1. Death Is a Celebration - Vol 2

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 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 belief.

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.

Part 2: Death Is a Celebration - Vol 2_English_part_2.md

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