Death Is a Celebration - Vol 4

You may say death is the event that happens at the end of our lives. If death were nothing more than that, it would be so easy! But death is that which is happening every moment of our lives. Death changes the very quality of our life. It is not the end, but it is the climax of our lives – towards which our whole life is being oriented. The Reason-- If you deeply analyze, our whole life is controlled by our concept of death. Even our social structure is guided by our concept of death. The cultures which believe in a single life, with no concept of reincarnation, have poured all their energies into excelling in life because there is only life available. They have achieved the peak in terms of assimilation of information, gaining of knowledge and material comforts. On the other hand, the cultures which believe in reincarnation have turned the focus of their life inwards. Their search is different. They are not motivated to live life in a hurry, because Eternity is granted to them. But these cultures have developed the Inner Science. They have the leisure to turn their minds to the inner search, to ponder over the meaning of life. Our whole mental set-up, the course of our lives, our society, our culture, our religion – everything is based on nothing but our idea of death. We try our best not to think about death – but death pervades every moment of our life! Not only that, all our fears of losing our name and fame, losing our loved ones, losing our physical and mental health etc are all subtly related to our fear of death. Swadhishtana - 'Where your being is established'. swa means self and adhishthana means established. Location: 2 inches below the navel Locked by: Fear, especially the fear of Death Unlocked by: Acceptance of Death Meditation technique from: Vedanta Name of technique: Nirbhaya Dhyana Between the two chakras of muladhara(root chakra) and swadhishtana, we are born, we live and we die. Our very existence is centered around either greed or fear all the time. We don't know any other way of life. We don't have the courage to take on any other way of life. Without fear, the word Death itself loses the meaning which we have been associating with it. Fear is the root cause of the way we look at Death. Why is the whole of humanity struggling against one thing, the only thing that is a certainty in all our lives? Can we make the whole earth flat? No, it is a proven fact that the earth is round. But if we struggle against this fact, then there is something wrong in our struggle, in our understanding. It is the same with death too. Why are we struggling to accept the truth? Because of the struggle, most people die unable to accept death when it comes - just as they have lived, unable to accept life as it is. The master Chuang Tzu says beautifully, 'Man' s 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 etc. Death removes this very foundation on which our identity is built, so we feel death snatches everything that is ours. Our understanding about death, or rather our misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience. The man who resists death dies even while he lives. He dies every moment because he is tortured by the very idea of death. Death does not only mean physical death. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing your comfortable life is one form of death, losing your relatives is another. Loss in any form is nothing but death. There are two issues: the incident of death that happens at the end of our lives, and psychological death. Real death happens only once, but psychological death, the fear of death, permeates our life. The idea and fear of death decides our entire life structure. You may ask why people are so depressed and disturbed when they lose their close relatives. Even if you are not emotionally attached to them and in a sense are waiting for them to die you will be deeply affected by their death! It is more so when you are close to them, attached to them emotionally. Whenever your mother dies your whole left side will suffer. Whenever your father dies, your whole right side will suffer. Whenever your brothers die your hands will suffer.

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.

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