?
• What happens when something moves away from us?
• Our pillars are based on the inner world or outer world??
• What is the result of our pillars being based on the outer world?
• What happens when we have one pillar based on consciousness

Part 3: Death Is a Celebration

• 1. Plain sheet
• 2. Sketch pen or pencil.

Encourage children to draw about the different seasons. For example, draw the sun picture for summer, etc. Depict each season in a pictorial format by drawing the related pictures. Inference: How one season is followed by another season, the world changes from time to time.

Your choice to start all over again is what is called death. Death is the beginning of a new chapter of life.

Encourage the children to stare at the mirror and make a few sorrowful, upset faces and some glowing, happy faces, do various facial expressions and observe the image coming in the mirror and also play staring games with the mirror.

When we show a happy face in the mirror the mirror shows the same, when we show an upset face in the mirror the mirror shows the same. Mirror reflects our mind set up. We have to be aware of what we project every moment. The person who can be aware of dreams, they will never dream. The person who is aware of life will never take one more birth.

volume 4

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

You will be surprised to know that in Sanskrit if you literally translate the word for destruction, samhara, it does not mean destruction, it means rejuvenation. The word that we use commonly for destruction actually means creating space for new things to happen. Even destruction can be looked as from a different dimension of rejuvenating or creating a new space for better things to happen. Even the disease which happens to your body just creates a new space so that you can get ready to live a new life.

You can just restart the whole process. Actually restarting the whole process can heal many of your wounds. Every time when you move from one moment to the next moment you are expanding, you are growing, and you are learning. If you look from this angle even your death is auspicious because you are going to the next step you will feel the fear of death

The future becoming the past is the present. Present moment is the point where the future is slowly becoming past. Present moment is the possibility of rejuvenation.

When you are in the present, you will see very clearly that the future coming inside you to become the past leaves so much energy in you. Every moment you are overflowing with energy. If you are caught by future you are in the world of fantasies, building castles in the air. As long as you are caught in the future, you will feel insecure, afraid.

If you are caught in the past, you will feel things as inauspicious, that life is dull and dead. If you are established in the present, you will feel whatever is happening is auspicious. Conquering death is a simple technique. Just be in the present, allow time to flow through you.

When future comes inside, you don't be greedy and just catch it. Even your death is one more expansion. It is expansion in a dimension that your logic may not be able to relate with.

What needs to be taken away from you is taken away, what needs to be added to you is added. Constantly the auspiciousness is expressing itself through you. Saying a complex 'yes' to life even once is called enlightenment. Decide this very moment that you will say a complete yes to life. Then so many insecurities will come upon your mind.

When you keep on strengthening the mind that keeps saying 'no' by its very nature, the mind becomes so strong that it starts saying no to anything and everything. By and by, the 'no' goes engraved even in your breathing. Whether you are going to enter life the higher frequency, higher consciousness, or lesser consciousness is going to be decided only by your 'yes' or 'no'.

• What is the translation of the word destruction in Sanskrit?
• What dimension can be looked at differently as a dimension of rejuvenation?
• Can restarting the process heal your wounds?
• Can death be considered auspicious?
• When will you feel the fear of death?
• What is the present?
• What is the possibility of rejuvenation?
• When are you overflowing with energy?
• When are you caught in fantasies?
• When can we conquer death?
• What is called Enlightenment?
• Is death an expansion?
• What happens when you say a complete yes?
• What happens when you say yes?

• 1. Chart paper
• 2. Glue
• 3. Color papers.

Encourage the children to see the picture of Egyptian pyramids and make it like that using chart paper. Children can use the glue, cut art pieces to make the pyramidal structure. Now they can stick the color paper on the top of it.

Connect them to the fact that destruction can lead to rejuvenation

• 1. Salt
• 2. Sugar
• 3. Sand,
• 4. Water.

Encourage the child to put salt in water and observe what happens to salt. Now ask them to put a cup of sugar in water and observe what happens to sugar. Now add a cup of sand and see what happens to the sand. Observe what all dissolves in water and what all the things that does not dissolve in water. Salt and sugar will dissolve nicely in water.

Death is dissolving into the cosmic space.

Encourage the children to do a pop quiz on the topic of death

volume 5

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

Reality is a dream, controlling life through awareness and dissolving into cosmic space. You are not the senses. You are not the eyes. The eyes are just instrument. Many times you can see, your eyes may go open but you are not seeing, not registering the scene you are seeing. You are not the two holes called the eyes. You are only seeing through the two holes called eyes. If you feel you are the two eyes you are caught in eyes. An important truth dreams are made of the same stuff of which this waking world is made. The air you breathe is just a vehicle in which the prana comes in and goes out. Prana is the life force the energy itself.

As long as the incoming breath is bringing in more prana and going out as an empty vehicle, your life will be strengthened. If the reverse starts happening, if the air comes with less prana and goes out with more prana, it means death is nearing or the life energy is going towards death. When death nears, just the empty air will enter but when it goes out, it will go with the prana

Prana moves, functions and stays in the ajna Chakra when you are in the waking state. When you are in the dream state, it moves around the neck, around the Vishuddi chakra. When you are in a deep sleep, it moves around the anahata chakra heart center.

Constantly, life is slipping and entering into death. Actually we don't live. We are just waiting for death to happen. That is the reason however many years you may live, you don't feel satisfied, and you don't feel you have lived your life because you don't even know what life is.

The moment you start becoming aware, you start deciding and you start controlling your life. When you become completely aware you will start controlling your death also. If you are consciously thinking, it is life. If your consciousness can't think, it is death. In the conscious level, if you are aware, it is dream.

If you are able to see anything, if you are able to sense anything, if you are able to feel anything then it is called dream. If you are not aware of anything, if you are not able to understand any movement it is deep sleep. When you bring more awareness into your life you take charge of your life.

Actually when you master the prana, you understand that death as you think doesn't exist.

Death is dissolving into the cosmic space. During death, the consciousness that is caught in your body relaxes into the consciousness that is outside your body. See, there is a space that is outside your skin and there is a space that is caught inside your skin. When your boundary is destroyed at some point, the space that is caught inside the body will simply relax into the space that is outside the body. Understanding this truth will liberate you from the fear of death. There is nothing in you that can be destroyed.

• What happens when you think you are the two eyes?
• Are we registering every scene that we see?
• What are dreams made up of?
• Which is the vehicle in which the prana comes?
• What is prana?
• When will our life will be strengthened?
• What happens when death nears?
• What happens when we are in the waking state?
• What happens when we are in the dream state?
• What happens when we are in the deep sleep?
• What happens when you start becoming aware?
• What is life? What happens during death?

• Plain sheet
• Brush
• (sketch pen of dark colours) or pencil.

Explain the art to the children. Encourage the child to strike with paint brush strokes on the paper, paint more strokes in a random way. This is called fear stroke drawing

Death is a primal fear, that of the unknown. The fear of leaving the body and mind has existed through the ages. We are scared of death because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change.

• ❑ Plain sheet
• ❑ Sketch pen or pencil
• ❑ Poster colors.

Encourage each child to draw what was their latest or repeatedly recurring dream. Ask them to depict that dream in a pictorial form and paint it nicely. Give turn for each child to explain what they have drawn.

Life is nothing but day dreaming and dream is nothing but night life. Night life is dream and day dream is life.

Once a woman came with her dead son to Buddha. She was sad with grief of the death of her only son.

Woman: Master, please give me some medicine that will get my boy back to life.

Buddha: Give me a handful of mustard seed. The women got up immediately.

Buddha: The mustard seed must be from a house where no one has lost a dear one- child, husband, parent, friend.

The women went from house to house. Out of pity for the desperately crying woman, people gave her mustard seeds from their house. But she asked whether they had lost a dear one, they had some one or the other who had died in the house.

She went from house to house till sunset but found no house where a death had not happened. Slowly the truth started drawing on her - death is inevitable.

She buried her son's body and returned to Buddha. She fell at the feet of Buddha and asked him, Buddha! Master, Please teach me the truth.

What is death: What exists beyond death?

She became Buddha's disciple and followed Buddha for the rest of her life.